ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation • Hacker News Board

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#131

Post by pbreit » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 6:59 PM UTC

jusben1369 wrote: post #2

I feel like Zenefits is becoming a case study in everything you don't do when you enter an industry. We'll be switching away because I'm worried who else they won't play nice with in the future. Uber and AirBNB have scared the heck out of huge incumbent industries and cities/governments and had scraps to be sure. But they don't have the consistent missteps as Zenefits. They know when to fight and when to take a lump…

It's a shame that it does seem like jerky behavior is at least correlative, if not causative, to success.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#132

Post by x0x0 » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

nadams wrote: post #78

olafskyansian wrote: post #19

I have a lot of respect for what Zenefits has done to date in shaking up the insurance space, but you have to REALLY question what the heck is going on with Parker's leadership there. What is going on that the founder/CEO has enough time to chastise an engineer candidate on Quora and put out factually inaccurate posts on topics like healthcare reform (he had something out on LinkedIn a few weeks back) but doesn't hav…

> You read the glassdoor reviews of Zenefits Am I the only one that finds it strange their reviews seem to alternate between "worst company ever" and "greatest job ever"? One of the reviewers wrote: > Don't "advise" your employees to go to this website and leave good reviews to cover up the truth. Oh yeah well that explains that. update: typo

Or they could be outright lying. Like HealthTap. If you read their reviews on glassdoor, every 10-15 you get an honest review. And if you google the ceo, he goes through dev teams like tissue, both in this and in prior startups. But the majority of reviews are glowing.

contrast this: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/HealthTap-Reviews-E453567.h...

to

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R...

or

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R...

or

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R...

etc

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#133

Post by mikeryan » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #77

jonathanmarcus wrote: post #55

We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits coll…

> Zenefits doesn't have any intrinsic rights to ADP's system. Zenefits doesn't want or need intrinsic rights to the ADP system. They do need (and deserve) the same level of access as a human working for a client using ADP. They might provide little to no value or be a worthless company but NONE OF THAT MATTERS. The client paid for ADP access and has every right to use whatever means they deem necessary to input or ou…

The client paid for ADP access and has every right to use whatever means they deem necessary to input or output data from the ADP system.

Thats not actually what the client pays for though. The client paid for access to ADP's system according to the Terms of Service that ADP sets. If those terms of service and the rights they engender are not acceptable to the client they are welcome to find another provider.

I've frequently posted my dislike for ADP on these boards and I took my business elsewhere.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#134

Post by dang » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

larrys wrote: post #124

ghayes wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the transparency of your decision. It's always welcome from the community.

Agree and even better would be that type of information under the story header so anyone who was following the thread knows that it has been closed and the reason as well.

That's something we've discussed at length and will probably implement someday. It's pretty challenging, though, to do it the way we want, and other stuff has to get rolled out first.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#135

Post by as27 » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

twinspop wrote: post #42

ADP was taken offline today for 65 minutes with a massive DDOS. Coincidence?

How do you know?

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#136

Post by dang » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #128

dang wrote: post #106

Two articles on this were at the top of the front page. Since we don't need two, we buried https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9693370 as a dupe. That's not entirely fair, since the other link contains Zenefits' response, but anyone who wants to can go read it. Since we have to pick one it seems best to keep the third-party article.

De-duping like this seems unnecessary. I'd prefer to see do-nothing bias. No explanations or artificial manipulation needed. Just let the threads compete. Like life.

I understand the concept, but HN has never worked that way, and if it did the results would be so bad that I believe (though I realize it won't convince you) that even you would recoil in horror. It would also kill HN pretty quickly in all the ways we care about, though I suppose the numbers would go up.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#137

Post by shaaaaawn » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

The @ADP response to the #ADPeeved Twitter Campaign: "@parkerconrad @zenefits ADP’s been open for partnership. Secure, API-driven. Apply here: http://partners.adp.com . No need to be #ADPeeved."

via https://twitter.com/ADP/status/608455243232387072

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#138

Post by jsmthrowaway » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #46

peteretep wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ADP is not likely come close to winning Are they trying to win the case, or a longer game involving customer confidence?

Probably the latter, but this is a dumb way to do it :) As a customer, my takeaway would be "If ADP doesn't like what i tell people about it, it's going to actually sue me".

Quite the contrary. ADP wins a PR coup as long as they keep Conrad talking in public. That's the play you're missing, and it will work -- just look at this thread.

I see the lawsuit as a stretch too but it certainly turned the PR table on Zenefits and rapidly. There is far more cleverness in ADP's strategy than is obvious.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#139

Post by CPLX » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #91

jonathanmarcus wrote: post #55

We're a very small company (10 FTEs), but we have been anything but impressed with Zenefits as a customer. We only use them for medical and dental insurance, but in reality, they provide very little, if any value. The Zenefits software is really nothing special, and in fact, the onboarding UI is pretty poor. Now that we have our insurance, Zenefits adds zero value to us. We deal directly with United and Zenefits coll…

I, too, have a small company and so far I'm definitely not impressed with Zenefits. A trivial example: we have roughly fifteen contractors working for us. I had them all sign up for Zenefits so we could pay them (and track 1099's appropriately). Come the first of the month, we tried to pay the contractors, only to discover that we had a cap of $2,500 TOTAL for any given week. This isn't mentioned anywhere obvious and…

Payroll and benefits management is a classic hard problem.

Now granted, with half a billion dollars and some technical acumen major innovation is possible. But the events of this week and the bearing of the CEO paint a picture of a company that is not aware of and focused on that hard problem.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#140

Post by bsder » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #95

gravity13 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol I didn't know that. Meh. It's something I would have done myself in the same situation.

You would have shared publicly that you are revoking someones employment offer because you found them seeking career advice on a Q&A board?

This one is kind of tough. I'd like to think that I'd be better than the Zenefits CEO, but, man, this kid makes it really hard to take his side.

First, it shows really poor judgment on the part of the junior engineer. Dear God, did you think that people can't identify you, specifically? It's not like Zenefits is giving out 10 job offers a day.

Second, you're likely to jump as soon as you get the chance. Neither employer nor employee have any commitment to one another. Okay, fine. But, as an employer, will you completely leave me hanging at a critical time or will you stick a couple of months to complete your task before jumping. Given your lack of discretion, probably you'll leave me hanging.

Third, are you going to air dirty laundry in public? Every company has some, even successful ones. Startups are worse. Again, lack of discretion.

So, yeah, I'd rescind that offer very fast. He'll be lucky if Uber doesn't rescind his offer. I guarantee if I were HR at Uber I'd be trying to pick him out to rescind it.

Would I air that publicly? Probably not.

However, this kid should consider himself lucky that the CEO called him out publicly so he knows what he did wrong. If I were the CEO, I'd probably just rescind his offer without comment. I'd call Uber HR, and they'd rescind his offer without comment.

And, he'd be wondering what the hell happened.