Run for your life - Research Associate UPSIDE Foods Employee Review

1.0
29 Aug 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Company has a great mission. Unfortunately, it is completely disconnected from the day-to-day reality.

Cons

Absolutely horrific place to work. Worst career experience of my life. Do NOT join here. Everything is wrong with this place. Will call out a few things specifically: 1. Comp is way below market. After raising $400 million, the company rewarded people with 3% raises. No joke. Everyone is looking for a new job and a lot of folks have left already. Expect turnover to continue 2. Endless secrets. Very secret and paranoid culture that starts with the CEO. No one is allowed to know what others are doing, which makes it hard to work. You are told "Don't ask, don't tell" when you join. The secrecy also means some people are likely doing nothing, since it's hard to hold someone accountable for secret work. Some people work on "secret projects" for years 3. Dog-eat-dog culture. Managers have their own back, not the backs of their teams. Criteria for advancement are unclear, and managers don't know if/ when/ how they will advance. This makes it hard for them to advocate for their teams (which many would never do anyway) 4. Mission is on paper only. Re. animal welfare: at least 90% of the employees eat meat, including factory farmed industrial meat (which the company is apparently trying to displace). Re. environment: the office snacks consist entirely of items in single-use packaging. Endless water bottles and soda cans. The waste output is staggering with no effort made to reduce or reuse.

Explore other reviews about UPSIDE Foods

5.0
26 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

UPSIDE is my first experience working at a startup and it's exceeded my expectations. It has all the benefits of a startup - flat structure, IC can achieve real impact, and minimal bureaucracy - without the toxic culture of other bay area tech startups. The company has a very diverse set of talent and the people here care a lot about the positive impact of their work, which makes the workplace experience very pleasant

Cons

Company direction and strategy is ever changing, people needs to be comfortable with navigating ambiguity

5.0
23 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Building a food system so people can eat meat at scale without destroying the world has to be one of the most important needs of this generation alongside clean power and good health. I'd volunteer to advance this mission, so it's wonderful to also get paid to do it. Hard and challenging start-up work means fast-growth and zero dull repetition. Every single person cares about the mission. Very low politics compared to many companies

Cons

Not for everyone. We work hard, We have high expectations of ourselves, We're doing science that's never been done before, and that means you need to be OK failing, learning, and then succeeding. Don't come here if you just want a paycheck/payout or are going to be sad our snacks don't compete with your favorite profitable tech campus. But come if you want to better the world.

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