Every con here stems from the CEO who is not only incredibly inexperienced, but has the toxic trait of firmly believing that he can do everyone’s job better than them. He micromanages to the point where he is writing the OKRs for individual contributors. He’s also incredibly impatient and changes course constantly so the entire company is constantly being upended. There is no broad vision or strategy, no transparency, and the least autonomy I’ve experienced in my career. The toxicity is layered in with the intense micromanagement - if the CEO sees something he doesn’t like happening in the business, he doesn’t give feedback, he doesn’t coach, HE TAKES OVER THE TEAM HIMSELF. And to do this, you guessed it, no actual CEO work is getting done. In addition, the CEO has a clear issue working with strong, opinionated women. During my time I consistently saw him berate, interrupt, and ignore women who disagree with him. I won’t share what the voluntary attrition rate is here but suffice it to say it’s higher than I’ve ever heard. The CEO’s thought process is that all of those people are under performers and they couldn’t “keep up”. This is echoed in all of the clearly fake positive reviews that are posted here from leadership. They keep hiring smart people who have seen the movie and then the CEO doesn’t listen to their advice and tells them exactly what to do. Start up life should be a little crazy, but typically you get autonomy and culture to counteract. Apollo is pure chaos run by an insecure, inexperienced leader who will provide the opposite of autonomy and no focus on culture or employees.
