I don’t believe the cofounders are aligned. The business has recently been divided into two separate units and my opinion is that the founders are taking charge of one each, to try and prove that their individual visions are correct. I saw senior managers constantly navigating confusion from the top. I heard no clearly articulated strategy. Instead I did experience short-term, panicked demands for what usually transpired to be unworkable solutions. The lack of direction I experienced did guarantee one outcome - a messy and unmanageable workload, spread across international timezones that don’t align, with no real investment made in internal operations. In a company of only roughly 100 people, I frequently had to wait a full working day to get an answer to a question. Everything - and I mean everything - is done on Slack, which gets so noisy that it creates its own unique form of stress. I saw HR in particular attempt to enhance ways of working, but it just never seemed to be endorsed by the ruling powers. The cofounder/CTO lives in Thailand and I don't think I ever saw him present at an All Hands, welcome a new joiner or communicate at all in company-wide channels. The exception during my time at ScreenCloud was his proactivity in sharing updates about his resort renovation on the island he lives on (@silvermoonretreat on instagram) The resort seemed to me to be a more fulfilling venture for him than ScreenCloud ! It is my personal opinion that the CEO is volatile and it’s also my opinion that anybody working on a project he’s involved in risks being on the receiving end of that volatility. I never saw the CEO endorse or recognize a member of his leadership team. I heard rumours throughout my time at ScreenCloud that leadership - and Board - meetings often involved the CEO demonstrating unprofessional levels of emotion. I found the CEO’s message at every monthly All Hands detached from anything useful or actionable (usually a random sports analogy followed by some language about ‘getting real’ or ‘the time being now’) - as if all the employees are just kicking back ! I think standards vary at ScreenCloud depending on team and location, and I believe I saw fair approaches and the teams who tried to implement them often ignored in place of favoritism and bias. On the theme of bias... ScreenCloud's CSuite announced job cuts right at Christmas. I think the headcount reduction saw good people in positions I don’t believe can be argued ‘redundant’, leave the business. Meanwhile slow, bloated teams were left unchecked. Little attention seemed to have been given to where all the totally-not-redundant work was going to be rerouted internally and people without the right skill, attitude or experience have been moved into jobs I don’t believe they’re equipped to deliver in. I have also heard that the two most senior members of the People team resigned in the midst of these job cuts. The narrative used for the cuts was one of financial need/commercial concern. At the All Hands where they were announced the CFO was asked if he would be awarding leadership with individualized payrises. The question was dodged and as a result, it’s my opinion that, at a time where many are taking pay-cuts to help their businesses, CSuite at ScreenCloud gave themselves some pretty awesome festive gifts! And finally… I believe there is a chauvinist undercurrent at ScreenCloud. I saw ‘boys club’ behaviour at company events and witnessed what I believe to be female colleagues being spoken over, spoken down to or ignored completely.
