Pros
People are fun, smart and motivated. They genuinely like being there. The CEO is very open and transparent about pretty much everything. A lot of information is shared in weekly all hands meetings, and employees do have a good idea of where the company is heading, the challenges ahead, why they make certain decisions (like funding rounds), etc. It is definitely a high-potential company. Glassdoor is not going away and an IPO is inevitable. So probably a decent upside for those who stick around. And of course the perks are fantastic. Catered and healthy food, free well-equipped gym with free crossfit/bootcamp/yoga classes, snacks, kayaks to take out into the bay, etc. Location is beautiful, right by the bay with views of water and hills, and running trails all around. From a product mgmt perspective, the engineers are high quality and take a lot of ownership. Things move pretty fast from ideation to execution.
Cons
While I believe that everyone in the executive leadership team is well-intentioned and want Glassdoor to succeed while creating a great culture, I think more needs to be done in order to scale. This is especially true in the product and marketing organizations. It is always hard for founders or early employees to make room as the company grows and to cede control. The shift from being a scrappy startup to a well-oiled growth engine with good processes/practices is not an easy one, but the change needs to be made. For this to happen, senior leaders need to move away from being very hands-on and driving every decision top-down to empowering their employees, trusting them to do the right things and encouraging constructive discussions/arguments. As a product leader especially, you cannot keep throwing terms like "let's be scrappy" when you should be driving sound practices through the product org that encourages good long-term planning, roadmapping process, socializing with stake holders, running experiments, etc. And when product managers feel like they do not have clear ownership and are mere foot soldiers when decisions are top down, then they will struggle to excel at their jobs. They will be left to defend ideas with various stake holders that are not their own and that they don't necessarily even believe in.
