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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?

#111

Post by pjc50 »

VeejayRampay wrote: post #108
discodave wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Serious question: what is Uber/Lyft specific about a customer being assaulted? Is that inherently different than rapes or assaults by taxi drivers? Cause I'm sure there's been plenty of cases. Don't get me wrong, those are horrific, but I guess I'm failing to see what in Uber or Lyft makes it easier to happen or why it might require special regulation. Maybe the fact that cab drivers need a licence and are thus scree…

Taxi drivers have a licence to lose.

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

#112

Post by notahacker »

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…

The main difference is that Lyft, Uber and Airbnb sell mostly to consumers who are quite happy to make their own decision about which state regulations to bend when it's in their interest.

Zenefits sells to HR departments whose raison d'être is to make sure the company complies with its duty of care to employees, including observing all the relevant regulations. The idea one of their partners might have been using inadequately trained and unlicensed insurance brokers that didn't really know what they were doing to sell their employees expensive health insurance plans is kryptonite for that partnership.

(and I say this as someone who always ran the blindingly obvious "how not to take a bribe or sexually harass your colleagues" compulsory videos in the background whilst getting on with more productive work)

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

#114

Post by davidu »

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…

I believe (after the investigations are concluded) that a word used to describe the operations for Zenefits will be 'fraudulent.'

For the rest, as you state, they have been largely clear about their opposition to perceived out-of-date regulation and have worked tirelessly across the country and world to have new rules or exemptions or trials put in place.

Being disruptive isn't the same thing as breaking the law with willful abandon.

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

#115

Post by jackgavigan »

exw wrote: post #21
jackgavigan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also (I think) the fact that Parker created the Macro™.

No, that information was already mentioned in the second BuzzFeed article: > http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-program-let-in...

I stand corrected!

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

techsupporter wrote: post #104
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 are betting that reputation systems (ratings, reviews, etc.) will provide assurance for consumers just as well if not better than government regulation. So far the market is showing they just might be right. Like Zenefits, the government regulation that Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb are skirting has one important consequence: It protects the rest of us who are not their customers from them. If a Yel…

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by [deleted] »

pj_mukh wrote: post #64
timv wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the "macro" hurt anybody yet? The employees who used it and then signed a false declaration are at risk of jail. That was their choice, but they were seemingly under pressure from their CEO, so it seems fairly evident (to me) that Parker created a real problem for his team, even if the customers are OK. [Edit: Removed out-of-place "committed"]

I still don't see how the macro allowed them to do anything different from just scrolling to the end of a list of terms and conditions. AFAIK, they still had to pass an exam?

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by yummyfajitas »

patio11 wrote: post #50
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...

California requires 20 hours of training to get a license for health and accident insurance, 20 hours to get a license for life insurance, and an additional 12 hours on ethics training for people wanting to pass the exam for either. These are tick-box requirements that allow you to take the exam you need to pass to get the relevant license. Several providers have online courses you can take for $50 Here's the regulat…

As further detail, the way these things work is the following. The "training" consists of watching some powerpoints and listening to a voiceover reading the slide. You can't click "next slide" until the voiceover has finished. The voiceovers add up to 52 hours.

Typically the voiceovers are short, e.g. 60 seconds, to ensure that you are actually at your computer clicking "next" rather than just letting the voiceover run while you do something productive.

Once you've clicked "next" 52x60=3120 times you are then permitted to take the exam.

Zenefits "Macro" automated the clicking, allowing their people to simply learn the material and then take the exam.

tl;dr; The state of California says "you must learn this material very slowly" and Zenefits employees are fast learners.

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

#119

Post by [deleted] »

ubernostrum wrote: post #87
467568985476 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by cmdrfred »

grahamburger wrote: post #103
throwaway479384 wrote: post #83

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…

I'll bet your employees hate ADP. I know I do. Would it kill them to make a useable web interface? It's not like we've been doing this for 20 years or anything.

I was thinking of doing a write up on ADP's workforce product recently, some things about the website I've noticed. The site uses cookies to determine if you have two windows open of the site. The problem is this doesn't work correctly and I often have to blow out my cookies to log in. On mobile I have to turn on screen rotation to be able to use the menu bar on the top of the screen, then I have to turn it back to be able to see the punch in buttons.
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