Anyway, I also worked at Wellsphere back when it was called Wellnet. They kept me on-board without paying me! They enticed me with stock options of ridiculous amounts and tried to get me to work for free for a year. They promised I would be able to cash out the equity in a year. Thank God I got out of there in time…

Yes, the things that have gone on here are extremely catty, but keep in mind that there are reasons people are bitter. It’s entirely unfortunate, but the experiences with Wellsphere and praticularly Ron have left people this way. In fact, those who have experience with Ron are incredibly skeptical of those who were willing to work for him. I’m mad at myself for not leaving earlier, but I won’t make a mistake like that ever again. I just hope Ron and Dave learn from these experiences and attempt to become better employers. People keep leaving for a reason guys, and I just feel sorry for you.

Our CEO, Ron Gutman, expects a lot from all of us, and he delivers a lot in return. In fact, it was my realization that he is profoundly committed to the mission of helping people that made me want to join Wellsphere. Mostly, he challenges us to achieve great things. This is good, and helps establish a culture here that sets us up for success. Our main challenge is to grow the team with other smart, motivated people who have a similarly positive view on life, and who want to participate in what we are trying to accomplish.

We have developed a delightful culture at the company — we are now in a new office in San Mateo, where the light, openness, view, and shared workspace provide a pleasing environment. True to the mission of the company, we have our own gym in the office (and full shower), so we often have management meetings while spinning on our stationary bikes. I’m able to bring my hyper-charged Belgian Malinois, Katie, to work with me every day, and she provides a point of relaxation, charm, and playfulness to the office.

I’m happy to discuss Wellsphere with anyone who would like to know more! Feel free to call me at (650) 345-2100, or reach me via email at geoff.rutledge@wellsphere.com.

Please contact me at dave.kashen@wellsphere.com.

In particular, I would like to thank my co-founder Dave, who has been working with me from the day we founded the company (and even before), around the clock to make our dream come true – to help millions of people live healthier, happier lives. I also want to give a huge kudos to Dr. Geoff Rutledge, a great friend and our CIO - without whom we would not have been able to bring the beta site we are so proud of to life. Finally, I would like to give the warmest of words to our wonderful, smart, dedicated team including Sastry, Kathleen, Ivan, Larisa, Nikki, Paul, Vadym, Irina, Jeff, Phil, and all the others who are working to make our vision a reality.

It takes a lot of work to make a real change in the world, but we are determined to do so and enjoying ourselves along the way. It is pretty amazing to see how a strong culture can enable a small, committed group to make remarkable things happen.

I invite anyone in the greater community to write to me, call me or meet with me so we can have a frank, open discussion about the Wellsphere community. I will be delighted to tell you more about Wellsphere, our mission and why I strongly believe in dedicating my life to helping others live well and be happy. Please feel free to write to me at ron.gutman@wellsphere.com or call me at (650) 345-2100.

From my experience, both Ron and Dave care about their company and their employees. You know you have a great team of employees working for you when you are instructed to leave the building promptly at 5:00 pm to repair the AC and none of us wanted to leave – it took Ron and the AC company over an hour to get everyone to go home. What can I say… I enjoy the people, the culture, and working with Katie.

All of us at Wellsphere share a deep commitment to our mission of helping people live healthier, happier lives. We are a group of positive, hardworking, caring people who very much enjoy each other’s company, and are dedicated to helping one another and to achieving our goals. Our ‘WellSpace’ in San Mateo is a bright, energetic, fun environment (we even have a small exercise room and beautiful views of the green hills and the Bay!). We recently launched our Beta site based on substantial research and feedback from our alpha community. We implemented a scalable technology that is designed to support our growing community. We are delighted to watch our members help and support each other everyday in their quests for well-being. We are very proud of the progress we’ve made and the growth of our community, though we know there is much more to do. We think our site speaks for itself, and invite you to visit us at (link) .

We are committed to continuing to improve Wellsphere everyday and we enjoy responding to the feedback from our community. We greatly appreciate all constructive advice about how we can improve the site and our users’ experience. Please feel free to share your thoughts (or hate mail if you must :-) ) with us at wecare@wellsphere.com. If you would like to learn more about our company, our mission, and our values firsthand, please reach out to any of us directly. You can reach us by phone at (650) 345-2100, or by email at the addresses below.

