Tech Unicorns That Could Soon IPO: A Culture Snapshot

IPO activity isn’t what it used to be. Though it has been on a slow decline for years, last year was particularly dismal: just 105 companies went public in 2016, down nearly 40% from 2015 and 60% from 2014.

This year’s most-watched IPOs included Snap and Blue Apron, but more are expected. Experts and investors predict several highly valued private companies will go public in the near future – among them, Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, and Uber.

In an effort to shed light on the culture at each of these companies, Comparably sorted through its extensive database of anonymous employee ratings and graded the companies using four key measures.

— Overall Culture Score: Employees ranked the overall culture at each company based on five key benchmarks — compensation, leadership, team, environment, and sentiment.

— CEO Score: A measure of employee sentiment toward the CEO.

— Gender Score: How women rate their experience at each company.

— Diversity Score: How minorities rate their experience at each company.

Each score was out of 100. Check out the results below.

Key takeaways

— Pinterest ranks highest for overall culture and sentiment among employees of color
— Dropbox ranks highest among female employees

Methodology: The data was derived from the online responses of current employees at each company. Respondents answered various questions within five key categories: 1) compensation; 2) leadership; 3) team; 4) work environment; and 5) sentiment rating. Questions were in Yes/No, True/False, 1-10 scale, and multiple choice format. For fairness and accuracy, each question was assigned a point value or averaged. Each company had at least 25 employee respondents. Data was collected between March 2016 and August 2017.

* The score seen here is for CEO Travis Kalanick, who stepped down in July. Uber recently named a permanent CEO.