Candidates, Investors & Consumers Beware - Anonymous employee Spark Networks Employee Review

This is a company with no direction. The Board of Directors is notoriously thrifty and very heavy-handed in the minutia of daily operations. There are a handful of board members that have much of their personal wealth invested in Spark and behave in an emotional way, as evidenced by three leadership teams in three years. The latest management team is a group of private equity investors (called Peak6) that have a history of taking over distressed companies, cutting costs and selling to an eventual buyer. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you understand the environment prior to taking a job. This is a group of individuals that are undoubtedly intelligent but have no interest or industry knowledge in the online dating business. The only goal is to "pause" all business, while they cut costs and position the brands for acquisition. As a point of reference, management held an all-hands meeting in late 2016, where the CEO assured all employees that there are no lay-offs planned. The following week, any employee in a management position (except for the Product lead) was laid off in a sloppy manner and given a smaller severance than any I've ever heard. Management has basically decided to ignore the concept of growing the business, in favor of cutting costs through breaching/breaking contracts, eliminating benefits and even relocating everyone to one side of the office in order to save electricity in the empty half. In what might be the most pathetic attempt to cut costs, this private equity group flew one of its employees across the country to walk throughout the office and remove all plants, because they were "spending too much to water them." With the exception of a few, every employee I know (including myself) is looking for another job.