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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

#71

Post by fancy_pantser »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #22
tyre wrote: post #16

I used to work at Gusto (ZenPayroll back in my day) and dealing with Zenefits was always a pain for this reason. They were the consummate hackers, using screen scraping and automation to do whatever the hell they wanted. One nightmare example was when a bug in their "automated" system rewrote bank account information for tons of employees to just be the last 4 digits of their account number. Such a mess. Even if this…

> 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 bailed mentally at an interview with a YC startup in SF because, as part of the technical portion, they had me write a scraper to pull information from searches on other sites. This was against each site's legal/usage terms (and so was defeating the basic obstacles the companies put in the way of being scraped in bulk). When I asked about their business model they revealed that they were making money by doing exactly this and had zero intention of changing that or partnering with the other sites to legally obtain the data.

Their recent series A made them so cavalier; they landed money to do this, so of course it was right. It would eat into profits if they negotiated contracts to do it aboveboard.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#72

Post by pinewurst »

exw wrote: post #28
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.

While there may or may not be a darker side to having an entire engineering team in the 25-30 age range, according to the reporter that wrote the article, this hacking came straight from the CEO, who also set the tone for this type of behavior: https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/697898496314077185 >

I realize it's the law, but that is an interesting question. I'm a page-at-a-glance reader (not to brag) and sitting in front of something for 52 hours would make me feel like a character from "Harrison Bergeron".

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#73

Post by pinewurst »

Analemma_ wrote: post #13

I guess this is a useful lesson to any would-be founders who want to make a business out of breaking the law: make sure you don't break laws higher than those on the municipal level. The difference between Uber and Zenefits/Theranos is that cities have limited resources and angry citizens can convince them to back down (and if you lose, hey, just ignore that city and try somewhere else), whereas state and Federal age…

Not to defend Zenefits conduct here, but I'd hardly compare them to Theranos. Not passing broker certifications doesn't mean the insurance policies were invalid. It's not giving people bogus test results based on claimed Area 51 black turtleneck technology.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#76

Post by i_too_cheat »

trevmckendrick wrote: post #68

This is being way overblown IMO. If you've worked at a big, regulated company, you know there are tons of trainings that you have to do. Often said training provide little to no value, other than covering the ass (CYA'ing) of the employer. But what's worse: these programs will sometimes log you out if you're not paying 100% attention. Everyone I knew working at our Big 4 accounting firm would do our real work while t…

There is a bit of a difference between the training videos the big co's force you to watch and the training required to get certified by the state to do business in a highly regulated industry.

I too created "macros" for the insufferable training they put you through, but it was for training videos on the "new" HTML4 standard and about the "new" invention ajax requests -- all while I was working on a team using angularjs every day.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#77

Post by brown9-2 »

trevmckendrick wrote: post #68

This is being way overblown IMO. If you've worked at a big, regulated company, you know there are tons of trainings that you have to do. Often said training provide little to no value, other than covering the ass (CYA'ing) of the employer. But what's worse: these programs will sometimes log you out if you're not paying 100% attention. Everyone I knew working at our Big 4 accounting firm would do our real work while t…

You are mistaking annual compliance training for things like "don't insider trade" for training on how to do the job legally to gain entrance into the profession.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#79

Post by giarc »

trevmckendrick wrote: post #68

This is being way overblown IMO. If you've worked at a big, regulated company, you know there are tons of trainings that you have to do. Often said training provide little to no value, other than covering the ass (CYA'ing) of the employer. But what's worse: these programs will sometimes log you out if you're not paying 100% attention. Everyone I knew working at our Big 4 accounting firm would do our real work while t…

There's a huge difference between this happening and the CEO actively building the work around. When the CEO demonstrates this behaviour is appropriate, the whole company adopts this culture of "what laws?!".

>That was how executives discovered the macro, which Conrad had created based on a belief that 52 hours was too long to spend in training, the lawyer for Sacks said.

Re: Zenefits Software Helped Brokers Cheat On Licensing Process

#80

Post by fweespeech »

nradov wrote: post #38
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.

Ironically, Facebook which popularized the saying "move fast and break things" is actually more reliable now than many slower-moving systems. http://mashable.com/2014/04/30/facebooks-new-mantra-move-fas...

It's a question of the cost of a bug.

Frankly, bugs with Facebook were trivial for the first few years.

Payroll, insurance those bugs cause serious problems that create substantial financial costs for your customers and possibly regulatory fines.

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