GoPro Employee Reviews about "upper management"

Pros

perks/meals, freedom at work, DTO

Cons

lack of direction/vision form upper management

Pros

Amazing Co-workers, yummy snacks, Live.It Thursday's, onsite Parking garage and Commuter Shuttles!!!

Cons

Messy Upper Management. Work ethics dropped and unrealistic goals set post IPO

Pros

Fantastic work life balance, fun group events, great team members. Going to work does not have to be boring. HQ is a great complex.

Cons

Upper management has issues as seen in press. Older office in SF was not in a great area, however new office is great.

Pros

weekly 2 hour live it love it "adult recess" and free products

Cons

Upper management has made many terrible decisions over the years. Engineering probably sees more turnover than any other department and is constantly releasing unfinished products that usually requires either a recall or a last minute launch update. We constantly make the same mistakes each launch and are hardly held accountable. We've lost all of the top level leaders and most talented program managers in Engineering. Sales team is largely unorganized and has seen and is still seeing massive turnover, including at the highest levels. The people left in sales are largely unknowledgeable, poorly qualified and make terrible decisions. They in many cases make decisions that put the customer's needs and wants over what's best for GoPro. They can't balance making the customer happy and GoPro's interests and get controlled and give in to customer's outrageous and unreasonable demands. Sales forecasts change constantly and are unreliable. Operations team has also seen massive turnover and also at the highest levels. They are understaffed and lack local resources/talent and as a result just fly around constantly. When they travel, please believe me, they travel in a pack. They have multiple systems of record for the same things because each subgroup in sales just does their own thing. The finance team can't seem to see anything without their finance blinders. They make decisions and see things from the finance perspective and only the finance perspective and make decisions that don't necessarily translate well in the real world. IT has probably seen more high level turnover than any other department. Each new leader brings in a new tool or system and now we've got way, way too many. Many of which can work for the entire company.

Pros

Work environment and people are great (most of them). Going to work isn't just a job but a lifestyle- I look forward to going to work (first time ever). Benefits are paid by employer for employee - no out of pocket expenses other than co-pays, amts towards deductible, etc. good benefits for family. Culture supports family and relationship/friendship building. Two hours each week to "live it, love it, eat it" - meaning pursue your passion (whatever it may be) or use as a break from long days to get appointments in when you couldn't otherwise (dr., bank, businesses that are open during working hours). Good location, convenient to 101 and 280 between SF and SJ. CEO is a rad person who cares about people and charismatic.

Cons

Two words. Human resources. I know most companies have issues with HR but this is beyond words. Lack of growth, training, on boarding, recruiters are lazy and rude- a poor representation of GoPro to employees and future candidates. There is zero trust in HR pretty much across the board. Too bad upper management and executives don see it- likely because they don't expereince it. Human resources and recruiting team (which they don't necessarily group together all the time- only when convenient) again are the worst ever. This alone would deter me to recommend this as a place of employment. Lack of communication across departments (efforts to get better are being made and can be seen a little). Too much reliance on CEO as head of marketing, product development- decisions are seldom made efficiently. Too many meetings. We all spend 90% of our days in meetings leaving little to no time to actually get work done- thus leading to long days. These meetings also are not an effective use of time as they are often taken off topic. Chronic tardiness for top down.

Pros

Cool product image has attracted some great people to work at GoPro. Plenty of fun and talented co-workers.

Cons

A bit unstable as company works out its future direction. Fast pace and learn-as-they-go upper management means not a lot of room for some senior execs to pay attention to supporting employees. Mostly, you're on your own a lot--but that can be good if you already know what you're doing.

