I should have known by the stock price and the previous Glassdoor reviews where this company was heading but I was naive and deliberately overlooked the obvious.
Tripadvisor might have been a good company 10 years ago, now its long-term ongoing financial difficulties dictate the strategy. This company has been in recovery mode for years, rather than invest mode and everything reflects that.
The global strategy is"survive this quarter and hopefully live till the next".
I have been in similar situations before and the warning signs are always the same: increased targets and workloads, micromanagement, lower payouts and desperate revenue generating "ideas".
These ideas consist in re-branding an existing product, trebling the price and the relevant product managers prancing around like they discovered the theory of gravity. Meanwhile the client base is squeezed with unjustified constant price increases, sales reps are blamed for not achieving on their impossible targets and managers praise each others while the stocks sink, employees flee for their lives and and the company's global perception in the travel industry plummets.
Lastly, Kaufer is directly responsible for all of the above. This CEO failed numerous times to innovate when needed, launched the wrong products at the wrong time and most importantly failed to recover form a steady share price drop since 2014. All while holding tight to his chair and inflating revenue by gambling on non financially sustainable revenue models and products.
The lack of medium and long term strategy and self righteous vision makes working for this company a waste of time and energy for anyone who strives to "feel good" about what they do.