CEO creates hostile environment in the workplace. - Anonymous employee GrubMarket Employee Review

1.0
17 May 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free food at times, hardworking coworkers who remain positive.

Cons

Grubmarket is an example of the modern day sweat shop. Just one look at the facility in San Francisco, and you can already smell the tears and pain emitting from the building's aura. CEO creates a hostile environment. His approach to handling certain issues is through brute force and yelling. He verbally abuses all his workers in a way that is semi-illegal, by yelling at them at the top of his lungs and treating them as if they were his dogs. With constant threats of losing their job, it is no wonder why there is a high turnover rate in this company. The most painful experience in all this is that he consistently sets his teams up for failure and cracks a whip at them when they run out of resources (workers, inventory, time). The CEO does a poor job at managing his team by over micromanaging each department, to a point where it is impossible for the leads to use their experience to approach each project. CEO does a poor job at utilizing his employees skills by having them spend time working on menial tasks rather than focusing on the bigger picture. You will always find an exec working on packing a customer's order or delivering a package because the CEO finds it more financially feasible to use his current employees to spend their time doing these tasks instead of actually hiring more workers for that respective line of work. His excuse is that it is a startup and everyone should be all hands on in every department, but it's funny considering the company has just closed over 30 million in the last 2 years. Yet, instead of properly allocating that money into scaling his company from within, he uses it for blowout promotions, free delivery, eating the cost of goods (since majority of produce is bought from a single wholesaler) and incredibly expensive marketing campaigns that work in the short term, but don't last at any customer retention because of his failure to invest in growing the actual operations of the company. Rather than focusing on the bigger scale of the company, the CEO likens himself as the main buyer of the company, and would waste time finding one single produce to sell, instead of hiring an experienced food buyer to do it for him. I don't think Mike Xu understands how to run a food company. Very much of the success of this company has been from a perceived image that Mike and his marketing team has been able to manipulate in the public eye. Paying for tech crunch articles and spending wasteful amounts on Facebook campaigns can only do so much for the company if you're bottlenecking other departments of the business

Explore other reviews about GrubMarket

5.0
9 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Grubmarket has a highly skilled team that's deeply engaged in the product and always willing to help each other out. Everyone here is a high performer, which pushes the whole team to do their best work. Management is responsive, supportive, and leads by example. As a SaaS product, we get immediate feedback from customers and work closely with them to build solutions, so you see firsthand the impact of what you ship. The work is challenging in the best way, allowing you to grow quickly and take on new responsibilities fast. I've learned a tremendous amount and developed my skills significantly in my short time here. The team is also great at recognizing each other's contributions and celebrating our successes.

Cons

Fast pace means you need to be comfortable with rapid iteration and handling both positive and negative feedback on releases quickly.

5.0
8 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Excellent learning opportunities — You get exposure to real projects early on, which allows you learn from mentorship from senior team members. Helps a lot with growth and knowledge about the business. Strong work-life balance — managers respect boundaries around time off and after-hours work, so I stay productive during the day without feeling burnt out. Friendly, collaborative environment. There's a real culture of people helping each other rather than competing, and leadership is approachable rather than distant. Supportive culture that challenges you while still making you feel backed up.

Cons

Can be a fast-paced environment, priorities can shift quickly, so staying flexible and adaptable is helpful.

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