Vantaggi
Except for the CEO, the place was kinda laid back. We had off every other Friday (paid), and the Fridays we did work were "reflection days" where we were free to wander the streets of Saratoga Springs contemplating how profound our work was. It was absurd, for sure, but hey...any excuse to go to Stewarts for a milkshake is cool with me.
Svantaggi
CEO seemed more concerned with trying to cultivate a "Steve Jobs of Marketing" image than he was with actual market research. We spent more time doing corporate culture exercises than actual work on the product...which was kind of ironic since leadership never demonstrated any of the corporate culture that they preached. CEO would hire experts then micromanage them like it was their 1st year out of college. CEO didn't believe in trash cans. CEO liked to coffee shame people for drinking Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks coffee. Strategy and direction was an absolute mess...would constantly claim "the data is the star" but they never started with analytical insights. They'd always start by coming up with 3-4 sports related social justice warrior topics THEN dive into the data to find anything that would fit the narrative. The product wasn't market insights, it was narrative. End result was the same stale SJW narrative you see on 101 different progressive outlets only with some top two box percentages for whatever demographic helped them drive their point home the best. It was too bad, too...the data set was extremely robust and contained many interesting things one could gain actual insight from.