Pros
Free wine. Dogs. Based in LA.
Cons
This is going to be long, but if you take a look at the other reviews on the company, you'll see that the positive reviews are vague, lack detail, and happen in short bursts over a few weeks (which I find to be pretty suspect.) My experience was very similar to that of many other employees that have since come and gone. Short version is that Winc is a classic pseudo-supportive startup with sloppy, harmful hiring practices, significant turnover/burnout rates, and tone-deaf leadership. My time at Winc was plagued with issues similar to the ones mentioned in the other critical reviews, most of which stemmed from the leadership team and were never really addressed. And from what I hear from people still working there, it doesn’t seem like they ever will. 1. Pseudo-supportive startup culture If you know, you know. This is the sort of company that will tell you they're "like a family," how they value "transparency" and "communication" and they're "always available,” but then they’ll turn around and demand 110% from you, with very little flexibility or compassion. (I think 110% is even mentioned in a few positive Glassdoor reviews, likely from people on the leadership team). In fact, here is an excerpt from an email the CEO sent in mid-March of 2020, after several teams had been requesting permission to work from home due to COVID concerns, and shortly before Winc's membership exploded due to the demand for wine delivery services. The strange and soulless mishandling of the COVID transition is a big reason I left. "Doing our best work and performing at a high level is more important than ever. Whether you choose to work from home or the office, find a place that you are comfortable and then continue to do the work we need to do to hit our goals. We need to be ready to weather the storm whether it intensifies or passes and that means we need everyone performing at 110%." At this point, we were still being told that we were expected to come into the office unless we were too "paranoid" or "uncomfortable." Ultimately, the only reason we all transitioned to working from home is because ONE of the teams collectively insisted THEY would WFH, which created a domino effect among the rest of the teams and forced leadership to "allow" us all to WFH. Shortly afterward, several employees either developed severe mental health issues or were hospitalized due to mental health issues stemming from pandemic-related anxiety, paired with the truly tone-deaf way the department managers repeatedly reminded everyone that peak performance and productivity were critical at this time. I believe at one point we were given a Headspace subscription and a "home office stipend" (which was barely enough to afford an office chair). Other than that, there was very little consideration given to how working from home was affecting employees, much less their ability to "perform at 110%." I heard firsthand from coworkers on other teams that they were told they “couldn't be trusted to be efficient if they were working from home.” When employees raised their concerns, that they were gaslit and mocked for being "paranoid" about the pandemic. There are several other instances of pseudo-supportive behavior at Winc, but the bungled COVID transition stands out to me the most. (Also worth mentioning that all these concerns were raised and discussed with an independent culture consultant that was invited in response to extensive reports of employee dissatisfaction. For whatever reason, those issues were never addressed by leadership, at least not while I was there.) 2. Sloppy, harmful hiring practices Turnover was pretty aggressive and almost always internally controversial or damaging to morale. People often were fired and not mentioned ever again. If they were mentioned, it was done in a very glib manner several weeks later, or we were told that "they were seeking other opportunities," even if they'd been with the company for many years and we'd all seen them get walked to their car by HR. Ask any current Winc employee and they could rattle off several people that either went through borderline-traumatic firing experiences in the last several years or just simply quit with no notice out of frustration (due to bonuses/promotions withheld, unqualified people promoted to management roles, unreasonable pressure and goal expectations, etc). In the last year since I left, I’ve heard from current employees that there have been a concerning number of layoffs/departures — including senior employees, people who I knew to be talented and committed — that indicates a lack of faith in the future of the company as well as the mind-numbing effect of poor leadership, which brings me to my next point — 3. Inefficient, out-of-touch leadership Despite the repeated days-long "leadership offsites," inefficiency and tone-deafness has plagued Winc's exec team for years. It would behoove them to use their offsite budget instead for some basic leadership training. There are several people on the exec/VP team that simply should not be there and have been dragging the company down for years — outdated, incompetent marketing strategies, an "ask forgiveness later" approach that wholly disregards both the hard work of the employees as well as the Winc customer experience, and people that perpetuate strange/petty office politics. I want to say that intentions were good, but if I'm being honest, I got the sense that there wasn't a lot of empathy and kindness to go around on the leadership team, even for each other. That may be because they're either a) too out of touch, b) too overworked, or c) too profit-oriented to care about people. (Also, another one of the other reviews spoke to this, but for people on the leadership team to be going on ski trips, beach trips, calling in from their lakehouses while the rest of us work out of our living rooms at "110% capacity" is simply not a good look.) 4. Performative activism I won’t belabor this point, but a quick perusal of the LinkedIn accounts and founder photos should make it clear that this company isn’t very committed to diverse hiring practices. Apprently they briefly created an internal diversity team (might still be active), but I personally felt like a lot of the company’s “activism” was very consumer-facing and not very concerned with actually supporting their people in actionable ways or opening the door to more diverse employees, or any attempts to do so were spearheaded by a few concerned employees and generally brushed off by upper management as too costly or too much work. In conclusion, if you’re considering working here, you should probably pass. It might be a great opportunity for a free Headspace account and some insight into the wine industry, but you’ll be worked to the bone, fall prey to office politics, and will find that it’s ultimately a revolving door with little room for innovation.
