Rocket Internet: Waiting for lift-off

I worked at Rocket Internet and the main problem they have is like any big company; a few very good people and a lot of useless people. Any proper startup worth their salt, competing with rocket directly, will absolutely slaughter them.

Re: Rocket Internet: Waiting for lift-off

#8

Post by PythonicAlpha » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 11:56 AM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #7

I worked at Rocket Internet and the main problem they have is like any big company; a few very good people and a lot of useless people. Any proper startup worth their salt, competing with rocket directly, will absolutely slaughter them.

Interesting. I just thought, that Rocket was in a business, that seldom any other startup is ... As much I know, Rocket is about starting new startups. I guess, there are not so many startups working in this particular business ...?

Re: Rocket Internet: Waiting for lift-off

#9

Post by andy_ppp » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 12:18 PM UTC

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #8

andy_ppp wrote: post #7

I worked at Rocket Internet and the main problem they have is like any big company; a few very good people and a lot of useless people. Any proper startup worth their salt, competing with rocket directly, will absolutely slaughter them.

Interesting. I just thought, that Rocket was in a business, that seldom any other startup is ... As much I know, Rocket is about starting new startups. I guess, there are not so many startups working in this particular business ...?

Rocket Internet is renowned for being a Fast follower - they see an idea they like and build a copy of it; for example they started Wimdu which has had moderate success competing with AirBnB in some European countries. Obviously I'd probably bet AirBnB is bigger than Wimdu even in Germany.

I really enjoyed working in Berlin for a few months though, it was excellent fun and I had an enormous apartment all to myself for about a third of the cost for the same thing in London.

Re: Rocket Internet: Waiting for lift-off

#10

Post by sagichmal » Thu, Oct 22, 2015, 12:33 PM UTC

> In Germany, Mr Samwer is a hero and a role model.

Not at all -- entirely the opposite.

Samwer is a high-pressure boss, well known for treating his reports and employees with belligerence and hostility. That attitude trickles down to the leaders he places in his shell companies. Rocket-family companies demand the long hours commensurate with typical SV startups, but pay developers below-market salaries, and provide negligible to no equity. They're notorious for shoveling a lot of core business work onto a huge, rotating cast of systemically-underpaid interns. I won't get started on the state of their (universal, mandatory) tech stack.

It's actually an adage among devs in Berlin: to studiously avoid anything in the Rocket universe.