Alleged bullying and mismanagement within Unity’s adtech arm have led to a toxic atmosphere, unhappy staff and dozens of resignations, we’re told.
A source has also passed on a cache of screengrabs from Blind, an anonymous professional network, which paint a grim picture of morale within Unity Grow. There’s particularly strong criticism of IronSource middle management, who are allegedly bullying ‘legacy’ Unity ad staff out of the company.
The troubles in the division began, we’re told, with the botched integration of IronSource into Unity Ads after 2022’s $4.4bn merger. Although IronSource’s founders have all left Unity – as we revealed back in January – the remaining middle management are allegedly engaged in an effort to push the old guard out.
“There’s no place for legacy Unity ads people,” said our source. “All have been fired, bullied out or have been demoted, with less experienced people in Tel Aviv promoted into managerial roles. If you are not from IronSource, there is no place for you.”
As just one example of what’s happening within Unity Grow, we were told that one leader with a lengthy tenure at Unity was suddenly demoted. An IronSource staffer with under two years’ experience was put in place as their manager.
“The general mood in legacy Unity ads is very poor as the level of bullying and bad treatment from IronSource leadership is a lot,” continues our source. “There is no room for decent [people] – if you disagree you are treated as a problem to be managed out.”
Another source we spoke to who is familiar with the inner workings of Unity Grow said: “Everyone I know there says it’s a shitshow. Nothing’s working and everything’s breaking.”
“IronSource knows how to run their ad tech business really well, but they’re super aggressive sellers – they’ve been going up against AppLovin all this time so they’ve been trained that way. So for those guys to be part of the Unity culture now, there’s just this huge clash.”
The source also said that Unity’s working culture is slower and messier than the fast, aggressive way IronSource staff do business. They added: “Unity is trying to pitch this whole turnaround story, but at some point they’re just going to get found out.”
In posts on the anonymous Blind group used by Unity staff, there’s further damning criticism of the working conditions, with staff noting a “significant exodus” of Grow staff.
“I reached out to one of the people that is leaving the Grow sales org,” says one staff member. “They told me they left due to an awful work environment, bullying, and total mismanagement from the middle leadership.” Referring to the new IronSource management, they add: “How did we sell ourselves to this crowd of incompetent bullies.”
Another simply says: “All of the good people in my organisation have left, only the clowns remain.”
Unity’s ad business is “losing on all fronts” to rival AppLovin according to one person, and another suggests Unity’s ads business “will entirely fail” unless IronSource management hands control back to Unity. “There is no reality where the iS team brings a competitive product to market,” they add.
Another staffer speculates that there’s another major restructure coming that “either will destroy the company or save it”. “Either way, I’m leaving soon,” they continue.
Responding to a poll about Unity Grow leadership, another poster says: “[Unity Ads] leaders were not all good, however, some were and they fired/removed/pushed out any UAds leader with an opinion.”
“IronSource was failing, they just managed to lie their way into a merger and bully their way to control what was left.”
Elsewhere, Unity Grow’s working culture is strongly criticised. “Endless crunch culture, no product or engineering vision but buzzwords like ML or Data, shameless promotions culture, backstabbing, politics every day on all levels,” says one poster.
A poll of 76 Unity staff on Blind asked the question: ‘What do you think about Grow (Ads) leadership?’. The overwhelming majority agreed that all leadership was incompetent, with the majority – 55% –saying both product/tech and sales were to blame. 22% said only sales leadership was incompetent, and 16% said that just the product/tech leadership is at fault. 7% voted ‘Other’.
We’ve asked Unity for comment on this story and will update this article if we receive any response.
