- The calibre of employees is very low for an investing vehicle, and fallaciously stated on communications materials (e.g., website, pitchbooks)/over-exaggerated on AZX website/LinkedIn (e.g. the CFO pretends to have worked at investment bank "Robertson Stephens", whereas Google shows the latter as a wealth management firm
- No access to either the Allianz trade union or corporate advantages - the entity is standalone, so outside of the very advantageous Allianz Deutschland framework
- There is a pervasively toxic and conservative culture, whereby strong pressure from the CEO, ongoing fear climate throughout the teams and heavy-lifting to tame people taking initiatives instead of simply executing
- Be careful upon joining: extremely high turnover, with almost half of staff having left during 2020 and probation periods used as a way to whimsically adjust FTE numbers (before financial reporting deadlines or to find cheaper staff on the market)
- Pay not in line with market standards, especially stated bonus potential not materialising year after year
- Very little upward mobility potential, with personnel either quickly moving to another Allianz organisational entity or leaving the AZ group to a real VC fund (e.g. Early Bird)
- Potential investee companies looking for funding are not treated with respect - they would not get a response or mocked when presenting to the AZX (almost all dealflow is inbound from AZ Board of Directors to please the latter)
