Guidebook reviews

Note to job seekers: If you are interested in the facts, I'd highly recommend checking LinkedIn and searching for people who formerly worked at Guidebook (using the "advanced" search option, enter "Guidebook" under "past company"). You will see that there are tons of people who left after 1 year, or in some cases, 3 - 8 months. The facts speak for themselves. The high churn rate is more telling than all of the glowing 5-star reviews posted on Glassdoor (which mysteriously seem to appear ONLY after a negative rating pops up). For some time, seemingly without fail, any time any sort of negative rating was published, one of the stock 5-star reviews would emerge, lauding the company's "great people," "amazing company culture" and "complete transparency" – the only advice to management being to "keep up the fantastic work!" I strongly advise paying attention to the rating dates and trends. There are thousands of great companies to work for, and tons of great startups in the Bay Area if you want to go the start-up route. Given the bounty of options (and honestly even in the absence of these options), I would not, under any circumstance, recommend Guidebook. In my experience, I found that my interviews went very smoothly and I was quite impressed by everyone I spoke with (all of whom, at the time, seemed genuinely kind and excited about the company). Don't fall for this act. About 3-4 months in, the koolaid wears off and you'll see that promises of promotions and raises, of freedom and autonomy to work on whatever you are interested in, will have been replaced by long grueling hours of thankless work. You'll get tired of being overworked and underpaid. Personally, I found that company transparency was very poor – what you knew depended entirely on who you knew. If you were part of the select "in" crowd, then you'd be privy to company gossip and information about company direction, etc. If not, then too bad; you'd just have to keep toiling away blindly, hoping that someone would notice your work and that you might eventually get a raise and be compensated even close to market. (You won't). Most people I know who worked here around the time I did have since moved on to amazing jobs and are much happier. They are making **AT LEAST 2-3X** their Guidebook **base** salary, not even including additional bonus and equity (that is actually worth something I might add). Note that this is specifically for non-engineering positions, although I have no doubt engineers here would also make plenty more elsewhere.

Risky (as all start ups are).