Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 180 posts

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#111

Post by School-Cotton »

PierceJoy wrote: post #93
kerosene wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What typically happens with unions is the agreement will likely contain a salary guideline adhered to most of the time, which diminishes individual leverage.

The unions you are referring to are almost universally for blue collar workers. Most professional athletes are members of unions. Most highly paid actors are members of a union. Neither of those groups have decreased individual leverage. It's unlikely that a union for highly paid white collar workers would closely resemble a union for blue collar workers.

> Neither of those groups have decreased individual leverage.

Huh? Sure they do. The MLB negotiated agreement is terrible for top performers, who are paid close to the league minimum salary for the first three years of their career, and an arbitration-determined salary for the next two.

As soon as the union-negotiated common salary time runs out, top players’ pay jumps several times.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#112

Post by pc86 »

trytozoom wrote: post #55
colordrops wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in summary you are saying it makes no sense to be an employee at a startup. There's no upside except for "lottery winners".

I've seen a ton of this on HN for the past couple of years, "Go work for FAANG, startups are worthless." As someone who has started a company, gotten it funded, and would like to hire high quality engineers, this is deeply disheartening. I've tried to hire a few people, offering them market rate or close to it for base salary (_very_ rough ballpark 150-200K for 2-5y experience) and a decent chunk of equity (highly va…

There are automated threads on or about the 1st of each month for folks looking for work. Lots of people looking for neat projects and that startup experience.

My contact info is in my profile as well, I might be interested!

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#113

Post by CPLX »

throwearlyeng wrote: post #23
colordrops wrote: post #14

Isn't it pretty common for early employees to be screwed down the line during IPOs and acquisitions? That's been my experience and that of many colleagues, and has been a topic here on HN over the years, driving the idea that working for a startup is usually not in your interests except for particular cases.

I wish YC with all of its power and influence could try to change things for the better here. Early employees' blood, sweat, and tears, not to mention burning the midnight oil, often go into actualizing the founders' vision. Often these key early hires are alongside the founders working equally hard since day 10 or even day 1. I remember Sam Altman posting lamenting that the most talented engineers are more intereste…

> I wish YC with all of its power and influence could try to change things for the better here.

YC is a multi-billion dollar Venture Capital firm.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#114

Post by pontus »

celticninja wrote: post #99
chrisseaton wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At best, they do what the majority of their members want. Which may be completely at odds with your interests. For example a union of mainly older members voting for pay-by-seniority and damaging younger people’s pay. Democracy in a union can become a tyranny of the majority. That’s one reason many people don’t want unions.

Isn't that democracy everywhere though? And it's still better than any of the alternatives by a significant margin.

Many governments have been built in ways to try to mitigate this. For example, in the US we have the electoral college and the Senate (where each state has an equal vote). Not saying I support the electoral college (I don't), but at least there's some thought behind it...

Another example is the parliamentary system where each party gets some type of representation in the government and where absolute majorities are rare.

Point being that governments, while democratic in flavor, have implemented some safeguards against this type of tyrany of the majority.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#115

Post by cafard »

chrisseaton wrote: post #107
celticninja wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that democracy everywhere though? And it's still better than any of the alternatives by a significant margin.

> Isn't that democracy everywhere though? And it's still better than any of the alternatives by a significant margin. Yes it is. Which is fine for something like a country where I don't have any hope of negotiating with the government individually, and where I don't have any choice in which country I'm part of. But I'm not sure it's what I want for my job , where I can already negotiate directly with my employer, and…

Yes and no. If James Damore had worked for the NY Times, the Newspaper Guild leadership might have loathed him, but it would have fought for his job.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#116

Post by dagurp »

pc86 wrote: post #103
dagurp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say you lose your negotiating power? The union will ensure that you have the same basic rights (and salary) that everyone else in the field. That doesn't mean you can't ask for a raise or a higher starting salary.

I would love (seriously) to hear an example of a union that negotiates pay for its members but individuals successfully get additional raises or bonuses on top of that (not just for doing additional work). Teachers, pilots, public sector employees, all have pay contractually set. If you're a high school teacher and you ask your Principal or Vice Principal for a raise out of band you'll get laughed out of the room.

