Kinsa Reviews

Oh so many - the leadership is extremely manipulative, actually unethical, but you wouldn’t know from the outside. Examples include leaders FORCING employees to participate in “rating boosting” schemes where each employee is supposed to get 5-10 friends to write 5 star reviews on Amazon and other sights in exchange for Amazon Gift Cards that covered the cost of a Kinsa thermometer too plus margin (because they wanted the “Verified buyer on amazon” tag on the review). The employee was told only to ask friends who would guarantee high ratings, and if employees said they didn’t want to participate - the leadership would use peer pressure and call out the employee. They will do these rating-boosting campaigns multiple times a year (you’ll see the number of reviews for a few weeks skyrocket and then come back down). Want to see for yourself - take a look at the trends of positive reviews for Kinsa on Amazon or even Glassdoor...then look at the timeline. These 4+ star reviews average aren’t real. The unethical behavior is so prevelant everywhere, that it’s remarkable that they don’t see how bad they are. But, employees at the lower level are all aware of some sort of horrendous behavior and share it amongst each other. The way the company goes about tweaking data to show investors/potential partners that puts them in positive light, the way user data is actually pretty poorly protected and able to be hacked easily, the fact that nowhere do they tell users who shell out $ for the hardware product that their health data will be used to sell targeted ads to them, etc. They also really, really undervalue their employees. Anyone outside of the leadership circle was given low salaries (bad even compared to other startup standards, and atrocious compared to general Bay Area companies). They would give rationale like “we want to see your potential first” and “we reward good work” — but in reality they keep you at the lowest salary possible and only attempt to reward when they freak out that the employee that’s carrying key parts of the company might leave. And even then, it’s nowhere close to market rates. They give the excuse that they don’t pay market rates because they are a social-mission driven enterprise and want to filter out people who are after titles/money, but that’s actually totally BS too. What they manage to recruit are mission-driven people who naively believe what leadership tells them at the beginning and only later realize they were being manipulated all along. Inder, the CEO, doesn’t live by the values and requirements he imposes. Employees are expected to work in the office M-F, and only work remotely judiciously (like once every 2 weeks is acceptable). But he frequently works from home or comes in/out of the office as he pleases. He is extremely disruptive to the workflow, has strong opinions on areas where he has no expertise, and makes it difficult to get work done. In the weeks that he is not in the office/on vacation, there is MORE accomplished and work done than when he is actually in. Also - don’t expect any of the standard startup perks here. Vacation time is very limited, like 2-3 weeks total a year is the expectation and there are few holidays that the company actually shuts down on. The company caters in lunch just on fridays. And there are very few team bonding events or activities that get organized and paid for.

1. An overwhelming expectation to assimilate to a toxic culture. Asking if someone was a “culture fit” really meant “we expect this person to abandon any semblance of a work-life balance and any differences of opinion or communication style will not be tolerated or celebrated.” The CEO was not mindful of boundaries. You were expected to always be on call, regardless of the time of day, answering his texts and/or calls, and pledging your undying fealty to him. Anyone with a family - good luck with this dead end balancing act. 2. Lack of gratitude or recognition for getting sh*t done. My team constantly came to me with questions as to when or how they were going to get a raise, promotion, or a significant shout out from the exec team for performing and delivering on such rigorous objectives where the goal posts were always shifting and the time demands were unsustainable. Career laddering was (and to my knowledge, still is) non-existent at the company. Lateral moves and promotions did not exist, and if you advocated for either one of these for yourself then you expected, and were met with, significant pushback. Furthermore, they inexplicably restructured communication around employee departures which meant that hardly anyone received a warm send-off or farewell happy hour -- not even a simple thanks for your contribution to the company and wishing you the best on your future endeavors. This is How To Promote A Better Culture 101 that was completely ignored, and for a company with less than 100 employees this is inexcusable. 3. Inconsistent feedback dynamics. The CEO gave a training on how to deliver feedback on a company all hands that came off as: trust, respect and personal preference be damned, you should be willing to give and take harsh criticism at all times because it’s how you “grow” as an employee. I don’t speak for all managers during this time but I had to deal with some major angst and fallout after that in order to quell my team’s worries that the only time they should receive and give feedback was if it was highly negative. That eventually led to the lowest morale at any company I’ve ever worked at, and there was seemingly no desire to do anything about it. 4. Underpaid. It was taboo to advocate for pay raises, or more general transparency around salary bands, shares, etc., since you were told and expected to be at Kinsa “for the right reasons” (helping people stay healthy and not die from an infectious disease.) Heads up: wanting to do good in the world AND wanting to comfortably provide for yourself and your family are NOT mutually exclusive endeavors. 5. Poor benefits. The parental leave policy was laughable, especially for a company that espouses how they are committed to keeping families safe and healthy. Also, mental health initiatives, professional growth stipends, team bonding budgets, and other resources that so many other companies are implementing in order to navigate the WFH strain and to remain competitive in the job marketplace, were nonexistent.