Passionate company with cofoundres that genuinely believe in the mission but ineptly failing to scale and grow up - Anonymous employee Refinery29 Employee Review

2.0
Sep 15, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Many people in the company are passionate for what the company does and stand for. Even more so when it comes to the cofounders. They are all deeply caring the mission for women. Not some false pretense under guise to draw people. Company has incredibly strong brand that resonate with certain demographics and it is one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing to achieve in media industry.

Cons

Company is failing to scale and grow up healthily. In fact, its stagnant and hurting tremendously. This is leading to talent drain of capable people on middle management level. Which leaves less capable managers in the middle level therefore further negatively affecting non-managers. Its a vicious cycle. Majority of this stems from poor upper management on executive level. There have been a number of executive changes but more changes are needed. Especially true for cofounders. That said, its hard to hold anything against them because these are caring folks who spent almost of all career as entrepreneur and building a 100 million dollar business. They didn't spend decade jumping through corporate world going from company to company learning how things work at scale and what's effective or not for certain situations. Cofounders are doing what they believe is the best. But their best unfortunately is not good enough because they aren't growing fast enough to keep up with growth of the company and what it is demanded of executive level at 100 million dollar companies. Cofounders need to consider what Google did at certain stage with Eric Schmidt. Hiring an experienced CEO to run the business while cofounders release operational duties to focus more on what they are exceptionally good at. Being brand visionary, champion of women's causes, coming up with creative experiments. After certain time when cofounders have matured further with executive skills and experience, return to take the helm. Just like Google.

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5.0
May 27, 2026
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Pros

Great culture, extremely nice employees, diverse workplace

Cons

Not very cutting edge with their approach to tech

4.0
Mar 23, 2026
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Pros

Refinery29 was training day, every day. The pace and creative expectations forced you to sharpen fast. I cut my teeth here over four years and came out a fundamentally better strategist. The work was culturally plugged in, the people were sharp, and you were trusted with real responsibility early. If you wanted to learn how brand, content, and audience intersect at speed, there was no better place.

Cons

The intensity that makes it a great training ground also means the environment runs hot. Not everyone thrives in that — and depending on your team, support structures varied. The company went through a lot of change during my time, which created some instability.

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