Company lives inside the Greentech Bubble but it's about to pop
Pros
Great talent base, great people to work with, from around the world (much of the workforce is Danish or Indian). Good pay and benefits, including gourmet catered lunches (I put on weight there). Primary locations in renovated historic buildings in Waltham, MA and Silkeborg, Denmark are attractive environments, as is operation in Charlton, MA. Chance to learn renewables industry and operate in startup environment, including performing as many functions as you can handle. Environment has strong sense of renewables evangelism. Seems like over half the people are VP's, Directors, Managers, or Senior something, so a good place to get a good title for your resume. A large number don't live near where they work, so commute long distances (even intercontinentally) to work. Very well funded - there's a lot of venture capital looking for greentech investments, and Ogin is more plausible than many. The shrouded turbine concept does provide some performance enhancement, as others who have tried it have found, and Ogin does have a technically-valid tweak on the concept. Electrical and controls group in Denmark is outstanding in every way. A large number of people in both countries are Vestas alumni, some GE too.
Cons
Business plan is infeasible - cost of extra material and processing with shroud cannot be made up in performance, as others who have tried it have found as well. Cost disadvantage gets worse with size, limiting prospects to repowering old wind farms with small 1980's turbines that could be more competitive with new utility-scale machines anyway. Management talks about distributed and community wind markets, but those are not known even to exist. Secondary advantages of bird friendliness, noise, and visibility remain undemonstrated and of questionable commercial value even if they're real. Only two prototypes exist and have not shown the necessary performance results. Company has not made a single commercial sale, and none are in sight. Ogin is trying to repower wind farms it has bought or controlled instead, to prove the concept, but that would be years away. Board of directors, and major investors, operate in the same "greentech bubble" as Ogin management, lack the technical, manufacturing, and operations expertise needed to realistically evaluate the company's plans and status, or provide useful guidance. Their background is mainly in finance or Silicon Valley software, not very applicable to heavy machinery. Numerous negative leadership behaviors exist, unfortunately, due to growing frustration and panic that The Dream is not going to come true. Decision-making is erratic, impulsive, too often personality-driven. Strong messenger-shooting mentality, leading to repeated firings of people who apparently don't Believe In The Dream strongly enough to overcome the laws of physics or market realities. Numerous others are looking. Top management listens to very few individuals, and not well - need to hear what they want to believe is strong. Much time and money spent on a pointless name change that eliminates any guidance as to what the company is, a wind turbine manufacturer/operator. Technical leadership lacks either engineering or program management expertise despite their resumes. Much distraction of effort on developing standard, non-differentiating wind turbine components, with which leadership is familiar, even though the shroud is the company. Scattered physical locations of people, even for such a small firm, cause numerous communication friction problems.
