When many employees joined Fetch, the future looked very bright, but hiring a wave of big tech leaders quickly made things go sour.
Goals change constantly and not in the typical “move fast, we’re a startup” way. It’s more like managers labeling something as super urgent, pushing teams to scramble to get it done, only for it to be scrapped the very next day for something else equally urgent. This cycle repeats and leads to a lot of wasted time. When employees raise concerns, leadership often spins it back on them and blames them for not being able to keep up.
There is a huge lack of transparency from leadership. The company did rolling layoffs for about six months and claimed it was due to operational changes to create more efficiency. In reality, it left remaining employees extremely stretched thin and created widespread anxiety.
Leaders are pushing for Fetch to be an “AI-first company” but have no clear metrics for what that actually means. The default response to almost any problem is “have you asked AI?” which feels disconnected from real operational needs.
Goals and performance reviews are also deeply flawed. Employees who significantly exceed their targets are often still rated as “meets expectations.” There are no bonuses tied to reviews, which is fine, but the ratings don’t reflect performance either. Leadership has stated that higher ratings are rarely given, which has been a major blow to morale for many.
Favoritism is a serious issue. During layoffs, leaders intentionally protected their own referrals, even when those referrals were low performers.
