GreenSky

How it happened

GreenSky operated a point-of-sale lending platform that let merchants — especially home-improvement contractors — offer instant financing to consumers, funded by partner banks. A private unicorn valued around $3.6B, it went public in 2018 at roughly $4.5B before its bank-dependent model and slowing growth weighed on the stock. Goldman Sachs bought it for $2.24B in 2021 (closing nearer $1.7B), then sold it to a Sixth Street-led consortium for about $500M in 2024. Employees charted the decline through each handoff: Glassdoor reviews described benefits and bonuses shrinking after the Goldman buyout, then repeated reorganizations and shifting targets under private-equity ownership — with veterans recalling the company changing owners more than once within a single stint.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.