Inflection Reviews

To my earlier point, it is impossible to be motivated by the products at Inflection. Their only moneymaker is a people search engine that makes money by selling public information as a subscription product to unknowing customers. They built their customer base by using shady marketing tactics and now continue to scam money out of the people who fell for them. When I left, their other products were fledgling at best and had little hope to ever be profitable. It is hard to go to work everyday knowing that you're contributing to products that add no value, and perhaps even take away from those who use them. In the workplace, if you don't believe in the product, to stay at a company you have to at least believe in the leadership - ultimately this is why I left Inflection. The company is run by a pair of immature brothers who promote based on friendships and politics, and hire a swath of new grads every year to try to make the company have a young, start-up feel. They dump their money into perks like weekly massages and free lunch because they know it is the only way any talented person would work at a company that makes money by selling people's personal information. They promote transparency but never tell employees how poorly the products are doing or how exactly they make money - instead they simply use the distraction technique by throwing another party or happy hour. The work/life balance is great, but it also leads to extreme complacency and has a hugely negative effect on efficiency. You will stop growing and learning here after the first 6 months, and even growth in title is slow and not guaranteed.

Lack of Professional Integrity: This is a big one, way too much is decided by how much the cofounders like you. How can you say that the office's dress code is business casual, but allow someone to come in wearing PJs, slippers, and a bathrobe? How can you deny your employees a flu shot because your friend (who's contracted to the company to teach yoga) doesn't "believe in them" and give us non-FDA approved B12 shots? How can you get rid of Red Bull (Which was constantly in demand from the engineering team in particular) just because that same contractor doesn't support energy drinks? How can you fly a large team (Including brand new hires and a video team, nonessential staff for the product) to New Zealand for a potential contract when your company is in such dire financial standing? Illusion of Transparency: Another notable issue. The cofounders and leadership constantly claim to value transparency, but at the same time spin any and all criticism into blindly optimism. When they laid off 20 people in the support office, they had the gall to tell us that everyone let go was tearfully saying how proud they were to have worked for Inflection, and that the main office was safe. As the months go on, they laid off a few people here and there, building to a massive layoff of ~1/3 of the main office with no warning. Similarly, at their weekly "Friday Brews", they took criticisms and questions, ignored the meat of the question, and spun it into vaguely positive statements. These are not the habits of leadership that values transparency above all else, these are the shady, hidden actions of individuals who are afraid and flailing. Lack of Consistency: Depending on your team, access to mentorship and support varies wildly, leaving some teams overly micromanaged, and others left floating without a paddle. Lack of Focus: The company's product mix is a mess of services, none of which are being given any particular emphasis or support. Instead, they're all being generally worked on, with ideals of what they should be getting ahead of where they are now. This creates products that are not only anywhere near profitable (or functional, in some cases), but that are also impossible to believe in. Lack of Foresight: Hiring a massive 23 person new hire class, and spending time and money to send them through a 2 week "onboarding camp" during which they're not contributing to the company is at best, a stupidly optimistic move for a company that's squandered ~23 million in funding. On The Way Out: Morale had been decreasing slowly, but noticeably in the past few months with people looking for new jobs, and this last round of layoffs was the final straw. People are scared now. It's not an environment of growth and loyalty, it's a mess of people looking for a way out.