Disinterest in building a scalable product company. The founders were solely focused on deals, logos and the allure of investment. Winning the market and being the biggest in the industry always trumped any notion of building a good product (which it is not) or actually solving the customer's problems. The false claims about spending years in contact centers ring true. The fact that no customers could report real, verifiable improvements shows that the product was never built properly and we weren't actually solving an important problem. AI is cool, but it has to do something. Most customers don't renew, or if they did, it was out of desperation in worrying that the first year was a mis-investment.
Arrogance and close-mindedness. Never really focused on understanding what the company wanted. Always prioritizing investor's views over market forces. Never worried or interested in product-market fit. Never able to understand why no one would partner with DG. Blind belief that Salesforce should be worried, and instead of engagements that would lead to growth, lots of investment in needless travel for executives. All of this is reinforced by the fact that the June 6 review was clearly written by them! Very sad that this laughable attempt to deflect clearly negative views was entertaining as a strategy.
Inability to change course. Reality hit the company late in 2018, and despite knowing about rough seas ahead, the management decided to push on and instead, fail to hit their targets and laid off a ton of people. Once this happened, there was no discernable change in behavior, philosophy, or approach. Hard to understand if they don't care or lack the tools to perceive the fundamental issues.
Culture. There never was one. It was a bland, vacant place at the top. The culture amongst colleagues was great, convivial, but no one is there now. The founders are robotic, and such do not understand human beings.
Consistency. There is none. There's lots of blue sky thinking, lots of talk about deep-diving and strategizing, but never any follow up or actions. Hard to understand the values of the founders beyond money and recognition.