What do you get when a CEO hires his buddies instead of people who actually know what they're doing? A yes-man culture where positive thinking and personal rapport with the executive team means more than critical thinking, hard work, or business sense! Managers dictate product, support, and marketing direction based on their personal interests and "passions", leaving the rest to chance and wishful thinking. Small wins are constantly celebrated, but there is zero accountability for missed deadlines or disorganization at the management level.
Wondering how things ever get done? Excellent question! If you're an employee, expect to work long hours to rectify the havoc caused poor organizational planning. If you really want to get things done, you'll have to bypass your manager and go straight to other employees to figure out what the rest of the company is working on - it likely won't be what you think, and it almost never aligns with the overall goals of the organization.
Attempt to limit the amount of times you ask for pesky things like data, market analysis, customer feedback, or a coherent product roadmap. Ain't nobody got time for that kind of stuff at Student Loan Genius!
To be fair, leadership has gone through a lot of changes in the past six months (the listed CEO is no longer employed at the company.) But by all reports, it's been too little, too late in terms of making a serious impact on employee morale or the bottom line.
I've watched this company take several of the hardest-working people I know and turn them into jaded paycheck-collecting zombies. Unless you look forward to LARPing The Walking Dead on a daily basis, steer clear!
