211–220 of 297 posts
Ask them if they would rather pay what they owe you or have the name of the company public in this context.
Don't ever do this. It is blackmail and will get you into a whole lot of trouble!
For context, try to imagine if the company had offered him a "legal agreement" where he was payed a few extra weeks' salary and in exchange agreed not to discuss anything.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had an offer withdrawn the day before I was supposed to get on a plane to move myself cross country. I had quit my job, broken my lease, etc. The company paid me a 6 week severance, even though I never worked a minute for them, just to compensate me for what I had given up.
That was a very nice company. They were in no way obligated to do any of that. You chose to break your lease on a gamble that things would work out for you... obviously they didn't... that's just how it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promissory_estoppel#Promissory_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Please do us all a favor and let us know who they are beyond "a YC startup" so that none of us find ourselves in your shoes. Two other reasons for considering revealing the name: 1) a casual bystander might see this and conclude that all YC companies behave in this way, which hurts the other companies. 2) PG and other partners at YC read HN, and there's a good chance that action can be taken if they know who is inv…
Even if you take these into consideration, a more appropriate reaction would be to say, "if you are currently in talks with a YC company for employment, or were hired in the last few weeks, drop me a line with the name of the company and I'll reply privately to you with a yes or no." Same goes for PG or YC Partners, just say, "if you drop me a line saying you want to deal with this, contact me and we can discuss it a…
What will happen? Will YC yank funding over this? I hope not -- that would set a dangerous precedent and make me, for one, that much less willing to pursue YC funding.
If the founders didn't want the OP before -- they especially aren't going to want him now that all this has occurred and threats about getting YC involved etc.
The bottom line -- you can be terminated for any reason, even if it's the color of your shirt on that particular day. Does that make it "right"? Well, that's a perspective thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
@angersock yeah, exactly like the next batch of shitbag YC kids hiring a COO. Because apparently that's who he's trying to get employed by. It's weird that you seem to think that this crowd are shallow children and yet somehow don't think that they will retaliate against public criticism.
There's a "reply" :/
I am surprised nobody mentioned the YC Founder Code of Ethics from earlier this year. http://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ I'd argue these four bullet points are relevant: -- Treating co-founders and employees with fairness and respect. -- Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC. -- Keeping your word, including honoring handshake deals. -- Generally behaving in an upstanding way. T…
I've been a CTO/CEO and have hired many people over time. Some of this has already been said, but: 1. Those jobs may still be open, reasonable people wouldn't hold taking another job against you. Work is work, and those who step back into discussion with you will show you a reasonableness that you will value more than before. 2. Situations like this is why sign-ing bonuses were invented. If you're COO of anything, yo…
Can you give some advice on how other positions can argue such risk mitigation? 6 months severance would get every Software dev/eng laughed out to the street. as far as my experience goes, signing bonuses are out too. Usually the company is eating a massive training cost for the first 6 months, saying to them "In addition to training cost, I want X risk mitigation" seems unlikely to be met with agreement.
I believe the parent was talking about C-level positions. I don't know if that applies at a 2 person startup where everyone is a C-level but at larger companies you probably have lots of room to negotiate if you're taking that type of position.
I am surprised nobody mentioned the YC Founder Code of Ethics from earlier this year. http://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ I'd argue these four bullet points are relevant: -- Treating co-founders and employees with fairness and respect. -- Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC. -- Keeping your word, including honoring handshake deals. -- Generally behaving in an upstanding way. T…
A - I love that this exists!
B - This needs to be discussed with startups more often by co-founders, employees and investors.
I know this is idealistic, but then startups (and people associated with them) often are. Startups can aspire to things/goals that larger companies can't. This (discussion about ethics) is as important, if not more important, than the "How do we grow" discussion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If somebody for some reason managed to convince me to come onboard as an employee, and I was asked nicely to leave after two weeks, I would begin the conversation with "That is unfortunate and unexpected, as I was looking forward to working with you guys. We're all businessmen here, so we know that there are certain reasonable expectations which one has with regards to employment offers. I shouldn't be telling you an…
Good luck convincing them to shell out 60K for two weeks. If they could afford it, they'd probably could afford throwing 30K more and keeping him for a year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
hmm .. I don't know. I feel differently. They may be nice people. But hiring and firing is a purely business decision. It might be that they needed a different skill set. Or had another candidate who was a lot cheaper. Investor money drying up, lots of things. Its a job at the end of the day and he was let go.
> But hiring and firing is a purely business decision. ... Its a job at the end of the day and he was let go. I have a serious beef with this mode of thinking. Nothing that you do to another human being is a "purely business decision." And from a practical perspective it's better, in the long run, for you too to be remembered as having owned your mistakes and done right by the people you wronged. Of course, there is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Please do us all a favor and let us know who they are beyond "a YC startup" so that none of us find ourselves in your shoes. Two other reasons for considering revealing the name: 1) a casual bystander might see this and conclude that all YC companies behave in this way, which hurts the other companies. 2) PG and other partners at YC read HN, and there's a good chance that action can be taken if they know who is inv…
I assume you are in California. California has At-Will employment -- so they can hire and fire you for any reason whenever they want. "You weren't a good fit", "You didn't think Big enough", "You didn't produce enough", etc etc etc. Coming on here and ranting and trying to bring some action against the startup is not a good way to handle this. You feel wronged -- I'm sure the founders feel it was a good business deci…
Alupis is absolutely right, startups are volatile and it could have been worse. That this was legal means this was probably the only right option for the founders.
Making hires at an early stage is incredibly important, imagine this startup has only a few 100k in the bank. They can hire maybe two to three persons, and that's hoping they'll hit on more funding later in the year.
Imagine you were a founder of that company, and you had hire this COO, and then something changes, or a pivot comes through just when the COO is flown in. Your investors all say you should discharge him, so they can hire someone that might save the company.
How can you even suggest this is unethical? This guy goes work at a startup in a state where it is legal to fire someone at will.