- They hire good, talented people who are then not allowed to do their jobs as the senior management team, who are ill-equipped, are too scared to challenge the founder, who wants to do everything herself, and wants 'yes people' around her to facilitate this
- Quite a gossipy, malicious environment which is fuelled further by HR who seems to thrive on this.
- HR is unprofessional and will tell you things about other colleagues/business decisions before it's "official"
- Won't do your career any good. Still in start-up mode and therefore you'll be fighting to progress, learn anything or use any of your skills/experience
- Founder picks and chooses her favourite people. If you're in, good for you. If you're not, it won't be a happy place to be
- High turnover of staff. Several people, including very senior people and heads of departments have all left very quickly - many without jobs to go to, as they were so keen to leave
- Seeing your colleagues, who are kind and talented people, become sad, stressed and depressed coming to work every day
- Weak management who haven't received any training and haven't tried to do anything to rectify the toxic culture.