How to Run a Great Company into the Ground: A Case Study
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Talented people. Learning budget. Limitless access to Claude (for now). Salaries are market-average.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
For about a year (ca. 2023), DeepL was genuinely one of the best places I’ve ever worked at. People were smart, kind and talented. Leadership made mostly good decisions. Projects were interesting. I learned a lot. I shipped a lot.
Things were good.
Ever since, it’s been on a frenetic free-falling quest that, through a soft “back to the office” program, a failed AI Agent, several internal restructurings, the internal rise of tech bro culture, and poorly executed layoffs, is driving the company to the ground.
CEO and CPO believe, as “visionaries”, that AI has made the company so productive that we only need half the people to do the same things we’ve always done. In doing that, however, they’re tacitly admitting a lack of imagination, vision, and leadership. Who, in their right minds, wouldn’t just deliver twice the value?
That’s just one example.
For the past year, most decisions come with this “why-are-we doing-this? it-makes-no-sense” after-taste. If you’re okay working at a place like this, you’re good to go.