5 ms·

In India, TinyOwl Founder Detained for 2 Days by Laid-Off Employees and the Police

40 points by BIackSwan 11y ago

dang 11y ago
Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417.
newsignup 11y ago
Food tech (if I may say so) is really facing the heat now. On the other hand what piques my interest is the way VCs behave in India. Instead of carrying an insight they tend to "follow" the "trend" which by definition is not an optimal thing to do. In just few months time they have gone from investing in all possible weird food startup to taking money away from even the promising ones. The nature of VCs is very fickle, at least in India.
tmsam 11y ago
So, after "[announcing] $7.67 million in fresh funding... TinyOwl was reportedly offering post-dated checks to [the laid off employees], which concerned them as previously laid-off employees had yet to receive their payment." And we're supposed to feel bad for the guy?
- antidamage 11y ago
  Indian employees have a long history of being abused and taken advantage of to the point of actual slave labour, a lot of the time by other Indian people. If they're based in another country they frequently hold on to their employee's passports so that they become virtual prisoners. This guy should lose his funding, at the least for following this pattern of behaviour and choosing to exploit the local economy by paying his workers well below what would be considered a reasonable wage anywhere else.
  - thedesihobbit 11y ago
    You must consider a few things. India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s. And most of the youth are second generation college educated. At least the ones you're reading about. Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage. Getting fired is a concept is still a new concept for most. People don't get fired, they're asked to resign. Even labour laws haven't been updated with the times. You can hire, but can't fire. Also, people feel entitled to job security here and have not experienced a single recession in the last 30 years. You must understand, Tiny Owl pays very well. Relatively. People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000. That's a lot here. It takes 8-10 years to get to that pay in regular large organizations. But where they went wrong: 1. Hiring one bad apple who encouraged others to gang up on the founder. This is no way to resolve a professional dispute. 2. Not anticipating redundancy in positions well in advance, and communicating and disclosing the risks. Perhaps those jobs could have had a built in expiry and conditional renewal clause in their contracts. But had they been growing as they did earlier this year, there would not have been any redundancy. The problem was credit dried up and competition became too fierce.
    - balladeer 11y ago
      There's a lot of inconsistencies here in your comment and a lot of deliberate omissions. > India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s. A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India. > Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage. Nothing changed in this regard. And, no > People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000 is an exception and not a norm. Your comment makes it look like, it's the norm here. I work in one of the blue eyes Indian startups (which translates to yes, it's burning money like most of the Indian startups but has more hope riding on it than the others) and I see these salary figures from up close. What TinyOwl's founder(s) did is very simple - fraud! That's why they were held hostage knowing that being moneybags they would be untouchable once they are out and they (the employees) would probably never get their wages. You didn't even mention this issue in your comment. Or are you deliberately trying to spin the story? Is it a PR attempt, considering the age of your account? Anyway, that's another debate. Also, the people holding the founder hostage were not at all those "management graduates" with that kind of salaries. They were the people who were kind of making ends meet, of course relatively speaking. They saw they were being cheated and took matters in their own hands, which, IMHO, even though illegal was/is the most effective way here. What I have noticed in Indian startups (where I work included and maybe this is how it is worldwide), the founders wants quick numbers - by the hook, or by the crook. Well, the difference is in the west (US/EU) there's the law and the watchdogs who bring the crooks to the book, in India everything has a price and you can buy it if you can pay including the law and the courts. So that's there.
  - cpeterso 11y ago
    > If they're based in another country they frequently hold on to their employee's passports so that they become virtual prisoners. This sounds uncannily like H-1B visas. :(
    - knight17 11y ago
