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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

#211

Post by ziddoap »

WisNorCan wrote: post #121
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.

It is interesting to see that employees of Convoy aren't saying bad things about the CEO. But people on the outside who don't know the CEO are saying bad things. Usually it is the reverse.

>It is interesting to see that employees of Convoy aren't saying bad things about the CEO

A whole two people who claim to be ex-convoy employees have chimed in from what I have seen. Hardly representative of what the average ex-employee thinks. Certainly not enough to form a conclusion either way.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#212

Post by zonkerdonker »

dpflan wrote: post #66
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…

Given that you were in the company and presumably have an idea of how the company functions: where did the funding go? $260M gone in 1 year? "Convoy, which raised $260 million in a funding round last year that valued the business at $3.8 billion, on Wednesday told employees in an email that it would stop accepting shipments until further notice and that it was rescheduling or canceling existing loads." (wsj)

I'm curious as well, that's an astoundingly high burn rate for a 500 person logistics company. Wonder if there were outstanding debts

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#213

Post by lelandbatey »

netbioserror wrote: post #187
asdff wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could easily rewrite this comment to be about child labor in coal mines and textile mills. At the end of the day people are starting to expect certain basics from businesses considering places like In n Out are now offering benefits packages, and its about time we also enforce certain standards. If that raises the cost of doing business, so be it. I expect the business would be even more lucrative if you didn't h…

Boilerplate vapid moralizing nonsense. Are you assuming there's some magic stockpile of millions upon millions hiding somewhere that could be used to sever all of these people? You've already been told this is fantastically unrealistic for a startup bankruptcy. Unless you can suggest where to find the funds, you need a reality check.

There's been some pretty clear suggestions up thread on where to find the funds, namely "several months ago in the past". To be more clear:

The business (Convoy) should have shut down in e.g. August of 2023 when it was clear that they still had enough cash to pay out severance and still cover the expenses of winding down the business. They did not take this option, choosing to instead risk it all that they could bring in an infusion of cash without firing folks.

This is not "boilerplate vapid moralizing nonsense"; to take such a risk when you have a company of 500+ employees is a poor business choice.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#214

Post by mrguyorama »

camhart wrote: post #199
nebulousthree wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Planes prepare for basically 0 chance of failure.

NO, the entire point of plane safety is that you are prepared for the VAST MAJORITY OF FAILURES, through extensive planning, testing, regulations that force certain choices, redundancy, backups, etc.

Maybe companies should stop trying to play check kiting as SOP for business operation, and be willing to admit that they sucked at business, burned a billion dollars, and didn't even keep any of it to help any of the people who did the work survive for the next few months as they adjust.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#215

Post by whalesalad »

gcampos wrote: post #80

To think that 1 year ago they were aggressively spamming me for an engineering position there. How you go from "hyper growth mode" (according to the recruiter email) to closed operations within 13 months?

Not everyone knows how to run a company successfully, despite hyper growth fervor. Just look at FTX lol.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#216

Post by psunavy03 »

duxup wrote: post #94
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…

I'm confused as to what Convy "had" anyway. Was it largely spot rates, a bid board, and lots of small carriers? Customers easily could just get rates / carriers elsewhere and walk from Convoy? No other services making income keeping customers around? Rates are pretty fluid in logistics, very strange that they would rely on that alone if that was the case.

Everyone in startup world wants to come in and "hack" 3PL until they realize 3PL is a weird, complicated thing even if it's got a bunch of legacy players on legacy software. It's more or less like this: https://xkcd.com/1831/

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#217

Post by jkubicek »

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.

I've only worked at one company that shut down, and we were notified a month in advance, giving us all time to find a new job while still getting a paycheck and healthcare.

If the CEO wanted to continue operations for another month to allow folks to find new work, they could have.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#218

Post by akavi »

vic-traill wrote: post #57
bradleybuda wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think the executives are making anything from this? It's a startup, it ran out of money, it failed, there is nothing left. Joining a startup is risky.

>It's a startup, it ran out of money, it failed, there is nothing left It may not be that clear cut ... From the article: The startup, valued by investors last year at $3.8 billion, had already whittled its staff down to about 500 people from a peak of 1,500, and was on track to run out of money in a matter of weeks

I don't see where you're seeing execs making any money off of Convoy in that quote.

If there are any outstanding debt obligations (which I expect there are), then those would be senior to voluntary severance even if the company hadn't spent its literal last dollar.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#219

Post by [deleted] »

tejohnso wrote: post #194
bart_spoon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#220

Post by [deleted] »

vogt wrote: post #55
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…

>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…

[deleted]
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