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After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

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Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#81

Post by ubernostrum »

manishsharan wrote: post #77

Can someone tell me why is it such a big deal when person sells an insurance without having a proper license? Its not as if the insurance policy itself is fraudulent. The buyer is buying the insurance policy and not the credentials of the broker. Other wise it seems to me that is requirement is just as unnecessary as requiring cosmetology license for hair braiding ( see http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/06/bill-wou…

Because even for people who are actual high-level experts on it, correctly representing what a policy does and does not offer, and explaining that in a way that's factually correct, compliant with the local laws governing insurance, and understandable without being misleading to a potential customer, is incredibly difficult, to such a degree that your comparison of it to hair braiding should be prima facie evidence of lack of good faith on your part.

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#82

Post by discodave »

themagician wrote: post #71
skewart wrote: post #62

A number of commenters here have compared Zenefits' questionable compliance with Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. What Zenefits was doing is fundamentally different, and much more problematic. Lyft and Uber skirt similar kinds of seemingly useless regulation but they're completely up front about it. They don't pretend that their drivers are licensed or get any benefit from having licensed drivers in any way. They're simply of…

Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb can't avoid regulation forever. They've just been lucky so far. Eventually there will be a high profile incident—someone important will get raped or murdered. The political response will be 1000x what their lobbyists can handle. It is inevitable. The reality is that this is how a lot of regulation starts. It doesn't always come from an anticompetitive place. We just forget that we actually aske…

And by important you don't mean the women who have already been raped or assaulted by Uber drivers right?

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#83

Post by throwaway479384 »

My company used Zenefits for a while, mainly because one of our execs is friends with one of theirs. We had many, many problems with payroll. When you have employees repeatedly coming to you because their paychecks are screwed up, you've got to do something. We ended up switching away, and now use ADP for payroll instead. We've had no problems since. (This was before the big public slap fight between Zenefits and ADP, which was made even more amusing given our experience.)

I would not recommend anyone use Zenefits for any reason, regardless of whether it turns out they complied with legally-mandated training requirements or not. The fact that they were so incredibly sloppy is just inexcusable. You cannot mess around with people's pay like that.

(Posted with a throwaway account for hopefully obvious reasons.)

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#84

Post by wpietri »

mrshoe wrote: post #30

This story starts out reporting on a board ousting a CEO after a public scandal involving non-compliance with various laws, which incited multiple government investigations. It then takes an abrupt turn and starts repeating everyone's favorite Silicon Valley trope du jour: the unicorn bubble is bursting, the fundraising environment is tightening up, and the halcyon days of multi-billion dollar valuations for everyone…

The obvious connection to me is that when the numbers are excellent, you have to do something pretty egregious to attract scrutiny. But when the numbers are ok or bad, suddenly people become much more interested in the details.

I note that the Zenefits CEO was ousted after missing targets and during a time when I think we can all at least agree that the industry is less exuberant. Maybe he would have gotten sacked anyhow, but missing the numbers sure didn't help him.

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#85

Post by Pyxl101 »

themagician wrote: post #71
skewart wrote: post #62

A number of commenters here have compared Zenefits' questionable compliance with Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. What Zenefits was doing is fundamentally different, and much more problematic. Lyft and Uber skirt similar kinds of seemingly useless regulation but they're completely up front about it. They don't pretend that their drivers are licensed or get any benefit from having licensed drivers in any way. They're simply of…

Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb can't avoid regulation forever. They've just been lucky so far. Eventually there will be a high profile incident—someone important will get raped or murdered. The political response will be 1000x what their lobbyists can handle. It is inevitable. The reality is that this is how a lot of regulation starts. It doesn't always come from an anticompetitive place. We just forget that we actually aske…

What regulation are Lyft and Uber allegedly skirting?

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#86

Post by rajacombinator »

timv wrote: post #53
rajacombinator wrote: post #15

A lot of the HN-cynic crowd is forgetting here that if anything, they were bypassing stupid sets of regulations. There is nothing ethically or morally wrong here.

