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ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

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Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#141

Post by jsprogrammer »

borski wrote: post #126
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.

I was actually really concerned when I saw the other one had been buried, and was worried HN was going to turn into a "do not slam our companies" love-fest. I'm glad you're being so transparent, and even happier about the fact that legitimate controversy still gets to be played out and discussed. Thanks.

Transparent? Barely.

The link is still gone from the main site (only available in a comment) and its removal was justified by "we have to pick one".

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#142

Post by realityking »

dopamean wrote: post #20
realityking wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are two different companies, they just have the first tree letters of their names in common. Just like ZenDesk.

It was a joke dude.

That went totally over my head, my bad. That said, I'm not a native speaker and humor is sometimes difficult.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#143

Post by tptacek »

DannyBee wrote: post #75
nostrademons wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but DannyBee's post explicitly mentions that they'll fail based on 4. "That Zenefits failed to use reasonable care to determine the truth or falsity of the statement(s)". I wanted to know if he knows something factually about what went on other than what's been reported here, because if I were a jury member and the facts were that Zenefits used their customers' login credentials (against ADP's TOS) to access AD…

See the blog post i just posted. In fact, ADP launched a competing products, just as zynamics said they were going to. This is good enough for reasonable care. :) Even if it wasn't, ADP would have to prove that Zynamics didn't bother to do any investigation at all before making the statement (IE not quite negligence, but at least something) This seems "highly unlikely" given the situation.

Zynamics? You have Thomas Dullien on the brain. :)

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#144

Post by jsprogrammer »

bsder wrote: post #140
jasonlotito wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 empl…

>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.

And do you put out a handbook or other disclaimer stating that the employer and employee have zero obligation to each other and can terminate the relationship at any time?

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#145

Post by ahlatimer »

bsder wrote: post #140
jasonlotito wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 empl…

I'll grant you that it showed poor judgment if he really thought he could stay anonymous. That said, I disagree with basically everything else. I think you're reading way too much into that.

Where you work will have an impact on your career (I think that's obvious). Part of that is simply the social proof of which company. It helped my career by working for various YC companies, for instance. Were they necessarily better than non-YC companies? No, of course not, but people put stock in it anyway.

The first company you work for may very well have an outsized impact on your career compared to subsequent positions. You should make that decision carefully.

Most importantly, when I go to work somewhere, they shouldn't expect that I will work there the rest of my life. Staying at a company 2-5 years is pretty normal. That's a short enough timespan that you should be thinking about how the company will impact your career after your time with them is done. Furthermore, part of the behavior of a good manager and company is to encourage and facilitate your career growth, even though they realize that doing so may very well cause you to grow out of your position at that company.

He's also a kid, looking at his first career out of college. Did you know the right things to look for immediately and inherently? Do you now? Did some of the things you looked for then end up getting discounted as you got more experience? Do you maybe think you shouldn't hold it against him that maybe he also doesn't know everything?

So no, I wouldn't say that that kid was wrong for thinking about several different aspects of the opportunities he was presented, name-recognition amongst them, even if I would contend that he should maybe put less of an emphasis on it, but that's just the thing he might have heard when he asked the question. Nor do I think that he's more likely to up and leave the company when the going gets rough.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#146

Post by USNetizen »

I had a horrendous experience with the Zenefits platform (and management team), so I may be a little biased. Their software quality is/was horrendous (it is/was riddled with errors and defects). But, even from the beginning, I was leery of the way they did the ADP "integration" and thought it was only a matter of time before it was cut off. I mean, they took a back door into harvesting sensitive employee information on a competitor's platform, what else should they expect? A welcoming party?

After conversing with the Zenefits CEO on twitter, it seems to me there is a culture of smugness at Zenefits and feeling amongst their management that they can seemingly do no wrong. Heaven forbid you complain about their poor platform quality or mention that they are growing at an unsustainable rate thereby letting quality and service fall by the wayside - then they just kick you off or tell you to go away.

Well, that has changed thanks to ADP (who I have had actually GREAT experiences with). Zenefits sort of deserves it in this case, in my humble opinion.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#147

Post by larrys »

dang wrote: post #134
larrys wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Quick and dirty would be to manually update and append "Thread Closed [n]" to the header with a message like this:

ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor; Thread Closed [n]

Where "n" is simply a number that is listed elsewhere that describes the reason for closing. Note that can scale to any number of reasons or explanations either existing or new as if it's a footnote.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#148

Post by namenotrequired »

josefresco wrote: post #44
rubiquity wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the Zenefits founder rescinded a job offer to someone that asked on Quora whether they should accept the offer from Zenefits or some other company.

To be fair, the applicant "slammed" Zenefits by saying that having their name on his resume would be less valuable than others when applying FOR A NEW JOB (my emphasis). If an employee applied to work for my business and one of their "concerns" was how our company would appear on their resume (in contrast to another), I would similarly discard their application.

Really? Whenever I discuss my career with my employer (a startup much smaller than Zenefits), they're always the first to bring up potential future employers.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#149

Post by hobbyjogger »

DannyBee wrote: post #13

Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning. The defamation they claimed happened is that Zenefits "alleged that ADP intentionally sought to cause harm to ADP’s clients solely to gain an unfair competitive advantage against Zenefits.” Even if you argue this is defamation per se (and not per quod), about a matter of private concern, they'd still have to prove "4. That [name of defendant] failed to u…

The complaint[1] includes five claims: (1) Defamation, (2) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations, (3) Unfair Competition, (4) False Advertising and (5) Lanham Act Violation.

Without getting into the legal contours of each, I'd say the defamation claim is at the bottom of the list of Zenefit's legal concerns here.

[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/268286803/ADP-v-Zenefits-Defamatio...

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