Corporate Office HQ

Contently Corporate Office

Contently

Founded in 2010 in New York City , Contently is a technology company that helps brands create content at scale. The company specializes in helping enterprise companies use smart technology, creative talent such as free lance journalists and photographers, as well as content marketing plans.

Contently is listed as #100 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest Growing Companies. The company has a 3 year growth rate of 3,391% , along with annual revenue in 2014 of $7.6 million. Contently has 73 employees, with 68 of these jobs being added in the past 3 years.

Contently is also listed as #15 on the Inc. list of Top Advertising and Marketing Companies, #15 on their list of Top New York City Companies as well as placing #7 on the Inc. list of Top New York Companies.

History

Yahoo’s Employee Rating System Challenged in Court

One of the first policy changes that the current CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, introduced was a quarterly employee review process. Every single employee at the company is rated on a scale of 1 to 5. Since this policy was initiated in 2012, hundreds of employees have been fired for poor performance reviews.

On Monday, February 1st, a former editor who oversaw the Yahoo shopping, autos and homes in Sunnyvale, California, filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in San Jose, California. Gregory Anderson, who was fired in November of 2014, states that managers routinely manipulate the employee review process numbers in order to let go of hundreds of personnel for no other reason than to meet certain financial goals. Anderson states that these cuts amount to nothing more than illegal “layoffs” . Anderson was terminated along with about 600 other low scoring personnel that month.

California law clearly states that when companies layoff more than 50 persons in a 30 day period from a single location, they are required to give employees at least 60 days notice. A federal law requires advance notice if employers lay off more than 500 people from the business in general, not just a single location. Yahoo gave no notice to employees at all, even though they terminated the employment of more than 1,100 persons in late 2014 and early 2015.

History

Violations of either law carry some stiff penalties; back pay for whatever time the company failed to give proper notice for, as well as a possible $500 fine per employee.

The lawsuit claims that many managers are forced to give numerous employees poor scores, regardless of the employees actual job performance. In some cases, ratings given by front-line managers were changed by their superiors who never met the employee they were rating nor any real knowledge of what the employee did or did not do. Employees are not given their actual review, their score, the name of the manager who submitted the final score and there is no appeal process.

Anderson claims that his firing occurred after he took a short leave of absence to attend a Knight-Wallace Fellowship. Although his leave had been approved by two senior executives, his boss’ supervisor, Megan Liberman, called him on November 10th to inform him that he was among the lowest 5 percent in employee performance reviews and that he was being terminated, even though he was on a leave of absence at the time.

Anderson states that he was terminated due to company problems that had nothing to do with his performance. He had received glowing reviews before his leave of absence. He is also claiming gender discrimination, stating that Yahoo routinely favors women in terms of hiring, promotions and layoffs.

Source: New York Times

One of the first policy changes that the current CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, introduced was a quarterly employee review process. Every single employee at the company is rated on a scale of 1 to 5. Since this policy was initiated in 2012, hundreds … [Continue reading] about Yahoo’s Employee Rating System Challenged in Court

Hostwinds Corporate Office

Hostwinds

Hostwinds was founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2010. CEO and founder Peter Holden wanted to make a web hosting company that was different than the others. Hostwinds offers web hosting for a wide variety of clients, large and small. Hostwinds specializes in web hosting for beginning bloggers, personal websites, and small start-up companies. The company also allows clients to sell Hostwind products with their own pricing schedule.

History

Hostwinds is listed as #98 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest-Growing Companies. The company has a 3-year growth rate of 3,416%, as well as annual revenue in 2014 of $3.5 million. Hostwinds has 17 employees currently, with 15 of these jobs being added during the past 3 years.

The company is also listed as #7 on the Inc. list of Top IT Services Companies and #2 on the Inc. list of Top Oklahoma Companies.

Hostwinds also offers VPN service and custom Cloud deployments.

While Hostwinds states that they have the cheapest web hosting service, Forbes found less expensive hosting elsewhere.

Hostwinds maintains a corporate office in Seattle, Washington.

Dogs Bollocks DB5 Corporate Office

Dogs Bollocks DB5

Dogs Bollocks DB5 was founded in 2009 by CEO Chris Hubble. The company offers a complete line of branding, strategy, communications, media and marketing services. The company has grown substantially in the past 7 years and has an impressive array of clients such as Ralph Lauren, Twitter, Audi, TrueCar, Georgia Pacific, AT&T, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Company, Red Bull, Google, Facebook, and McDonald’s.

Dogs Bollocks is listed as #110 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s Fastest Growing Companies. The company had a three year growth rate of 3,105%, as well as annual revenue in 2014 of $10.2 million. Dogs Bollocks has 38 employees with 31 of these jobs being added in the past 3 years.

The company is also listed as #17 on the Inc. list of Top Advertising and Marketing Companies as well as being listed as #17 on the Inc. list of Top Los Angeles Companies.

History

Dogs Bollocks DB5 was founded in 2009 by CEO Chris Hubble. The company offers a complete line of branding, strategy, communications, media and marketing services. The company has grown substantially in the past 7 years and has an impressive array of … [Continue reading] about Dogs Bollocks DB5 Corporate Office

Uber-High Bill? Uber Could be Pricing Itself Out of the Market

Although most people expect to pay a bit more for Uber car service, the sheer convenience, privacy, and perceived sense of safety appears to many to be worth the cost. However, when people don’t double check the price in advance, they could be in for an Uber-high hit on their pocketbook!

Just ask Bonnie Lieb of Virginia. She thought she was agreeing to a $250 dollar ride to the airport from her home. Imagine her shock when she sat down in the lobby after check-in and found a receipt on her cell phone for $640.94! This means that Bonnie’s 30 mile ride cost her a bit more than $21 per mile, a bit steep for most people. After speaking to the corporate office, Bonnie discovered that the $250 she thought she would be paying was for Uber’s cheapest ride, however, Bonnie ordered an SUV, which is Uber’s most expensive option.

Uber uses what they call “surge pricing”, which means that at particular times or events, such as Christmas day or, in Bonnie’s case, immediately after a huge snow storm, prices are increased. Rep’s at Uber say that they urge people to check the fare estimator as well as, if possible, asking to be notified when the surge price drops and returns to normal.

History

Many customers, however, are very unhappy with Uber’s surge pricing policy. Some claim that surge pricing is the same thing as price gouging. It’s as if there were a drought and Uber suddenly changes the price of their water (if they sold water) from $5 a gallon to $25 a gallon until a thunderstorm hits, when water returns to $5. Uber defends their pricing policy saying that they don’t see it as gouging, but a means of attempting to get people to use other means of transportation so that their vehicles can be freed up for clients who have no other options.

Although Bonnie says that she just plain overlooked the base $140 charge for an SUV, she still feels that Uber is price gouging. Uber did give Bonnie a credit of $140 towards her next ride but she has said she isn’t sure if or when she will ever use Uber again.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Although most people expect to pay a bit more for Uber car service, the sheer convenience, privacy, and perceived sense of safety appears to many to be worth the cost. However, when people don't double check the price in advance, they could be in for … [Continue reading] about Uber-High Bill? Uber Could be Pricing Itself Out of the Market