Carta Reviews

Pros

Fast growing company Equity growth with frequent liquidity opportunities Daily catered lunch and Friday group restaurant trips Passionate and caring executive team Shiny new office in San Francisco with fantastic city views I love the product I'm working on building. I think it'll be a game changer for private equity liquidity.

Cons

They did away with annual bonuses a couple years ago, which seems odd since we're growing very fast.

Advice to Management

Many silicon valley companies offer annual bonuses. Please bring this back.

Pros

- Benefits -Salary - Leadership -Product

Cons

As any start-up, they are still trying to put parameters on different aspects of the business.

Advice to Management

Keep on Keeping on

Pros

Company culture, health benefits, growth opportunities,lunch.

Cons

Salaries, no more yearly bonus

Advice to Management

So far I’ve been super pleased with the management style in my dept

Pros

If you’re lucky, your core team will make your time here worth it. People are generally helpful (with the exception of certain individuals) and want to give others the benefit of the doubt Depending on your location, the view from the office is great Most office manager staff / receptionists are a godsend

Cons

While Henry (CEO) does not lack for vision, his current staff of executives run the gamut of highly skilled if anti-social / political to having no presence & ability to execute. Teams are often baffled by decisions top-down or completely blindsided by them with little to no communication. It’s unclear what some VPs do or how they create value for their teams, months into their tenure. Useless meetings run amok so... they can seem “busy” but no real decisions are made. Every quarter Carta struggles with OKRs, says it’ll be addressed but lacks follow through. There is no focus on certain teams, resulting in a feature factory with no cohesive strategy. The teams that do well will sometimes have their thunder stolen by executives who want the limelight. Politics is rampant at mid to senior management levels, impacting moral at HQ (SF) and west coast offices. In fact, it’s known that the closer you are to SF, the lower your satisfaction as an employee... because of proximity to executives and their obvious power struggles. Certain populations of Carta employees want to see their team and the overall company do well but the lack of focus and culpability for leadership saps motivation. Even the most driven person burns out within a year. This is not a place for those who have core values and expect decent leadership.

Advice to Management

Given how aggressive Carta’s goals are for 2020, I would expect an equally aggressive plan of attack or tactical roadmap (with rationale and strategy). Then actually do it. Instead, you have executives who dodge valid questions & avoid their jobs by delegating everything to direct reports. Henry, if you’re reading this, please dig into individual teams and speak with employees in the trenches. What you may hear... from your executive team vs real sentiment is drastically different.

Pros

The people I work with are great. We've built an extraordinary sales team filled with hard working people who are always willing to help. The atmosphere around the office is very friendly. We're able to take time throughout the day to go on walks with people throughout different orgs to get to know them

Cons

Because we are growing so quickly, the space available in the office is becoming less and less. We're starting to run out of desk space

Pros

On paper, Carta's the type of company you want to love. * The numbers are great from a SaaS perspective. * The headcount is growing, and the people are intelligent and show every day that they want to be here. * The product looks good, works well (generally), and everyone you know uses it, so you don't have to spend much time at social gatherings describing what your company does. * It's a technical... product with a technical focus - and to be clear, it means that to do this job well you have to REALLY want to learn everything there is about equity. And if that sounds good to you, you're joining a great team. For the CEO: * Absolutely a mad genius, relatively intelligent, and will question you in the way that challenges you as a contributor and moves you forward, and you have to respect him for the community he's built. * I think he might have a good sense of humor but it's questionable, I think it just depends on the day.

Cons

What I have to say for the con's isn't meant to be directed at any of the employees who work endless hours and truly believe in the company's mission. It's just so unfortunate because, again, the people are motivating and inspiring and many of them are scared of questioning the behavior and decisions of others for fear of retaliation. If you're reading this in prep for an interview, I suggest asking to speak to... several mid-level employees from other teams as part of the process on top of whoever they bring in. * It's an equity company that paints a picture of giving respectable amounts of stock options to their employee base. Yes, I've read all the blog posts, including the most recent from Nolan (the head of ppl) and understand option pools (thanks Carta). I'll leave it at that. * The bureaucracy is so thick that I don't think a steak knife could penetrate it. If you wanted to experience a real-life Game of Thrones, be prepared to come with popcorn. On this note, you can't trust anyone at the top, with the exception of a few like the CFO and head of marketing, and that's because they're just trying to claim as much land as possible. The worst comes straight out of the People and Legal teams for the most part, which is baffling and terrifying for a company moving in a regulated direction. * The SEC will come knocking, and it's going to be a day of reckoning for the whole operation when it does. * If you're doing a poor job, you're not actually going to get told that you've done or are doing something wrong. * They change your title, team, and manager so often that it gives you whiplash and doesn't actually support career trajectory once you leave the company. I've heard this from former employees, and it makes sense as to why. Now for the CEO. * On a Monday he says that the company is headed from Europe to America to break new ground, but then by Thursday he feels like taking a shortcut through Africa so you better be prepared to change the direction of the ship without much other than a "feeling" and it'll come with some sharp barking along the way. * He's such a volatile individual that I'm convinced that Silicon Valley has a fetish for sociopaths and the board is keeping him around for amusement and steady, growing numbers while he gets puppeted around by his strategy officer. Speaking of, that guy is a walking conflict of interest in himself and the whole company is skeptical because of it.

Advice to Management

Advice for the board - look under the hood.

Pros

Strong company culture that values transparency, helping others, and hard work. CEO and execs are extremely transparent and we have opportunities to hear from them multiple times a week in show & tell and town hall meetings. They share product vision, roadmap, and high level plans for other strategic initiatives so we always feel well informed and in the loop. There is a general feeling of excitement amongst... employees at Carta for the product we’re building and the trajectory the company is on and we all feel like we’re really building an innovative product that will really change how the capital markets operate. Company isn’t perfect but they are genuinely responsive to feedback. We have a platform for surfacing feedback and concerns anonymously straight to the top of the organization, and execs address these concerns in town hall meetings. Henry (CEO) admits when he makes mistakes and when the company isn’t perfect. Perks are pretty great: free catered lunch, kitchen fully stocked with snacks daily, unlimited sick days, 16 days PTO first year and 19 days second year, phone stipend, 401k with match, etc. Company supports career development and has made an effort to outline across all organizations what it takes to progress in your career and get promoted at Carta.

Cons

Some teams and departments are more dysfunctional than others. Company has struggled a bit with defining the evolving aspects of its culture as the company has scaled. Sometimes the work and expectations can feel a bit demanding and we don’t always feel we have an outlet for relieving stress. All in all, although Carta isn’t a perfect company, it makes a sincere effort to acknowledge and address its flaws and I... have to give credit to that.

Advice to Management

Continue to solicit and respond to feedback from employees (especially as it relates to culture) and promote a culture of radical candor and transparency.

Pros

- a huge opportunity ahead of us. Carta is still in its infancy - great people and a fun environment. The new office is awesome - if you're a builder and like challenges, this is a great company to be at

Cons

- being a hyper-growth company, things move quickly. not for everyone, for people who thrive in that environment, this is a great place - company is still relatively young, so at times processes aren't there that a mature company might have