      This happens in middle east countries a lot, and applies to many white collar workers too. Unless you are in a really good company/position the employer will keep your passport. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-migrant-workers-conditions-shame-west http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-migra...
  - tn13 11y ago
    There is no such history in India. Please show evidence. India is a super poor country which means far too many people fighting for any minor job which does not amount to slavery. Indian laws are outright crazy and favor labor and not the employer in all cases. One of the so called "reform" that current government is doing is to provide an exit option for failed businesses.
- tn13 11y ago
  I don't think there is anything wrong here. Generally if you resign or leave you do not get the immediately salary in India. You receive it with what they call final settlement. It might be 30 to 90 days later. But in either case the point here is that India does not have a working judiciary that can enforce contracts and hence people take law into their hand which is wrong even if the co-founder was at err. Imagine these employees had to go to court to get their due. My uncle is fighting a similar case for last 32 years. Check what happened to this mailman who was fired by postal department accusing him of stealing Rs 50 (80 cents). The case took 30 years and eventually reached Supreme Court. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-29-years-man-acquitted-of-stealing-Rs-57/articleshow/26759288.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-29-years-man-...
  - knight17 11y ago
    If India could fix its court system half the problems are over. You need to have someone to complain to and get it remedied and that someone takes 10+ years for even routine matters like land(partition) disputes. It is not a good sign. No one will even bother questioning people flouting rules, and when no one is there to question them the rule flouters continue to subvert the law. Like other Indian institutions, judiciary too is corrupt (but I don't see it represented as such in the media) at the lower levels.
    - tn13 11y ago
      Court system is incompetent because of constitution. Indian constitution is ridiculously complex lengthy and takes a very "law to fix everything" stand compared to something like American constitution which places liberty of individuals at core. Courts waste a lot of time on technicality and morality rather than pure pragmatism and sense of justice. For example a murder in India is not just a murder. Depending on the gender, age, reasons, motives there are at least 45 different laws that can be applied. Murder out of religious superstition would warrant a totally different legal approach than say murder in domestic abuse because at core the court is not looking at it as violation of person's right to life.
oxryly1 11y ago
So, is kidnapping not a crime in India?
- thedesihobbit 11y ago
  Not exactly kidnapping. More like curtailing someone else's liberty and freedom of movement. He was restricted in his office space. The funny thing is: there were police and politicians involved on the scene! If they too cornered him, forget about crimes and the application of law.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
    Funny to see how different some things are in other countries. In the US, if I restrict you in your office space that's unlawful imprisonment, which is a Federal crime and my ass will be hauled off to jail pretty fast.
    - abhi3 11y ago
      It's the same in india and since the employees were holding him to make him satify some claims it's an offence of even higher degree. https://www.kaanoon.com/indian-law/ipc-348/ https://www.kaanoon.com/indian-law/ipc-348/ All the employees could still end up in jail for 3 years though its not likely.
    - drl42 11y ago
      This is in the context of a labor dispute. This is a tactic known as "gherao" or a Lock-in (vs a Lock-out) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout_%28industry%29#Lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout_%28industry%29#Lock-in
    - thedesihobbit 11y ago
      Sorry for not being clear. The law would say that it's a criminal act. But law is only words on paper, on the word, it is the sensibilities of the people that gives law its force. Most people here would condemn the founder and think the gang was justified in bullying the founder. Take a look at any comment thread. Hence law is of no effect.
data37 11y ago
Almost every single Indian movie goer agrees with the hero not following any rules and doing things according to what he feels as justified in the movie. Movies exaggerated the imperfection in the Indian law and encouraged everyone to judge everything based on their own limited view of the things. Herd mentality only got worse with all social connectivity made possible by technology - fueling more opionated and wrong views.
jonsterling 11y ago
Screw that guy; love that the "disgruntled" workers took action.

