8y
Dear Disappointed Team Member & visitors reviewing this page,
I am the founder and CEO of RoboTerra Inc., Yao Zhang. I decided to personally address back to all the points made in this comment when our HR manager notified me about this Glassdoor review, because it is so sad to see this disheartening message that ever could happen to a team. First I wanted to acknowledge for the fact that the root of the huge disappointment in this review, is definitely a direct reflection of the shared high expectations the RoboTerra team has all had for our company all the time. We work hard aiming to bring the best innovations to our users with the best talents we can attract to our team, providing them best work places with the best management, but obviously I as the CEO failed in this reviewer's eyes to keep up on all the important aspects. Yet, I am always so grateful for all the team members ever joined the RoboTerra team and grew our company to where it is now.
First I wanted to reply to some of the important facts which seems this particular reviewer were left unaware and thus mistaken of. With continuously fast growth in both our product offering and market shares in the global educational robotics market, RoboTerra very recently successfully raised our Series B (interested readers can search press coverage about this company update in major business media) from distinguished strategic investors including both public companies listed in NYSE and China. However, indeed as a Silicon Valley company, we have to work with cross-boarder legal experts in reorganizing our corporate structure in order to receive capital raised in CNY. As a result of these organizational changes, it inevitably affected our US team's structure as well. Company-wide communications about the timeline and implications were made to global staff and to US team respectively. Especially those employees who were individually affected here in the US, I have personally done one-on-one meetings to make sure all our affected team members' voices and concerns were all heard and all needs are well taken care of.
In more direct word, we have to see the leave / terminate several team members in this shifting stage due to global team restructuring, however it is always our top priority as a company to attract, retain and grow together with the best talents. Although a second time founder CEO, this is my first time cutting team members due to global team restructuring at a growth stage, I personally felt very hard and saddened that we have to let go several really talented and outstanding employees because these jobs were decided not to be Silicon Valley based any more. Together with the management team, we have obtained support from our board in providing packages such as expedited vesting of employee stock options (so that our employees still enjoy the new holding company's 10X growth in our equity values) , respective severance to employees to really show our appreciation to the great contributions our team members ever brought to RoboTerra.
However, indeed I haven't got to reach out to every contractor and consultants that recently had a change in working relationships initiated from RoboTerra side. If you are a contractor/consultant, and have been having difficulties in receiving your due payments timely, please feel free to reach out to me directly and let me know your payment status and if there is any other way the company can help you to truly show our appreciation for all the great work you ever did for the fast growth of RoboTerra.
On Being a CEO
There are stages of the growth of a startup, the PMF Validation/Trial stage, the Growth stage, and the Scaling stage. Now as a globally 70+ people team with new capital raised, for this new Growth-Stage, I also would only give today's myself the most, half of full score. There are so many things to learn in how to grow a tech company with a global vision and keep up high standard as how we always chanted in our company motto "Best or Never!". However one thing that I am always very proud of is that we as a team continuously are attracting the best talents from all field and walks of life to join us, even in recent month with this restructuring thing going on, our China team is working toward doubling its size in this upcoming quarter; for a more R&D-driven US team, talents from some of the world's best tech companies in education, robotics and AI, are joining including alumni of Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. But I failed in keeping all the team members that I previously helped the US office recruited and trained (assuming this reviewer among one of such affected by this restructuring), this is the most painful part of running a company - you lose good people because of your own management plans.
(Continued...)
