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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

#131

Post by balls187 »

LargeWu wrote: post #26
smokeyj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone afraid of breaking a few rules isn't a founder. The lesson: create something people want. The rest will work itself out.

Right. And what about the people you hurt on the way to the top?

If no one else is playing by the rules, why should you?

When you're just starting out, you hope you are small enough to fly under the radar. When you are big enough for government to care, you hopefully have enough money and lobbiest to influence (read: by) government officials.

It's a myth that is perpetuated by those in power, to keep power: If you play by the rules, you'll succeed. If you don't, your break your social contract, or worse, bad for society and must be punished.

In America they say "Crime doesn't pay."

What they really mean "The crimes that the poor and middle class commit don't pay."

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

#132

Post by angelbob »

jayess wrote: post #128
snappy173 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you require licensing for insurance sales is because it's very difficult to track all of the individual instances of malfeasance. So, the answer to your question is, "I don't know." But just because I don't have particular instances of harm, doesn't mean this isn't an problem. If you let anybody sell health insurance, you end up with con artists selling sham insurance, and by the time you track down the co…

Is Zenefits a con artist wiping out people's savings?

An interesting question. They're licensing highly dodgy insurance agents who can still misinform, break the law and cost people money. That's not as bad as selling full-on fake insurance, though.

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

#133

Post by smokeyj »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #63
smokeyj wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some rules are victimless. Or downright nonsensical. I don't like this tone of moralizing regulation. As if being non-compliant is inherently unjust.

It balances the moralising promotion of the idea that profit is inherently admirable no matter the consequences.

So we're counteracting the immorality of profits with morally sound regulatory code? What if I don't like your religion?

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

#135

Post by angelbob »

foreign-inc wrote: post #127

Is yc going to return their stake in Zenefits? Sama & co always seem to be pretty big on ethics. Or, are they going stop talking about Zenefits and forget them? What Zenefits did is illegal by their own admission.

There have been a number of dodgy ethical things in YC companies. I don't know of Sama & co returning their stake in any companies as a result.

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

#136

Post by forgotmysn »

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…

its easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

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

#137

Post by serge2k »

pc86 wrote: post #107
maxerickson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I understand that it ends up having impacts on people that aren't necessarily involved in the misbehavior, but ... The fact that you understand this could bankrupt and destroy people's lives simply because they worked at the wrong company at the wrong time, but still seek to rationalize it, is more than a little disturbing. Having draconian penalties for line employees is not going to do anything to dissuade a C-le…

> Having draconian penalties for line employees is not going to do anything to dissuade a C-level executive who wants to commit fraud from committing fraud.

Holding them personally responsible for fraud would help. As in you were the person in charge when this happened, here is a fine of millions + 2 years in jail.

That's why they get the big money right? To be the ones responsible?

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

#138

Post by icebraining »

sammydavis wrote: post #88
icebraining wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

"Heritage is biased" is the unqualified generic statement, and it serves only to reinforce the dangerous idea that some organizations are unbiased and can be blindly trusted.

Of course Heritage is biased. But their Index has a well defined methodology and provides the data that informs the final score for each country; it can stand on its own, and should be criticized as such.

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

#139

Post by pbreit »

tsunamifury wrote: post #25
pkaye wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think there is a stage where a genuine innovation is in a regulatory grey state because society simply hasn't processed its effects yet. That wasn't the case here... but it is in many other situations. Sometimes ex-post-facto the innovation is ruled against regulation and sometimes not. Take Tesla as an example -- a company who has tried to sell cars online. Since many states hadn't seen that before, they tried to…

AirBnB, PayPal & Uber are better examples. The "follow the rules period crowd" would never have let them succeed. Is that really what we want?

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

#140

Post by serge2k »

eudox wrote: post #8
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…

I suppose it depends on the context. Considering America's oppressive regulatory environment, and that occupational licensing is bad, I'm usually inclined to call it 'admirable disruption'.

Occupational Licensing is not universally bad.

Licensed hairdresser? Fuckoff. Licensed doctor? Sounds reasonable. Lawyer? yeah. Engineer? Probably. etc...

Insurance salesperson? maybe.

Really depends on what the license is intended to protect. if it's just a silly barrier to entry that's one thing. If it is to ensure that a person has a minimal level of competence so as to prevent real harm to their customers that's a different thing. A lot will claim to meet the latter standard, I'm skeptical how many do. Insurance sales licensing I would guess to be mostly the former.

That being said, you spend 2 weeks getting licenses sorted out when someone starts and you avoid this whole mess.

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