Pros
The employees at Sword are genuinely good people. These are some of the hardest working people I know. They are deeply aligned with the idea of helping people be free from pain, which is truly a noble mission for this company. Like any startup, the technology is not quite there, but it’s promising, and there is massive potential in the right hands. That’s why this review is so heartbreaking. A noble mission with a company of good, hard working people, with a leader that brings out the worst in everyone.
Cons
The CEO of this company, Virgilio Bento, has earned a thorough takedown, since he's put in a lot of work to artificially inflate his Glassdoor score and company status to mask the problematic, toxic culture within this organization. Let's get started: 1. Notice how most of the Glassdoor reviews are written by VP's, sales/commercial employees, and business development. Sword has a massive commercial team, led by an exec who is loyal to Virgilio because Virgilio will spare no expense to push for growth at all costs. These employees get special treatment, like free meals, and are also paid better than others. Many of these employees are granted RVP, SVP, and VP titles for clout, while everyone else is disregarded. In exchange, they write glowing Glassdoor reviews to keep the generosity flowing. Virgilio also employs a team of CEO Associates, called the CEO Team. Each of them has left a glowing review, while intimidating others to leave good reviews to "impress Virgilio." None of these employees are to blame. Everyone is operating in a system created by Virgilio, and they need to look out for themselves. 2. It sounds harsh but it needs to be said: the majority of the team in Portugal are younger, have no previous startup experience, and have few other local startup/tech prospects if Sword doesn't work out. Virgilio knows this and he exploits it at every turn. It's not an exaggeration to say many of these employees exhibit traits of Stockholm Syndrome... always trying to win him over or hoping he’ll treat them differently. Virgilio has made cruel attacks on employees in front of others, and in some cases, in front of the entire company. Employees “thank him for the candid feedback” and fade into the background. To be clear, this is not the employee’s fault. Leadership at Sword means finding cracks in your self esteem and exploiting them. Pretty much all my coworkers have had panic attacks or suffer from anxiety. 3. Leaders at Sword lie and gaslight you. There’s no point in sugar coating it. The CEO himself lies to the people he is hiring, painting a picture that is much rosier than reality. They will make sure you only interview with the people that won’t share the realities of the role. Don’t take this review’s word for it. Seriously! Go find someone who has left the company and they will tell you it’s all a complete disaster directly under the surface. Virgilio makes promises about equity and compensation, then takes them back. Everyone is afraid to speak up and speak out because of fear of being fired. People who have spoken up are gone, from junior to senior employees. 4. Virgilio runs this company like a tyrant. You can write pages on this topic alone, but here are a couple examples: The company just completed a performance review. Virgilio went through the reviews and changed scores to what he believes is correct. Anyone with a low enough score was let go. Keep in mind, these are poorly implemented metrics, which none of the employees were told about! This is terribly unfair to the employees, who are constantly buckling under the stress. Physical therapists received new metrics over the summer, then are being fired for them (this was only written in Sept). Virgilio and his team have also implemented a Draconian “PX” system where he forces the entire company to send every email with the letter P, followed by the number of hours an employee has to complete the action in the email. If the employee does not complete the task on time, the email is escalated directly to Virgilio and his “CEO Team” for disciplinary action. Who does this? 5. Virgilio is fantastic at fundraising, and like most dictators, can be extremely charismatic. The company was able to raise hundreds of millions during a bloated, inflated market. He loves to talk about his “double unicorn” status, and employees who don’t know better are eating it up (again, not their fault!) Virgilio took this company from a Series A to a Series D in under two years, but don’t be fooled, this company is run like a Series A, but with hundreds of employees. Virgilio is in way over his head, and he’s trying to keep it under wraps from both employees and investors for as long as he can. Like other hyper-inflated startups in the past two years, it is only a matter of time before Sword comes crashing down.