A Short Term Company - Analyst Tripadvisor Employee Review

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and observations about what’s working well here, and what we need to improve. I would be happy to chat in person about this as well. Let me try to explain my thinking on several of the points you raise. "Speed Wins": Speed wins is an important cultural aspect to this company. It means that we value going fast, testing and improving, and using data to inform our decision making. Speed wins is an important part of who we are, how we’ve been successful and grown, and how we run the company. We don’t want to slow down decisions or innovation as we grow bigger—a characteristic of many large organizations, and one we work hard to avoid. Speed wins does NOT mean we ignore what users want in the name of 'going fast', or that we ask our people to work unreasonably at breakneck speed, or any of the myriad of ways that phrase can be misused or misunderstood. I subscribe to the 'done is better than perfect' mantra, which means that our managers should not insist on perfection when it’s more important that speed wins. I understand that, and my management team understands that, and speed wins is a topic we discuss often. However, it seems that your experience has shown some of the ways where speed wins can be misinterpreted or misused. Better communication of speed wins is even more important at 3000 people than 30 people. Culture: Culture is important, and this is one of my most important challenges as we grow... how to instill/maintain a sense of 'what does the traveler want', and 'how can we always press ourselves to deliver what they want, faster, more efficiently, with high quality.' We are working every day to develop a common understanding of what this looks like in practice, so we can nurture it at all phases of employment, starting with our hiring process. As you mentioned, we are actively working on the culture question at the organizational level, making sure that we have clear, well-understood values and supporting professional development opportunities. As you also noted, we have a new Chief People Officer on board who is as passionate about these topics as I am, and who is helping me to drive many of these efforts. My style: Well, it always stings to read comments like the ones you posted, and I can assure you it’s not my intent to scare people. I care deeply about the people in the company, and how we run as an organization, and I try to be as approachable as I can be…but I also have strong points of view as to how we should develop product, the user experience, etc. so I may not always agree with the views of the senior staff. I truly believe that open, thoughtful debate and leads us to the best outcomes as an organization. Regardless, if people think I am not approachable, then I need to do better in that area. Finally, I am a believer that the best companies are the ones that move fast and are the quickest to adapt. While our business is very healthy, we continue to 'reinvent ourselves' each year to be better for our travelers, better for our clients, and better for our employees. Steve