A Disaster of Stellar Proportions - Production Stellar Employee Review

Oh, where to begin?!? Let's start with the fact that Stellar claims to be a tech company. Fake News! It's a rag tag maintenance company that uses common off the shelf software to run its business like every other service company in the US. The differentiator for Stellar is the fact that they use smoke and mirror tactics to demo fake functionality to investors to secure funding and maintain a tech façade for valuation purposes. Many of the processes are broken and manual and the pathway to perceived scalability is through exploitation and unrealistic expectations of the frontline employees. Stellar's strategy is literally the definition of insanity by doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I ask myself, “what does Stellar know that Einstein doesn't that would be so groundbreaking to mark them immune from this well-known paradigm?” The only answer I can come up with is they are not immune; they just have a meddling, delusional and incompetent CEO at the helm that refuses to accept the reality of he is in over his head and the company's results consistently support that theory. They operate in, what I like to call, an annual “groundhog day” vortex that constantly recycles the same plan, initiatives and talk track from their 2016 inception. The CEO leads the company through the following predictable and repeatable cycle: funding desperation due to performance and financial mismanagement, receive funding through investor deception, initiation of the same plan and initiatives that led to funding desperation, avoidable mismanagement of funding, employee layoffs, apologies and gaslighting martyrdom to save face, guilt, fear and apathy culture ensues, good employees leave or subsequently get fired for speaking up, new regime of unassuming pawns are hired and the cycle repeats itself like clockwork. There is a laughable attempt, by the CEO, to annually recast the recycled initiatives through the use of cheesy taglines, bizarre hype and overused buzzwords parroted from either the book or podcast of the week, Uber posts on social media or rich advisors milking the payroll to stroke his ego in what turns out to be an unsuccessful attempt to convince the employees that this year will be different. The CEO lacks any and all forms of business acumen and responsible, logical thinking to be leading a company of this size and stage. In the CEO's delusional state of mind, he compares himself to the likes of tech industry thought leaders and founders, like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Brian Chesky believing through divine osmosis he will gain the intelligence, savvy and professionalism needed to lead a company to greatness. Let's be honest, selling knives through a MLM and preying on the naivety of youths and family members does not count as a club qualification. What the CEO does excel at is masterful manipulation, gaslighting, lack of accountability for his decisions and actions, lack of self-awareness, lack of empathy and the ability to connect with humans and ethical and fiduciary responsibility. Oh, let's not forget a total lack of appreciation for his hard-working employees. The dedicated employees of Stellar are a means to an end and nothing more. The CEO will use and abuse anyone until there is no longer a need and then they become a sad statistic…another scapegoat and head on the chopping block. Unfortunately, this dictatorial methodology runs through the entire org where it is not uncommon for frontline employees to get unfairly targeted, labeled and become pariahs for all of his failures as a leader. The CEO and C-Suite’s nepotistic practices have created a culture of classism that make up two distinct groups of employees at Stellar the "haves" and the "have nots." The "Haves" can work remotely with zero accountability and little to no consequences for their actions. This group is made up of friends, relatives, lovers, and pets. Yes, even the CEO’s dog can defecate all over the office and still get promoted to a director position and highlighted on the website. The "have nots" are not trusted, micromanaged, banned from remote work flexibility, and governed by a set of rules lifted from an adult daycare handbook, continuously bearing the brunt of the blame. The culture is apathetic and dead. The water cooler talks of the “have nots” revolve heavily around the incompetence and lunacy of the CEO and leadership team, lack of trust, separate sets of rules, office gossip and employment opportunities at respectable companies. The core values start with negatives like “NO” highlighting what not to do vs. what you should strive for. The core values should define all that’s good and not cast a negative aura on culture from day 1. This is only a fraction of the feedback, so yes, Stellar is quite the disaster as the title suggests.