TiVo – “TiVo's not a bad place to work day-to-day, so long as you don't mind the middle management insanity.”
Nov 3, 2009
2009-11-03 11:47 PST
Details
Pros
The stock is potentially worth a lot due to patent lawsuits. There are a lot of talented, pleasant, and fun individual contributors. TiVo generally has a fairly good life work balance, flexible work hours, and makes an interesting product. The top management is doing well at getting business deals and has some vision.
Cons
The middle management, particularly for engineering, is completely incompetent, terrible at planning (and getting worse), and has no idea what the word efficiency means. For a 400-ish person company the management chain can get to be 7+ people deep, which is insane. A lot of the technology is 10 years behind the times and built in-house (poorly). Off-shore contracting is run with inadequate oversight. Modernization attempts have been particularly poorly planned and run. Morale is low; this is not seen as a concern.
Advice to Senior Management
Personally, I'd bring in a consulting firm with an aim to remove about half to three quarters of the middle management. I'd also change the bonus structure and technical leadership oversight to incentivize medium/longer-term planning and actions.
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