XPRIZE reviews

Believe every word of these negative reviews. I have been involved with this company for years because I believed in the mission. Over time I saw amazing colleagues and leaders try to make a difference, only to be pushed out and burned out by the ego-driven incompetent and weak line-up of past and current CEOs. The culture is toxic to the level of making employees physically sick and leadership knows it and doesn’t care. There is all this lip service given to equity, inclusion and diversification, but in reality the CEO behaves with impunity, openly showing her lack of sensitivity, inclusion or understanding of what it takes to be a leader of an innovative organization in today’s world. But the hypocrisy continues on all levels. The leaders love to talk about how innovative the company is but the truth is that it is bogged down with slow systems, lack of clear strategic direction and changing priorities of the leaders. Middle managers are scared to loose their preferred positions under the CEO so keep quiet and comply but mock her constantly behind her back. The Founder moved on from Xprize years ago to focus on making money in more lucrative ventures and only uses this company when it benefits him. The Board has heard all the complains for years and have silently stood by as dedicated and competent individuals left or were pushed out under false pretexts. Meanwhile patterns of frivolous spending continue as trusting donors continue to give money, unaware of the toxicity, high staff burnout rates, lack of direction and the constantly floundering CEO.

Everything else. I have been in the workforce for over 20 years and have worked for every type of company you can think of in multiple roles, and this is by far the worse experience. I am not dramatizing the situation when I say you are in a toxic relationship with your employer when working here. One I am actively looking to get away from. One of the things that has always stuck with me over the years is when both the CEO and Founder got in front of the entire company and spoke about the Glassdoor reviews - most of which paint an accurate picture of what it’s truly like to work here - instead of recognizing the concerns brought by employees and working to provide solutions they slammed people for writing these reviews and said "If you are not happy, just leave" - And that my friends sums up the culture. Let’s talk about the tenure – which is a total joke and further proves people do not want to work in an environment like this. I have worked here only a few years and can say only 20% of the people who were here when I started are still here, the average tenure stays under 3 years and for a reason. When people say they are actively looking for new opportunities, no matter how valuable that person is to the organization, they will do nothing to keep you, they do not care. And the layoffs – This organization goes through a restructure several times a year and will conduct mass layoffs on a regular basis leaving staff to be in a constant state of fear of losing their job at a moment’s notice. The pay disparity is astronomical with people in similar lower-level roles making $10 - 40k difference and you can bet the white male is at the higher end of the range. People with barely any experience being promoted from Managers to Vice President roles in a year by playing teacher’s pet to the CEO. Telling staff, they want to be viewed as trustworthy and transparent and then also telling them in the same breath there is no money for bonuses in a given year while at the same time executives are receiving $40k in bonuses and significant raises. Asking people to work 2 jobs with no pay increase or change in title and when they leave the company, they hire 2 people to do the same job both making higher wages than the previous person. To sum it all up - They treat their employees like robots and the CEO has even went so far as to say she does not care about the employees she is here to run a business and that is all you need to know.