Pros
Passionate, talented people that have years of new media experience. Amazing network of talent. Silver passes and other random Disney discounts. Opportunity to collaborate with a wide variety of companies and Disney IP's.
Cons
The vast majority of our "C-level" and upper management have little to no experience in the department they are in charge of or even in the industry. Most are people let go or fired from Yahoo (And may I clarify- Yahoo as it is today not when it was pertinent). New direction for the company changes monthly; nothing gets a chance for full effort. Half-baked, unintelligent, or "easy" ideas are the norm from our leaders and when they fail, its blamed on employees. Toxic work environment seems like an understatement, 2-3 people quit weekly- with spikes of 5-7 or entire teams of people- and the work is dumped on others instead of hiring replacements. Upper management openly disparages employees around the office and in All-Hands meetings. If one openly disagrees with a decision, they are targeted with micromanagement, having resources withheld, or generally making their job difficult. Most employees fall into two camps- those who are doing the work of 3-4 people and those who are doing the work of 3-4 people PLUS middle to upper management level responsibilities. Asking to be appropriately compensated for said tasks or even given the correct title is one of the most belittling and frustrating parts of Maker Studios. "Its out of our hands but we are working on it" is the usual response followed with a lecture on how its a privilege and an honor to be able to do the work that you do. One has to threaten to quit and have an offer letter in hand to get any sort of compensation. Suddenly what was "out of their hands" magically comes together within hours. Talent is miserable and not taken care of or valued, many have left or are leaving. Since no one is doing just their own job but has to pick up the slack for others or empty positions, there is no accountability when things do go wrong. Important things fall through the cracks in the scramble to stay afloat over the workload. This creates a culture of finger pointing and playing the blame game. How can you fix or improve something when they is no way to find what is broken or lacking in the first place? Great employees are broken and defeated. Its hard to care about something when you know its going to fail. People stay because they built this company and have a bit of hope but its depressing to watch others destroy it.