More Videos- Michael Jackson: The Music And The Money
- Cuddle Parties Heat Up
- Jackson's 'Wife'? One Woman Claims She's the One
- The Entrepreneurial Spirit Outside Neverland
- Perhaps The Dumbest Idea Ever
- California: Bad For Business, Good For Bonds?
- Megan, Michael, Madoff, And More - Your Emails
- A Different Sort Of Statement To The Madoffs
- Michael Jackson Still Selling Tickets - On eBay
- Hunting Pirates? Maybe Not
- Market 360: The Week's Best & Worst
- Fireworks At Pharma's Market
- Value of Warren Buffett's Annual Gift to Gates Foundation Falls Along With Berkshire's Stock
- Michael Jackson: The Music And The Money
- Five Stock Picks for This Market
- Realities of the New Obama Refis
- Weak Dollar Means Gold at $1,040: Strategist
- Court Ruling Could Mean Trouble for TiVo
- Lance, Please Back Out Of Tour
- BOJ Shirakawa: Japan Corporate Finance Still Tight
- China Reassures on Dollar Debate Before G8
- Alcoa to Post Loss — What Does This Mean?
- A Goldman Trading Scandal?
- Top Videos: From the Black Swan to the Bond King
- Obama Plan Would Trim Back Financial Powerhouses
- Biden: 'We Misread How Bad The Economy Was'
- FedEx Sees Signs of a Turnaround: Report
- Property Tax Appeals Take Toll on Governments
JANE WELLS VIDEO
RSS FEED
Text Size 
What if you could tell the world what you think of your company and your CEO with complete anonymity? What if you could read what others are saying about your company and boss? What if you wanted to apply for a job at, say, ExxonMobil, but wanted to know what the typical salary for your position might be?
There is a web start up called www.Glassdoor.com which attempts to pull back the curtain on all of that. The site was created by Silicon Valley veterans who helped create Expedia and Zillow--sites which also attempt to reveal the truth about pricing in travel and home prices. Glassdoor CEO Robert Hohman says the goal is to make money (somehow) by helping prospective employees make informed decisions. He also says employers are increasingly interested in the website, too. After all, Continental may not know what Southwest is paying its HR people...
Here is Glassdoor's latest survey of the best and worst CEO's. It appears you only need about 25 reviews to be counted in the survey, which seems kind of small. Art Levinson of Genentech [DNA
Loading...
()
] is the "nicest" CEO, and Office Depot's [ODP
Loading...
()
] Steve Odland is the "naughtiest." By the way, GE [GE
Loading...
()
] CEO Jeff Immelt, my boss, doesn't make either list. The company gets an employee grade of 3.6 on a scale of 1 to 5, while Immelt's approval rating is 58 percent.
Glassdoor also slices and dices the data in different ways--like, for example, Accenture's [ACN
Loading...
()
] Bill Green has a higher approval rating among employees inside the firm's NY headquarters than among those outside it. On the other hand, Dell's [DELL
Loading...
()
] Michael Dell is liked better by employees who don't work with him. More on that later today.
For anyone to read reviews and salary information, users first have to post their own--anonymously. By making everyone play along, and by forcing everyone who posts to say something positive and negative, Hohman says it keeps the site from turning into a rant fest ("Bob Nardelli must go") or Adoration Central ("Steve Jobs is the Second Coming").
However, because it's all done anonymously, there's no way to prove people are telling the truth. Glassdoor attempts to weed out ringers, and other users will point out salary discrepancies, but false information may leak through.
The site launched in June with 3,000 reviews of 250 companies. It now has 150,000 reviews of 18,000 companies. The fastest growing segment is finance, and it's also catching on globally, as, for example, a Microsoft sales executive in London wants to see what a peer in Redmond is making.
I am posting several portions of my interview with CEO Robert Hohman on the blog today. Here's the first segment where he explains a bit more about how the company works. In the next post, coming a little later, Hohman explains how the website might actually MAKE MONEY.
Questions? Comments? Funny Stories? Email
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes