Gogo Reviews

Please don’t work here. It makes me sad to write this review, because I came into the company as a positive person wanting to make a difference. My experience here has left me a completely different person, and not for the better. I wish I’d done better research and took reviews more seriously before joining. I made a huge mistake. Sit in the building lobby (it’s open to the public) and observe the happy, energetic, smiling people coming in and out. Chances are, they don’t work at Gogo. There’s an incredible amount of spin about what it’s like to work here, so let this be an opportunity to clear the air. First warning sign? Fortune 50. Don’t be fooled by hype around Gogo being on a Fortune magazine list. It’s a pure marketing effort to shore up the company’s image, with Fortune & BCG generating rankings partially based on “machine learning to leverage unstructured data” - meaning computers read annual reports and spit out a score. Second warning sign? Gogo employees were coerced to write Glassdoor reviews. A few months ago, HR offered incentives for writing a review and sending in a screenshot. This ended after a few weeks, and luckily it looks like Glassdoor noticed and cleaned up some reviews as well. If those things didn’t raise a flag or two, we’d love to have you here because people keep leaving. But before you sign on the dotted line, here are 10 things you should keep in mind about Gogo: 1. Misplaced priorities and half hearted execution. Reception and prayer rooms are easy to find but hosting a networking event means pulling out an embarrassing easel with a [Restroom ->] sign. Gogo neglected signage, but had money for pretty airplane models in the lobby and on the wall. Basic things that someone forgot to think through? It’s the Gogo way. 2. No free snacks and drinks, but have a mouse. And we don’t trust you with our chips. Drinks and snacks will cost you real cash but you can pick up a free Apple wireless mouse, chargers, and phone cables from the IT vending machine. Free beer kegs are available 24/7 in our employee lounge. Security cameras are placed throughout the vending area “for your protection”. 3. To lead here, you don’t serve. You get served. Gogo has had its share of lawsuits from airlines and passengers over the years, just Google “Gogo lawsuit”. It’s baffling (but not surprising) that so many executives still hold their positions after multiple blunders. Management relentlessly pursues new business and try new ideas, but at what cost? Just read our 10-K. While it’s a competitive market, the failure to produce a profitable business model rests squarely with the management team. Rounds of funding have resulted in junk bonds and a shaky financial proposition. 4. Management mantra: There’s no me in we. And yes, we love narcissism. Executives continuously shield their own inadequacies and shortcomings with useless projects meant to wow each other. Videos, blog posts, LCD screens, and exec “war rooms” are the equivalent of 5th grade science fairs, trying to earn a passing grade. (Meanwhile, everyone else is down a meeting room since the room was annexed). You’ll work with VPs more concerned about building a personal brand and sharing content on LinkedIn, instead of communicating with their own teams. You’ll work with Directors utterly unqualified for their roles and incapable of leading a team; they’re there because of politics and personal relations with an executive. But don’t worry, they’ll all be the first to claim that things are getting better, and communication has never been better here. Sadly, not everyone is smarter than a 5th grader. 5. We care about our spending, with eyes wide shut. It gets better. An EVP will ask their team for budget cuts and cost savings, but will brag about their airline elite status to the entire team. Budget season? It’s a mad scramble to use up money we don’t have, so finance will give us the money we don’t have to spend next year. (Ordering extra equipment and supplies, IT vending machine) Executives need be held accountable for their individual spending, like everyone else. Stop flying up front and spending frivolously. Stop paying management consultants that are obviously ineffective. 6. The buck doesn’t stop here, because responsibility begins with someone else. Remember typing “self-starter” on your resume? Regret it. You’ll have a slim chance to shine before your manager takes credit. Be prepared to forge your own relationships, because we run around like headless chickens. Expect to be tasked with the work, but receive no credit for it. And take full responsibility when something does go wrong. You’ll meet some great, smart people, but they’ll be too busy doing everyone else’s work to help. Your answer may be on the 11th, 14th, 15th, 12th floor but no one truly knows. Chances are your question will go unanswered because of poor attitudes and work ethic, or because someone is working from home baking up a side business. The problem is widespread but starts from the top. 7. Let’s meet up, but make it quick. You’ll read about some HR efforts in other reviews, and responses from members of the executive team defending their investment in people. For a company of 1200 people, these investments are sorely lacking. Quarterly connections are supposed to be short quarterly reviews linked to OKR's or objectives and key results. These replaced traditional annual reviews. Someone in HR seemingly paid for this feature but skipped training on how to execute. Poor rollouts are par for the course at Gogo. Rather than learn from companies like Intel and actually understanding how they should be used, OKR's are treated as a joke across the executive team and an annoyance every 3 months. Need to understand team goals? They don’t exist, because the VP didn’t communicate any. Too busy with their LinkedIn content or flying somewhere for a conference. Unable to complete on time? Don’t worry, no one on the team actually did them. Your manager tells you they think they’re a joke and won’t have feedback for another 4 weeks anyway. Consequences? Don’t worry about it. We checked the quarterly review box. The laissez faire attitude and lack of accountability on a critical part of employee success is a reflection of the inability of the executive team to drive even themselves towards excellence. Reviews are merely a bullet point on a board presentation, not a bona fide effort in helping you be better at Gogo. 8. Want to move up? Good luck charting a path to your next position, because it doesn’t exist. There is no consistent method or consistency to how people are promoted or given titles. Requests for updated job descriptions to understand how you’re doing are met with hostility and being told that you should be adaptable to change in a fast-paced environment. Your actual work and achievement have little bearing on your career path at Gogo. You have a greater chance of getting promoted if you're willing lie, cheat, or have personal relations with an executive. (All has happened before). 