This company has to be the worst Series C funded startup ever. It has to be shockingly surprising for anyone that worked here and believed, somehow, they were able to fundraise $90M in January 2020 for Series C and only to complete TWO MASSIVE LAYOFFs, first one in last November (with no absolute warning and the most disrespectful/inhumane way to lay off people right before Thanksgiving) and another one recently this month.
How did they get here? For most of the folks that worked here, we can agree that the CEO/Co-founder is the root of all the cancer. He happened to create the product with his partner that led them to Series-C funding (amazingly however they did it or the VCs must be really incompetent to believe in them). However, he is absolutely NOT ceo material, immature, completely lacks leadership skills with no business sense and direction. Instead of hiring and retaining legitimate talents/candidates to help grow the company and monetize the business, he surrounded himself with his buddies and friends, who has little or no industry relevant experience and expertise and putting them in highly questionable decision-making roles. (they are just here to have family reunions , camping trips, etc...) Last summer, they brought in the CBO, thinking that he would HELP them to monetize. The guy, walked the walk and talked the talk with a GIGANTIC ego as if he is Sheryl Sandberg or Frank Slootman of Snowflake, saying something like: “trust me, I've done this 3 times) OMG!!! Look at his resume, he’s been at 3 different (BACK to BACK to BACK) FAILED start-ups. Like others said, he also brought over his fellow gang members from previous startups with irrelevant industry experience and expertise. He too, has the same playbook as the CEO, putting his posse in highly questionable decision-making roles. The CBO is supposed to take over the reign as CEO and by “BRUTE FORCE” along with his gang, he will somehow miraculously lead the company to IPO (maybe on the OTC Exchange).
It's obvious that the VC’s and investors cut the funding because these guys couldn’t bring in a penny of new sales. Therefore, they let go about 50-60% of the workforce. The ones staying, are family friends of the founders and CBO, the engineers in India and the poor AE’s who are left with doing multiple tasks (self-marketing and enablement, etc...) on top of trying to close deals (as if they have any to work on).
It's just a matter of time before this ship sinks completely.
