>There’s no way a startup I found on Angel.co is going to screw me over, I thought Is this satire?
Based on the fact that the author called it "Angel.co" over and over instead of AngelList, I have a hunch she hadn't worked in startups before this.
Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
441–450 of 619 posts
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#442I found the bit about the negotiated salary of particular note. I have never included severance in my negotiations, mostly because i have always left my jobs willingly. Is that something more common than i know of? What is a reasonable target to aim for?
I've never heard of it either other than for executives with golden parachutes
It is common for leadership roles even in startups.
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#443Can someone explain to me how they are selling job data when they are scraping it from other job boards? https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/videos/1142030219204484/
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how you open yourself up to liability. This is before anything is really bad, but you are getting suspicious. If you hire a lawyer, you're instantly at DEFCON 1. CCing all your teammates has plausible deniability, especially if they're in the same boat you are. You're not trying to warn anybody here. You're raising a gigantic red flag saying "Hey this is happening to me. If this is happening to you too, l…
> If you hire a lawyer, you're instantly at DEFCON 1. No, when you hire a lawyer and provide them documentation on what has transpired and is transpiring, you are just building an arsenal to be prepared in case of further escalation. When you have your lawyer contact the company, even then, you aren't at DEFCON 1, though that is a significant escalation (or a response to one.) When you file legal action against the c…
I should have been more clear.
If you ever email your coworkers, and CC your boss/fellow employees that you've done so, you're at DEFCON 1.
That implies that legal action is imminent.
If you BCC your lawyer, or just save up the information for later, that doesn't escalate the situation quite as much and allows people to back down more.
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#445Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
Landing page: > WrkRiot pulls signals from your resume and matches them to job posts. That's right, we do the searching for you. We'll be updating this section with videos, walk thru's and more. "walk thru's"? This website looks like garbage
Just look at the blog too. I'm not sure who thought that a blog post entitled "10 WAYS TO SURVIVE AT WORK WITHOUT SLEEP" would be a hit with job seekers. (Not to mention that 100% of their blog content -- 7 posts -- was posted 3 days ago)
it's all behind a password wall now though you can find some pages via google cache
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think as founder you don't have to deal with that? Oh boy, you're in for quite a few surprises. And how do you learn about how to handle this if you work at more established companies? It's the kind of thing we all already know of because of tv shows like game of thrones. But experiencing and actually handling it is another topic.
A psychopathic peer is not the same thing as a psychopathic boss. If you're doing your job, you know how much money is in the bank and you know what the value proposition of the business is, so the failure modes described in the article don't apply. I'm not saying a slipper cofounder can't also try to cheat you, but they have a lot less room to maneuver when you're not a subordinate.
The first thing you learn when you become the boss: You will never get rid of having a boss. Usually the boss's boss is the customer, because he's the one who pays the boss. And as long as there are no (or not enough) customers the boss's boss is the investor.
So you won't ever be high enough to only deal with harmful people in equally powerful positions. Maybe being the president of the US or the owner of the biggest company can think like that. All other 7 billion people can't.
And there is another vector we also shouldn't forget: The higher you get the higher the stakes. Getting f'd as an intern may mean you lose a few hundred bucks. Being an engineer or mid level manager means you play in the 4-6 digit range. And on officer level or above you play for at least a few hundred thousand dollars and with a lot of possibilities to break laws (or appear to break laws) and go to jail. So you probably won't have more safety, but more risk.
If you really want to be save from these people, go live somewhere in the countryside far away from civilisation, grow your own food, and be nice to the other villagers.
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
When a company has just started, they may have not set this up. You can invoice the company. It's not a big deal. Again - of all flags - lack of pay stubs is the least of them if it's just a garage startup with 3-ish people. The actual exchange of money is 100x a stronger indicator of health than the presence of a stub.
"The actual exchange of money is 100x a stronger indicator of health than the presence of a stub." Real companies with people running them who want to do things on the up and up and who know how to run a successful company want to keep a paper trail of every dollar going in or out the door. This includes having a pay sub with every single paycheck or invoice paid that shows what was paid, how much was paid, why it wa…
"Real companies with people running them who want to do things on the up and up and who know how to run a successful company want to keep a paper trail of every dollar going in or out the door."
Most of you it seems have never run a business, have never consulted, have never invoiced for anything.
--> You don't need a W2 to pay someone legally
--> You don't need a 'pay stub' to have perfectly organized and legal books.
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
When a company has just started, they may have not set this up. You can invoice the company. It's not a big deal. Again - of all flags - lack of pay stubs is the least of them if it's just a garage startup with 3-ish people. The actual exchange of money is 100x a stronger indicator of health than the presence of a stub.
It is a big deal, running a business requires following the law. There is no special "startup" case where you're allowed to be loose on your obligations. Accurate payroll costs somewhere between $50-100 per month per employee with dozens of great vendors available. This is an incredibly trivial cost (especially compared to the fines for breaking these laws) and means there's no excuse to not have things in order. If…
"It is a big deal, running a business requires following the law."
Again - I would suggest that maybe you have never started a company or done payroll, or paid anyone yourself.
It is not required to have 'payroll' to pay individuals for services rendered, nor have properly managed books.
I once created a 'side company' to manage some IP. The company had no employees. All participants (there were five of us over time, but only three at any given time) - were paid as consultants. Two of us had equity.
This arrangement was far superior than having payroll for this particular situation.
Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
When a company has just started, they may have not set this up. You can invoice the company. It's not a big deal. Again - of all flags - lack of pay stubs is the least of them if it's just a garage startup with 3-ish people. The actual exchange of money is 100x a stronger indicator of health than the presence of a stub.
> When a company has just started, they may have not set this up. The correct (and only non-criminal) order of operations is (1) figure this out, (2) start hiring employees. If you can't calculate withholdings and all those other things that get listed on a paystub correctly (which is the only thing that would stop you from generating a paystub), you are breaking the law (civilly and perhaps criminally under federal…
"When a company has just started, they may have not set this up. The correct (and only non-criminal) order of operations is (1) figure this out, (2) start hiring employees."
This is false.
For any of you interested - here is the actual law in California:
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_independentcontractor.htm
It's perfectly normal and very common to submit invoices for services rendered that you claim on your 1099.
There's no way you could have run a business without grasping how common paying people via invoicing is.
Some major companies - such as Wordpress - tend not to hire people for a while. For the first little while, they have you work on 'projects', remotely, until they decide they want to bring you on long term. The founder indicated that they pay them for the work and only bring some of them on. Obviously, they are getting paid via invoicing.
Startups will often bring someone on for a project/consulting, and then decided to keep them full time. This is not uncommon. It's also happened to me.
I'm going to guess that most of you commenting have actually never run a business, paid an invoice, or submitted and invoice.