Terrible leadership, even worse product - Anonymous employee Lily AI Employee Review

1.0
1 Feb 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Most of the people there are wonderful. My coworkers are the highlight of my day most days.

Cons

Lots to cover here, but many of the reviews before me have painted a very accurate picture of the lack of leadership and terrible product direction. - Lay-offs: I've watched 5 rounds of "reductions" in my short tenure here. Do you know how fearful going into a company-wide meeting is after seeing 5 result in mass layoffs? - No Bonus', No Promotions : This one says it all and is very accurate. Lots of promise of upward mobility, bonus structures - but you'll never see a promotion or payout while you're here. - Lacking leadership: The Co-Founders are not great leaders. Attend one meeting with them and it's incredibly obvious. They're bright, and hardworking, but not leaders. - Sexist President: Due to their failing direction and leadership, the co-founders brought in a President of the company to help steer the ship. Sadly, I've personally been on calls and have witnessed first hand him belittle, interrupt, and outright call-out the female employees for their "Silly Ideas". It was increasingly uncomfortable and very sad. Lily Ai prides itself on being a woman-founded company, yet their president is incredibly disrespectful to the women he interacts with. His shifting priorities have caused much uncertainty in the team, and constant pivots have only proven disastrous. -Poor Product & High Customer Churn: One hand washes the other here. The product is good, but not great. Lily works with some large retailers, and they expect greatness. When the product fails, or we're slow to innovate, retailers leave us for competitors. Which then limits available cashflow to better the product. The endless layoffs continually act as a setback to any product advancements, and its a vicious cycle of unhappy customers, and stagnant product. - Inflated Sales Pipeline: The sales team is constantly selling products we don't yet offer, only leading to customer disappointment. They often inflate their pipeline numbers in fear of losing their jobs, only to cause a miscalculation in real revenue, and put the rest of the company at risk of losing their jobs. I have some really close friends in the sales department but their behavior is really scary and no one holds them accountable. Again, poor leadership. - Infalted Glassdoor Reviews: The HR team has ran a few promotions to help boost their Glassdoor rating -Months ago, I was on the receiving end of quite a few slack-messages asking me and then reminding me to leave a Glassdoor review. So. Here it is :)

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Lily AI Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to share your detailed perspectives. As a current team member, we would greatly value the opportunity to address your input directly. Would you be open to reaching out to the People team to discuss further? We would appreciate the chance to discuss your feedback and leverage your knowledge and expertise as we execute against our 2025 strategy and move forward together as a unified team! Thank you again - we truly do hope to hear from you.

Explore other reviews about Lily AI

5.0
6 Nov 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Lily AI is the leader in its category and has an amazing list of brands. - opportunity for growth and learning with a high level of personal ownership - Executive leadership is accessible and takes feedback - Amazing talent across all functions

Cons

- you have to be comfortable with change. Lily is very much a startup that is quickly evolving and responding to customers and the market. - with a smaller team, you have to be willing to roll up your sleeves to do whatever needs to be done.

1
avatar
Lily AI Response
1y
Thank you for your feedback and your dedication to Lily! We value you and all the other great members on our team and appreciate all you do.
4.0
21 May 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lily has built a strong brand that has a lot of trust and pull. Where most AI companies that started in the last few years are really just AI LLM wrappers, Lily has a 10-year head start in building its AI-native product, plus deep technical and retail industry expertise. Obviously, a huge pro to be fully remote, and that we still have the opportunity to get together in person 2-3/times a year. The best part about working at Lily is that the Lily AI team is full of some of the absolutely nicest and hardest-working people I've ever met. It's been amazing to see many individuals grow and advance in their roles and careers here, too, including myself.

Cons

Making the jump from founder-led sales to sales-led has been tough. My sense is that in the AI space, when you sell to enterprise companies, those executives still want the founder relationship. Fortunately, we have a small but mighty Customer Success team that is quickly building deeper relationships and connections, too. On the product side, innovation has been more organic. I see a lot of conservative tendencies that prioritize immediate revenue over long-term revenue. Is that a con in this current economic environment? Maybe not. Yet in the AI space, maybe so.

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