Vulcan Reviews

Cons

Rotation of the snacks is infrequent with a heavy concentration of healthy dehydrated fruit/vegetables/mixes. Needs to catch up on childcare benefits in comparison to other tech companies. FSA is not enough.

Cons

I’m also very happy to have left. Vulcan lacks paying customers. Without that simple but powerful force, it is hard to keep a company pointed toward true north.

In my five years in the tech department, it had about three name changes and 4-6 leadership changes. With each regime change I would feel a new sense of hope. “This guy (note: always a guy) seems like he understands business. He’s not just interested in creating a wacky invention, but he wants to make products for actual human beings.” Inevitably, users would fall to the wayside and we would ultimately build something for a white guy sitting in an ivory tower. While Mr. Allen had good intentions and creative ideas, he often wanted a cutting edge engineering solution to a big humanitarian problem. The non-engineering solutions were too dull. But the engineering solutions were often out of touch.

One thing was consistent: the worker bees were passionate about making something amazing and functional. Similar to Mr. Allen, they wanted to make a big impact in people’s’ lives. They researched ways to make science fiction come to life. They are smart, kind, creative, sharing people. However, the people who get promoted spout empty promises. They strut in like Donald Trump, fabricating business models and customer needs.

In some ways, it's hard to fault these leaders. When there is no business, then lying with flourish is the best way to personally survive. If they can’t be successful by making a sale, then success has to come from a bloated sense of self worth.

In the last regime change, things have gone slightly differently. The customer we designed for was no longer Paul Allen but instead a nonexistent customer who wants futuristic products at a reasonable price. In trying to productize Paul’s ideas, they are taking something developed in a lab and trying to make it a commodity, underfunding any R&D that would maintain differentiation.

Leadership isn’t taking a strong stance in any direction:
- If it truly wanted to build products, it would expand the team size to function comparably to a competitor. Right now, teams of 2-10 people are trying to create a full scale business.
- If it wanted to operate as a tech transfer office, it would partner with major companies. Instead, it keeps its tech development under wraps.
- If it wanted to be a Google X, it would focus on R&D and build truly futuristic product prototypes and not worry about making a sale.

Vulcan doesn’t know what it is. It never has. It always sat in a technological purgatory, partially because I don’t think Mr. Allen cared enough to commercialize. Without Paul Allen, it loses a leader that had a sci-fi imagination. That might be a good thing since his ideas never touched the ground. It might be a bad thing because there are no longer any ideas.

Right now, it is trying to commoditize futuristic ideas for an imaginary customer. Best of luck.

Cons

Some disrespectful people in key leadership positions are contributing to employee disengagement
Lack of transparency
Poor communication

Cons

We lost another great one. I’m not sure how many more people of color and women we can lose before HR wakes up. There was a recent training that talked about unconscious bias, what about the bigger issue, the company doesn’t support diversity. Several have spoken with HR for support or help to no avail and in some cases ended up being forced out. They are going to continue to leave or be forced out until someone admits there is an issue. Unless you fit the mold from 10 years ago your ideas and opinions are not valued.

Cons

Change is constant so if you struggle with change it can be frustrating.

Cons

Senior leadership is absent. We don't hear about successes probably because they are not making much progress on the company goals. Just a lot of reorging and cost controls. There are few stellar executives (most have been here for years) but virtually all of the recent hires in the last two years are mediocre at best.

Cons

Don't expect to have a personal life, nor employment security. You'll be subject to the whims of the Owner and management. Upper level management talks a good game about the value of employees and employee empowerment. Talk is apparently cheap. In actual practice a culture of intimidation and quick termination exists within mid-level management, and HR backs them up.

Cons

- from the top, priorities are consistently shifting
- shadowy and thick level of management, causes a lack of trust
- re-orgs on a quarterly basis, causing turmoil and uncertainty
- keep bringing in fast-talking tech folks to "lead" philanthropic initiatives that they know little about. They are typically just "trying it out, and if it doesn't work, they can just go back to tech". But they change systems, create upheaval, lose trust, and then leave on very short time-cycle.

