Good company, atrocious management - Anonymous employee Moz Employee Review

2.0
Aug 21, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pleasant, if incompetent co workers, nice office w/ plentiful snacks and beverages, 4 weeks of vacation, professional coaching benefit, decent health insurance. TAGFEE culture is real. Good work life balance.

Cons

No other way of putting it, Moz is in terminal decline and is circling the drain. The recent mass layoff (28% of the company) while touted as 'focus' is nothing but a desperate attempt to reduce expenses to try and make it at least end of the year. The reasons are pretty simple, Moz is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It's a natural cycle all companies go through, but tech companies simply go through it faster. Moz's core business is shrinking fast and no amount of 'focus', 'reorganization to ensure better alignment' etc is going to help. Of course, it does not help that management has no real clue. While the going was good, atrocious practices like favoring a few for their loyalty rather than competence, demanding extreme accountability from some, but none at all from a favored few, blowing insane amounts of money on pie in the sky projects that 'align with the founder's vision' etc did not sink the company. Now with the core business gone, these things have poured gas on the flames. If you do decide to interview, ask them a few of these questions. 1) How much cash do they have left ? What's the burn rate. 2) How many executives (both technical and non technical) have they lost in the last two years 3) Why was the latest funding round drastically lower than the previous one ? (look up the details on their blog) 4) How many reorgs have they done in the last two years 5) How many of the companies (and products) they acquired are still with the company. 6) Also, do yourself a favor and talk to an ex employee, with the latest round of layoffs, they should be easy to find.

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Moz Response
9y
It is unfortunate, but true, that sometimes companies need to make very difficult decisions to keep the company healthy. Such was our case. We are now stable. We are growing (albeit more slowly than is our preference). And we are now funding operations and making important investments in our products and people without reliance on outside sources of cash. The layoffs in August were traumatic for everyone. We’ve been very open about the situation and worked very hard to support affected Mozzers to land in new opportunities. Through that time and even now we encourage all employees to talk to their managers and express their concerns, anxieties, and feedback, as well as their hopes and suggestions. If you haven't already we hope and encourage you to talk with your manager as well. Those conversations are vital to us all.

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Pros

Strong company culture that values innovation, collaborative teams with smart colleagues, access to cutting-edge SEO tools, supportive leadership that encourages learning, and plenty of opportunities to work on impactful projects.

Cons

Processes can feel slow at times for decision-making, workload spikes during product launches, some departments operate in silos despite efforts at alignment, compensation could be more competitive for the industry, and remote work policies were occasionally inconsistent.

3.0
Jan 28, 2025
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CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Strong autonomy, interesting projects, good relationships with coworkers, plenty of room to grow internally, learning opportunities, remote work friendly, high pay for my field when I worked there.

Cons

Overwork, very low respect from corporate, low transparency from corporate, repeated layoffs damaging morale, hollowing out of unique benefits made overall package less competitive, Ziff Davis slowly killing a once great company.

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