Pros
+ Lots of interesting personalities. + Very diverse group of employees. + Lots of resources dedicated to cutting edge photo and video content. + Big budgets for campaigns are fun to work with. + Interesting (but still inconsistent) creative vision. + Some cool b-level sports celebrities come to the office every once in a while. + Healthy free snack options in the kitchen. + Free clothes.
Cons
+ No true direction. Trying to do WAY too many things at once while they still haven't come close to perfecting the original subscription business. + Most of the highest level executives who are there now have little or no relevant experience prior to their current roles. + No one really owns their area/department. The C-level execs make all the decisions and drive everything. (all the way down to decisions on what angle a models foot should be at in a completely inconsequential blog image). And this applies to all levels of the business. They're in your stuff all day whether you're a designer or a customer service rep or a VP or the janitor. + As result of the points above. There is almost no room for growth and no one to learn from. + Turnover is really high. + No one who has ever worked at a decent company(s) prior to Five Four has lasted longer than 2 years (this is actually a fact), with many blue chippers leaving in 6 months or less. + People scream at each other all day (often screaming sexist, racist and/or homophobic jokes/comments) - especially among the exec team and other long-tenured employees - definitely a male dominated, locker room vibe. + HR is ineffective (example: complaints about people making comments described above haven't changed anything. It still happens. Daily. And the worst culprits still work there after several "warnings".) + Technology is very poor. No real interest in building a world class engineering team and truly killer website. + Accounting practices are shady, at best. + Communication between departments is nonexistent. + Feedback is rarely excepted and never acted upon. Leadership doesn't like when others give suggestions on how to make the business or product or culture better. + We only heard the founders say "thank you" one time out of the hundreds of times they gave updates in meetings, town halls, email threads, etc.. + The clothes are much lower quality then they'll admit - tissue-thin material, second-rate production, and almost always with fit issues. + Horrible office space (not modern. cramped and kinda gross, zero spaces to hold meetings). + Even worse location (worried about being mugged every time you walk down the street at night to the parking lot).