Cons

The culture at Vulcan is its chief con. The general culture is elitist and authoritarian, which is sadly ironic because Vulcan is desperately trying to brand itself as free-thinking, egalitarian, and collaborative. Unfortunately, it is largely the opposite. There is a very deep and rigid hierarchy at Vulcan. Executive management lives in fear of getting berated by the owner. That fear then gets passed down through all levels of management and then saturates the rank and file. Consequently, much of what the workers do is support their direct manager in preparing them to have a good story to tell when they get called out publicly by their own manager. So instead of doing what is best for Vulcan, employees often do what is best for their manager’s survival or career aspirations.

Communication at Vulcan is very unidirectional; namely top-down. Do not expect to have healthy debate with your manager and see your feedback make its way up the reporting chain. You are essentially told what you need to deliver, when to deliver it, and to refrain from asking challenging questions. So essentially, creative thinking, reasonable discussion, and intelligent debate are informally suppressed in this culture. Vulcan tries hard to market itself as a flat, collaborative, startup-like environment, but it tries to achieve that aim through superficial means, such as redesigning the technology department's workspace by eliminating all offices. So if you work in technology, you work in a big room with small cubes, no privacy, lots of noise, and no place to store work related items. In other words, Vulcan has recently jumped onto the “open office” bandwagon.

Much of what I say here is based on my perspective of having worked in technology for many years. There are some departments that are quite different. Some departments wield a lot of influence, and consequently, enjoy privileges not available to other departments. If you hire on to one of these departments, your experience may be a positive one. But it is this disparity among departments that is one of the greatest weaknesses about Vulcan culture. It is highly political, and who you know, or who you are, rather than what you do, that largely determines your experience at Vulcan. Cronyism, unfortunately, is a big part of work life there. Many employees in key positions are not reluctant to dole out special favors for their friends or their subordinates. This, I feel, damages the integrity of the organization.

As I mentioned, Vulcan desperately wants to be like a startup. I have worked in Silicon Valley at a startup, and Vulcan is the antithesis of the startup culture. A startup company has a flat managerial hierarchy where there is a strong sense of shared purpose (and sacrifice). In contrast, Vulcan has an extremely high manager to employee ratio. That in itself is not necessarily a problem, but there are so many managers who are unwilling to perform work that they feel is beneath them. Many managers will not even schedule their own meetings or perform their administrative, and even managerial tasks. They have their administrative assistants do that work. This is why the low-rung workers are consistently overworked. There are lots of people with ideas, some of which are good, though mostly absurd, and not enough people to actually execute the work.

Also different from the typical startup is the way that they treat I.T. employees. In a typical small technology company, the technologists are highly valued and their treatment reflects that attitude. At Vulcan, you are treated as a drain on cash. And because Vulcan does not generate much, if any revenues from technology, the tech workers essentially ARE a drain on cash. I.T. is treated as a necessary evil, so to speak. If you are looking for a technical position, just keep that in mind. You will likely be paid competitively, but do not expect a lot of respect from Vulcan management. Because of this general attitude by management, you can sometimes expect similar treatment from your internal customers. And do not expect your managers to back you when you need their support.

As some other reviewers have mentioned, HR is not your advocate. Their primary objective is to keep the owner from getting angry. Secondarily, they strive to keep the C-level managers happy. At least this is the feeling that many people have. If you consult HR with a problem, their first thought is to protect the owner and the company, not the employee. Another reviewer recommended that you should hire a labor attorney if you accept a job offer. Unfortunately, I fully agree. That is all I can legally say on that topic.

My advice to people contemplating employment at Vulcan. If you work in technology and you are sufficiently marketable, don’t waste a year or two testing the waters at Vulcan. You will likely be disappointed with the way you will be treated, relative to the other departments and companies. If you are desperate for employment, then take the job offer and “suck it up” like many of us here are asked to do. If you are not in technology, give Vulcan a try. You may end up in one of the premier departments and have a good experience.

And one last “con”, in addition to the political culture. Telecommuting is not allowed, unfortunately.

Cons

Change - so many changes that can be disruptive to the organization. Let's stick to a few good ideas and see them through before jumping to the next.
We could benefit from more top down communication - tell us what's going on, be more open about the changes and don't assume the messages are getting to the masses.