If one was to glance over previous (negative) reviews, a common theme would become apparent - balena suffered from a toxic management culture. Except, balena is a bit weird and there are no managers here. So how come the toxicity? The answer is "founderitis".
Founder's syndrome (also founderitis) is the difficulty faced by organizations, and in particular young companies such as start-ups, where one or more founders maintain disproportionate power and influence following the effective initial establishment of the organization, leading to a wide range of problems. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.
So basically, until the beginning on 2023, balena was unable to grow up from its nine year long start-up phase due to being lead by the wrong type of people - people, who have been instrumental at getting it and the associated technology off the ground, but not great at making it grow into an actual successful business.
From now on, balena is led by a team of people who recognise, that to become a successful business, we need to stay focused, ensure we are solvent and by doing all the other things that create a positive place to work. We should also be aware of our blindspots, being a technology company - not all problems can be fixed with technology.
