Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer • Hacker News Board

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#241

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:43 PM UTC

andlarry wrote: post #134

hotpotamus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, it's rather impressive the lengths the US will goto to avoid socialized/single-payer health plans (for anyone who isn't in the military or poor or over 65 at least). That sounds rather cockamamy to me.

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…

> The US has not one but two of the largest single payer health insurance programs in the world.

Neither Medicare as a whole nor Medicaid is single-payer. (Individual state Medicaid plans may be single payer plans, but very often they aren't, either.)

Traditional Medicare is single-payer, but the majority (as of this year) of Medicare beneficiaries use partially-subsidized private insurance (Medicare Advantage) plans, not traditional Medicare.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#242

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:43 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #238

Reading a lot of comments it's clear to me some of the people commenting have never been through a startup in its final phases. At least in my case, it was well obvious to everyone 1+ year before it happened because repeated attempts at funding kept failing, parties got smaller/disappeared, pay freezes, layoffs, snacks in the fridge started getting slimmer and slimmer pickings. The worst part though is when you're in…

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#243

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#244

Post by sangnoir » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

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.

Selection bias - Convoy employees who didn't like the CEOs approach didn't stay employees for long.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#245

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #234

itsoktocry wrote: post #183

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. This might be true, but personally I'd rather the company try to remain a going concern.

> This might be true, but personally I'd rather the company try to remain a going concern. You could refuse the severance as an employee if you wish to go down swinging. Edit: Knowing the company is doomed in a month or 2 and not employees offering severance is not a good thing yo do, in my book.

> Knowing the company is doomed in a month or 2 and not alerting employees is not a good thing yo do, in my book

Has anyone at Convoy claimed this?

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#246

Post by ska » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:46 PM UTC

avalys wrote: post #169

bart_spoon wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they will. What is the magic that separates success from failure that apparently only magically appears within the last 4 weeks with operating capital in the bank? Move your time tables up by 4-8 weeks, including funding raises and closing operations, and none of this is an issue.

If you can still operate the business for another 8 weeks, there's a chance that things will still work out, and it's pretty pessimistic to preemptively shut it down because you assume you're going to fail. Pessimists don't generally find themselves in the role of founder/CEO of a startup in the first place.

> there's a chance that things will still work out,

There is a big difference between a less than 1% chance and an 80% chance here. Part of the job is knowing that difference, and how to handle/communicate it.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#247

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:47 PM UTC

hotpotamus wrote: post #185

llm_nerd wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think it would likely be called a non-universal multiple single-payer system if you want to get pedantic about things, but either way given that Americans spend more on healthcare in relative terms while lagging in most health measures makes it all seem very foolish.

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#248

Post by drewrv » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

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.

Obviously it didn't pan out, but you could think of Convoy as an aggregator of small carriers. A big shipper doesn't want to deal with 1,000 small carriers but they can deal with Convoy, and Convoy deals with the small carriers.

Convoy could interface with large companies as though they had a large fleet of drivers and trucks. That "fleet" wouldn't require paying for benefits to employees, maintenance or fuel on the truck, and could scale up or down based on demand.

I would have guessed that the network effects of getting this kind of marketplace going would be the hard part. It makes me think that a big mistake in leadership was made.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#249

Post by andlarry » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

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…

We do not have universal single-payer but we have a few very large government-run single-payer systems.

If you have an example of a country with a single program that has more effective outcomes for a population of similar makeup and size, that would be a useful comparison.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#250

Post by djmips » Thu, Oct 19, 2023, 8:48 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #238

Reading a lot of comments it's clear to me some of the people commenting have never been through a startup in its final phases. At least in my case, it was well obvious to everyone 1+ year before it happened because repeated attempts at funding kept failing, parties got smaller/disappeared, pay freezes, layoffs, snacks in the fridge started getting slimmer and slimmer pickings. The worst part though is when you're in…

> I did not appreciate in my scenario that the founder REJECTED a buy offer for what would have been a life changing amount of money for me, because he thought it was too low.

Same scenario for me - so I left - and then shortly after they did sell. Argh.