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ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

blog.zenefits.com

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Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#81

Post by BinaryIdiot »

pkaye wrote: post #78
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With that in mind, and also the fact that Zenefits can no longer be classified as a startup - with +50 (or is it +100 employees) Ha, because of all of the manual entry they have to do as of February 2015 Zenefits had over 500 employees. When the CEO went on TWiST just a week or two ago he said they were over 1,000 and hiring 100 new employees a month. They're burning hard and fast.

Why do they have to do manual entry?

A vast majority of insurance brokers / providers simply don't have an API or even an easy way to send insurance information. It's surprising how many HR related tasks are still very manual in 2015 especially considering you should be able to offload everything minus employee relations and hiring in HR.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#82

Post by eropple »

hamburglar wrote: post #80
_lce0 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A public web app is an official API, thought primarily to be used by humans; but built using protocols such that it's possible to be used by programs on behalf of humans .. You access HN by your browser, the same as Zenefits' customers accessed ADP services indirectly .. The point is where to put the line between what's a good allowed access, and a bad too-much-indirection access

Ok, let's for the sake of argument grant you that a public web app is an official interface (I'm not saying API because it's not a "programming" interface). The implied contract is that humans will continue to be able to use the web app to access the functionality it's intended to provide. Anything in the HTML is an implementation detail, not part of the contract, and is subject to change at any time, so long as the…

> The existence of a public interface usable by humans (a web app) does not in any way imply the existence of a machine-usable protocol for accessing that same functionality.

Is that non-implication better for consumers? For people?

If not, why should it exist?

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#83

Post by cddotdotslash »

parkerconrad wrote: post #67
cddotdotslash wrote: post #4

I admittedly don't know a lot about this situation beyond what I've read in the news the past day or so. However, isn't it the case that Zenefits is simply building an interface on top of ADP's payroll data? And, from what I've read, it seems like they did this without following the proper procedures (did they write some kind of web scraper?). So if that is the case, ADP has every right to block them. If the situatio…

ADP has for years, and still does, allow bookkeepers, accountants, and HR services firms similar to Zenefits to access client accounts via 3rd-party administrative logins that clients themselves set up in their payroll. The way this works is that you, as an ADP client, call them up and says "hey, I've asked my HR firm, XYZ-HR, to manage my payroll. Can you create an account for them to access my payroll system?" ADP…

> you can call in and add any third-party person you want as an admin to your payroll system

So they will create an admin account for a person - a single, human individual.

> In addition, Zenefits’ method of extracting data from ADP’s RUN system via “screen-scraping” put excessive demands on ADP’s servers, potentially impacting service delivery to the entire client base.[1]

If you weren't using the API, and instead were having a machine log in to access the data, that is pretty much the definition of scraping. There is a difference between a person using an admin account setup for them to log in and perform a certain set of actions and hundreds of accounts setup for the purposes of continual automated logins.

How many requests did you make? Do you rate-limit your queries to the rate of a human-being (maybe 1 click every couple of seconds)? Do you only login to one or two accounts at a time?

I still don't see a valid reason why any company (big or small) should have to invest resources in supporting a third-party that wants to use its data in an unsupported manner. Of course you can argue that they allowed it in the past, but an entire business shouldn't rely on unsupported access to something without the assumption that it could disappear at any minute.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/10/adp-sues-zenefits-for-defam...

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#84

Post by Retric »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #72
eropple wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was smart, but it's smarter than ADP's jokestore of an official API. If you want to talk to ADP customers--and, functionally, you very close to need to talk to ADP customers--those are your options. I feel like maybe the point of my post was not completely clear, though: this would not be a problem, and Zenefits would not be doing this, if ADP was good (not good in the "not poor software" sense, but g…

ADP's customers are most definitely not the third party developers, though. Because of that, you can't really conflate the two into one argument. ADP can easily be "good" to their customers while still having shitty APIs. Hell, plenty of companies do this every day, why should we chastise ADP for running a business? Furthermore, a profit-seeking corporation shouldn't really be on the moral scale to begin with. At bes…

"At best, they should be amoral" companies are still run by people. So, your suggesting people should be amoral while at work, which is an unusual stance.

I would suggest it's much better for the laws and regulations to be setup so a profit seeking company would end up being a net benefit. But, suggesting company's should for example try and corrupt politicians in the name of profit seems rather dystopian.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#85

Post by jilberish1990 »

Couple of points:

1)Zenefits has always known this could happen or at least they should have. You have to play nice with ADP. Because if they don't work with you, you are dead.

2)Zenefits has a super young CEO who doesn't know what he is doing. Where is David Sacks in all of this? Isn't he the adult supervision here? Maybe he hasn't run anything at this scale before? Maybe he and his Yammer gang don't know how benefits and healthcare work?

3)What were the VCs who invested at $4.5B thinking? Any technical due diligence would have brought this up. You had to clear this as a diligence item before you put a dollar into the company.

4)The lawsuit is a shakedown. Its time for ADP to collect its dues. Its nothing more than that. I expect ADP to extract a huge premium and then play nice with Zenefits in an out of court settlement. Everyone will have a face saving PR release after that. But isn't it interesting that this happens after they pick-up their $500M round? I have heard rumors this was going to happen in September last year. ADP waited until now. What a pest.

