Typical startup with a fantastic vision and ineffective leadership. We’re running on a skeleton crew STAY AWAY - Anonymous employee GoGuardian Employee Review

2.0
20 Oct 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good benefits and pay but not different from any other growing tech startup. GG core products are great and the company has an admirable vision. They do a good job selling talented people on the company’s mission and then kill their careers. Growth opportunity used to be really good.

Cons

Ineffective leadership with no direction has ruined a good product. Instead of using pandemic success to strengthen the core products they acquired multiple companies with no communication or plan on how to integrate. Of course every startup has growing pains but leadership has been using this as an excuse since 2018 (at least). Instead of learning from mistakes and listening to employees voice the same concerns for 5 years GG execs just stroke Advait’s ego and let him run the company into the ground. Companywide there seems to be a trend of ineffective directors and senior management hired because of their experience at Google or Amazon. As a former Google employee I can guarantee you these directors have no real experience managing people and are used to having the structure of a large corporation. But GoGuardian isn’t a large corporation, this leaves most teams with no plan or direction. The company is only still running because they continue to make great hires. Talented people with motivation and fresh perspectives are brought in and after a year (probably less now) lose the spark. We all joined GoGuardian because we liked the vision and the promise, but, after execs made many promises there wouldn’t be layoffs and plenty of bragging about not having laid anybody off in 2020, multiple rounds of layoffs and a complete culture shift have left us in the most toxic work environment I’ve ever experienced. Over the last 5 years I’ve watched too many innovative and driven people lose their passion. After the first mass layoff company culture completely shifted, as is expected. Instead of correcting course and acknowledging the low morale, Advait had his chief HR exec pretty much tell us in an all hands “it is what it is, if you don’t like it you can leave.” Clearly GoGuardian leadership doesn’t have the humility to acknowledge bad leadership patterns and make impactful changes. The company is doing worse than they are willing to admit. Seriously, RUN.

Explore other reviews about GoGuardian

5.0
27 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- great energy through out the company regardless of title or tenure - no burn out - I feel valuable and that my work is impactful

Cons

- haven't found any at all

1
2.0
21 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The product is fundamentally good. The cause is fundamentally good. The people you work with directly are great. Because the consumers are primarily government entities it is a very stable business model.

Cons

Management has no respect or concern for people who work here. Employees are disposable and there has been at least one layoff each year for the past three years. This usually is presented as “we didn’t have the right team” or “plans didn’t work out” and the usual cut and paste explanations. In spite of being told the company is very profitable, raises did not happen for a while and the most recent one is barely a cost of living adjustment. Promotions have also not happened and many people are doing a different more senior role with the title they started with during the pandemic era hiring boom. Senior leadership is detached, unaware of projects in flight, and unfamiliar with the products to the point they will suggest new initiatives that are for things we already have. Most of them come from very large companies and try to act as if we have the same headcount, resources, and consumer base as a multinational B2C and are seemingly confused and unhappy when things don’t work out the way they expected.

5
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