Doesn't matter anymore, but my time sucked - Anonymous employee Knewton Employee Review

The CEO is an absolute clown. The first time I met him he asked where I went to college. When I told him he responded "not our market!" Really awkward. The only time you see him is when he's giving hokey inspirational speeches complete with made up salesey catch phrases and sending completely irrelevant emails to the company meant to inspire us when they really just made us question his intelligence. Senior leadership is extremely secretive despite the fact that they constantly advertise open communication. It's all lip service and they're all slimy. They're extremely defensive of the bad decisions they've made, especially the horrible office we moved into. Ohhh, the office! Yeah, Knewton used to have a beautiful office with enough desks for each employee (apparently that's a luxury!), a patio, and plenty of nooks to hide in and do great work. The new office was dark, had no new mother's area when employees arrived (even though there was a new mother), was in a subway dead zone, often had one working elevator, disgusting bathrooms, and nowhere to have company-wide meetings. My commute to work usually involved being verbally assaulted by the hoards of homeless people, drug addicts, and construction workers in the area. The worst part, by far, was having to work with the Sales team. They were put on a pedestal after the launch of Knewton's alta and touted as the people driving our company. In reality, they're the most dimwitted, narcissistic, yet demanding people I've ever seen. They treated every suggestion a professor had as something that had to be done by engineers or the product team immediately, since a lost sale could mean the loss of their job. When the layoff happened, we got to watch some of the best employees at Knewton be carted into a room and sent home forever while the sales team all remained. Seriously, don't work here. Actually, you probably can't, because it really looks like they're trying to be bought after we were made to sip the Kool-Aid that Knewton was on a path to success and about to change the future of education. Good riddance.