- All the tech drama. Back stabbing, people getting under the table promotions, greed, lies worth a lot of money, gatekeeping of "need to know" information that affects consumer safety. You name it. It's happened. It's not quite as bad as a FAANG company, and arguably it peaked when our valuation was a number that it is no longer even remotely close to, but those things do happen here.
- I cannot underscore enough how messed up it is the number of times decisions were made and swept under the rug that prioritized profit over end users in some important, critical way. Disgusting. Extra crazy when you consider many of your own coworkers don't even know, and then you see them use the thing at work. I want to say a lot of the people who may work on pointing these things out are great, but the people who make decisions about what to do with the information are............not so great. The layers of secrecy given our org structure and use cases of our product are also...in poor taste.
- If you're not a VP or a white male (typically either with a beard, or with a palette tuned to IPAs) then there is no shot you will *actually* be taken seriously. The things some people say at company happy hours, behind others' backs, etc. about other coworkers is insane. When I say "be taken seriously" I don't necessarily mean in meetings. I mean in what people say and do outside of meetings.
- A lot of people here don't actually consume cannabis. Of those that do, expect several to be pretty... Bay Area techie about it. Over the time I've been here, there are only a handful of legitimate "stoner" types that have worked here. They tended to be the best/most genuine all around folks (it is a weed company after all?), and oddly enough were incredibly out of place at PAX. Many of them have either left or been laid off.
- Multiple layoffs have happened. The first one was orchestrated terribly and traumatically. The second one nearly as poorly. There was one employee who desperately needed to maintain access to the health insurance for reasons that were known to most everyone, and had been at the company for several years. A notable contributor. They didn't care and let them go anyway, saddling them with an incredibly awful and unnecessary situation.
- Separately, tons of frequent leadership changes. No transparency unless you're "in." If you have to wonder if you are, you're not.
- The roadmap is unclear all the time. Has had multiple, stupid swings. We originally raised $420 million a few years ago and flew the entire company to Las Vegas for a trade show that we all had to attend (which was stupid, and as person who likes to go out on weekends, if you think it sounds fun it was not fun). Anyway, I think most people on the side of the street could turn a profit if they were given hundreds of millions of dollars to make...weed products. Somehow, several years later, here at PAX we have managed to screw that up. It used to be the case that upper management was plotting around ensuring we'd maintain our X billion dollar valuation. Now I just have a pile of shares that are worthless. Our flagship product, the PAX 3, came out almost ten years ago....
- The diversity situation is so bad. Embarrassing. Weird. Usually I eyeroll when the topic comes up (from the perspective of: the action item is clear, hire multiple demographics of people, what are we wasting time talking about?) but given I'm more laid back/reserved about vocalizing my opinions on things like this.. If you're a person who cares about social justice at all in your personal life, you'll probably want to steer clear. Make no mistake, mostly unconcerned, we are here profiting off of weed. And I agree with the argument that given the company's demographics, it's not exactly something to be proud of. That's not to say all of the white people here are this type of person, or all of the men here are this type of person, or all of the white men here are this type of person. But by and large, that demographic is vastly overrepresented; especially when it comes to decision making power here. I can think of 1 example of an employee (they have since left) who was very outspoken about social justice related things and who also had respect among enough people to get away with saying what they'd say so openly, but it came with a whole lot of consequences. My takeaway from that was that PAX really does not like when people who don't fit into the mold speak their mind and give scathing feedback openly. I will acknowledge that there have been efforts over the years to address this, but those efforts do not compare at all in scale to the size of the problem.
- I still work here. I'll probably leave soon. The only reason I am still here is because I have a very comfortable role, and don't really need to put in much effort daily to keep the ball rolling and stay on payroll. I've seen enough of tech to know that there are much, much better options for anyone who would be a new hire. I know can be tempting given the allure of "a weed company" and the current job market, but I've worked here for a number of years. Steer clear.
