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Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

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Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#41
post #3

So a company that blatantly cheated will pay some fines and still be worth billions. The founders and early employees will all be rich, or richer than they were when they started. The investors will get a very healthy return. The lesson: break the rules and grow so fast that by the time regulators catch up, you can put on a show of reforming and still keep most of the value that you created. Admirable disruption or h…

Uber took your advice very seriously.

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#42
post #12

So, the difference between a "hacker" and an "engineer" has always been this idea that the engineer is designing something which is principled at all levels, whereas the hacker is putting together something which works in the most obvious cases but doesn't necessarily cover all of their bases. In practice, I think we all know that a little of both is best; ideally you can throw something together with copy-paste prog…

The thing that I picked up from the article wasn't so much that there was hacky managerial solutions, but that there was gaping operational holes in the company. This meant that the hacky solutions never got fixed.

A lot of early-stage companies have been known to engage in grey-area practices to hit that growth factor. Reddit, for instance, faked a bunch of early users to make it look like people were using it. But if it came out today that a large percentage of Reddit's users were faked, it'd be a huge blow to the company.

This becomes even more critical if you're dealing with any government/regulatory body- you're legally bound to fill these gaps before "plausible deniability" can't be used.

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#43
post #12

So, the difference between a "hacker" and an "engineer" has always been this idea that the engineer is designing something which is principled at all levels, whereas the hacker is putting together something which works in the most obvious cases but doesn't necessarily cover all of their bases. In practice, I think we all know that a little of both is best; ideally you can throw something together with copy-paste prog…

>If there's a regulation that your browser spend 52 hours on a web page, here's a script to make your browser browse that web page for 52 hours, clicking aimlessly among the pages. You're welcome; you've got other crap to do.

There is no such regulation. The regulation is that anyone selling insurance must spend at least 52 hours going over the technical details of their industry.

Zenefits incredibly conflated this with "only your browser needs to appear active for 52 hours".

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#44
post #20
post #3

So a company that blatantly cheated will pay some fines and still be worth billions. The founders and early employees will all be rich, or richer than they were when they started. The investors will get a very healthy return. The lesson: break the rules and grow so fast that by the time regulators catch up, you can put on a show of reforming and still keep most of the value that you created. Admirable disruption or h…

Actually this how many successful people do it. It is better to break the rules and profit from it and if caught, pay a small fine and keep your ill gotten gains. I've learned this long time ago (watching coworkers, family, etc) but will probably never do it myself because I'm just not that kind of person.

s/better/more profitable/

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#45
post #3

So a company that blatantly cheated will pay some fines and still be worth billions. The founders and early employees will all be rich, or richer than they were when they started. The investors will get a very healthy return. The lesson: break the rules and grow so fast that by the time regulators catch up, you can put on a show of reforming and still keep most of the value that you created. Admirable disruption or h…

The banks did exactly this before the financial crisis, and most of them came out of it just fine.

The reason this works in practice is because when a company becomes that big, it's impossible to place blame. Any repercussions against the company as a whole will mostly impact the honest and innocent folks.

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#47
post #3

So a company that blatantly cheated will pay some fines and still be worth billions. The founders and early employees will all be rich, or richer than they were when they started. The investors will get a very healthy return. The lesson: break the rules and grow so fast that by the time regulators catch up, you can put on a show of reforming and still keep most of the value that you created. Admirable disruption or h…

You sir are correct. I'm curious though; are there any really good solutions to this type of problem? You can't rewind time and go back and taking away all assets gained in such a manner, while doable, would pretty much put the company out of business even if they're willing to comply. Seems like there isn't really a good way to prevent companies from breaking the law. Well unless you do some sort of regular inspecti…

> You can't rewind time and go back and taking away all assets gained in such a manner, while doable, would pretty much put the company out of business even if they're willing to comply.

It is a choice being made to prioritize the preservation of the company, though. Imagine a criminal justice system that prioritized the job of the criminal.

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#48
post #3

So a company that blatantly cheated will pay some fines and still be worth billions. The founders and early employees will all be rich, or richer than they were when they started. The investors will get a very healthy return. The lesson: break the rules and grow so fast that by the time regulators catch up, you can put on a show of reforming and still keep most of the value that you created. Admirable disruption or h…

Breaking rules to set up a sham business that scams and steals is one thing (and often the reason the rules exist). Breaking rules to create a product that most people like and find better than the alternative is completely different.

Unfortunately many of the laws created in the name of "consumer protection" do little to protect anything but the entrenched interests that lobbied for the laws.

Re: Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, 90+th percentile for freedom makes the US oppressive?

In fairness, I haven't seen this objection when people complain about USA health care.

Because the complaint there is closer to "wow, we're paying the most and we're not even close to the top" rather than saying the quality of care is objectively bad.

And we're a good bit worse than 11th there.

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