Toxic Culture, Toxic Leader - Anonymous employee CoStar Group Employee Review

1.0
29 Jul 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This is an avenue to get into Commercial Real Estate, albeit a circuitous one Free fruit The benefits are great Many nice, well-meaning people

Cons

The way that people are treated and managed at CoStar is notoriously dehumanizing. My manager once told me: "Make sure you have someone to blame" My team often worked directly with the CEO, Andrew Florence. Andy is an irascible, mercurial, vindictive leader that believes in humiliating, intimidating, and debasing his colleagues in front of others. Despite his stature, Andy terrifies the executive leadership on down. People are even afraid to openly acknowledge Andy's behavior and only reference him to others with cryptic whispers. Andy blames all of the company's shortcomings on the people around him, which is ironic because he doesn't allow virtually any decisions to be made without his approval. Andy is the King Joffrey of CEOs. If you've ever had to use a CoStar product, you know Andy doesn't know how to run a technology company. The technology stack is a massive dinosaur of obsolete bandaids-on-bandaids. I am sure that many of the higher-ups are actually talented but their single most important skill is surviving at CoStar. Almost all of the leadership has worked at CoStar their entire careers so they have never had exposure to real leadership. Andy was worst rated CEO in DC on Glassdoor in 2013 and he had a meltdown. After that came out, you can see that there was some pressure to improve the reviews of CoStar/Andy. This also seems to be the time when they started publicizing the employee health initiative, which rewards people's Fitbit achievements. Keep looking. You're better than this.

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5.0
22 May 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Development, work life balance, competitive environment, career growth opportunities

Cons

A lot of priorities to juggle

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1.0
11 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

401k, medical benefits snacks decent base salary

Cons

Working at CoStar Group was one of the most emotionally exhausting sales environments I’ve experienced. The culture on my team was extremely male-dominated, hyper-competitive, and very much “sink or swim.” Collaboration was talked about constantly by management, but in reality the environment rewarded internal competition, territorial behavior, favoritism, and politics over actual teamwork. As one of the few women on the sales team, I often felt isolated and unsupported. Instead of mentorship or coaching, the expectation was basically: “figure it out yourself.” New hires were thrown into difficult situations with inconsistent training and unrealistic expectations, while certain reps appeared to receive stronger books of business, better territories, or more support than others. It created resentment and a toxic atmosphere where coworkers often felt more like competitors waiting for you to fail than teammates. The turnover was incredibly high, which should have been a red flag. Management pushed aggressive quotas and nonstop pressure while failing to address morale, burnout, or fairness concerns. There was also an unhealthy obsession with leaderboard culture and internal politics that made the workplace feel stressful every single day. What disappointed me most was that I genuinely believed in the product and enjoyed helping clients. Many customers loved working with me, and I built strong relationships. But internally, the environment became mentally draining. The constant competitiveness, lack of support, and toxic culture eventually outweighed the positives of the role.

5
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