Disrupt or be disrupted – that’s what it means to be in business today. From transportation to ecommerce, real estate to finance, startups are showing that the way forward means shaking up the status quo. For a handful of those startups, the path has been especially impressive. As of January 2019, there are more than 300 unicorns – or private companies that have a valuation of at least $1 billion – around the world, according to research firm CB Insights. Some of the biggest unicorns are valued at far more than that: Uber, for one, is valued at $72 billion.
But dollars and cents don’t tell the whole story. In fact, culture may be an even more important indicator as these companies continue to expand and grow. To get a closer look, Comparably compiled a culture scorecard based on employee ratings and reviews for 20 of the most buzzed about U.S.-based unicorn startups by valuation.
HOW WE MEASURED CULTURE
Using the ratings of more than 1,000 anonymous employees, Comparably graded each company on nine key measures, described below. Each score is on a 100-point scale, except for eNPS. Full methodology at end of report.
- Overall Culture: Employees ranked the overall culture at each company based on five key benchmarks: compensation, leadership, team, environment, and sentiment.
- CEO: A measure of employee sentiment toward the CEO.
- Gender: How women rate their experience at each company.
- Diversity: How minorities rate their experience at each company.
- eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score): How employees answer this question: On a scale from 1-10, how likely are you to recommend working at your company to a friend?(Scale is -100 to 100, where -100 to -10 is a poor score, -10 to 20 is good/average, and anything above 20 is excellent.)
- Compensation:How employees feel about their pay, stock and equity and benefits.
- Happiness: A measure of how satisfied employees are with their work environment, opportunities for professional growth, and compensation and benefits.
- Perks & Benefits: How employees rate the perks and benefits their employer offers.
- Professional Development: How employees rate their workplace in terms of feeling challenged at work, opportunities for career advancement, and mentorship.
THE SCORECARD
Highest scores are outlined in green; lowest scores are outlined in red. Overall takeaways to follow.
WHAT EMPLOYEES SAY ABOUT EACH COMPANY
A sampling of quotes from employees at each company as anonymously submitted to Comparably within the last year. Edited for clarity.
MORE DETAIL ON EACH COMPANY
Methodology
Ratings are derived from the anonymous responses of 1,018 employees across all 20 companies to a series of questions on Comparably.com about their employer’s culture and leadership. Questions were in Yes/No, True/False, 1-10 scale, and multiple-choice format. People of all ages, educational backgrounds, ethnicities and experience levels were included. To be included in the ranking, a company had to have a valuation of $1 billion or more, be based in the U.S., and have hundreds of ratings on Comparably.com from at least 40 employees. Companies are ranked from highest valuation to lowest. Valuation data (i.e. – valuation, date)is from research firm CB Insights’ Global Unicorn Club database as of Jan. 17, 2019 (https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies)
About Comparably
Comparably is a workplace culture and compensation monitoring site where employees can anonymously and publicly rate their companies and CEOs, access salary data, and find their dream jobs. The comprehensive platform gives job seekers a more accurate picture of what it’s like to work inside an organization from the lens of gender, ethnicity, age, location, tenure, company size, title/department, and education. Since its 2016 launch, Comparably has accumulated millions of ratings from employees across 50,000 U.S. businesses, and has become one of the most used SaaS solutions for employer branding. For more information, go to Comparably.com. For workplace culture and salary studies, including Comparably’s annual Best Places to Work and Best CEOs awards, go to Comparably.com/blog.
