MicroStrategy Employee Reviews about "senior management"

Pros

Opportunity to work on multiple types of projects given the combination of core BI plus hosted SaaS offerings. I had the chance to start in the field doing BI consulting, then take a leadership role in an incubated business.

Cons

Intense culture is not a fit for everyone given the drive that comes from the senior management and the scrutiny of a public software company.

Pros

Very hard-working colleagues and some great mid-level management. The ability to work remotely is also a huge plus. They are also making investments in the products which have resulted in some very competitive offerings.

Cons

Senior management has eliminated compensation for sales on a large portion of the product portfolio yet still expects to have a motivated and effective sales force. The new senior sales leadership doesn't seem to understand the human aspect of leadership. You can't pull comp and expect that to motivate your sales staff to focus on the one remaining item you comp. Instead, it motivates us to find a new company to work for. Initiatives and comp plans are also completely misaligned. Major pushes for sales this year are getting all customers upgraded to the latest software version and moving the majority to the cloud. Guess what sales doesn't get compensated on? That's right, cloud and upgrades (among many other things). Additionally, sales management is putting a lot of pressure on us to boost our pipeline numbers to unrealistic heights. The reality is, people are artificially boosting numbers in an attempt to make things look good but the real prospects don't look promising.

Pros

Team members, at least on the better teams

Cons

Execs and senior management (of which I'm one, so I am in all "those" meetings) are really negative toward employees, the ones keeping the whole thing going. Attitude is very much one of "you're lucky to work here" instead of "we really appreciate what you do every day". The higher you climb, expect to be increasingly surrounded by empty suits who are a better bully than the guy they got promoted over. And expect CXX meetings where someone didn't like their socks that morning and takes it out on you and everyone around you - literally, an hour of not talking about what you and others worked hard to present, but being an emotional punching bag for "someone's" bad mood that day. You suck. You don't know your job. Everyone sucks. No one does their job. It's really motivating to hear all this after 60 hour weeks working smarter as well as harder and doing a really intelligent job on a project, and doing that every day of your work week. Not. Apparently making a million plus salary/bonus, is a license to beat down on everyone, instead of being a reason to strive to be a human being worth what you get paid. The people who stick around tend to be the "soft" type, those who don't mind being kicked regularly. Expect to see prostitutes in the entrance lobby. This happens regularly. The culture is super-toxic for women, and I've heard a lot of men complain about it too - gross, inappropriate, illegal, abusive, disrespectful. But the bullies always win out here. All companies reflect the attitude at the top; it's true here as well.

Pros

Used to be pretty good. Tech Support department was insulated from the huge layoffs and reorgs in 2014. Nobody gives you crap for leaving on time at the end of the day. Benefits are pretty good.

Cons

New senior management decided to reorg Tech Support for the heck of it, breaking up functional product-oriented teams with good chemistry and reassigning everyone randomly according to regional business units. Completely nonsensical. Non-technical people were put in charge of this process and have no idea what they are doing, so now they are shooting first and asking questions later. To add insult to injury the new management has also decided not to pay out quarterly bonuses as agreed upon previously (and to be completely incommunicado as to why or what's going on). Employees were informed that the changes were due to Michael Saylor's desire to make every department responsible for their own profitability. How does that make any sense for Tech Support?

Pros

- great place to get your career started in BI - great paid vacation days compared to other companies, especially when you're an 8-yrs tenure - opportunities to transfer vertically or offices abroad

Cons

- promotion among departments is inconsistent to say the least. You see people who aren't up to their titles across organization. Promotion isn't based on performance but by quota and tenure, e.g. Even though there're qualified employee s for promotion, if it maxes out the #of promotion Saylor agrees, superstar performers have to wait. - limited upward career opportunities. From senior management to CXO don't care about their subordinates career development. Recently HR developed online manager courses, but senior managers don't take it seriously. - uncompetitive pays and benefit. This is the main reason many talented people left the company as soon as they got Green Card. - Senior management treat non-US employees as slave. They know that non-US employees can't leave without sponsorship, so they take advantage for their pay. They try no efforts to retain talented employees. - The company is run solely by Saylor. When he thinks of a new idea, it WILL be implemented no matter how it makes business sense. We have many non-revenue generating free apps which they spent so much money and which have nothing to do with BI. No direction as a company. - instead of purchasing a private jet or get CXO office suites custom-designed, get a portion back to hard-working employees such as profit share or stock options.

Pros

Nice location, decent technology if a little dated

Cons

Business Development is probably one of the toughest and most important positions in any organisation serious about increasing its revenue. It can be soul destroying getting a constant stream of "no's" day after day as you chase key accounts. But the thing that keeps you coming back for more is the potential to make money when those "no's" become "yes's". Breaking into new accounts can take months / years of research/ preparing the right message/ calling / emailing etc but again it is worth it as you are chasing your comp once the deal lands. The number 1 problem for BDR's at Microstrategy is that you can have no faith in the comp plan. It seems to change on an almost quarterly basis -if I was cycnical, and I am -I would suggest the changes in comp plan directly correlate to how much money MSTR have to pay out in a given quarter based on expected deals closing. It appears that MSTR will do anything to limit the amount of bonus paid to BDR's, as well as treating them with disrespect and with borderline contempt. I won't even bother going into the politics of the place or ever changing senior management with their constantly changing focus as if to justify their positions. My only goal to write a review here is to warn potential BDR's to think twice before taking a role here as you WILL NOT make the expected commission

Pros

During the bubble years, MSTR was great at giving responsibility to young people and supporting them as they figured things out. Education and training were exceptions - a 6 week technical bootcamp - that I was allowed to take as a Marketing Manager! Morale during the bubble was also great.

Cons

After the restatement and the techn bubble crash, senior management hunkered down and forgot to communicate with employees. The mission got muddled and to company lost its way for a while. Luckily, thoughout, there has been an extreme focus on ensuring the quality of the technology.

Pros

The people - MicroStrategy used to have a very rigorous hiring process, but in the last few years they've been struggling to hire and retain the best and the brightest. Some organizations within the company are more open in communication - I've worked in technology, sales and professional services organizations in MicroStrategy and like Professional Services the best.

Cons

Management does not care about employees - the benefits are well below average, no espp, stock options, bad health care plan. Technology organization is the worst managed in the entire company - the senior management thinks of technology as a cost center and fails to reward even the top performers. Moving out of Technology to other divisions within the organization is very tough and can take anywhere between 9 to 15 months after a formal request, by this time either the person who made the request has lost interest in moving and the opening in the other organization is filled.