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ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

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Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#161

Post by jgalt212 »

mark212 wrote: post #87
jgalt212 wrote: post #30

I don't necessarily stand with ADP, but I do stand with the vendors. Zenefits is just a thin wrapper around other companies real products and businesses. I suspect Zenefits true business plan is a trojan horse. Get between a business and its clients, replicate the wrapped business and whamo you put the existing vendor out of business and grab all their revenues. How else could Zenefits justify their sky high valuatio…

all of this kind of insurance is sold through brokers (i.e., a thin wrapper around other companies' real products). That's what Zenefits is competing with -- mom & pop independent insurance brokers, not benefit providers themselves. And entrenched incumbents like ADP who are slow moving and ossified.

fair enough, but I'm arguing that a simple insurance broker can't justify a $4.5B valuation. They have to go for a much bigger piece of the pie.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#162

Post by pbreit »

dang wrote: post #136
pbreit wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough. In this case, they did seem a bit different and, as you note, there were some important comments in the killed thread.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#164

Post by gravity13 »

thrillgore wrote: post #107
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.

Really? I would have kept my mouth shut and not removed doubt about my foolery.

Why? To preserve my "image" with fickle internet communities full of judgmental people who give me a double standard because my name is known?

This is why I'm glad I'm not famous...

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#165

Post by bsder »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #144
bsder wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, but I generally also attempt to engage in professional courtesy.

And, yes, this goes both ways.

If I, as a boss, can see the writing on the wall, I will attempt to protect my employees. While that includes internal protection in a political firefight, it also includes calling up friends at other companies to see if they might have a job for people on my team if I can see that it's going to be ugly. I have also helped usher people out of my company because I simply couldn't get them what they were worth.

It's called "being a professional". It's also called "this industry is damn small, don't piss off the good people in it."

Sometimes you get caught completely unaware and get sacked without notice, but it's really rare. Most senior people can tell when things are about to get bad generally a month or two in advance--if not more.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#166

Post by bsder »

ahlatimer wrote: post #145
bsder wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 be…

> Do you maybe think you shouldn't hold it against him that maybe he also doesn't know everything?

The problem isn't that he doesn't understand everything. The problem is that he doesn't seem to understand "discretion".

I'm about to give someone access to very sensitive HR information across multiple companies. Do I really want to do that when he just demonstrated that he can't make a simple job inquiry with enough discretion to not piss the CEO off? Doubly so since it was a GOOD job offer.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#167

Post by jsprogrammer »

bsder wrote: post #165
jsprogrammer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Yes, but I generally also attempt to engage in professional courtesy . And, yes, this goes both ways. If I, as a boss, can see the writing on the wall, I will attempt to protect my employees. While that includes internal protection in a political firefight, it also includes calling up friends at other companies to see if they might have a job for people on my team if I can see that it's going to be ugly. I have also…

If internal, "hidden", policy is different from public, written, policy...the company can go fuck off.

Professional courtesy would be telling someone you want/need them for the next X months and making a real commitment to the worker instead of having a public policy of 'no obligations' while secretly expecting the worker to 'be a professional' and to show undue loyalty.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#168

Post by greenyoda »

healthnetwork wrote: post #125
gamblor956 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WSJ reported this morning that many startups (and distrubingly, many HN-backed startups) are using fuzzy math when it comes to reporting financials. Generally, they're using non-GAAP measures that they "feel" better reflects their "growth" and "income potential" rather than actual financial measures that everyone else uses. I wouldn't be surprised if the "10,000+" businesses included prospective businesses, compa…

You have a link to that WSJ article?

I think he might be referring to this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9690775

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#169

Post by dang »

pbreit wrote: post #162
dang wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough. In this case, they did seem a bit different and, as you note, there were some important comments in the killed thread.

If the stories had really been the same we would have merged the threads and left a "comments moved to..." post in the other one. But I was worried that the delta was a bit too great to deprive those comments of their original context. That particular dilemma doesn't come up all that often, which is good because we don't have a good solution to it.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#170

Post by g10r »

babar wrote: post #102
geori wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your local insurance salesperson probably has less bargaining power than Zenefits, so your rates with them could be higher.

For small businesses, Zenefits and other brokers offer almost exactly the same rates, which are the list rates of the insurance companies. The negotiation only comes in to play with larger companies (currently 50+ employees, next year it will be 100+, I think). For us, Zenefits seemed slightly more expensive, but it is hard to tell since they didn't give us good comparison data based on employee ages and coverage. If…

We use TriNet, super happy.
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