Web Summit Reviews

3.4

59% would recommend to a friend

(157 total reviews)
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Paddy Cosgrave

25% approve of CEO

54% positive business outlook

Web Summit has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 157 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Web Summit employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

157 reviews
1.0
26 Sept 2018

Bananas: HR writes the positive reviews!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The barista and the garden. And few nice people who keep their heads down cos they have bills to pay, which is fair enough.

Cons

The "largest" tech conference in the world. Yeah, right. Suspicious counting going on for sure and the company will be caught out eventually. The place is a frat house full of lies. Nothing more, nothing less. If you have morals, brains, ambitions - don't waste your time. Jobs here are dead end. The cons in a nutshell are the management. Never experienced anything quite like in all my working life. Don't pay any attention to the good reviews - they are written either by HR or by new starters. There are now around 60 reviews on here - that accounts for around 1/3 of the company and most of the reviews are bad, and the rest are fake. The company response to my review, like with the others, will be a disingenuous "we are shocked and surprised" line, and maybe they are, but more than likely nothing will change their ways. People have tried and failed. The leadership team love this bullying fearful playground of a company. The CEO who shouts at colleagues yet likes to wax lyrical about social issues while sacking people/doesn't renew contracts on a whim. The COO is a bully who is awesome at power-poses and calling women "girls" if he even acknowledges them in the first place. He actively sets unreachable targets so he can fire people for not hitting them.

2.0
24 Sept 2018

Negatively affected my mental health

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free gym membership nearby the office Health insurance Breakfast and lunch subsidy Beer and pizza on fridays after town hall Opportunity to learn from a group of hardworkin dedicated young people even if the conditions your learning in are so stressful Offsite organised for staff after Web Summit There are some attempts from staff to improve the culture and make things better but it always seems futile because something stops it honestly most of these are fairly superficial though when looking for pros in a company you work for and trying to think of them

Cons

Recruitment totally overselling positions causes such a huge staff turnover amongst other things. big reason I left Recruitment asking people to write positive reviews on this website to counter the truthful experiences Not being paid a living wage The cost of travelling to events being completely over the daily allowance provided by the company making going to the events something you pay a huge amount for yourself. When you are on such a low wage to start thats something that caused me so much stress. Getting to travel was great, but there were too many bad things about it and the cost was a big one. Witnessing how paddy treated some staff and how everyone tiptoed around his moods if something had gone wrong or not the way he wanted. crazy way to run a company or treat employees, just totally not acceptable. shouting at people is completely unprofessional and dysfunctional and no wonder so many people don't like working for him if he treats people with such little respect Great staff and managers just disappearing because their jobs had been made redundant, whole company operates so weird and one day someones just gone without notice A huge amount of work done by entry level staff goes completely unappreciated, its like a graduate sweatshop pay you pitence have you work insane hours leading up to events so youre totally burnt out mentally and physically then when your salary review happens its like you haven't been working at all and are not given a bonus or reward for your hard work. lots of people work so hard and care lots but you are just worn down further and further by being treated so badly that you eventually leave the company

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Web Summit Response
7y
We are surprised and saddened to read your comments about Web Summit. We take all grievances seriously and our established procedures are in place to address any concerns or issues in a fair and transparent manner while supporting our people affected. We encourage any of our team with a concern or issue to speak with us in order to allow us to investigate and address their concern/issue. It is unfortunate that you did not provide us with an opportunity to discuss your comments with you prior to posting your review; however, if you would like to contact us on hr@websummit.net, we would gladly discuss your concerns.
1.0
14 Sept 2018

House of cards: seniority in this place only comes from sycophancy

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It's a job...? Good for someone to get their first office entry on a CV, or if you have a shady background.

Cons

Where to start. Sold a dream and it is a nightmare. Junior staff clean the office while favored, sorry I mean "senior" staff, go off in droves on courses abroad. Bullies for "management" who fire people on a whim and undermine everyone else they do not like: sad to see such insecurity. They say the company is growing but it is just yoyo dieting - binging on new hires and then losing/sacking good staff only to binge on new hires again. No clarity or structure or work progression as far as I can see. Tech bro culture that is alienating and immature, and smells of sexism. The got in some experienced exciting middle management only to fire them within weeks. Expected to hit ridiculous meaningless sales targets and the shady COO is not held to account for when these targets are not met. HR is a joke and pushes people to write positive reviews on here, and actively mis-sell roles. Also totally spineless, rather like the CEO. No sense behind people's job titles - seniority in this place only comes from sycophancy. To sum up: it is a jumped up sales company that survives on fear, bullying, grayness, cowboys, throwing more people at a problem rather than sorting the problem (management). CEO and other founders were just lucky the company did well - right time/place etc. They're not a start up anymore but act like one. I really wish I had listened to the advice of others before coming here - I thought it would be good, but it is anything but and I am looking already. What's also weird about here is how trapped others feel - they self esteem has been so dented they think they cannot work anywhere else. Mind you, it is probably seen as an exciting place to work in Dublin as the city is a small place.

avatar
Web Summit Response
7y
We are surprised and saddened to read your comments about Web Summit. We take all grievances seriously and our established procedures are in place to address any concerns or issues in a fair and transparent manner while supporting our people affected. We encourage any of our team with a concern or issue to speak with us in order to allow us to investigate and address their concern/issue. It is unfortunate that you did not provide us with an opportunity to discuss your comments with you prior to posting your review; however, if you would like to contact us on hr@websummit.net, we would gladly discuss your concerns.
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Glassdoor has 196 Web Summit reviews submitted anonymously by Web Summit employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Web Summit is right for you.