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Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

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Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#191

Post by camhart »

Apocryphon wrote: post #162
oh_sigh wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy healthcare on the free market. And you aren't being "let go" - the entire company is going under. If you are laid off and the company stays healthy, it makes sense to have some concessions. But if the entire business ceases to exist. I don't know why would you expect anything from it.

Wonder if it might make sense for the social safety net to include such a provision for workers of businesses that go under. If we're not going to have universal public coverage, might as well add provision for such an extenuating circumstance as that.

Unemployment benefits should already apply wouldn't they?

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#192

Post by dboreham »

benced wrote: post #72
vogt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Classy. Learning a lot about how certain people treat their employees during these last couple of admittedly insane years. Good for future reference, I guess - though not much solace now. I feel for the employees. Edit: Wow, more responses than I thought! I admit that the tone of my comment was too reactionary, but my opinion stands. I won't modify the original commen…

Ex-Convoy employee here: if a company is shutting down, it obviously can't provide severance. It's not a matter of class or not.

> if a company is shutting down, it obviously can't provide severance

Not really true. The company is owned by its shareholders, and they may choose to use funds belonging to the company (after paying outstanding obligations) to pay severance, or they may divide the funds among themselves. If there are no funds, they can choose to invest more to pay severance. Obviously they're unlikely to want to do that, but it's not a case of "can't" but rather "won't".

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#193

Post by [deleted] »

llm_nerd wrote: post #156
andlarry wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medicare: 65,748,297 people enrolled [0] Medicaid and CHIP: 85,614,581 people enrolled [1] Military: 9.5 million people covered [2] The US has not one but two of the largest single payer health insurance programs in the world. Medicare alone has more people enrolled than any European country's single payer programs other than Germany (pop 83,294,633) and the UK (pop 67,736,802). [0] https://medicareadvocacy.org/medic…

I don't think having discrete programs for subsets of the population is single-payer. Single-payer to my understanding means that the health system itself has a single payer. Having the government pay for some patients and a myriad of insurance plans covering the bulk of other patients is not single payer. As they said, it is bizarre the lengths the US will go to to maintain its layered system. It seems purpose built…

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#194

Post by tejohnso »

bart_spoon wrote: post #86
benced wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ex-Convoy employee here: if a company is shutting down, it obviously can't provide severance. It's not a matter of class or not.

If things are dire enough to close up shop now, they probably were dire enough to close up shop 2 months ago, and you can use the cash to give your employees some runway for finding new employment.

Tesla wouldn't exist if Elon had shut down at the 2 month dire point. At least, I recall him saying they were at one point about 2 days away from bankruptcy.

Not surprising though, that Elon would be in the same camp as this Convoy CEO, not likely to shed too many tears over worker concerns.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#195

Post by Apocryphon »

camhart wrote: post #191
Apocryphon wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder if it might make sense for the social safety net to include such a provision for workers of businesses that go under. If we're not going to have universal public coverage, might as well add provision for such an extenuating circumstance as that.

Unemployment benefits should already apply wouldn't they?

Should provide something better than COBRA

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#196

Post by [deleted] »

legitster wrote: post #131

What would a buyer have even been purchasing in this scenario? A bunch of talented employees? Cool, they are all on the market anyway. A bunch of tiny commodity contracts? Why? A pile of code? Is it particularly hard to recreate? Valuations are having a big wake-up call across the industry. While a company can be more than the sum of its parts, VC-backed tech companies have really struggled in industries where unit-e…

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#197

Post by camhart »

wooly_bully wrote: post #11

(Ex-)Convoy engineer here. No mystery as to why this happened, sudden tight market and low available capital demolished us. External reasons given in the article were the same we knew and couldn't do anything about considering that none of the M&A options materialized. Detailed the shutdown on a call at 8:30am Pacific this morning. CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. Lot of talented folks in Seattle and…

Former employees should apply for unemployment benefits. Convoy likely paid into an unemployment insurance program (its normally mandatory).

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#198

Post by mmanfrin »

justrealist wrote: post #111
apercu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in whether the C-level got any severance or healthcare....

Why do you assume the worst, with absolutely no information? The company is shutting down. I'd bet you a lot of money nobody gets anything.

Probably because C-levels almost always get disproportionate parachutes regardless of performance.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#199

Post by camhart »

nebulousthree wrote: post #119
brianwawok wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, OP is either from Europe or very entitled or both.

When you get on a plane do you think they fuel it to run out exactly at the moment the plane stops at its final destination, and not a drop more? Don't you think that they reserve fuel for emergencies? Why shouldn't a business consider itself at 0 operating dollars but still have a full account for healthcare or equivalent severance?

Planes prepare for basically 0 chance of failure.

Most startups fail. And everyone involved should know that going into it.

To operate a startup protecting against all risk will likely guarantee failure in almost all cases.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#200

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #38
renegade-otter wrote: post #12

"The appetite for venture funding of freight brokerages has been dead for over a year and is partially responsible for the reason Convoy has failed. VC investors have woken to the reality that freight brokerage is not venture-investible." So they WeWorked it. Instead of focusing on long-term growth strategy for a very good and sustainable business, the top management decided to get rich quickly, destroying the compan…

Please don't post this sort of reflexive denunciation to HN. Posting like this breaks HN's guidelines, at least in spirit and arguably literally: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " " Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " http…

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