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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

#431

Post by paulddraper »

stuaxo wrote: post #421
revel wrote: post #412

There are some really profound misunderstandings of how bankruptcy and credit work in this thread. Creditors are ranked by seniority and get paid out in order by seniority. Equity is below every creditor and has been completely wiped out. Companies are not allowed to take cash or sell the furniture to pay out employees. That money is legally owed to creditors and attempting to stiff them is theft. I'm sorry to those…

I've worked in the UK for Glu Mobile, who were taken over by EA and all the UK and US staff let go. The US staff had to just go. I got my last month's pay + about 6 to 8 weeks.

> who were taken over by EA

Yes, what happens in an acquisition vs a insolvency are different.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#432

Post by FireBeyond »

dragonwriter wrote: post #420
FireBeyond wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, you forgot the potential 2% fee, too. If your employer was paying $3,000/mo for your insurance, it's going to be $3,060 for you. Fuck whichever lobbyists made sure that was allowable. Edit: corrected per the reply.

> Oh, you forgot the mandatory 5% fee, too. It's not mandatory and its capped at 2%, not 5%, but, yes, there is a potential additional charge beyond just the full cost (what would be the employer + employee share, for a current employee) of coverage.

I do appreciate that. Have edited my comment with your correction.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#433

Post by paulddraper »

FireBeyond wrote: post #371
tejohnso wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> At least, I recall him saying they were at one point about 2 days away from bankruptcy. Elon has said several variations of this have happened on several occasions. And yet this fragility never really made it into IR reports or SEC filings or annual reports. So either he exaggerates (shocking concept from a man whose company has on multiple occasions had to follow him around and say "his claims of Tesla doing X, or…

I suspect this was pre-IPO.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#434

Post by e2e4 »

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…

> What would a buyer have even been purchasing in this scenario?

> A pile of code? Is it particularly hard to recreate?

I think you are buying time. Yes, code could be written, but would probably take at least a year.

Additionally, money-wise what matters is net, even if something is overpriced, all that matters in the end, can you make more than you've spent.

p.s. thanks for the interesting question to ponder and discuss

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#435

Post by JacobThreeThree »

busterarm wrote: post #327
conjecTech wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those factors are unique to this business. Somehow adults at thousands of other companies are able to handle this situation reasonably despite also having to pay rent and taxes. I'm sure very few of the people whose continued work they were depending on for a sale would have stayed this long if they realized they were going to be treated like this. Actions and comments like this are how you kill an ecosystem.

If your company is multiple funding rounds in and lays off two thirds of its employees in a day, you should be putting your applications out before the close of business day if you're in a situation where you need to make ends meet. Just because you remained does not mean that your job is secure. This is strictly common sense. Also I've had a pretty long career and I don't know of any company in this situation who pa…

Well said.

As if a month or two of severance, which I'd wager your average critic in this thread would promote as laudable, would do much of anything in the grand scheme of job security.

Given the upside of a company surviving, or even ultimately succeeding, as an employee, I'd rather try to help a good/fair company ride it out and survive than folding early to pay out a few months.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#436

Post by paulddraper »

escaper wrote: post #49
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.

Can we stop calling companies with 1,500+ employees and millions in revenue "startups". At what point does the shine wear off and they just become medium-sized companies like any other?

> 1,500+ employees

They used to have 1,500, before they laid off 1,000 of them.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#437

Post by paulddraper »

ctvo wrote: post #48
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.

Shutting down 3 months earlier, but everyone getting severance is an option. Let's not pretend it had to happen this way because it's a startup. They made the decision, if true, to use up every cent clinging on trying to find an exit or more runway.

> They made the decision, if true, to use up every cent clinging on trying to find an exit or more runway.

Indeed.

"We hoped this day would never come. We spent over 4 months exhausting all viable strategic options for the business."

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#438

Post by busterarm »

compiler-guy wrote: post #410
busterarm wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately most employers are waking up to the fact that they don't want to hire the types of employees who are prone to put a gun to their head. They're shitty coworkers too.

That's an odd way to describe "negotiating the best deal they can find."

People who think that a rich investor who puts up some seed money to start a new venture should chase a bad investment with more of their personal funds to make sure employees are taken care of after the business fails (even though they paid into unemployment insurance, which already does that)...and they believe this so strongly that they would never work for any company that investor is associated with, regardless of the opportunity, are who I'm talking about.

These are the same types of people who think tech workers are treated so poorly that they need to unionize and should be free to spend their work time doing political things that have no contribution to the company bottom line.

It has nothing to do with negotiating the best deal for yourself. Severance is voluntary and is rarely negotiated up front. Especially at the level of employment for the 99% we're talking about where the company going out of business really matters -- negotiating severance up front is like negotiating a prenup. It's requires leverage and people in these income brackets don't have it.

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#439

Post by chadash »

revel wrote: post #412

There are some really profound misunderstandings of how bankruptcy and credit work in this thread. Creditors are ranked by seniority and get paid out in order by seniority. Equity is below every creditor and has been completely wiped out. Companies are not allowed to take cash or sell the furniture to pay out employees. That money is legally owed to creditors and attempting to stiff them is theft. I'm sorry to those…

Just to clarify your point about paying out employees... in what sense do you mean that? Some quick googling says that when a company goes into Chapter 7, employees become creditors for their unpaid wages, which means that they are at least in the same boat as other creditors (although it seems like they might sometimes be prioritized).

Re: Trucking startup Convoy closes operations with no buyer

#440

Post by margalabargala »

v1l wrote: post #389

The entitlement in the comments for severance, healthcare etc baffles me. You were paid a salary for your services while you were employed. You didn't give more, they didn't pay less. Now you're not - that's the end of the contract. Yes, it's a nice thing some companies do when they lay people off but that can't be an expectation.

People say that, but it's not really true.

Employees do much more than they are contractually obligated to.

There's a reason why "work to rule", meticulously doing exactly and only what one is required to, is functionally a strike. Same with why there was all the uproar over "quiet quitting", where a worker only did their minimum job duties. So this is as acceptable as "quiet quitting" is.

In an industry where it's normal to do more than the bare minimum legally required, someone who does no more than the minimum required is blackballing themselves. These c-levels will never start a successful company again.

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