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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

#281

Post by busterarm »

conjecTech wrote: post #210
busterarm wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups are not established businesses. They are inherently risky ventures. If you want to be coddled and showered with benefits, go join a Fortune 500. Startups are not for you.

This is the worst take I have ever seen. This company just raised $250 million. That is more money than 99% of companies will ever have in the bank. Being a "startup" does not given you license to wantonly play with your employees' lives and wellbeing. As the quote from Dalton above shows, there are norms around these things which companies 1/100 this size regularly abide by. This is not normal behavior for any compa…

They raised $260 million and had at their peak 1500 employees.

Think for a moment how far $260 million gets you when you have 1500 tech employee salaries in Seattle to pay. Plus operating expenses. Don't forget to add 15.3% for payroll tax. Median software engineer compensation in Seattle is 219k. Infrastructure and office space isn't free either. Seattle office space averages $43/sqft and the average employee space is 150-175 sqft.

That. Money. Is. Long. Gone. It's not a bad take, you just won't do basic math.

Raising $260M doesn't mean you're rich. The investors expect you to spend that money and otherwise why are you raising that much?

They spent 4 months looking for a buyer and had already shed 1000 employees before shutting down operations. It's not like current employees were clueless about what was going on.

Functionally there's little difference between operating up until now or giving 500 "chosen, lucky" people severance 3 months ago.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#282

Post by the_gipsy »

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.

You sound very gullible. As if execs don't know nor pick when to shut down.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#283

Post by bombcar »

TylerE wrote: post #50
dieselgate wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have experience with trans-continental vehicle transport but as part of an old job one task I had was "drive this truck from Utah to North Carolina.. work there for a few weeks then drive this van back to Utah". Certainly cheaper than designated shippers for a company... As a consumer I'd assume there are hotshot truckers/services that would be used for this? People have mentioned similar "agent oriented" exper…

sometimes, but they mostly get put on a transporter like any new car. If it’s something valid able (claaaic car, race car, etc) they’ll usually sprint for an enclosed hauler, which is am several times more expensive

This is the actual problem, because transporter trucks are almost always just used to bring a group of vehicles to a dealership from a rail depot.

The ones carrying cars across the country for moves are quite rare, unscheduled, and harder to find. They also can't carry anything else besides cars on the transporters - you might almost have better luck driving your car into the back of a box semi and letting them load other LTL loads behind it.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#284

Post by climatekid »

bradleybuda wrote: post #42
bloopernova wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEO said there'll be no severance or healthcare. That should be illegal. How much are the executives making from this? I'm really sorry you're in the middle of this. I hope you can find a better job soon.

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.

The founders probably took millions in secondary offerings

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#285

Post by mkoubaa »

sputknick wrote: post #6

start-up idea if anyone is bored: disrupt car shipping. When I moved from Seattle to Raleigh shipping my car was BY FAR the biggest headache. It's a 20th century business where you have to call people, who will bid for you, and you have no idea if your bid is accepted. Agents will promise a low price to get your business, then tell you a week later that bid was too low, you need to double it. I eventually just gave u…

Yeah maybe do it via some kind of car rental. Someone going from Seattle to Minneapolis pays peanuts and insurance to drive your car. Someone else going from Minneapolis to Memphis after that. And so on.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#286

Post by gosub100 »

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 been laid-off from a startup and got 2-3 weeks severance

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#287

Post by __coaxialcabal »

wg0 wrote: post #265

When there's no buyer what happens to all the code/IP? I mean there must be something functional anyway at this point no matter how lean and mean.

This…not to mention NOLs, contracts, MSAs, etc. At some level there is a market price for these “assets”. Maybe we need an eBay for near bankrupt startups? The bankers aren’t getting it done.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#289

Post by Johnie »

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…

In addition, you take on the debt and the loan portfolio that it's responsible for.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#290

Post by JumpCrisscross »

sangnoir wrote: post #263
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Not just alerting, but offering severance. No one at Convoy was offered severance - now or in the past month. I edited my earlier comment to reflect my meaning.

> Not just alerting, but offering severance

Separate questions. You said the company knew it was "doomed in a month or 2 and [did] not [alert] employees." I've seen them messaging pain since their multiple rounds of layoffs last year and this [1], as well as in August [2]. Moreover, I haven't seen claims of employees being blindsided (as Yellow drivers were).

[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2023/trucking-marketplace-convoy-ma...

[2] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/digital-trucking-com...

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