Pros

Really great and extremely smart people to work with, decent perks, and a really chill environment. You get lots of toys and the company has a built-in recess every Thursday to encourage work-life balance. The San Mateo HQ office has a pretty neat setup with a great view and cafeteria. The San Diego office is amazing and probably the nicest office in the area; they even have a free shuttle if you live within 5 miles (which isn't talked about enough)! The SF office, while the smallest of the three, is in the Westfield mall which is very convenient because it's attached to the Powell BART stop and you can do all your shopping in one place. Each office has it's own characteristics and culture. However, I think it's almost impossible not to get along with everyone. While separated from the majority of our team, the SF crew made it a point to occasionally go to San Mateo HQ for major meetings or especially on Thursdays to join everyone for "Live-it, Love-it, Eat-it" - the aforementioned recess.

Cons

The company is in a rough spot, which is pretty obvious to the world now. During my short time, they went through a few rounds of layoffs, starting with contractors and then to FTE folks, which is never a fun experience. Something I think that GoPro (and every public tech company) will struggle with is meeting and managing Wallstreet's expectations - which is always a challenge since a bunch of banker's interpretation of a company's performance versus how the company is ACTUALLY performing (being profitable) mean two different things. The stock price does however directly impact the employees though, considering part of your total compensation hinges on the stock performance. I looked at this more as gravy rather than essential. I think the struggle comes with the territory. When you're a company known for your hardware, going up against all the big Software players, it's not going to be a walk in the park. While GoPro does make an exceptional hardware product, it'll require a SIGNIFICANT shift in attention to the area that will save them - Software - which I'm not convinced their upper management is fully accepting.

Pros

free various snacks, unlimited time off, Thursday live-it, nice office. Nick is nice and honest CEO. (but that can not lead the company to success)

Cons

Upper management is so non-experienced that they resolve problems by simply laying off people. One third of their employees have been laid off in the past 5 months. A lot of talented people who did a lot of great work are gone. They still did not realize the problem is due to the upper management. If GoPro got the right leadership, those same employees would definitely make GoPro at a much better situation now.

Pros

Hours are reasonable and free snacks. That's it.

Cons

Upper management was the worst! CEO Nick Woodman is incredibly gifted and creative but his choice of executives are horrendous. He hires his top executives based on if they are his 'bros'. Experience, psh.. if you can surf brah, you in. Real accomplishments are overlooked but if you catch that wave, PROMOTION. If you are a woman....RUN!!!!! DONT WORK HERE!!!!!! I'm serious. You will not be taken seriously.

Pros

Many employees from the top down, have a genuine and heartfelt passion for the company and the brand. People create and share some truly amazing sights, thrilling experiences, and beautiful moments with their GoPro cameras. Lots of folks at GoPro feel great about being a part of that. The CEO is the real deal: a friendly, charismatic, funny, bright guy with a glint in his eye a deep, deep passion for what he has built.

Cons

GoPro has stumbled as it has grown and has fundamental problems that it may never overcome. GoPro has failed to establish itself as a 'media company', failed to reach out to consumers, failed to launch new products when promised, and failed to develop a sustainable or healthy internal culture. As these failures pile up left and right astonishingly poor management goes from bad to worse. At it's core GoPro has a 'top down' culture. The best ideas only come from the CEO. The best plans only come from top management. Praise is for managers or directors or VP's The rest of you should be quiet, do as you are told, keep your manager happy, enjoy your drawer of Costco snacks, and get back to work. The company invests considerable time and money adding new layers of well compensated upper management. This is the right place to be if you want to be a director or VP and want to spend all your time in meetings. There is no internal culture of promotion or upward mobility, your next boss will likely be a hire from outside. If you are a ruthless political animal, an incessant self promoter, a determined empire builder, and you consistently suck up to upper management, you might find fertile ground in this company's culture. You don’t need to be the best or the brightest, just the most aggressive. Be sure to watch out for HR. They do the bidding of management only. They are not a resource for employees to thrive and grow, they function as a tool to enable management to execute their personal agendas. The message is never 'How can we help?' it's 'If you don't like it, leave'. For the rank and file things only go from bad to worse. GoPro pays poorly, usually below market rate, and expects you to get by on the excitement of being part of an awesome brand. Any chance to benefit from the company’s transition from private to public has come and gone. In general read and understand what the press says: GoPro’s future outlook has gone from bright to deeply uncertain.