Pros
Quirky's growth was occurring rapidly when I was there, and it continues to do so now. They are on the rise, especially now that they're partnering with GE. Ben and the C-level employees are masters of hype, so Quirky has a pretty awesome reputation in NYC. There's a lot of opportunity to do work outside of your daily duties in order to add some extra tidbits to your resume. I started at entry-level and in a short amount of time I was able to add a lot of skills to my repertoire and ultimately become a more well-rounded professional. The office is gorgeous. Beer fridge is always fully stocked.
Cons
Ben Kaufman is not an easy person to work for. When he's not acting like an insolent child and offending anyone in his path, he is extremely demanding—sometimes unrealistically so. He was not open to much logic, criticism, or input regarding the way he ran things. Often he would reject logical ideas without hearing them out. It seemed like he took joy out of firing people. Sometimes he and the other C-levels would publicly make fun of people they've fired and other former employees. It felt like they were a clique of bullies on the playground. Pretty unprofessional. Also, the entire start-up philosophy is taken to the extreme at Quirky. Projects are started on a whim (because Ben has a last minute idea) and then abandoned just as quickly. Everything seems to happen at the last possible minute. Nobody seemed to care about the products we were making—just the hype they produced. And forget about the community. Ben admitted on several occasions that "the community doesn't matter." It was really a bummer that most people consider Ben a boy genius, when in reality you never saw much of that at the office.