Episode Summary
– Inside looks from verified employees about compensation, culture
– 5 million plus users on the app
– Documented battles over remote work at Apple, Goldman Sachs and more
– Tesla and Uber ban employees from using the application
– Parent company Teamblind founded in 2013
– $60 million plus in funding
– “The opposite of LinkedIn”
– Questions around misinformation and trolling
Hashtags
#blind #anonymouschat #whatsapp #linkedin #teamblind #apple #google #meta #snap #tesla #goldmansachs #salaries #compensation #workplaceculture #blindapp
Resources
Whats your thoughts on Blind app? : bayarea
Blind: App lets workers talk about their companies anonymously
Messaging app helps take off blinders at top-down South Korean chaebol culture | Reuters
Tesla blocks access to anonymous workplace chat app Blind amid crackdown on employee leaks – Verdict
How Businesses Are Using Anonymous Blind App To Change Work Culture
Blind – Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding
Blind raises $37M to double down on workplace gossip and career advice | TechCrunch
At Blind, a security lapse revealed private complaints from Silicon Valley employees | TechCrunch
Early Magazine | Can You Keep A Secret? Here’s What Goes Down On Blind
What You Need to Know about Blind, the Anonymous Workplace App | APQC
What I Found on Blind, the App Tech Workers Use to Spill the Tea | by Dolores Pan | The Bold Italic
Apple Careers | Interview, Salaries, and More – Blind
blind salaries tech employees tiktok video funny – Google Search
Anonymous Professional Network – Blind
The REAL reason Google is on hiring freeze – Blind
Snap is planning to lay off employees – Blind
What kind of job pays $500k+ TC? – Blind
Is $140k salary + $60k of RSU +$2200/m of other income survivable in Bay Area? – Blind
YouTube Video
Automated Transcription
Hello Hello Tyler Bryden here hope everything’s going well today. Something I found super interesting and hope you do too. Taking a look at this blind app and one of my good friends. That’s all the person that I work with shared this application with me which is sort of builds itself. Anonymous workplace, community anonymous messaging app. I would say the the antithesis. The opposite of LinkedIn. It’s also been branded which is basically there are verified anonymous employees. So then use their e-mail to sign up for this application, and then they’re basically sharing gossip, sharing, compensation, sharing, culture. All these sort of issues that are popping up.
In these you know what we consider these tech companies. These silicon valleys people would look at these people as Silicon Valley elites. Very interesting, very you know, fascinating group of people. For many of us who do not live in this area. So they just barking in the back. There he’s doing something exciting probably, and so we see you know all the popular companies listed along here. And then we’ve got, you know, sort of the central area. This is actually first time I’m viewing it on the desktop so I’ve viewed it on my phone and first of all, some.
Some very interesting conversations that are that are happening here sometimes about, you know salaries. A lot of these questions. You know what a lead level position at Tick Tock would make salary. So some of these are maybe annoying possible questions which is actually may 2020. So I wonder why that surface and then people are, you know talking about different levels, they’re at the compensation what they’re getting as a sign on bonus and you know what’s really, you know, fascinating is.
You know there’s a lot of people talking who are on the inside or reviews and sort of commentary that I’ve read is that while there is some valuable insights in it as it’s gotten more popular and it is growing, it’s over 5,000,000 users on the platform grew 75 to 100% last year in users that there is a lot of misinformation. There’s a lot of trolling on here and I think you know what sparked my interest in creating this video. Today was I was trying to find this video. This video I think most tick tock if Instagram and it was this guy sort of, you know. Basically getting insights on salaries and you know sort of this meme sort of joke video where he’s like, oh, $850,000 a year. Don’t take it kind of basically that kind of thing, because from someone who’s looking in this, someone who’s Canadian and then someone who is maybe not a software engineer, especially not working machine learning data scientists. A lot of people would look at these and say holy crap, these are incredible salaries that these companies are getting and you’ll see something like.
Only $350,000 I that’s that’s a lowball offer. I don’t think you should take it and so sort of a lot of memes and stuff have emerged out of this and and just generally, it’s a pretty wild place. And now I say this with some understanding of it, because you’ve got this person here who’s asking 140K salary, you know, plus some some extra money. And then some. Basically asking like is this enough in the Bay Area?
And when you’re in an area where people are so. Wealthy so affluent, that’s not, you know that’s not going to be an easy living. So while we think that 300K or 200K or whatever it is seems like a lot. You know, maybe from an out perspective view looking in at Silicon Valley and some of these places a lot of times it’s not that much money considering the the price, the cost of living there and that’s why there has been this move towards a remote work. And then people. Companies sort of adjusting pay as they move to this remote work. And so there have been some really interesting.
Sort of battles that have been documented on here, including that battle of remote work, so Apple, Goldman Sachs, etcetera, etcetera. Sort of talking about, you know, if I have to go in more than two days a week or whatever, I’m leaving kind of thing, so lots of sort of you know, I guess resilience there are not even resilience is the right. We’re just like resolved not given to that. And then you know sort of talking and sharing about this in the company. A lot of people then discussing that other companies talking about how they’re dealing with that.
