Of the entire 35-person product org I worked with at WHOOP one year ago, only about 3 of those people are still at the company. That should tell you everything you need to know. But if you're looking for specifics... There is zero autonomy. If the CEO says he wants us to build a feature, it doesn't matter if that feature has actually been vetted by our data science team yet or if the concept user tested poorly, etc. we're building it. I saw a talented PM waste 8 months building a feature only to later figure out that data science can't validate it's efficacy and so we can't launch it to customers. The PM pushed back regularly about validating first and then building the feature only to be told "no, build it". I saw talented UXR folks test feature concepts, have users be wildly confused or unmotivated by the feature, and we were told to build it anyway and then spin the "success" of the feature to the rest of the org even when there was actually zero impact. There was no impact measurement on the work we were doing. If you launched the feature, it was considered successful even if there was zero impact on key metrics. The return to office plan was shoved down everyone's throats just because they decided to build an HQ downtown without asking employees if they actually want to come in. Then everyone realized that there was zero trust top down. Will doesn't trust anyone to do their jobs, hence the giant shiny HQ so he can watch everyone at all times.
