Irresponsible Leadership Destroying an Otherwise Promising Startup - Anonymous employee Databook Employee Review

I read some of the negative reviews and thought some context is helpful. Yes - Databook grew too rapidly in early Covid and had to right size (ie let go of some staff) in 2023. But so has the majority of tech companies, and especially startups. Yes - Sales AI shows a lot of promise and the space is evolving rapidly which require a highly agile product roadmap. For example, in late 2023 Databook started investing in a conversational AI application which at that time was fairly unique, and which was piloted in the spring of 2024. By the time it was GA'd, the application is less unique - welcome to the world of AI. The fact that a relatively small company developed this technology in just over half a year meeting the high expectations of enterprise customers is remarkable. Enterprise B2B contains major opportunity from the application of AI, but is also very challenging to do. The fact that Databook has the customers that it has - among them some of the largest and most sophisticated sales organizations in the world - and they are expanding their dependence on Databook tells the full story.

Yes - employees are expected to work hard and some old timers that got comfortable when growth simply happened are not happy. The reality is that tech startup life is not for everyone. If you're looking for a 9-5 job where you can be comfortable with minimal effort, this is not the right place for you (for what it's worth, I'm not sure if larger tech companies are good for you either). Growing something is hard work and requires a lot of commitment!

- The coworkers at your level are fantastic; there's some great talent working here - Lots of insight into the reality of hype behind AI and generative AI - Relatively high pay for the market

There is no plan. This place is an utter dumpster fire. You will work on nothing that actually bolsters your resume, and will instead spend all your time catering to the CEO. I have never seen a company have so many meetings and get so little done as a result of them. More time is spent on endless iterations of powerpoint decks than on actually building the product. Roadmap? What roadmap? It's entirely the CEO's whimsy. What the product can actually do and what's being pitched are worlds away. You can't bring that up, though - as another review pointed out, you'll simply be told "you don't get it", they'll explain it to you all over again, and you'll have to sit there nodding, bewildered, and questioning the life choices that led you here. Work life balance is an utter joke. The expectation is for all staff to work overtime, every day, including weekends and holidays. Setting boundaries around not working late, early, or more than 50 hours in a given week was frowned upon. People who worked until 3 am for a single one-hour presentation to a customer were lauded as exemplary, but that level of sacrifice resulted in little more than the CEO's approval. No bonus, no raise, just the expectation to do it again. If you have a sense of self worth, want to grow your career, or just not be miserable at work - steer clear.