‘Soul crushing’: inside Rocket Lab’s ‘toxic’ workplace culture

Playing favourites? While some of the workers had bad experiences working for the company, others said they had a good time working there but in their view Rocket Lab management clearly favoured certain employees. “It’s only toxic for people they don’t like,” one said, while another claimed the offer of shares in the successful company was “only for the favourites”. “It was a carrot which they would dangle in front of people to get them working … silly hours,” said another of the promise of shares. Rocket Lab said all employees are eligible for shares, which are awarded on merit, skills, performance and “living out company values”. Employees had received about $20m from share sales in 2019. The pressure of the workplace has also resulted in some employees ‘rage quitting’, where workers break down in front of their colleagues and quit on the spot, some former workers said. Many of the former Rocket Lab staff believe the issues stem from the fast-growing company promoting technical staff with little to no management skills, who are unqualified to be effectively managing large teams. That view appears to be supported by Beck’s admitted preference for intelligence and motivation over experience. “Experience is great, but I will take somebody who is incredibly sharp, incredibly motivated, over somebody who has 20 years experience and falls asleep during the lunch hour, any day,” 2016 NZ EY entrepreneur of the year Beck said on the Wild Hearts podcast. The former staff described managers as unable or unwilling to adequately address serious workplace HR issues. Several spoke of one-sided performance reviews that offered insultingly low annual pay rises with no guidance offered on how to improve performance. Rocket Lab’s HR department was described as a “revolving door” of employees. The former employees depicted a work environment where 12-hour days were normal and where overtime was expected, with people sleeping under desks, and working long into the weekend as the pressure to meet deadlines mounts. Untenable “We were told you won't get a pay rise if you don't work overtime,” one worker claimed. “In one all-hands meeting Pete told us that key contributors would be driving Ferraris to work in a year or two. He also told us we were all expected to show up before sunrise and leave after sunset in order to get back on track,” a worker said. “Peter Beck is your classic founder, and he is clearly brilliant … but his leadership ability and his management stopped scaling at about 50 people,” another suggested. Some workers did not have a problem with New Zealander of the year 2020 finalist Beck and said he was friendly and approachable. “They’re just kind of making it up as they go along and there hasn’t really been anyone brought in to professionalise the place,” an ex-worker said of how the fast-growing company is run by Beck and the management staff. “It’s very much like a plucky Kiwi-run company rather than an international aerospace company.” Asked if Rocket Lab thought Peter Beck was the best person to lead the company, the company’s response was: “Yes, absolutely. “Through Peter’s vision and leadership, Rocket Lab has become a globally recognised leader in the space industry ... Under Peter’s leadership, Rocket Lab’s high-performance team has grown to 600 highly skilled people, around 450 of whom are in New Zealand.” Several of the former workers believe Rocket Lab preys on the enthusiasm of recent graduates and young talent, paying them low wages, not always paying them for overtime, and not caring when they burn out. “They count on the young workforce to prove themselves through a cool factor and engaging work,” one said. “It’s really good work, but there’s a high price to pay working there. You get paid as little as possible and [get] extracted as much out of you as possible.” Many of the workers said their decision to leave Rocket Lab was devastating, given the prestige of the company and the careers they had left behind to join it. Several said they felt their positions had become untenable due to their treatment at the company and had felt forced out. “Rockets are cool. I’m glad I worked there because it was an interesting time and I’ve got lots of good stories,” one said. “But I’m also glad that I left.”

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