Our core team (alphabetical by last name):

Kathleen Donahue
kathleen.donahue@wellsphere.com

Ron Gutman
ron.gutman@wellsphere.com

Dave Kashen
dave.kashen@wellsphere.com

Ivan Marchenko
ivan.marchenko@wellsphere.com

Sastry Nanduri
sastry.nanduri@wellsphere.com

Larisa Rozentals
larisa.rozentals@wellsphere.com

Geoff Rutledge, MD, PhD
geoff.rutledge@wellsphere.com

THANKS!

What is happening is that over the course of the last 12 months Ron Gutman has shown his true colors. In the process, he has cycled through more than 40 employees. Some lasted a day, others lasted months. Mind you, Wellcrap has never had more than a dozen employees at any given time. For almost all of us joining Wellcrap appeared to be a great move as we would have been able stay in or join a technology/web2.0/internet centric startup where we could hopefully have a positive impact to each other and the community at large. Little did we know. Perhaps we were blinded by visions of what could be or perhaps we were shamboozled by Ron’s repeated lies about his past, lies about investors, lies about where the product stood or lies about other employees. Ron is one of the slickest and sleeziest sales people I have ever run into. He can sell Vista to Steve Jobs as is evidenced by the fact that someone actually funded this thing. When was the last time you felt good about buying a car from a salesperson that lied to you about things like the size of the motor, how many tires it comes with, if the windows roll down or if the car is even exists in the first place? I have been an early employee of several startups that have gone public and in the course of my career worked with hundreds of companies and thousands of people. NEVER have I experienced the utter incompetance as shown by Ron. Not only does he have no grasp on technology issues but he has zero clue about marketing, distribution, partnerships, advertising or customer support. Add to that the self centered righteousness and pathological lies and manipulation and you have what Ron has, WellSphere. Passengers on the Titanic had a better chance of survival AFTER the ship sank than WellSphere has of lasting another month if Ron is there.

Ron stepped on, lied to and screwed over too many people who have exponentially more ties , connections, friends and colleagues who respect us and our experience than he does. Ron will try to brush these ‘negative ways’ under the table or chalk it up to poor hiring decisions.

The fact of the matter is that Ron is the negative energy NOT EVERYONE he come in contact with. Think about it..what are the odds that Ron could make 40 key hiring decisions in less than 12 months and every single one of those people turn out to be assholes. (I’ll defer calculating the actual odds line to one of the many PhD’s in the group of 40 exemployees to provide that actual number.) Reality is that Ron is the asshole, not the 40 MBA’ss, PhD’s, MSEE, MA’s in CS, DBA’s, former executives from healthcare institutions, Medical Doctors, interns, temps and even janitors that have been through the revolving door at 380 Brannan.

Someone said it before and I will say it again, let this unfortunate series of experiences we ex-employees had with Ron Gutman serve as a warning of what to consider if you ever encounter Ron.

Dave Kashen is Ron’s partner although Ron makes it very clear that Dave is not at all integral and brushes him off as inexperienced. Dave to me is Rons bitch(combo or a lapdog and roll of toilet paper). At least he is right about being inexperienced and nobody in their right mind would hold that against Dave. What we do hold against Dave is his lack of a spine. You see, Dave has a front row seat to the goings on and has, over the last year, participated in and supported Ron is his quest to do the wrong things. Dave, you know right from wrong and there is no excuse for your inaction and submission while Ron ruins people’s days, weeks, months, years, etc. Dave, you are a spineless weakling and deep down inside I know you realize what you have become. I hope this serves as the catalyst to a moment of clarity which result in your taking responsibility for your actions. It’s not too late for that. Close, but still possible. perhaps your girlfriend or parents will reaffirm our feelings and convince you it is time to get out of Waco before it really is too late.

It is a small Valley indeed, Ron. It’ll likely be an uncomfortable locale for someone with a legacy like yours. Had your actions not come to light when they did you may have made it and gone public and everything else you hoped for but it did and you should thank us for rallying together to stop evil which exudes from your being.

I really hope you can’t sleep at night but I know that is merely wishful thinking on my part because you have no conscience to get in your way.

Game over, Ron.