Zenefits Was the Perfect Startup, Then It Self-Disrupted • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by ghock » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

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…

"Conrad sounds like a hacker's philosophy"

I think I agree with your overall point, but not really with this phrasing. Say you apply the hacker concept to food. You can make some cool food at home while bending the rules and everything is fine, but if you open a restaurant and make all your customers sick as a result, then you're just a bad chef.

Hackers hack hacks. Bringing a hackers mindset to something else means that you can see when a hack is appropriate, not that you "hack" things that aren't.

It's like this popular quote... "Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style". Not "Be lazy, claim rebel".

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

#82

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #76

toomuchtodo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see what being online has anything to do with it States regulate auto manufacturers from competing with their dealerships; Tesla selling online would be a federal issue (interstate commerce). Ergo, Tesla gets around bad regulatory capture by using a law that supersedes state law.

Being a federal issue doesn't preclude it being a state issue as well, as far as I know.

Interstate commerce being a federal power under the Constitution prohibits states acting to regulate interstate commerce where the federal government has acted, without the permission of Congress, and prohibits the States from discriminating against out-of-state commerce generally. That doesn't mean that all State regulation of interstate commerce is prohibited, but the State's power is sharply circumscribed by the mere designation of the federal power as well as by federal action exercising that power.

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

#83

Post by meacham » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:03 PM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #53

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.

Harvard doesn't offer 'science' degrees outside of its School of Engineering and Applied Sciences – so the arts degree is a meaningless distinction.

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

#84

Post by eli » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:04 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #67

nostrademons wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ub…

> 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? This is quite a stretch. Uber is eliminating drunk driving fatalities now? Those same people couldn't have called a cab before Uber existed?

I share your skepticism but that's actually an official Uber position: https://newsroom.uber.com/us-illinois/dui-rates-decline-in-u...

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

#85

Post by neuronexmachina » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #67

nostrademons wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ub…

> 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? This is quite a stretch. Uber is eliminating drunk driving fatalities now? Those same people couldn't have called a cab before Uber existed?

> Uber is eliminating drunk driving fatalities now? Those same people couldn't have called a cab before Uber existed?

Speaking for myself, I take Uber/Lyft regularly but would have never even considered attempting to call a cab and dealing with the cost/uncertainty inherent to that. I'd much rather not spend an hour waiting outside for a cab that ultimately decides not to show up. Rather than deal with cabs, I would simply just not have had a drink if I didn't have a designated driver.

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

#86

Post by jedberg » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

yoodenvranx wrote: post #5

MattBearman wrote: post #2

Having just read The Website Obesity Crisis[0] I was instantly intrigued by the video loop at the top of this article, so fired up Chrome's network inspector. Not only is it 6.7Mb, but it's sent using streaming (Status: 206 Partial Content), and for me at least, every time the video reaches the end, it's loaded again, and not from cache. I didn't actually read the article, but according to Read-o-meter[1] it would ta…

Perhaps HN and reddit should block every website with an average page size larger than 1-2 MB? That would give those sites some incentive to optimize their pages.

Not really. HN traffic isn't really enough for most of those sites to notice. I'm certain that the only people at Bloomberg who would notice would be the reporters (who participate here) but they would probably have little sway over the technology and advertising platform, which would lose a lot of money getting rid of their auto-playing videos.

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

#87

Post by slantedview » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

pkaye wrote: post #20

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…

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.

> 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.

Heck, this isn't just a game plan for startups, it's standard operating procedure for big banks. The only real way to deter bad behavior is to send people to prison.

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

#88

Post by sammydavis » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:17 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #29

Kurtz79 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, being 11th (of 178) in the ranking of the "Economic Freedom" you list below makes the American regulatory environment "oppressive" ? From the viewpoint of most countries in Europe it would be considered "very liberal". (EDIT: Also the source you mention is clearly politically biased. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation )

All sources are politically biased. Some are just more honest about it.

Just making a generic statement like that without qualifying it serves only to excuse that one source. Are the government of China's comments on Tibet equal in weight to Amnesty International? No. Is the Heritage Fund pushing an agenda equal in trustworthiness to an academic international ranking? Probably not.

However, academic studies from two accredited institutions that don't have a particular ax to grind are probably equally credible.

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

#89

Post by slantedview » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

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.

It is certainly not impossible to place blame on indivudals. After the savings and loan crisis, hundreds of execs were rightly blamed, indicted, convicted, and went to prison. This time around, the criminals have bought off the watchdogs - nobody went to prison. Instead they get off with a fine and no admission of wrongdoing, and they live to do it again another day.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

robbiemitchell wrote: post #68

> There wasn’t even an IT person to fix the printers. Conrad hadn’t forgotten to fill these positions. The way he saw it, Zenefits was full of gifted engineers; if their computers weren’t working, they should be able to fix them. Of course, time spent futzing with the Wi-Fi was time not spent building the product or dealing with customers. To Conrad, that just meant the engineers needed to work harder. > Zenefits use…

[deleted]