Medallia

How it happened

Medallia builds customer- and employee-experience software for large enterprises. After a 2019 IPO it was taken private by Thoma Bravo in a $6.4B leveraged buyout in 2021, which loaded it with roughly $2.8B of debt; interest outran earnings once pandemic-era payment-in-kind relief expired, leaving the equity underwater. In 2026 Thoma Bravo wrote its ~$5.1B stake down to virtually zero and ceded control to creditors led by Blackstone, Apollo and KKR. Glassdoor reviews chart the squeeze from inside: repeated layoff rounds, four CEOs in four years, benefits pared back, and laid-off staff describing vested shares bought back for nothing. Reviewers did not miss the irony for a company selling employee-experience software.

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