9. Employee feedback means nothing here. Gogo contracts with an outside company to conduct an employee survey every autumn. You answer about 45 questions, and results are compiled into a report for management. The survey measures employee sentiment, and deficient areas of the company. It also provides insight into how the company compares to its peers. Very little is actually shared with employees, other than “we’re working the feedback into our planning”. What is shared is watered down and taken lightly by managers. The last report was shared with my team was over 2 years ago and not positive. Why not share the full report with employees? Why not have managers share their team’s results with them? Why not share what actions are being taken? Is there a reality that Gogo is unwilling to confront? 10. To-do: Build a culture around our technology and achievements and being good to each other. With the negativity at the company, it’s easy to lose sight of the great technology that we have the privilege to work on every day. It’s a beast and a reflection of the hard work of everyday people that do not get recognized on a regular basis. Our culture is a mix of blaming others, deferring work and blame, and struggling to keep up. It’s not a positive work environment that braces our achievements and encourages people to be civil to one another. Discretionary time off is a recruiting tool and management threat, not a real benefit. It is not unlimited and untracked. Every hour you take is entered and tracked, and comes up in quarterly connections with your manager. Why offer a benefit that causes stress and managers use AGAINST employees? It’s not enough to tell the everyone to “go further” or to “live our values”. Those are empty rallying cries that are worthless until executives lead by example.

Most people still working at Gogo don't want to be there anymore for many of the reasons outlined below (and more). Financial Instability: Over the past year, Gogo’s stock price has plummeted over 50%. The company is unprofitable and burning cash at an alarming rate. The CEO has publicly acknowledged that Gogo needs additional capital to survive. Either the interest payments and debt will bankrupt the company, or it will be sold to some poor sap who will decide what to do with the remaining employees. Top Heavy Management: Gogo has an overwhelming number of VPs and Directors, but it will take awhile to figure out what most of them actually do. Inflated titles leads these people to feel like they should weigh in on every decision. As a result, even seemingly simple decisions are routed to the Executives. Unclear ownership also leads VPs/Directors to constantly second guess each other because no one really knows what’s going on anyways. Directors spend the rest of their time randomly jumping into situations while adding no value in an attempt to make it look like they’re contributing. High Attrition: Turnover has been high for several years, but fresh bodies were consistently recruited to mask the problem. Overall employee count rose for a couple years until recently when all open requisitions were frozen and a layoff occurred. The layoff was not substantial enough to properly reorganize the company, nor will it be sufficient to alleviate the financial woes. Instead, it seems to have been a wakeup call to the company’s talented employees who have been fleeing in droves. The employees who remain are mostly checked out and looking for new jobs. Lack of Accountability: Excessive levels of management also serve to insulate the Executives and SVPs from learning the truth about mistakes, issues, and poor decisions (of which there are many). Each level is incentivized to cover up a problem so that by the time an Executive hears about it, the story has become so convoluted that no one can figure out the truth. There is no sense of scale or scope when it comes to what each level of management is accountable for at Gogo. Clueless Management: In additional to the disjointed structure, it is clear that many of the VP/Director ranks were successful following the mantra “fake it ‘til you make it”. Many of those who make up this crusty level of management are visibly in over their head. Many have been with the company since before its rapid growth and simply are not capable of effectively leading teams or projects at a quickly growing public company. It’s amateur hour. Uncollaborative silos: It’s hard to imagine a less collaborative environment especially considering the small size of the company with most of the employees based in the Chicago office. The left hand truly does not know what the right is doing. This issue is related to both the top heavy and clueless management in that people spend more time trying to hide mistakes than working together to find solutions. Lack of Process/Documentation: At first, the complete lack of any documentation on anything can be frustrating, but after awhile it becomes something of a joke for more tenured employees. Someone will ask in a meeting if a particular change to a process/design/order was documented and everyone will have a good laugh knowing that no such thing exists. If something happened 6 months ago, good luck finding any background on it.