I thought I was landing my dream job at the time. Every conversation on tech websites had nothing but praise for the company and everyone applauded me when I got the job. But secretly, it was terrible. Organizational chaos, constant verbal abuse from executives (while they put on a friendly face for public PR), the most exploitative management practices I've ever seen.
The weirdest part was that the company was full of good people. We all joined thinking we were going to do great things, but we all mutually understood that it was a mess and that the management situation was not good at all.
But the catch is that it's really hard to say anything negative about a beloved tech company. The few times I tried, people scoffed at my complaints because they had only heard great things about the company. When everyone is bombarded with positive news and conversation about a company, they assume that anyone diverging from this narrative must be wrong, lying, or deserved whatever treatment they got. It's a bizarre phenomenon.
It gets even worse, though, because I quickly realized that my own resume and professional reputation now depended on the positive reputation of this company. I felt like I also had to say good things about the company in public, or else risk damaging my own professional reputation in the process. Would anyone want to hire me if they knew I was part of such a poorly-run company?
So, most of us quietly put up with the company for long enough to cash out our signing bonuses and vesting schedules (all of which were weighted for retention) and to avoid having too short of a stay listed on our resumes. Then we got out and moved on, relying on the positive reputation of the company to help others assume we were coming from a great company.
Whenever I see universally beloved companies like this with scattered anecdotes of chaotic or terrible behavior behind the scenes, I wonder if it's the same story: Beautiful company on the outside (due to PR) with built-in protection against the negative stories leaking because nobody on the inside wants to ruin the good reputation of the employer that is currently boosting their own personal reputation.
Or maybe Stripe is really a great company inside and these are isolated anecdotes from a few incompetent middle managers. The thing is - It's impossible to know due to all of the mixed incentives shaping the public narrative.