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Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

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Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#101

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #45
maxcan wrote: post #25

In this one particular instance, good for them and its a shame that they got caught. I've had to watch quite a few of these "unskippable" videos for various government mandated trainings and there are a complete waste of time so that some bureaucrat can check a box and some company's lawyers can mitigate some liability. They don't educate the captive viewers and they don't protect consumers. Lets see how any customer…

The value of training videos is on the back end. Whenever shit goes wrong, peoples' first reaction is to plead ignorance. "Oh I didn't know that, I wasn't told that." These sorts of things eliminate that excuse in a way that leaves a paper trail, making it easier to hold someone accountable if they do fuck up. It's not about making sure they know all of these things that are mostly obvious, it's about ensuring you ca…

That makes sense. But then what exactly happens when this hypothetical conversation happens:

- Hi insurance broker man. You did't follow regulation X when you did Y.

- Oh, I didn't know that, I wasn't told that.

- Oh really? It was right in that mandatory training program you took. See here on screen #7?

- Oh that dumb thing? Most people at my company just ran this script to get through the damn thing. I wasn't paying attention.

What happens then?

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#102

Post by username223 »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #90

I wonder if this incident and others such as the recent Homejoy / Flymaids kerfuffle have caused PG to rethink whether he's still looking for "naughtiness" in founders [0]. That's not meant passive-aggressively. I completely get why naughtiness might be indicative of a propensity toward innovation -- it's a pretty straightforward and intuitive concept. I'm just wondering whether PG still puts as much faith in the heu…

I doubt it. "Naughtiness" is creativity combined with a lack of conscience, which is a good way to make a quick buck. Regulatory arbitrage or capture, exploiting known cognitive biases, and creating subtle information asymmetry should all feature prominently in "YC 1[6-9]."

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#103

Post by hitekker »

tyre wrote: post #31
ShaneWilton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That blog post is one of the best advertisements I've ever seen for a tech company. If I weren't happy where I am, I'd apply for a position immediately. I get that moving fast and breaking things works for some products, but I wish more companies had the same attitude as you.

Glad you liked it! I'm now building software for local government and we've naturally taken that ethos to our new company. If you are ever looking for another opportunity, check us out http://seneca.systems

Your values page is interesting, though the quotes may be a bit excessive. If you don't mind my drive-by critique, I would suggest listing those quotes at the end of each one as a kind of an "alternate telling."

For the "empathy" value:

> Oftentimes, this means acknowledging weaknesses and having difficult conversations. Feedback should come from a place of love and respect, under the assumption that everyone has acted with the best of intentions.

May I ask how this differs from the management consulting practice called "front-stabbing"?

And for the "Don't Always Be Right":

> We recognize that experimentation is crucial to innovation. We will not accepts “it works” as good enough.

Being right may be orthogonal to taking risks + building a legendary product. Perhaps a better wording would be "Don't settle for just right"

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#104

Post by AznHisoka »

fancy_pantser wrote: post #71
mixmastamyk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uncovering some frightening immaturity pervasive in Valley companies. This is one of the dark sides to having an entire engineering team in the 25-30 age range. They can sling http just fine, but sometimes don't fully grasp the consequences of their work.

I bailed mentally at an interview with a YC startup in SF because, as part of the technical portion, they had me write a scraper to pull information from searches on other sites. This was against each site's legal/usage terms (and so was defeating the basic obstacles the companies put in the way of being scraped in bulk). When I asked about their business model they revealed that they were making money by doing exact…

Priceonomics?

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#105

Post by username223 »

harryh wrote: post #101
rayiner wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of training videos is on the back end. Whenever shit goes wrong, peoples' first reaction is to plead ignorance. "Oh I didn't know that, I wasn't told that." These sorts of things eliminate that excuse in a way that leaves a paper trail, making it easier to hold someone accountable if they do fuck up. It's not about making sure they know all of these things that are mostly obvious, it's about ensuring you ca…

That makes sense. But then what exactly happens when this hypothetical conversation happens: - Hi insurance broker man. You did't follow regulation X when you did Y. - Oh, I didn't know that, I wasn't told that. - Oh really? It was right in that mandatory training program you took. See here on screen #7? - Oh that dumb thing? Most people at my company just ran this script to get through the damn thing. I wasn't payin…

Either every individual who used the script, or the entity that created or promulgated it, is held culpable/liable. When an employer is tacitly encouraging employees to ignore a legal requirement, and the employees are happily doing so, there's plenty of blame to go around.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#106

Post by cosmie »

pinewurst wrote: post #72
exw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there may or may not be a darker side to having an entire engineering team in the 25-30 age range, according to the reporter that wrote the article, this hacking came straight from the CEO, who also set the tone for this type of behavior: https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/697898496314077185 >

I realize it's the law, but that is an interesting question. I'm a page-at-a-glance reader (not to brag) and sitting in front of something for 52 hours would make me feel like a character from "Harrison Bergeron".

