Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 639 posts

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#331

Post by [deleted] »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #319
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…

Ah yes, won't someone think of the software engineers who are making 3x-6x the median household income of Americans.

[deleted]

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#332

Post by umeshunni »

omginternets wrote: post #279
busterarm wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your series A startup continues to operate and offers a severance that isn't even required for the purposes of reputation management. They want to be able to hire good people tomorrow so they pay you severance today. The company in question here is dead. There is no more money coming in and no business to operate.

I understand what you're saying, but I think you may be missing my point, which is: Jeff Bezos's reputation is damaged by this. I will not work for anything he touches because I don't think he's behaving decently.

What does Jeff Bezos have to do with Convoy?

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#333

Post by jt2190 »

sb8244 wrote: post #316
in_cahoots wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re off by a factor of 10: it’s $260 million, not $26 million. So that’s 13k employees using your conversion rate.

I think it's clear they forgot the 0, given that 5*250=1250

Yep, forgot a zero.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#334

Post by fsckboy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #260
sangnoir wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't know it's doomed. It's swell when people gamble with employees well-being on the miniscule odds of a miracle. And even better idea is to offer severance, and those employees with the same appetite for risk can get additional options from the folks who leave. That'd be a win/win, except for the leadership who would rather gamble using other peoples chips but keep most of the winnings. > Everyone who lost t…

> It's swell when people gamble with employees well-being on the miniscule odds of a miracle You don't know the odds ex ante ! Again, they would have been roundly criticized if they'd prioritized severance (which means more for the highly paid) and preferred stockholders over their rank-and-file common holders. > Unemployment benefits don't come anywhere close to tech salaries! They take time to process You're arguin…

>millions of Americans who work for a restaurant or with variable hours or on contracts that provide them with zero heads up when business conditions change

wouldn't you consider your statement itself to be a giant heads up, right now? Heads up! save some money, don't spend everything you earn. And don't tell me you didn't get a heads up.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#335

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ditonal wrote: post #328
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's swell when people gamble with employees well-being on the miniscule odds of a miracle You don't know the odds ex ante ! Again, they would have been roundly criticized if they'd prioritized severance (which means more for the highly paid) and preferred stockholders over their rank-and-file common holders. > Unemployment benefits don't come anywhere close to tech salaries! They take time to process You're arguin…

So tired of companies that raise hundreds of millions from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world trying to pull the “we’re a startup” card. You’re not two dudes eating ramen in a garage and you don’t get to use that image to excuse your shitty behavior. Also tired of the “other people in poverty are exploited even worse! You asking for basic labor protections shows your lack of empathy for them…

> tired of companies that raise hundreds of millions from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world trying to pull the “we’re a startup” card

But they are one! If those wealthy people were getting perks in this failure, the way e.g. workers at Good got screwed, I'd agree with you. But if you're running with massive fixed costs and volatile revenue, knowing whether you're weeks or months from shutdown is difficult.

And again, people are assuming if he shut down six months ago everyone could have gotten severance. Convoy is $100+ million in debt. Wages are privileged; new severance obligations are not.

> real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining

The closer solution is civic participation. How many people in Silicon Valley have written to their state elected to raise unemployment benefits? (Note: I'm not saying anyone deserves what's happening. But union participation in America is stubborn and dropping. We need another drum to beat.)

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#336

Post by sokoloff »

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.

He said that before he said he had "funding secured" to sell the company at $420/share and after he laid out the planned 35 minute Hyperloop from LA to San Francisco, right?

(I'm just trying to nail down the timeline of full truths/no cap from Elon.)

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#337

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hluska wrote: post #315
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to validate what is essentially poor leadership We don't have enough information to know if it was reckless leadership. If the CEO had an email from a reputable lender saying we'll have funds in your bank account in two weeks, it would have been irresponsible for him to shut down the company to pay off creditors, preferred shareholders and severances. I'm not advocating for the CEO. Just against condemning him whil…

You responded to that with even more mental gymnastics - this time a ‘reputable lender’ who will jump in with an emergency loan then run off. Then you’ve thrown in another red herring claiming this thread argues that tech workers should have more options. Nobody said anything close. Rather, the argument is that letting your company run down to zero is irresponsible.

If the hypothetical of terms on the table for a loan is a red herring, so is the supposition that management had months of visibility into their demise.

Convoy wasn't a pure software business. It didn't operate on massive gross margins; it was operationally (and financially) levered. Decades-old trucking companies are going down unexpectedly; I'm not sure why HN's armchair executives figure they could have called this cleaner.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#338

Post by JumpCrisscross »

fsckboy wrote: post #334
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's swell when people gamble with employees well-being on the miniscule odds of a miracle You don't know the odds ex ante ! Again, they would have been roundly criticized if they'd prioritized severance (which means more for the highly paid) and preferred stockholders over their rank-and-file common holders. > Unemployment benefits don't come anywhere close to tech salaries! They take time to process You're arguin…

> millions of Americans who work for a restaurant or with variable hours or on contracts that provide them with zero heads up when business conditions change wouldn't you consider your statement itself to be a giant heads up, right now? Heads up! save some money, don't spend everything you earn. And don't tell me you didn't get a heads up.

> wouldn't you consider your statement itself to be a giant heads up, right now

No, I'm saying it's fucked this is the status quo across the country. Making severance--particularly in cases of business failure--the private obligation of the employer is recapitulating employer-funded healthcare.

(That said, yes. If you work at a start-up you should maintain a cash cushion if possible. That, and check your contract's severance terms and ask for them to be proper before the company enters shitsville.)

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#339

Post by umeshunni »

gumballindie wrote: post #274
thegginthesky wrote: post #74

I work for one of their competitors and I can empathize with them. My thoughts goes to all the employees and their families. The Freight business is collapsing after an unrealistic high during the pandemic. Since April 2022, revenue per load has decreased to about 70%, this means less ways to generate a profit under the same headcount. We also saw a decrease in volume as companies overstocked and consumer spending ha…

> consumer spending has shrunk Part of the reason being that workers have been ordered back to offices, meaning a significant portion of their income is spent on commute and eating out. Crazy how damaging rto is to everything around us.

Most of the reason is that asset prices (and thus wealth has shrunk), inflation is higher, so people are buying less and there's no Fed dropping money from helicopters.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#340

Post by umeshunni »

__coaxialcabal wrote: post #287
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.

what's an NOL?
Post reply on HN