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Insight Partners

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Insight Partners Reviews

3.5

60% would recommend to a friend

(78 total reviews)

Jeffrey L. Horing

68% approve of CEO

60% positive business outlook

Insight Partners has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 78 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Insight Partners employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

78 reviews
1.0
14 Aug 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Above market-level comp, autonomy in sourcing, nice office views, gym

Cons

WORK - As a junior investor, your role is similar to that of a telemarketer. You will spend 95% of your time making cold calls, filling out cold email templates, and talking to mediocre, uninteresting startups with little exposure to dealmaking. The call/email grind, in addition to lack of any formal mentorship structure, means there are almost no opportunities to develop real skills. You’re better off starting your career in ibanking or consulting. That’s why most analysts in recent years have gone on to lower-tier firms, no-name startups, or left the industry altogether. The slight edge in pay is not worth the long-term career setbacks. || CULTURE - Insight has the most unprofessional and toxic workplace environment I have ever encountered: Gossip-Girl level backstabbing, competition, snaky behavior, and rumor-spreading from a bunch of adults. People regularly make inappropriate comments about women’s looks. Racist and classist remarks are tossed around left and right in the office and in after-work events. In a normal workplace, you’d expect harassment claims to be filed immediately, but at Insight, this behavior is the status quo. Not surprised at all by the recent media coverage around its virulent environment. || DEI: My experience was that the bar to succeed at Insight was much lower for people who are white and/or come from high SES backgrounds. It markets itself as open to applicants from diverse backgrounds, but if you’re not privileged, you will have trouble finding mentorship, a support network, and real opportunities to rise in this extremely homogenous firm. Those from diverse backgrounds in leadership positions are lateral hires or exceptions. || TO STARTUPS SEEKING FUNDING: If you received an email from Insight, it probably from a random intern who knows nothing about your company / space and reached out to boost their daily call volume. Minority founders - women, POC, etc. - should seriously reconsider working with a firm that is so not inclusive and hypocritical about its DEI efforts.

2.0
25 Jan 2023

Cutthroat chaos

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

+People regularly get promoted, firm has been growing. +At market comp. +Positive market reputation, good brand to have on your resume. +Colleagues on some teams are very smart and hard working. Most people try hard. +Office snacks are good and the view is amazing. Office location is great.

Cons

The high level: -For LPs: This company is chaos inside. Strategy is nonexistent and bad behavior rules. It’s an Ellen Pao lawsuit waiting to happen. -For companies seeking funding: If you want investors who’ll replace you at the drop of a hat on your cap table, take our money. One plus is that we do invest full lifecycle (seed to IPO) and we almost always do pro rata. Onsite might help you some, but know they are constantly evaluating you and back channeling to us as your board members. -For potential hires: Expect no clear role definition, mentorship, or role pathing. Management often has unreasonable expectations you will be hard pressed to meet. Your colleagues will be at best transactional but more often than not gunning for you. If it’s worth it for the money, prestige, connections, or experience, go for it. More color: -Most dysfunctional place I have ever worked during my decades-long career. -It is a place of little kingdoms, on both the investment and platform side. There is a hierarchy, and it goes: lnvestment team, Onsite team, then internal staff - and everyone knows it. As a member of the investment team, it bothers me that colleagues are often condescending and rude to the Onsite and admin teams. -The IC consistently overrules red flags discovered in diligence based on their personal whims and hunches. -There is incredible backstabbing, competition, and cutthroat behavior. I have never heard so many people tell me they have cried at work. Conflict is aggressive and happens often. People throw each other under the bus behind the scenes. -Internal operations are a complete mess. The team of assistants is poorly run with no best practices, internal policies are so vague they are a joke, and the systems the company runs on are dinosaurs. It seems we follow little of the best practice advice that we give our portcos. -Benefits are not best in class. 401k match is only awarded after three years of tenure, parental leave for men is pitiful, and some benefits have complicated rules like the meal stipend program. -People are online 24/7. You are expected to be responsive nights, and during vacation and paternity leave. I have never seen so many people working while sick with Covid. The norms are unhealthy and contribute to burnout. Whatever time zone you live in, expect to work ET hours. I routinely see colleagues online in meetings at 6am or 9pm their time. -Titles are totally inflated and everyone is obsessed with where they sit on the status hierarchy. -Basically no support resources for women, people of color, disabled employees, and so on. -Low bars for performance - people get away with a lot here that I have never seen fly at other companies. For example, directly lying to colleagues, electing to just not do work that's been promised, poor communication, no showing meetings with no explanation... -At the end of the day, all this company cares about is whether we make money. We constantly talk about RIFs and firing CEOs as if it's no big deal and there aren’t humans involved. It’s all about the numbers.

2.0
21 Feb 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Carry, it is what keeps us here - When the markets are up, there is palpable excitement and energy

Cons

- Very unorganized and chaotic. - Fiefdoms and separate teams everywhere. Each investment team works differently, and the rest of the company is left to figure it out. - Bad behavior by senior leaders left unchecked; even MDs are passive-aggressive and they only care about their own investments. - Echo chambers around some senior leaders.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 78 Reviews

Glassdoor has 88 Insight Partners reviews submitted anonymously by Insight Partners employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Insight Partners is right for you.