7 Mar 2017
Anonymous employee
Thrive Health Response
9yThanks for posting your comments. It was difficult to read, as there are so many things in it that are completely at odds with what we are doing at New Hippo and our philosophy as a company, and you’re clearly very upset. This is also the first time in our careers that we’ve been at the receiving end of such unsubstantiated vitriol, so we’re trying to not take it too personally.
First, and most importantly, this forum is for current and former employees, and you are not a current or former employee of New Hippo, as we are just beginning as a company. As such, this posting is not consistent with Glass Door’s Community Guidelines.
Second, you are challenging some things that are critically important to what we are as a company, and are held dearly by the amazing members of our fast-growing team at New Hippo. We are working hard to build a great company that improves healthcare in Canada, and we have already assembled an incredible group of specialists, healthcare leaders, and technology developers to get us off to a quick start. Frankly, if we were just after the money, there are many other industries (ex: real estate development, finance) where we could make more money with less effort. New Hippo was created to tackle some critically important problems around the efficient delivery of healthcare, and everyone on the team really is motivated by a desire to do something meaningful.
Third, you clearly did not have a positive experience at Pulse Energy, where over half of New Hippo employees and one of the three New Hippo founders spent a number of years. While Pulse Energy did experience layoffs in 2011 when it pivoted to the utility market (presumably this is what you meant by ’nearly went bankrupt twice’), the fact is that it had an amazing team and a product that allowed it to be recognized as one of the top Cleantech companies by Deloitte only one year after the pivot: http://www.newventuresbc.com/2012/11/pulse-energy-wins-deloittes-technology-green-15-award/. Over 8 years it became the #1 company in the world in its market niche by the time it was sold in 2014: http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21635404-demand-response-industry-consolidating-selling-electricity-negawatt. Given all of your comments apply to post-acquisition, you should speak to some pre-acquisition Pulse employees to get their sense of how they were treated by the company and their peers, and how deeply everyone continues to believe in the mission.
All the best,
David Helliwell, Founder & CEO