Laika (NY) Reviews

Thanks for leaving a review. I agree that the problem we are trying to solve is interesting and that we have some fairly typical growing pains for a start-up. We are working hard to create a great employee experience for everyone and that's tough when you are moving fast. Thank you, Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Thank you for your review and feedback. I am sorry your experience at Laika wasn’t the positive, engaging experience we all want to create. As with most young organizations, we are a work in progress. Hearing about the situation you described tells me that we still have some work to do to make Laika a better place for everyone. While viewed from the outside, I understand that some of the decisions our leaders make may look dishonest and deceitful to you. However, while I can’t speak for anyone else, I strongly believe that our leaders are trying their best to be authentic and make decisions that are in the best interest of the largest number of people. That said, there are times where we may not have the full picture and there are other times where the choice is between two potential bad outcomes for different parties. The situation you provided about the leader being fired was a very complex team issue within one of our departments. I personally worked very hard to resolve the situation through bringing them together for team building and training around collaboration and giving direct feedback. Later on we worked with the team to try and better define roles and responsibilities within it. We provided individual coaching for team members and did our best to listen to their feedback and requests. In the end, it was clear that the dynamics of the team were getting in the way of it being collaborative and productive and some of the team shared their intention to resign. At that point, decisions were made to change the composition of the team and it resulted in the termination you described. In the end, the decision was between two outcomes and neither were great for everyone on the team. We did our best to fix it and it still resulted in an outcome not everyone on the team was happy about. While I understand your feedback and am sorry your experience was less than what we strive for, I stand behind the fact that we try our best to get it right and create a great place for people to work. For the vast majority of the company, it’s a great employee experience and it shows in the numbers. Each week we hold an All Hand where we hear from the founders and transparently share business updates, team wins and provide public recognition to employees who go the extra mile. Attendance is consistently high with more than 80% of the workforce attending. We have low attrition rates (<10%), not just by startup standards but also when compared to other companies from any industry. I would like to believe it’s the employee experience that most of our people have that leads to that level of engagement and retention. Thank you for your feedback. We will use it together with the other things we hear to try and do better. As is true for all companies, we are all a work in progress and here at Laika our leadership team is truly committed to a work environment where everyone feels safe and employees are heard. We strive to listen to feedback and do our best to learn and grow. Sincerely, Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Thank you for taking the time to leave a detailed review. As a company that regularly solicits and responds to employee feedback, we take such concerns seriously. Like most companies in tech, we had a reduction in force last year due to uncertainty in the macro environment. As a startup in early the early stages, we need to be cautious when the economy is uncertain. Consequently there are times when we need to make tough decisions for the business. Even during those tough times, our leaders strive to listen to our employees and be empathetic. Like any young company, we have our growing pains and how we develop our leaders and curate our culture can be challenging when we are rapidly evolving. But even with all that being said, we think we are doing a few things right. Our attrition rate is less than 10%, which is exceptionally good for the tech industry. We have achieved that by bringing great people together and trying to create a place where they can fully engage and be their best. There are several things we do to try and stay focused on the things that matter most to our employees: we host bi-weekly all-hands meetings with updates from our key leaders and founders, we have an "ask me anything" slack channel with the ability to post anonymous comments or questions, we conduct semi-annual employee engagement surveys and share the results and action plans with employees and our People team has recently completed a "listening tour" where employees from each department and regional were given a completely confidential opportunity to share their concerns with someone at their level without fear of retribution. We plan on sharing the themes that came out of those interviews anonymously with the company along with plans for things we can improve. Regarding the quality of our leaders, we recently hired 3 very senior level executives to support our product, engineering and sales teams. They will be meeting with their teams over the next few weeks which includes 1:1 meetings to listen to any concerns. We also started offering leadership training modules this quarter for new and experienced leaders alike. While we are still a work in progress, we think we are moving in the right direction and hope that by listening to reviews like this and feedback from our employees, we can make Laika a great place to work. Thank you for your review, Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Thanks for leaving a review. Yes, we are working in a very interesting and challenging space and the role you are in is right at the center of it. I am sorry to hear that your experience so far with our leaders has been poor. As you know we have recently introduced a performance management process to collect feedback about employees from a variety of perspectives. Our goal is that with more balanced feedback from a diverse set of people we can make more informed decisions about raises and promotions that are based on merit not relationships. As we grow, our hope is that by putting in more standard processes. we can make Laika a place where people feel the rewards and opportunities are distributed in a fair and deserving way. Again, thank you for your feedback and please feel free to reach out and share any concerns with me directly if you like. Sincerely, Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Thank you for the review. I think your take on what is working and what isn't is spot on! Let's keep working together to improve communication and collaboration. It's always hard to get right at a fast paced startup, but with the right people providing feedback and working to fix the problems we are certain to make it better. Best Regards, Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Hi and thanks for leaving a review. It makes me happy to hear that you are enjoying our benefits as well as the culture. You are correct that it has been hard to level up in Engineering. We recently hired a new VP of Engineering and he has made it his priority to work with the Engineering leaders and me to update the Engineering career ladder to make it more clear and easy to move up your level. You should be hearing more about it in the next couple months. Thank you again for the feedback and review. Sincerely, Joe Bast, VP, People & Operations

Thanks for leaving your review! Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Love the review and thanks for the endorsement!

Thank you for the review and vote of confidence! I agree with your "cons" too. Startups are challenging places to work and the fast pace and need to be agile can sometimes be overwhelming. My hope is that employees like you are up for the challenge and feel like Laika is a place where you can be your best. Sincerely. Joe Bast VP, People & Operations

Thanks for the 5-star review! It has been a crazy ride over the last two years. Indeed we have hired a bunch of new people in that time and keeping that "startup feeling" can be tough when you get bigger and its harder to get to know everyone than it was before. While we know it takes time to build new relationships, we do our best to encourage it. At All Hands every other Friday we introduce new hires to the organization, we also have a slack app that pairs new hires and OG's alike to spend some time meeting each other or catching up. Our onboarding process focuses on helping new employees meet as many people as possible in their first month... but its still hard to get to know everyone. It takes focused effort on everyone's part to welcome the new comers and keep those existing relationships strong. Thanks for all you do to make that happen at Laika. Sincerely, Joe Bast VP, People & Operations