Vantaggi
You will work with a bunch of young, bright minds who are constantly overpowered and shut down by the CEO. It is unfortunate that one person can ruin the entire experience. The COO is one of the greatest humans I have ever met. He is a mentor to all young employees and provides a type of leadership that motivates one to work hard, and has tried his best to foster collaboration and learning in a company that severely lacks any form of corporate culture.
Svantaggi
The real question is here is where to begin. I was extremely excited to work for Empower and genuinely believed it would be a great learning experience for someone fresh out of college. I was terribly wrong. As the other reviews mentioned, most of my time spent at Empower revolved around pitching at airport parking lots, where I was harassed on multiple occasions by drivers and still forced to go out there. Additionally, the CEO would not reimburse for any gas/travel expenses to/from the airport. You will be expected to work at least 50 hours a week and often times closer to sixty with little to no thanks. The CEO will also claim that you work less, and have plenty of time to work more. You will often have to work weekends (sometimes both days) and often have little to no time off near the holidays. There is little to no work/life balance and the CEO evidently doesn’t care about the mental health of his own employees. Additionally, don’t even think about taking your PTO. The CEO will threaten termination if you take your hard-earned time. He has yet to learn that this is not how you motivate your employees to work 60+ hour work weeks. You are constantly moved from project to project and rarely ever see it finished, which leads to frustration and a lack of accomplishment. Not only that, but priorities are constantly changing and if you aren’t on the same page as the CEO (whose priorities change every other second), then expect to be absolutely gaslit. There is very little room to learn given the fact he believes some people are only good for signing up drivers and riders (despite going to an elite university). He picks favorites and often won’t let the others take on more challenging projects where they have the opportunity to learn and grow. There has been an extreme amount of turnover over the past few months (a majority of which have been women; proof in the CEO’s responses), and the CEO has since told the team that the decrease in team members is intentional (why would you want high turnover?). He will also blame it on the fact that the employee wasn’t made for the demanding culture of a startup, however, multiple former employees have gone on to work big, corporate jobs and even other startups. Let’s just say the turnover is obviously for another reason, and any sort of positive review here is fabricated. The salary may be tempting, but my greatest advice for you would be to stay away.
