The CEO has hired an amazing group of people, only to micro-manage them into complete apathy. No one is trusted to execute on their role. His only 'trusted' employee lacks any business experience and bears no consequences for his terrible actions. This is capped off by his complete lack of humility. He describes all wins and successes with "I" or "me." And in turn, all failures are labeled with "you" or "us." This is the baseline issue with how he runs the company. With zero business experience to draw on, he feels that only he knows what works best and that all others should simply off inline and execute. What he really wants, whether or not he is conscientiously aware of it, is an agency that he can dictate orders to and not have them try to improve, innovate, or deviate from those orders.
All but a select few in the leadership team have ever had leadership experience or even training. And unfortunately, this shows in how things are run. Company goals are not aligned or even discussed at large. Teams function independently with little awareness of what is happening in other departments. Training has been put in place but without buy-in from the CEO, little progress has been made.
This is a company with 12+ years of poor practices that have resulted in a product that is held together by hopes and dreams. To this day, there is an apprehension to instilling proper processes because the CEO doesn't find value in them. Projects, initiatives, and marketing campaigns are thrown into the product without planning or understanding of how they will affect other teams or the product as a whole. Short-term business goals are held above everything else. This results in a current process that boils down to pushing the ideas of a select few at the top. And any questioning of this is thought of as 'bad for business.'
The only semi-competitive benefit category is the base-salaries. There is no structured raise, bonus, or promotion process. These simply come down to the CEO's discretion. Additionally, there is no 401k matching program. There is a profit-sharing program instead that offers $3,000/year as a contribution. Alas, this program only starts to vest after 2 years, in which you will have earned merely $600 total. This is a "golden handcuffs" style initiative that the CEO has admitted is aimed to reduce the payout to shorter-term employees.
**Additionally, be wary of the highly positive reviews that where posted on the same days. 3 posted on Apr 25th 2016 and 2 posted on Jun 23rd 2016. And ask yourself: why do all of these have eerily similar statements–"Keep up the great work"