40 points by BIackSwan 11y ago

dang 11y ago

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417.

Food tech (if I may say so) is really facing the heat now. On the other hand what piques my interest is the way VCs behave in India. Instead of carrying an insight they tend to "follow" the "trend" which by definition is not an optimal thing to do. In just few months time they have gone from investing in all possible weird food startup to taking money away from even the promising ones. The nature of VCs is very fickle, at least in India.

tmsam 11y ago

So, after "[announcing] $7.67 million in fresh funding... TinyOwl was reportedly offering post-dated checks to [the laid off employees], which concerned them as previously laid-off employees had yet to receive their payment." And we're supposed to feel bad for the guy?

antidamage 11y ago
Indian employees have a long history of being abused and taken advantage of to the point of actual slave labour, a lot of the time by other Indian people. If they're based in another country they frequently hold on to their employee's passports so that they become virtual prisoners. This guy should lose his funding, at the least for following this pattern of behaviour and choosing to exploit the local economy by paying his workers well below what would be considered a reasonable wage anywhere else.
- thedesihobbit 11y ago
  You must consider a few things. India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s. And most of the youth are second generation college educated. At least the ones you're reading about. Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage. Getting fired is a concept is still a new concept for most. People don't get fired, they're asked to resign. Even labour laws haven't been updated with the times. You can hire, but can't fire. Also, people feel entitled to job security here and have not experienced a single recession in the last 30 years. You must understand, Tiny Owl pays very well. Relatively. People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000. That's a lot here. It takes 8-10 years to get to that pay in regular large organizations. But where they went wrong: 1. Hiring one bad apple who encouraged others to gang up on the founder. This is no way to resolve a professional dispute. 2. Not anticipating redundancy in positions well in advance, and communicating and disclosing the risks. Perhaps those jobs could have had a built in expiry and conditional renewal clause in their contracts. But had they been growing as they did earlier this year, there would not have been any redundancy. The problem was credit dried up and competition became too fierce.
  - balladeer 11y ago
    There's a lot of inconsistencies here in your comment and a lot of deliberate omissions. > India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s. A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India. > Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage. Nothing changed in this regard. And, no > People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000 is an exception and not a norm. Your comment makes it look like, it's the norm here. I work in one of the blue eyes Indian startups (which translates to yes, it's burning money like most of the Indian startups but has more hope riding on it than the others) and I see these salary figures from up close. What TinyOwl's founder(s) did is very simple - fraud! That's why they were held hostage knowing that being moneybags they would be untouchable once they are out and they (the employees) would probably never get their wages. You didn't even mention this issue in your comment. Or are you deliberately trying to spin the story? Is it a PR attempt, considering the age of your account? Anyway, that's another debate. Also, the people holding the founder hostage were not at all those "management graduates" with that kind of salaries. They were the people who were kind of making ends meet, of course relatively speaking. They saw they were being cheated and took matters in their own hands, which, IMHO, even though illegal was/is the most effective way here. What I have noticed in Indian startups (where I work included and maybe this is how it is worldwide), the founders wants quick numbers - by the hook, or by the crook. Well, the difference is in the west (US/EU) there's the law and the watchdogs who bring the crooks to the book, in India everything has a price and you can buy it if you can pay including the law and the courts. So that's there.
- cpeterso 11y ago
  > If they're based in another country they frequently hold on to their employee's passports so that they become virtual prisoners. This sounds uncannily like H-1B visas. :(
  - knight17 11y ago
    This happens in middle east countries a lot, and applies to many white collar workers too. Unless you are in a really good company/position the employer will keep your passport. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-migrant-workers-conditions-shame-west http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/22/abu-dhabi-migra...
- tn13 11y ago
  There is no such history in India. Please show evidence. India is a super poor country which means far too many people fighting for any minor job which does not amount to slavery. Indian laws are outright crazy and favor labor and not the employer in all cases. One of the so called "reform" that current government is doing is to provide an exit option for failed businesses.
tn13 11y ago
I don't think there is anything wrong here. Generally if you resign or leave you do not get the immediately salary in India. You receive it with what they call final settlement. It might be 30 to 90 days later. But in either case the point here is that India does not have a working judiciary that can enforce contracts and hence people take law into their hand which is wrong even if the co-founder was at err. Imagine these employees had to go to court to get their due. My uncle is fighting a similar case for last 32 years. Check what happened to this mailman who was fired by postal department accusing him of stealing Rs 50 (80 cents). The case took 30 years and eventually reached Supreme Court. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-29-years-man-acquitted-of-stealing-Rs-57/articleshow/26759288.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/After-29-years-man-...
- knight17 11y ago
  If India could fix its court system half the problems are over. You need to have someone to complain to and get it remedied and that someone takes 10+ years for even routine matters like land(partition) disputes. It is not a good sign. No one will even bother questioning people flouting rules, and when no one is there to question them the rule flouters continue to subvert the law. Like other Indian institutions, judiciary too is corrupt (but I don't see it represented as such in the media) at the lower levels.
  - tn13 11y ago
    Court system is incompetent because of constitution. Indian constitution is ridiculously complex lengthy and takes a very "law to fix everything" stand compared to something like American constitution which places liberty of individuals at core. Courts waste a lot of time on technicality and morality rather than pure pragmatism and sense of justice. For example a murder in India is not just a murder. Depending on the gender, age, reasons, motives there are at least 45 different laws that can be applied. Murder out of religious superstition would warrant a totally different legal approach than say murder in domestic abuse because at core the court is not looking at it as violation of person's right to life.

oxryly1 11y ago

So, is kidnapping not a crime in India?

thedesihobbit 11y ago
Not exactly kidnapping. More like curtailing someone else's liberty and freedom of movement. He was restricted in his office space. The funny thing is: there were police and politicians involved on the scene! If they too cornered him, forget about crimes and the application of law.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  Funny to see how different some things are in other countries. In the US, if I restrict you in your office space that's unlawful imprisonment, which is a Federal crime and my ass will be hauled off to jail pretty fast.
  - abhi3 11y ago
    It's the same in india and since the employees were holding him to make him satify some claims it's an offence of even higher degree. https://www.kaanoon.com/indian-law/ipc-348/ https://www.kaanoon.com/indian-law/ipc-348/ All the employees could still end up in jail for 3 years though its not likely.
  - drl42 11y ago
    This is in the context of a labor dispute. This is a tactic known as "gherao" or a Lock-in (vs a Lock-out) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout_%28industry%29#Lock-in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockout_%28industry%29#Lock-in
  - thedesihobbit 11y ago
    Sorry for not being clear. The law would say that it's a criminal act. But law is only words on paper, on the word, it is the sensibilities of the people that gives law its force. Most people here would condemn the founder and think the gang was justified in bullying the founder. Take a look at any comment thread. Hence law is of no effect.

data37 11y ago

Almost every single Indian movie goer agrees with the hero not following any rules and doing things according to what he feels as justified in the movie. Movies exaggerated the imperfection in the Indian law and encouraged everyone to judge everything based on their own limited view of the things. Herd mentality only got worse with all social connectivity made possible by technology - fueling more opionated and wrong views.

jonsterling 11y ago

Screw that guy; love that the "disgruntled" workers took action.