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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

#51

Post by briffle »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #33
GavinB wrote: 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 could put some of the 'people in charge' in jail.. then the company would not be harmed, but the leadership in the future would hesitate to be so caviler.. it would give you the 'reform' part of punish and reform that is supposed to happen in the justice system..

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

#52

Post by beamatronic »

drostie wrote: 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…

I applaud you for taking the initiative to continuously improve the system you're responsible for. These kind of values seem to be hard to find these days.

Serious question, do you also enjoy working on/tinkering with old cars?

I have a few data points where I've found that people who do enjoy working on/messing with cars are also the same kind of people who do what you do. If this is true, it's something you can look for in interviews.

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

#53

Post by jsprogrammer »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #30

> Dalgaard says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone—and I’ve seen a lot of people—think as comprehensively as [Conrad] did about the market he was going after and how to build his product.” And this level of gullibility mixed with greed is why the world economy is so jacked up. Did you stop to think its because you know nothing about insurance? Conrad went to Harvard? So that he was kicked out of his previous compa…

You can't know everything about someone's past and past actions don't necessarily dictate future actions, but to correct you slightly: Conrad says he failed out of Harvard, but then later returned to finish an arts degree in Chemistry.

I believe Harvard has the highest pass rate of any university (except, perhaps, diploma mills), at 98%. Using a Harvard degree as overriding credentials is a misstep.

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

#54

Post by vasilipupkin »

GavinB wrote: 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…

Founders and early employees own common stock, so they won't get paid until all the investors got at least their money back, which means founders and early employees could easily end up with little

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

#55

Post by drostie »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #43
drostie wrote: 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 w…

I guess "regulation" was the wrong word because that gets into the legal aspect of it; I meant purely the programming side, "we won't give you this certificate unless our web app's counter for you hits 52." "Oh, well, I'll make something that clicks your app's counter for my employees!"

Obviously, yes, this fell foul of the actual regulations, which were not "the web app's counter hits 52" but rather "you need to spend 52 hours looking at this stuff."

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

#56

Post by nostrademons »

maxerickson wrote: post #39
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What's wrong with putting companies out of business? I understand that it ends up having impacts on people that aren't necessarily involved in the misbehavior, but it provides officers and investors a significant incentive to avoid wrongdoing.

The complication is that "wrongdoing" is in the eye of the beholder. Is Uber committing wrongdoing? The taxi companies certainly think so. Many municipalities think so. A lot of folks on Hacker News think so.

But the folks who had a few too many beers and missed the last Caltrain and would otherwise drive home drunk if Uber didn't exist? The innocent folks that would otherwise have been killed by a drunk driver if Uber didn't exist? The folks who drive for Uber to pick up some spare cash in their spare time, or the ones who do it because they can't find any other income and would otherwise be destitute? The folks who drive for Uber to meet interesting new people? The Uberpreneurs who pitch their wares to a captive market for the duration of a ride? They all benefit significantly from Uber's existence.

That's why this "get big fast and then hope you can avoid the consequences for your wrongdoing" strategy exists. The consequences will oftentimes not be known at the time an idea is conceived. Sometimes they will be much, much worse than is apparent at the time (look at the environmental pollution and global warming caused by heavy industry), while sometimes they will be a lot better (look at the liberalization and toppling of many totalitarian regimes since Facebook and Twitter came out). Oftentimes they will be both worse and better at the same time; someone killed in a revolution has clearly suffered, while someone who can open up a business that would previously have been shuttered by the government has benefitted.

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

#57

Post by SilasX »

jrbapna wrote: post #45
GavinB wrote: 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.

I would think it's less about diffusion of blame and more about your last sentence there -- that the big guy can play the game of mutually-assured destruction. They warn of all the collateral damage from having to pay for what they did, and the public is too willing to believe it and/or too unwilling to endure the short-term pain of enforcing the rules.

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

#58

Post by stale2002 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #43
drostie wrote: 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 w…

That's basically what the real life effect of the regulation was though.

The "online course" that people had to take was kind of a joke, and most people in the industry think it is an outdated formality.

Crossing all your Ts and dotting you Is in this industry is of course important. Even if something is a stupid formality, you should still do it.

But let's not kid ourselves over how much "useful" information was probably in that course.

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

#59

Post by drostie »

beamatronic wrote: post #52
drostie wrote: 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…

I applaud you for taking the initiative to continuously improve the system you're responsible for. These kind of values seem to be hard to find these days. Serious question, do you also enjoy working on/tinkering with old cars? I have a few data points where I've found that people who do enjoy working on/messing with cars are also the same kind of people who do what you do. If this is true, it's something you can loo…

I would love to work on old cars if I were not living paycheck-to-paycheck. However if I had the free money, well before I started tinkering with old cars, I would probably start scheduling vacations in eastern Africa. I'm not sure what exactly I'd be doing there, but I figure someone's got to have wiring issues or plumbing problems or a broken tractor or something -- anything that I could put my Applied Physics degree towards.

Right now I've got a tutoring side-job; that's basically similar. My work boils down to the fact that I like people and I try to help them with whatever skills I've got.

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

#60

Post by csours »

msandford wrote: post #32
icebraining wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since many states hadn't seen that before, they tried to rule that it was illegal due to dealer-sales regulation. I don't see what being online has anything to do with it; the spirit of the rule - preventing the manufacturers from competing with dealerships - is valid anyway. I personally disagree with this rule, but the "online" part is just Tesla trying to get off on a technicality.

I'm all for manufacturers being prevented from going back on the deals they struck with dealers; the capital they raised from selling dealership franchises was very important for the growth of the manufacturers. But if a manufacturer never setup a dealer program? Fair game to them, IMO.

It's one step more complicated than that. GM has 5 year renewable franchises, so theoretically they could just wait 5 years and not renew.

The issue is that many states have laws preventing OEMs from selling directly.

There are similar laws for unions.

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