6 ms·

Skully has a few interesting glassdoor reviews: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/SKULLY-Reviews-E1046917.htm?sort.sortType=RD&sort.ascending=false https://www

Skully has a few interesting glassdoor reviews: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/SKULLY-Reviews-E1046917.htm?sort.sortType=RD&sort.ascending=false https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/SKULLY-Reviews-E1046917.ht...

sbierwagen 10y ago
Why does management always plant incredibly glowing fake reviews? At least do 3 stars, that would look more plausible than a 5 star review praising the CEO in a sea of 1 star reviews talking about how the CEO is burning investor money.
- mikestew 10y ago
  Pro tip on Glassfoor reviews: if under "advice to management" it says, "keep doing what you're doing" it's an HR-planted review. And given how often I see those exact words, I assume they all went to the same HR conference session.
- imauld 10y ago
  > The challenges are multidisciplinary and are always challenging. Challenging challenges? Sign me up!
- wwalser 10y ago
  I agree that this specific case looks pretty damning but as a general rule I've always considered Glassdoor reviews to be a poor proxy for company quality. It suffers from the same problems of all other anonymous review platforms with a few unique kinks thrown in for good measure. IMO, it's a reasonable way to get a pulse but not much more. As for the fake reviews… People across the org may have wildly divergent experiences working at a company. Even a fairly small company. Often the person who someone reports directly to has an outsized impact on said person's experience. In an early stage company the individuals doing people management tend to be, at best, very new to that specific part of the job. At worst the company grows large-ish before any official "reports-to" structure is put in place. I've worked at places where my advice to leadership would be "keep doing what you're doing" while other Glassdoor reviews seemed to have had one of the worst experiences of their lives. That doesn't mean that I planted a review. Maybe I had a particularly good manager? I could have worked in the only good part of the org or a negative review may have come from someone who worked in the only bad part of the org.
- paxtonab 10y ago
  The single 5 star review had some pretty insincere as the "advice to management": It's pretty easy to openly communicate with management (all the way up to c-level) in my experience, no need to put it on some website when you could discuss it with them directly.
api 10y ago
"management is throwing away investors' money on hot cars, bikes, parties and travels etc (only for themselves of course)" Can't comment on whether this is true in this case but I've seen it before and I always wonder how, and where are the investors, and aren't they paying attention, and ....?
- rhizome 10y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it's generally categorized as either Bizdev or Teambuilding, and thus prevalidated as a run-of-the-mill expenditure (not a technical term). Holiday party type stuff.
- dharmon 10y ago
  Investors will look at financial statements (in whatever sad form they exist at most startups), but they don't look at itemized expenses. They also expect lots of money to be spent. For example, let's say I wanted to take an expensive vacation. I would fly to Europe (1st class, of course), stay in nice hotels, and basically live it up. I would mark this down as a "recruiting expense", or "customer acquisition cost". If the investor cared to drill down to this level, all they would see is a $75,000 trip to Europe for recruiting. They wouldn't know how many people went, or how successful it was. $75k is nothing next to an engineer's salary, and a recruiter would take a fee on the same order of magnitude, so I doubt they would bat an eye, but a 20-something founder could take a pretty sweet vacay for $75k. Want a new motorcycle? Its for product testing, of course. New $80k Tesla? We're exploring how our tech could be expanded to used in cars, not just with motorcycles. Hookers and blow? Team building.
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    I'm not sure if you're being tongue in cheek, but if not, honest question: aren't those examples of actual fraud rather than "just" frivolous spending?
    - vkou 10y ago
      They are actually fraud, and nobody should do any of them.
Animats 10y ago
Yes, they do: "management is abusing investments on private benefits." "management is throwing away investors' money on hot cars, bikes, parties and travels etc (only for themselves of course)"

sbierwagen 10y ago

Why does management always plant incredibly glowing fake reviews? At least do 3 stars, that would look more plausible than a 5 star review praising the CEO in a sea of 1 star reviews talking about how the CEO is burning investor money.

mikestew 10y ago
Pro tip on Glassfoor reviews: if under "advice to management" it says, "keep doing what you're doing" it's an HR-planted review. And given how often I see those exact words, I assume they all went to the same HR conference session.
imauld 10y ago
> The challenges are multidisciplinary and are always challenging. Challenging challenges? Sign me up!
wwalser 10y ago
I agree that this specific case looks pretty damning but as a general rule I've always considered Glassdoor reviews to be a poor proxy for company quality. It suffers from the same problems of all other anonymous review platforms with a few unique kinks thrown in for good measure. IMO, it's a reasonable way to get a pulse but not much more. As for the fake reviews… People across the org may have wildly divergent experiences working at a company. Even a fairly small company. Often the person who someone reports directly to has an outsized impact on said person's experience. In an early stage company the individuals doing people management tend to be, at best, very new to that specific part of the job. At worst the company grows large-ish before any official "reports-to" structure is put in place. I've worked at places where my advice to leadership would be "keep doing what you're doing" while other Glassdoor reviews seemed to have had one of the worst experiences of their lives. That doesn't mean that I planted a review. Maybe I had a particularly good manager? I could have worked in the only good part of the org or a negative review may have come from someone who worked in the only bad part of the org.
paxtonab 10y ago
The single 5 star review had some pretty insincere as the "advice to management": It's pretty easy to openly communicate with management (all the way up to c-level) in my experience, no need to put it on some website when you could discuss it with them directly.

api 10y ago

"management is throwing away investors' money on hot cars, bikes, parties and travels etc (only for themselves of course)" Can't comment on whether this is true in this case but I've seen it before and I always wonder how, and where are the investors, and aren't they paying attention, and ....?

rhizome 10y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it's generally categorized as either Bizdev or Teambuilding, and thus prevalidated as a run-of-the-mill expenditure (not a technical term). Holiday party type stuff.
dharmon 10y ago
Investors will look at financial statements (in whatever sad form they exist at most startups), but they don't look at itemized expenses. They also expect lots of money to be spent. For example, let's say I wanted to take an expensive vacation. I would fly to Europe (1st class, of course), stay in nice hotels, and basically live it up. I would mark this down as a "recruiting expense", or "customer acquisition cost". If the investor cared to drill down to this level, all they would see is a $75,000 trip to Europe for recruiting. They wouldn't know how many people went, or how successful it was. $75k is nothing next to an engineer's salary, and a recruiter would take a fee on the same order of magnitude, so I doubt they would bat an eye, but a 20-something founder could take a pretty sweet vacay for $75k. Want a new motorcycle? Its for product testing, of course. New $80k Tesla? We're exploring how our tech could be expanded to used in cars, not just with motorcycles. Hookers and blow? Team building.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you're being tongue in cheek, but if not, honest question: aren't those examples of actual fraud rather than "just" frivolous spending?
  - vkou 10y ago
    They are actually fraud, and nobody should do any of them.

Animats 10y ago

Yes, they do: "management is abusing investments on private benefits." "management is throwing away investors' money on hot cars, bikes, parties and travels etc (only for themselves of course)"