$4.5B Valuation for an SaaS business that doesn't charge for it's service and makes money from commissions? Did they invent something no one else can do? Why would insurance companies not just scrap the middle man and build their own thing?
Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
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Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#12$4.5B Valuation for an SaaS business that doesn't charge for it's service and makes money from commissions? Did they invent something no one else can do? Why would insurance companies not just scrap the middle man and build their own thing?
Why would hardware companies not just build their own operating system?
Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about other insurance companies, but the ones I know are incredibly bad at building software (I don't know any in the healthcare or HR business though). Still, they're burning a very worrying amount of money.
Zenefits are one of the few companies where the burn rate is probably inevitable. They're trying to get a secure foothold in a market that has slow-moving, largely technologically ignorant companies who are very wealthy. That wealth could be used to leverage the incumbent companies' dominant position if someone successfully starts to disrupt things. They need to get to a position where they can't be crowded out by th…
Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#14$4.5B Valuation for an SaaS business that doesn't charge for it's service and makes money from commissions? Did they invent something no one else can do? Why would insurance companies not just scrap the middle man and build their own thing?
One of the benefits of an HR solution like Zenefits is that it lets you shop among and switch between insurance providers. A captive solution wouldn't be able to do this as well or as independently as a third-party company. Zenefits also helps companies with more than insurance, services which would presumably be less interesting for an insurance carrier to provide.
Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#15A fella named Kevin from Zenefits sent me email once asking about our human resource needs. I told Kevin that we have no need for human resources since our company was run entirely by strong AI. I signed it, Yours in the Singularity. Kevin never emailed me back.
Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#16Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#17Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#18A fella named Kevin from Zenefits sent me email once asking about our human resource needs. I told Kevin that we have no need for human resources since our company was run entirely by strong AI. I signed it, Yours in the Singularity. Kevin never emailed me back.
Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#19Re: Zenefits (YC W13) Just Raised $500M at a $4.5B Valuation
#20Does anyone know of a Zenefits like business that serves the UK? I've not come across anything close and HR administration is just as big of pain in the UK as the US. I recognise the business model (commissions on health insurance) wouldn't work in the UK, but I'd be happy to pay. Our health insurance costs are so much lower anyway....