251–260 of 619 posts
"About a month in, our interim leader returned to Korea, and a woman was brought in who had worked at several video game companies. She used to know our CEO’s in college. She was kind, thoughtful, and attentive. I knew the company would eat her alive. After our boss departed, I took over a few of his duties. One of them was “viral marketer.” I was now creating ad campaigns on Facebook in an attempt to bring monthly a…
Has there ever been an instance of late payroll (as opposed to eg sales commission checks being calculated wrong) where the company actually pulled out of the nosedive? It seems like it's almost always the death knell.
"According to Business Insider, Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren admitted at a San Francisco startup conference that, between 2002 and 2004, it didn't pay its 50 employees at all. "
I've been burned repeatedly by startups recruiting me for one role which matches my experience/skillset, then after a month or so radically changing the role to one which I'd had no experience with. I get pivoting, I get needing to be flexible, but why would you hire someone skilled in networking operations and four weeks later decide that person need to design/develop your Windows application instead? I've always be…
> verify with the investors they claim to have backing from that they've actually invested in the company. I'm curious, how would you go about doing this?
I used to get annoyed at all of the chest-beating press releases about how much money a company had raised until I realized it was a form of external validation. None of the companies which burned me on equity/funding issues wanted to talk publicly about their fundraising rounds, it was always "we're going to a do a press release, it's just not the right time now". If you publicly state "We raise a $2.5MM Series A from the following investors" I can go out and verify that.
Bonus story: a "company" recruited me hard to be their CTO. Some wining and dining. But a lot of handwaving about the business model and where the funding was sourced from. The founders wanted me to bring their "vision" of social e-commerce to market utilising a proprietary algorithm which would be disclosed to me only upon taking the role. When pressed about corporate structure and funding they eventually disclosed that funding was coming in the form of personal checks written to cover bills as they came in, by the domestic partner of one of the founders. No C Corp, not even an LLC. I declined.
I think the title should be changed back. The author glosses over the single, real biggest red flag: She never received any paystubs and the company was late on payroll as of before she was hired I have never, ever been paid without either a paystub (as an employee) or generating an invoice which the business then paid (as a freelancer). The outright refusal to share how they arrived at the figure on her cashier's ch…
This is not a huge flag. When a company starts up, it's difficult for them to get the money operating as per regular. He got paid - that's what matters. The paystub is a minor thing/
Paystubs don't need to come from ADP. They can be typed up or even hand-written if you want. But they demonstrate, and record, that the company is fulfilling its legal obligations as an employer, and give the employee the information the employee needs to fulfill their legal obligations as a taxpayer.
"About a month in, our interim leader returned to Korea, and a woman was brought in who had worked at several video game companies. She used to know our CEO’s in college. She was kind, thoughtful, and attentive. I knew the company would eat her alive. After our boss departed, I took over a few of his duties. One of them was “viral marketer.” I was now creating ad campaigns on Facebook in an attempt to bring monthly a…
> We worked through Christmas, and were given no time off for the holidays. Our boss, being a kind soul, offered us New Year’s Eve as a consolation.
AFAICT, Christmas hasn't come yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can invoice the company. It's not a big deal. Nonononono. You're hired as an employee. There is a legal and ethical agreement for them to pay you at the intervals agreed upon in your contract. There are no ifs or buts about it, no invoicing them, no excuses for 'just started'. Payroll is NOT hard.
"Nonononono. You're hired as an employee. There is a legal and ethical agreement for them to pay you at the intervals agreed upon in your contract. There are no ifs or buts about it, no invoicing them, no excuses for 'just started'. Payroll is NOT hard." No - you are completely wrong. There is absolutely nothing wrong - or even remotely immoral - about paying using invoicing while a company gets going. It's common an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fraud is the real story and she's doing future victims a favor by dropping just enough hints for others to find out who they are and avoid them. She should have sent the fake wire notices to the local DA as well, but in lieu of it, this should suffice.
How was Jessica involved in fraud? You have no evidence of that. The story did not imply it either. This is witch hunting. At best a link to their website would have been enough if this really was about "doing future victims a favor" Not linking employees that were really just a comical side to the story.
> You have no evidence of that.
> The story did not imply it either.
I agree with you that there should be NO witch hunting. Just to clarify Jessica's part in the fraud, she was one of the people vocal about outing the founders after not being paid for over a month. For some reason, she suddenly changes her mind. She starts erasing any evidence of OP doing work and The CEO fires her with cause claiming that he has evidence she's not been doing work. Jess is promoted with a raise and changes her title to CMO.
Now, maybe this is just a bitch move, but if Jess is willingly participating in the CEO's scheme to fire OP with cause, I feel like this is crossing the line into fraud. Again, witchhunting is wrong, but just clarifying Jess's part in the fraud (if it counts as fraud)
Is it a bad sign that all SW engineers were on H1B visas? Why wouldn't they hire any from the US?
For control. A US employee can walk away from the sinking ship any time without too much repercussions, not the case for foreign nationals staying on company sponsored visas
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Startup or not, you don't offload the risks of making payroll onto your employees.
"Startup or not, you don't offload the risks of making payroll onto your employees." What are you talking about? Invoicing your startup for a payment is perfectly normal, and has nothing to do with 'offloading the risks of making payroll'. Again - getting paid without a pay stub is utterly irrelevant to a new startup. What matters is getting paid and hopefully it's done in an above the board manner, but the transfer…
But that's not what happened, because they were late, enough so that people were filing their rent late. How about -- "Startup or not, don't take your employees for 'free credit'"?
Or, more brief: "Fake it till you make it, but don't break the flippin' law".
here you go. choiwisely 8 hours ago [-] > Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this "Michael" the CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 "Charlie" the CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown "Jessica" the CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 Company: http://www.wrkriot.com/ + https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861