Vantaggi
Individual contributors at the company are truly talented and enjoyable to collaborate with. The work makes a real difference in people's lives and is a source of fulfillment.
Svantaggi
BetterUp is really struggling at its current stage to operate at the level of maturity that is expected as table stakes for a company with its valuation, size, and market presence. The most glaring maturity gap is the disregard for people management / talent strategy. During a recent multi-hour all hands call, the team spent a fraction of the time (I believe it was less than 2 minutes) on the organization’s people strategy. By all measures, the Founders continue to maintain a tight scrutiny on all people processes. Despite having more than 500 employees, it doesn't appear that the organization has a well-defined compensation review process for all employees. The organization attracted great talent over the past few years, but I suspect it will be challenging to retain that talent as the growth trajectory changes and the business becomes older/more mature. It’s a bit surprising that the Board hasn’t applied more pressure on the team to bring in a Chief People Officer in light of internal feedback from pulse surveys, previous Glassdoor reviews, and the drop from 4.5 -> 3.4 Glassdoor rating in the past year and a half. I could touch on the other themes that often come up in these reviews - the gaslighting, lack of investment in ongoing manager training/enablement, the tendency of CEO in-group associates to fail upwards - but I would just urge the organization to prioritize bringing in an established, seasoned CPO who can stop the frantic duct-taping of BetterUp’s people strategy and rebuild trust and confidence that the organization will do the right thing by its people.