CNET Networks Reviews

Pros

The people drawn to CNET were ambitious, dedicated, competent, interesting and fun. The environment calls for change and allows for the testing of new ideas in a near "anything goes as long as it works and brings people back" manner.

Cons

Management is all over the place. It's difficult to understand what the higher ups are talking about sometimes and they have a tendency to rewrite history.

Advice to Senior Management

Get your story straight. Remember what is was like to tell a story without using made up words like "leverageable" and try to relate to the folks who are really running things for you.

Pros

People are pleasant, fun, and smart. Atmosphere is laid-back.

Cons

Low pay on average, management needs stronger direction, better communication, fresher ideas.

Advice to Senior Management

You need fresh perspective. And you need better/clearer communication from the top ALL the way down.

Pros

Benefits, location, and ability to gain unique professional skills and move around to different departments of the company.

Cons

The company in terms of personnel is fragmented - there are outstanding, talented and friendly people across all levels and people who are absolutely miserable to work with. At the end of the day, CNET tolerates the bullly's on the playground - verbally abusive behavior was witnessed (and tolerated by management/HR) on a number of occasions during my tenure.

Advice to Senior Management

Put into place a "mean people suck" policy and actually enforce it. Communicate with your people about what's going on more frequently as messages from the top (read: Neil Ashe) tend to be incredibly vague and the company has been in a constant state of change for a long time. Weakness at the top gives Sr. Management an opportunity to take a more proactive leadership role.

Pros

Great brand, nice people, and a cool office building.

Cons

Web 1.0, the usual term used to describe CNET by outsiders, is actually generous. This is Web 0.5. Engineering is a disaster, the well-staffed marketing department has no idea what they are trying to accomplish, and senior management falls back on MBA buzzwords rather than coming up with actual ideas that would vault the company ahead of its competition.

Advice to Senior Management

Nice job fooling CBS into paying that ridiculous price. Now, take your money and leave, and let people who have experience building editorial and content businesses on the Internet run the place.

Pros

Great place to work if you want to work 9 to 5 and not have to work too hard. Office environment is nice and modern. Great benefits and perks.

Cons

Lack of experienced managers. Company too fat (ie: they need to do further layoffs). Poor communication within teams, poorly organized.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a hard look at the senior management and just how in touch they are with their employees.

Pros

Great benefits plan. Lots of dedicated, long-term employees. Lots of people who love what they do and want to be there and stay there.

Cons

Lack of advancement. Some departments promote people quickly and without cause--and others follows the rules and it hurts those that work hard.
Unevent support for management best practices.
Senior management inexperienced in making hard--and necessary--calls.
Too many starts and stops with projects.

Advice to Senior Management

Be brave. Wow, yeah, be brave and make hard decisions.
Leave your office on the 4th floor and walk around. Say hello to people.

Pros

Good people, great benefits and location

Cons

Dependence on a few large clients prohibits innovation. Sales heavy organization.

Advice to Senior Management

Move on...

Pros

They're in downtown San Francisco and they're easy to reach by public transit. Also, recently purchased by CBS so hopefully that'll lend to some short-term employment/company stability.

Cons

Senior management is comprised of career bureaucrats and aging visionaries who haven't seen clearly since 1998 -- and they know it. They're terrified of innovation from the lower craft ranks because they haven't had a good idea in ten years. Unless you move within their circles, your chances for advancement or recognition are between slim or none. There's a lot of noise made about fairness and equality in the workplace here, but let's just say that some pigs are more equal than others.

Advice to Senior Management

Leave.

Pros

Nice co-workers, family-friendly, good support staff, clean facilities, work life balance, chill atmosphere

Cons

Bad communication (in the same team, or across teams), old systems, older people/attitudes, not innovative, cronies, penny pinching unless you're in Sales, organizational inconsistencies, lifers

Advice to Senior Management

Do a better job integrating everything (people, systems), don't be notoriously cheap, make senior managers and executives more accountable, have every executive take public speaking classes, give every non-manager a raise, bring in some hired guns (consultants) to help out with technology or any other issues that we can't get a handle on because we're behind the times.

Pros

CNET is laid back, has great benefits, passionate people,great PTO. The SF location is nice and we produce top quality content that speaks to our users.

Cons

It can be hard to advance and politics abound. Secrecy is rampant and many are reluctant to share information. Poor managers are not held accountable and, as a result, turnover is ridiculously high. There constantly seems to be a need to re-organize.

Advice to Senior Management

Value your junior employees and remember that they are the future of the company. Work to provide career paths and opportunities and they will reward you by solving your most difficult problems.