The 52 hours is meant to be spent exploring inside of an LMS (Learning Management System). You aren't simply reading a manual, but rather going through lessons, taking quizzes on them, working through different scenarios, etc. It's supposed to be an interactive process where you're familiarizing yourself with the information, learning to identify how to handle different situations, learning what "gotchas" to watch out for, and generally reinforcing your recall of the rules and regulations around the industry.

The LMS has the actual license exam locked until you've clocked 52 hours inside of it, so the macro just ran out that timer until the broker could get directly to the exam. Scraping by an 80% on that license exam (especially with all of your colleagues around that have taken it already) is ridiculously easy.

Insurance companies are sticklers for technicalities and love to deny claims, so as a consumer I'd consider the 52 hours / 6.5 work days worth of required training to be an absolute necessity for an insurance broker.

Disclaimer: My current company got our insurance royally screwed up in the short period of time we used Zenefits thanks to their corner cutting, so I'm a bit jaded.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#107

Post by j_s »

jefftchan wrote: post #7

https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ > Some examples of ethical behavior we expect from founders are: > ... > - Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics. > ... Does this mean Parker is no longer a YC Founder, if the allegations turn out to be true?

Ask the founder of Airbnb... guessing the answer is still no.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#108

Post by pinewurst »

cosmie wrote: post #106
pinewurst wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize it's the law, but that is an interesting question. I'm a page-at-a-glance reader (not to brag) and sitting in front of something for 52 hours would make me feel like a character from "Harrison Bergeron".

The 52 hours is meant to be spent exploring inside of an LMS (Learning Management System). You aren't simply reading a manual, but rather going through lessons, taking quizzes on them, working through different scenarios, etc. It's supposed to be an interactive process where you're familiarizing yourself with the information, learning to identify how to handle different situations, learning what "gotchas" to watch ou…

Thanks for explaining that further!

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#109

Post by colmvp »

jacques_chester wrote: post #70
dang wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we don't: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=buzzfeed.com . Two of the biggest HN stories from the past two days alone were from Buzzfeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11075336 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11061992 . Usually the complaint I hear is "why is Buzzfeed on HN". Buzzfeed is one of a class of sites that produce a lot of dreck as well as the occasional high-quality article. Th…

We had a techtalk from the head of Buzzfeed's quizzes -- those annoying ones that overran Facebook about a year ago. One of the things he said is that internally, Buzzfeed is actually three different groups. One of them is a team of straight-up, legitimate investigative reports. That's why every once in a while Buzzfeed break a big story and everyone sits around saying " Buzzfeed? "

It's really funny. People say Buzzfeed? And I'm like, who do you think is making money right now, our national newspaper or Buzzfeed? Who do you think is hiring instead of being forced to let go of high quality journalists, our national newspaper or Buzzfeed?

Look beyond the brand and into the details and the journalist. Buzzfeed News is legit. Unlike a lot of media sources, they've found a way to be profitable and output quality articles.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#110

Post by BRValentine »

FWIW my company had a terrible, terrible experience with Zenefits and ditched them after less than a year. Incompetent customer service, crappy software (one problem we had was a result of a corrupted database record, according to one of their reps, that had to be manually corrected by a developer), no one seemed to know what they were doing. As a founder I told their reps multiple times that we were a startup too -- ostensibly their target market -- and that we were willing to work through some problems with them, but they didn't seem to care and frankly just kept fucking up. Once we hit 5 people we switched to TriNet and have gotten great service AND we're saving tons on the insurance side, even accounting for TriNet's monthly per-employee fee.

Generally I avoid rooting for others to fail, but I can't help but feel just a teeny bit of schadenfreude with this recent news. For the last couple years I've been rolling my eyes with each new piece of breathless coverage. The Zenefits people are talking about now sounds a lot more like the one I experienced dealing with.

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