The other thing that I found super interesting was that Tesla blocks access to anonymous workplace chat, chat anonymous works. There’s a lot of things in one term, anonymous workplace chat app line. That’s a lot, but Tesla basically ban that. Apparently Uber had banned that and there had been some leaks at Tesla. People think I’m not sure if it was exactly through blind, but basically they because they were using e-mail verification through blind.
With the test emails it realized that Tesla was not being able to. They had turned off delivery of any emails from blind and so all of a sudden people couldn’t sign up, couldn’t use the application in the same way, and so that they’re blocking this and actually blocking this internationally. And especially people say Tesla sucks at work life balance compensation. All this other stuff, culture, and so they’re you know, silencing voices to to do this and and because blind is such a synonymous place of posting almost in a way a Reddit like form, but with a little bit more. Verification on the back end that’s not revealed to you that can create problems and then Uber had stopped blind from launching on its own company network after Susan Fowler had detailed the sexual misconduct within the company and has obviously created a lot of problems so.
Lot of you know fascinating pieces to this blind app and you know this does not. This is not seeming to go away. It’s getting more popular last year with a last year. Yeah, 37 million USD fundraising round. I’ve got a crunch based profile that shows them at 61 million and you know, from my understanding I’m seeing two things as I just want someone who’s now followed along for maybe six months. As an example I found more.
Content but also getting a little bit less quality from when I first sort of signed up and started checking this out and and that’s been sad. It reminds me it reminisces me of read it as it got more popular and I’ve struggled with that same relationship with Reddit, which at one point it was absolutely obsessed with and then a couple other things that you seen yesterday. Just had 300 people laid off, so what’s also happening is. Trains going by is that you are that they’re breaking stories on layoffs as well too, so obviously this is happening a lot right now. Another piece around SNAP is planning to layoff employees. That was posted yesterday and you know other people who can see or verified who are working at SNAP are then commenting that and saying it’s just a matter of time. So a lot of that has come, you know, through this service, and I think, obviously, that’s a valuable.
Thing stories are being broken on this on this platform and there is possibility if I think. If you’re curating or visiting the right kind of stuff where you’re on your own search and you’re doing it the right way. Then it can be a valuable tool, just like right, just like a lot of things on the Internet. And the other thing that was interesting to me is that team blind. I thought I had a wiki on them. Here is was actually founded in 2013, so this has been around for a long time and when I was.
Looking at some videos of it, you know it had come into my consciousness pretty relatively. You know recently but 2019 there were stories on this, you know, lots that are now emerging in 2021. But here is 2020. Here’s 2018, the story 10s of thousands Amazon, Uber, Apple, Google and other US tech companies. So you know there are.
There are a continued growth of this, even with a lot of time. The platform seems to be relatively well adopted. Again, lots of sort of trolling, lots of sort of misinformation questions, but overall super interesting. A worthwhile thing just to check out if you’re interested and just wanted to highlight this. You know, as someone who has been, you know, fascinated. You know with this you know you can see that you can see different salaries being popped up here, I know.
Someone that I know was trying to figure out a salary peak or a, you know a a top of the what they could reach at top at a different company and they and they sort of thought it was this number and then it was revealed on this app that it’s actually can be much higher than that. Again is that misinformation? Is it not, but it definitely has, you know, there’s enough comments for them to start to think more differently about it and then change the negotiations. And so lots of questions around negotiations here. Lots of referral people looking for referrals and then you can see lots of things about hiring freezes.
Different locations, lots of you know, lots of different things that are super, super interesting. So I thought this was worthwhile highlighting. If you’re online you know, would love to hear what you’re thinking about it. Or you know, I recommend checking it out. Go take some time to to download it and you know maybe if I see more things pop up here then I will you know sort of document them and and and and share any insights along the way because I think it is super interesting. You can see just one last part. There is like the breakdown.
Of, you know, sort of a company that has been, you know, 2000 reviews, 4 star salary X. You know some actual verified remote, so sort of this glass door like piece trending news on it. And then you can compare it to you can see open apple jobs and then compare it to other popular companies you know. For example Amazon much lower rating, Google a little bit higher meta, actually a good rating. Microsoft good rating so you know lots of insights if you’re on this I think from a little bit more if you are in tech or you’re looking at some of these companies. To consider, and hopefully if you hadn’t heard of this, that this is may be interesting to you. Super interesting to me, and as always I will continue creating content. This one just popped out of the consciousness and something has been a lot of fun. If you like this, you know send me message comments, subscribe all the things that help with the algorithm or keep growing this channel. Keep doing interesting stuff. Hopefully I love hearing from you. It means a lot every time I get a comment or a message and super excited to continue grading, you know, content around this and hopefully getting better and better so that you like it more.
Or we can become closer. We can become friends. All that good stuff and I hope that does truly happen. I hope you have a great rest of the day. This has been Tyler Bratton checking out blind anonymous workplace messaging app community had too many words. I have to figure out how to put this into a title, but I hope you enjoy. Have a good rest of your day. Bye bye.