I'll leave aside the question as to whether individuals faking their 52 hours is "ethically or morally wrong". For Zenefits/Parker to facilitate and encourage their staff to do it is most certainly ethically wrong . Telling your staff that they should cheat the rules, sign a false document and perjure themselves is completely unacceptable. Zenefits employees face the risk of jail time because they did what their CEO…

Hmm good point, I stand corrected.

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#87

Post by ubernostrum »

467568985476 wrote: post #31
phibit wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have any more information about the "52 hour online training program" that "the Macro" allowed them to skip? If that training program is any bit as useless as "online driving school", I can sort of understand how the Macro came to be...

It is perhaps a silly requirement, considering that the salespeople still passed the required exam. But I see it as symptomatic of a cultural contempt for regulations. It seems like a conflict of interest for a company to wantonly decide which regulations are worth following and which aren't. Especially when the salespeople could be personally liable, and the catastrophic outcome is somebody finding out that their $1…

It is perhaps a silly requirement, considering that the salespeople still passed the required exam.

Supposing that the exam is supposed to test the candidate's actual knowledge -- i.e., their ability to correctly represent things and act in compliance with the law while engaged in conversation with potential customers -- I certainly can see a risk of someone just saying "eh, I'll skip the material, take the exam with a reference open on my desk, pass it and be fine" and then getting into major trouble later when it turns out they did actually need to know a lot of that stuff off the top of their head in order to do their job.

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#88

Post by pj_mukh »

delazeur wrote: post #73
pj_mukh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I don't want monied corporations anywhere near my regulations. Let's just have the pertinent regulatory agencies realize that making someone stare at a screen for 'X' minutes doesn't make a training program. You are asking for someone to side step that stuff. I would actually rather have companies like Zenefits sidestep regulations like that to show the regulators where they screwed up than Zenefits pump money…

So you don't want the government to change regulations because it would give rich corporations an opportunity to leverage their lobbying dollars. Instead, you want rich corporations to cheat their way around regulations at leisure. (Note that what Zenefits did was not a legal loophole, it was a method of falsifying compliance documentation.) In any case, what's the point of "show[ing] the regulators where they screwe…

I think we are arguing for the same thing. I just don't want agencies to change regulations because a large company wants them too. Id rather an agency be smart enough to find out that companies are using a loophole, and then close that loophole. A company will always use all loopholes available to it, to not do so would be silly

'Making trainees watch a video' seems like silly regulations asking to be circumvented. Why not make the exams more stringent so people are forced to actually pay attention.

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#89

Post by ubernostrum »

easong wrote: post #49
saalweachter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See, for instance, the multi-decade long campaign to decriminalize marijuana. You're confounding tyranny of the majority with corruption; the reason marijuana is still criminalized in most places is because a large enough percentage of the population thinks it should be, for whatever reason.

No, the point I'm trying to make is that seemingly one of the only ways to get stupid laws changed is for them to be broken, and for people to see that the law is pointless (or not pointless!). Why exactly the law is or was in place doesn't matter too much. Another example would be the woman who has the gall to braid hair without a license - if she hadn't broken the law, nobody would talk about it, there would never…

No, the point I'm trying to make is that seemingly one of the only ways to get stupid laws changed is for them to be broken

The counterpoint is that civil disobedience requires harsh punishment of the disobedience in order to be effective. If somebody flagrantly violates a law because they claim it's bad, and walks away with little to no punishment for doing so, the public's impression will be "well, must not be such a bad law if that's all that happens", which will not serve to change things.

Re: After Zenefits, Will VCs Rein in Their Unicorns?

#90

Post by [deleted] »

tyre wrote: post #38

I'm skeptical of the source of this article. My guess is Zenefits spoke off the record to do damage control in Sacks' favor. I have no proof but will lay out why below. > In a Feb. 1 meeting at its blandly luxurious Sand Hill Road offices, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz urged the chief executive officer of one of its most prized and promising companies to resign. 1) The first sentence references a meeting that very…

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