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Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

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Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#51

Post by ___ab___ »

unethical_ban wrote: post #41
uptown wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it should absolutely be up to the individual to decide whether they've met the legal requirements for their job. I hope my surgeons self-certify that they're ready to operate, and the technician that repairs the airline I'm flying on should have the last word on whether he's qualified to start tinkering with the ailerons!

If, after 8 years of med school, your surgeon had to sit through a 2 hour video made 15 years ago about "The importance of surgery" and "where to keep the scalpels", he's probably be a bit frustrated.

The situation isn't really the same; these are valley sales-types making decisions about how to provide medical insurance to thousands, and it's likely that they haven't had any formal training on what (and what not) to do.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#52

Post by NDizzle »

timv wrote: post #47
NDizzle wrote: post #35

Can someone give me a good explanation of how the COO wasn't responsible for this kind of stuff? It's mind boggling to me how hard Sacks is throwing Conrad under the bus, despite possibly being just as guilty. I mean, I get it - power plays and all. But aren't they both responsible?

You're questioning the reality, when all of this is about perception. The board needed to hold someone responsible for this mess in order to satisfy the regulators that they're taking the problem seriously, and things are different now. Effectively, the message they want to send is that the adults are in charge now . There was no way Conrad could stay. Even if they could somehow hide any evidence that he knew about t…

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. It makes sense from that perspective.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#53

Post by dang »

brown9-2 wrote: post #5
minimaxir wrote: post #4

The BuzzFeed Article on Sacks' memo was written/submitted first and is more comprehensive: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11083597

HN seems to have what amounts to a systematic ban on buzzfeed, even though their news org helped break this story (and many others).

Of course we don't: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=buzzfeed.com. Two of the biggest HN stories from the past two days alone were from Buzzfeed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11075336, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11061992. Usually the complaint I hear is "why is Buzzfeed on HN".

Buzzfeed is one of a class of sites that produce a lot of dreck as well as the occasional high-quality article. There are many such sites, mostly media outlets. HN's solution is to penalize them (a little) by default, but take the penalty off under different circumstances, such as if a moderator sees than an article is good or the submitter has a solid track record.

This has proven to be a reasonable compromise. The alternatives—not penalizing these sites at all or banning them altogether—are a lot more problematic, which is how we arrived at this strategy in the first place.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#54

Post by tyre »

itsjeremy wrote: post #48
tyre wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was 22 when I started and cared very deeply about the consequences of what I was doing. It's more about heavily interviewing for alignment with your mission. If people care deeply about the problem you're solving — not just the technical problem, the people problem — then you're far less likely to have these issues. I interviewed dozens if not hundreds of people at ZP and there were two red flags for engineers: 1)…

This is the essence of why Zenefits is in trouble. One of the mantras Parker would frequently state around the office was something very close to "growth is responsible for all of our problems and also the solution to all our problems". His view, if I'm recalling correctly, was that hypergrowth makes customer problems more visible due to scale while making the company inherently more valuable. There was absolutely no…

> There was absolutely no downside to growing as fast as your imagination could manage - despite an accumulation of red flags, technical debt, and unhappy employees.

I worked at LivingSocial early in my career and this is so true. There is a limit to how quickly organizations can grow (given our current understanding) and still be healthy.

Employee happiness and related metrics (e.g. retention) is the biggest indicator of health. I don't care that you hired 400 people this year. Can you retain 40 world-class people?

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#55

Post by jsprogrammer »

iaw wrote: post #32
jefftchan wrote: post #7

https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ > Some examples of ethical behavior we expect from founders are: > ... > - Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics. > ... Does this mean Parker is no longer a YC Founder, if the allegations turn out to be true?

I don't think any of their sales tactics fell under "misleading, illegal, or dishonest." It was their California pre-certification practices that was blatantly illegal.

Wouldn't they have represented that their employees were properly certified for the business they were engaging in?

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#56

Post by dang »

We changed the URL from http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/11/zenefits-under-investigatio.... That article points to an earlier Buzzfeed story (http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-under-investig...), but since this one appears to be the current canonical source, we'll use it instead.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#57

Post by joshAg »

uiri wrote: post #44
uptown wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it should absolutely be up to the individual to decide whether they've met the legal requirements for their job. I hope my surgeons self-certify that they're ready to operate, and the technician that repairs the airline I'm flying on should have the last word on whether he's qualified to start tinkering with the ailerons!

There is a requirement that someone spend 52 hours in a pre-licensing course. There is a separate requirement that someone pass a broker exam. If it is possible for someone to do the latter without the former, what purpose does forcing them to do the former serve? Some people will need 100 hours of preparation for the exam and some will need 10. Forcing the latter group to spend an additional 42 hours in prep simply…

The exam tries to ensure that you know enough to be competent. The required hours are there to discourage people from trying to pass the test without actually internalizing the information. Sure, you could try to just make the test arbitrarily harder, but that's not always possible, and even if it is possible, it's unfair to the people who are capable of learning the required material, but not the material needed to pass the harder test.

Also, as has been mentioned, it's partially a liability issue for the state and the company if/when they get sued. Part of their defense can't be that "Oh, well the state licensing exam is super easy, so I only spent an hour cramming the material before the test and then immediately forgot everything, so really you should be going after the state and not me." The required hours

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#58

Post by DanBC »

unethical_ban wrote: post #41
uptown wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it should absolutely be up to the individual to decide whether they've met the legal requirements for their job. I hope my surgeons self-certify that they're ready to operate, and the technician that repairs the airline I'm flying on should have the last word on whether he's qualified to start tinkering with the ailerons!

If, after 8 years of med school, your surgeon had to sit through a 2 hour video made 15 years ago about "The importance of surgery" and "where to keep the scalpels", he's probably be a bit frustrated.

Do you know what kind of corporate induction surgeons go through when they join a hospital?

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#59

Post by nostrademons »

slavik81 wrote: post #46
mixmastamyk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uncovering some frightening immaturity pervasive in Valley companies. This is one of the dark sides to having an entire engineering team in the 25-30 age range. They can sling http just fine, but sometimes don't fully grasp the consequences of their work.

I started my career working on software where serious bugs could get people killed. You do need experienced mentors, but they certainly could be under thirty. You don't have to be old to build things safely. You just have to care.

...and have time, and funding, and patience. 2 out of those 3 are in short supply in Silicon Valley. Robust software is eminently possible, but it requires a development culture that is often incompatible with shipping lots of things quickly and seeing what sticks.

I recall that when Parker Conrad spoke at the Stanford startup class, he said that he'd been turned down by many VCs, at least one of which said "Well, if you were Twitter, this would be a different conversation." His take-away from that is "Well then, what can I do to become Twitter?" Only problem is that health insurance and 140-character text messages are wildly different industries.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#60

Post by karmajunkie »

tyre wrote: post #31
ShaneWilton wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That blog post is one of the best advertisements I've ever seen for a tech company. If I weren't happy where I am, I'd apply for a position immediately. I get that moving fast and breaking things works for some products, but I wish more companies had the same attitude as you.

Glad you liked it! I'm now building software for local government and we've naturally taken that ethos to our new company. If you are ever looking for another opportunity, check us out http://seneca.systems

I'm not looking at the moment, and not in SF, but having a minimum vacation policy and working on software for governments is impressive to me. Kudos.
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