Most teachers work in public schools so even if the principal could give them a raise they wouldn't be able to but in private schools they absolutely could. Pilots are an interesting example because AFIK they negotiated terribly, i.e. they have all sorts of benefits and high salaries for the high-tenured pilots but new pilots are almost working for free. Student pilots have been told for years that there's an upcoming shortage of pilots but right now you're lucky to get a job anywhere in the world. If you're looking for examples then look at europe. In my country everyone has the right to negotiate their salary once a year even though most people are part of a union. Where I worked I would always be able to get a couple of % added to my salary.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#117

Post by UncleMeat »

pc86 wrote: post #103
dagurp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say you lose your negotiating power? The union will ensure that you have the same basic rights (and salary) that everyone else in the field. That doesn't mean you can't ask for a raise or a higher starting salary.

I would love (seriously) to hear an example of a union that negotiates pay for its members but individuals successfully get additional raises or bonuses on top of that (not just for doing additional work). Teachers, pilots, public sector employees, all have pay contractually set. If you're a high school teacher and you ask your Principal or Vice Principal for a raise out of band you'll get laughed out of the room.

SAG. The NFL Players Union. Just two examples.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#118

Post by mrep »

tinco wrote: post #65
trytozoom wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a ton of this on HN for the past couple of years, "Go work for FAANG, startups are worthless." As someone who has started a company, gotten it funded, and would like to hire high quality engineers, this is deeply disheartening. I've tried to hire a few people, offering them market rate or close to it for base salary (_very_ rough ballpark 150-200K for 2-5y experience) and a decent chunk of equity (highly va…

> and that someday stock worth 10s or 100s of K will be worth 100s or 1Ms This sounds a bit dodgy. I don't endorse paying someone with less than 5 years 250k/year but if you're looking at someone then the amount of options you give them should be worth at least the salary cut over the vesting period. So say you're looking at some VP potential that could get 400k per year working at Netflix or something and you're goi…

> Then you should offer them (imo) $750k in options vesting over 3 years. That's in now money, as in that should be whatever the investors in your last round paid for that same stock.

Except those investors got preferred stock whereas you are getting common stock which has less value. Thus, they are offering you the option to pay 750k for stock that is actually worth more like 600k losing you money. Now those options do have some value because of the expiration time and the fact that the price can rise but option pricing is complicated.

I highly recommend everyone considering startups to read up on the options greeks and go look at prices for deep out of the money (OTM) calls on public companies because that is effectively what startups are offering you and you can see what the public markets value options like that as.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#119

Post by solidasparagus »

nikanj wrote: post #90
michaelt wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HOAs are also democratic and owned by their members - yet I hear 10 people complaining about their HOA for every person I hear speaking out in support of them.

People rarely speak passionately about things they're reasonably happy with.

There are regular surveys that cover how many people are in unions and the overall perception of unions. The numbers back up the idea that unions are dying and people don't think highly of them.

Re: Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

#120

Post by datavirtue »

WJW wrote: post #89
trytozoom wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a ton of this on HN for the past couple of years, "Go work for FAANG, startups are worthless." As someone who has started a company, gotten it funded, and would like to hire high quality engineers, this is deeply disheartening. I've tried to hire a few people, offering them market rate or close to it for base salary (_very_ rough ballpark 150-200K for 2-5y experience) and a decent chunk of equity (highly va…

To rephrase the dilemma you pose: "FAANG has more money than my startup and the employees I want are mainly motivated by money". There is probably not much you can do to beat FAANG on the money front. Some options include: - Go for less top-notch people. Do you really need the very best or have you just convinced yourself that you do? How do you even measure quality? I've seen ex-FAANG people bomb more than once at a…

I can't handle the structure of a large company. There is more than pay influencing decisions. I like the nimble "family" atmosphere of a startup and the ability to make an impact. That sometimes propels people to greatness. I had zero credentials and was hired as app support to free up developer time at a startup. My freedom to impact the business infused me with passion and I ended up being a key person in the operations of the company and a major influencer of the technical direction. My salary went through the roof. Hire people who haven't been burnt down by big company culture and turn them loose. You can create top-notch people on the fly. The people they hired along side me who had credentials and tons of Corp experience were left standing.
Post reply on HN