Lux Research Reviews

Long story short, the negatives written about the company are mostly correct. Before joining, I was concerned about the negative comments but decided to take the risk for multiple reasons. I convinced myself that glassdoor reviews self-selected for negative experiences and it was likely not representative of the company. I was wrong. I would say that all the cons listed in the reviews are correct. I would add that there is no on-boarding or training for any employees. On the flip side there's no movement toward consolidating knowledge from the most successful employees. Only recently was it proposed to attempt to de-silo research products from the different research groups (which operate as fiefdoms). This problem is amplified due to retention issues: knowledge leaves and is never preserved or what's left to work with (e.g. models) are unexplained or incorrect (due to lack of oversight). Management is not concerned about operations but with selling products and as such, no investment is made into employees. The front line managers, while great people, are terrible at managing (Peter principle). Managers have no interest in actual employee management or development. As such quality suffers tremendously. For example, many reports of typos (which should be caught by the dedicated editor but aren't. No one cares so the editor isn't reprimanded or replaced). Feedback is mostly stifled due to dismissive attitudes by management. As such even good suggestions are not presented as employees feel a certain futility. Good ideas that are presented are given no managerial backing thus making most initiatives fail (e.g. mentoring/on-boarding program was pushed aside immediately as managers were concerned about hitting quotas for the year). Finally, if you read the glassdoor reviews, you'll note that the cons are consistent and go back 3-5 years. I have no faith that these issues will change. The upper management has been with the company since its founding and like another review said it's a "boys club" both in the gender sense but also how tightly held the company is. Upper management is only focused on sales and it shows in the company culture.

Lux presents itself as a company at the forefront of next generation technology. In reality its an army of overworked, underpaid people whose weapons are Google and university research access (passwords provided by unpaid college interns). The business model relies on generating income via subscription service to interview-derived tidbits and research reports, and via contracted, one off consulting projects. I believe they are also developing a "showcasing service" for companies who want to buy startups. Lux's operational approach is akin to boiling the ocean in search of leads and data. This approach results in exhausted employees who generate insanely detailed, but often useless, research documents. The excel files and ppt decks are informed, but off mark. The lack of staff who possess true industry, rather than purely academic, experience serves to cause teams to always be on the verge of drowning in irrelevant information. Because no one knows what's really going on in a given industry, the value of products generated is low. As noted elsewhere, work life balance is nonexistent. Turnover is high. Fossilized management serves up meaningless drivel in place of any tenable plan for sustainable profit generation. My advice for current or potential employees: there are better paying jobs with great benefits, great teams, and great work life balance, out there. It's never too late to go knocking on doors. Talk to recruiters. Cold call reserach employees at companies that interest you. It is possible to do better.