4)Time for Parker to go and be replaced with someone who has run billion dollar software companies before. And that's not Sacks.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#86

Post by spdustin »

ganeumann wrote: post #69
hamburglar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How smart is it to build a business on unofficial, non-API access to a system maintained by someone who you know will try to screw you at the first opportunity? If I were ADP, I'd probably be intentionally breaking those types of integrations just to make it clear that they don't intend to hamstring themselves by supporting interfaces they never published. The fact that it's someone in a market they intend to enter i…

Asking for forgiveness rather than permission is a risky strategy, but one that pays off well when it works. Where it seems to have worked: Uber, Paypal, et al. Where it failed: Twitter clients, Craigslist front-ends, et al.

I'm not so sure it's worked for Uber, given this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9694530

The "right way" is hard, and more likely to be painful, certainly. But when you're done, you're done. The "forgiveness>permission" way has the added downside of your customers getting screwed too, and likely considering litigation.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#87

Post by mynameisvlad »

Retric wrote: post #84
mynameisvlad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADP's customers are most definitely not the third party developers, though. Because of that, you can't really conflate the two into one argument. ADP can easily be "good" to their customers while still having shitty APIs. Hell, plenty of companies do this every day, why should we chastise ADP for running a business? Furthermore, a profit-seeking corporation shouldn't really be on the moral scale to begin with. At bes…

"At best, they should be amoral" companies are still run by people. So, your suggesting people should be amoral while at work, which is an unusual stance. I would suggest it's much better for the laws and regulations to be setup so a profit seeking company would end up being a net benefit. But, suggesting company's should for example try and corrupt politicians in the name of profit seems rather dystopian.

Amoral != immoral. Amorality simply is the disconnection from morals, while immorality is doing something you know to be wrong. The people in charge would still be held by their own moral beliefs, but we should not be chastizing or congratulating companies for their moral contributions because, as an entity, their decisions should not be based on morals, but on profit.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#88

Post by _lce0 »

eropple wrote: post #82
hamburglar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, let's for the sake of argument grant you that a public web app is an official interface (I'm not saying API because it's not a "programming" interface). The implied contract is that humans will continue to be able to use the web app to access the functionality it's intended to provide. Anything in the HTML is an implementation detail, not part of the contract, and is subject to change at any time, so long as the…

> The existence of a public interface usable by humans (a web app) does not in any way imply the existence of a machine-usable protocol for accessing that same functionality. Is that non-implication better for consumers? For people ? If not, why should it exist?

Isn't that all the way around?

Machine-usable protocols is what make possible to humans use public interfaces (web apps)

When was the last time that you injected electricity to a cable to send a HTTP request?

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#89

Post by eropple »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #72
eropple wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was smart, but it's smarter than ADP's jokestore of an official API. If you want to talk to ADP customers--and, functionally, you very close to need to talk to ADP customers--those are your options. I feel like maybe the point of my post was not completely clear, though: this would not be a problem, and Zenefits would not be doing this, if ADP was good (not good in the "not poor software" sense, but g…

ADP's customers are most definitely not the third party developers, though. Because of that, you can't really conflate the two into one argument. ADP can easily be "good" to their customers while still having shitty APIs. Hell, plenty of companies do this every day, why should we chastise ADP for running a business? Furthermore, a profit-seeking corporation shouldn't really be on the moral scale to begin with. At bes…

> Furthermore, a profit-seeking corporation shouldn't really be on the moral scale to begin with. At best, they should be amoral, that is, not involved at all in morality. Their primary goal is, and should be, to earn more money, not to be good citizens of the world.

You are very much mistaken. Society provides the corporation with legal protections and recourses as a fictive person with the understanding that the corporation's existence betters the society, betters the people within it. When this agreement is breached, the society can--though, unfortunately, rarely does, due to globally weird veneration of toxic behavior as "just business"--destroy it. (It has happened before. It should happen more often.)

And let's be really real for a sec: if you look at the stretch of history, neutrality is effectively tacit support for bad behavior. And from a practical perspective, a call for "amorality" is tacit support for immorality.

Re: ADP Begins to Roll Out a Zenefits Competitor

#90

Post by Retric »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #87
Retric wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"At best, they should be amoral" companies are still run by people. So, your suggesting people should be amoral while at work, which is an unusual stance. I would suggest it's much better for the laws and regulations to be setup so a profit seeking company would end up being a net benefit. But, suggesting company's should for example try and corrupt politicians in the name of profit seems rather dystopian.

Amoral != immoral. Amorality simply is the disconnection from morals, while immorality is doing something you know to be wrong. The people in charge would still be held by their own moral beliefs, but we should not be chastizing or congratulating companies for their moral contributions because, as an entity, their decisions should not be based on morals, but on profit.

You just contradicted yourself. If the CEO is unwilling to start a bio-weapons division duo to lack of profits or excessive risks etc then that's a amoral decision because morality did not come into play. However, if they decide it may be profitable, but it's immoral so there not willing to go there then the company was constrained by morality.

PS: It could even go the other way where a CEO feels it's his patriotic duty to aid his government so he wants to start a bio-weapons division. The point is not the choice the point is why it was made.

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