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Brex Lays Off 62 Employees
- Animats 6y agoIt's like a bank, but without the safety and security. You will be bound by any transaction (including any transfer, instruction, or payment order we receive related to the Services), even if it is not authorized, if the transaction is initiated under your Credentials or processed in accordance with your instructions. We may help you resolve unauthorized transactions, but you acknowledge and understand that you are responsible for any financial loss caused by Administrators, Users, or other persons given access to the Services or your Brex Account, and any financial for loss due to compromised Credentials or due to any unauthorized use or modification of your Brex Account or the Services. Brex is not liable or responsible to you, and you waive any right to bring a claim against us, for any such losses. We may suspend access to your Brex Account or the Services at any time and for any reason, in our sole and absolute discretion, without prior Notice. Arbitration will be administered by JAMS...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xenospn 6y agoRegulations. They're good for you.
- sushshshsh 6y agoSo is discretion. Nobody ever held a gun to my head telling me to deal with Brex.
- loeg 6y ago> It's like a bank, but without the safety and security. Like Paypal.
- sk0g 6y agoPayPal has a very customer friendly dispute process, and what's wrong with their security?
- loeg 6y ago> PayPal has a very customer friendly dispute process, Ha ha ha. > and what's wrong with their security? Paypal balances are not FDIC insured. They're vaguely moving in this direction (it's in "beta"). But they've been in operating without FDIC-insured deposits for the last 20+ years.
- dianastamm 6y agoI agree
- pjc50 6y ago"Customer friendly", yes. "Correct" or "Fair" to merchants? Maybe not.
- closeparen 6y agoIs the zero fraud liability policy normal in business banking? AFAIK it's a consumer thing.
- tuxxy 6y agoI'm not an expert in this, but I imagine a clause such as this is pretty standard in banking. The reason being that it waives _the company_ of fraud liability. Consumer banking offers protections, but the company is not held liable for the fraud. For example, imagine that American Express be held liable because your card was stolen. That doesn't make much sense, thus they want to protect themselves against those claims.
- pl0x 6y agoSerious question, why does Brex even need to exist?
- streetcat1 6y agoFrom what I understand, if you need credit as a founder, regular banks will want a personal guarantee, REGARDLESS of how much money you raised. I.e. the bank does not care about your company state. Brex on the other hand looks at your company state.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y agoThis is my understanding as well, but what I don't yet understand is why this would apparently work well for Brex but not for the banks. Part of me has wondered whether it's some kind of VC-subsidized strategy to make a risk play that doesn't pan out actuarially, sort of like what Uber does with fares. Can anyone explain this?
- mifeng 6y agoI'm a co-founder of a 15-person startup. We switched our banking and credit cards from Chase to Brex about a year ago and it's just lot better - UX, fees, data, perks, etc.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 6y agoBrex minimizes their risk by offering a charge card versus a revolving line of credit. They also require access to your corporate bank account for liquid assets information to dynamically extend credit. This allows them to have a more nimble, forward looking-ish risk model rather than legacy institutions that rely primarily on credit histories. This allows Brex to capture card transaction fees from financial services other banks ignore (again, due to risk models), such as startup charge cards.
- refurb 6y agoI was surprised that they used the Brex name! Bre-X was also the name of a Canadian mining company that pulled off a massive fraud in the 1990's.[1] Probably one of the biggest frauds in Canadian history. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bre-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bre-X
- sheeshkebab 6y agoThey must have seen the movie and went digging for gold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_(2016_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_(2016_film)
- cortesoft 6y agoAlso, Brexit is on everyone's mind these days.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ttul 6y agoYes. But perhaps the founders of Brex weren’t even born yet.
- refurb 6y agoTrue, but wouldn't most people at least do a google search of their name to see what pops up?
- Gibbon1 6y agoI remember that. One of my clients investors pulled funding and they laid off 50% of their work force and didn't pay my last invoice.
- renewiltord 6y agoThought it made perfect sense. American Express = Amex. Brazilian Express = Brex. Short, sweet.
- kerng 6y agoThey seem to get quite popular, also reaching out to folks i know to hire recently. I was always confused by the name... who thinks Brex is a good choice? I mean Brexit was already a big thing in 2017.
- texasbigdata 6y agoIt's not really a bank. They give you 15% of your cash balance as credit and sweep the payment out of your account at the end of the period (which the sales guys conveniently forget to tell you. No shit the guy said, after being prodded about maybe getting a reference since they were not being 100% truthful about terms while we signed up "well AirBnb didn't ask, we don't feel a big obligation to say more"). I mean it's fine, but "hey we autopull money out of your bank account" should maybe come up. So kinda cool company but definitely not straight forward. Had another sales guy there after we signed up lie about a different product offering. Know a fair bit about the FDIC and kept asking questions and just got foggy and untrue answers. Slimy. Wish we didn't sign up. Edit: they lied about the process around our AWS credit as well. We ended up getting it, but it was nothing like the described. Could have done the same thing with Silicon Valley Bank. This was the most annoying because it was what pushed us past the zone of indifference towards their service, I asked a handful of times for details for how it worked, and they guy definitely told me white lies to get a sign up.
- adenta 6y agoWould love to learn some more about your experience. We use Brex, and this makes me nervous.
- texasbigdata 6y agoMaybe it was just bad luck. Who knows. 99% satisfaction there still is a chance for a bad experience. We signed up during quarantine, if that helps. Not to make excuses for them but maybe the sales team was feeling the pressure of what ended up being a round of layoffs. But this is just speculation.
- dhosek 6y ago“approximately 13.8%” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- salehenrahman 6y agoI just got a recruiter email today from them, yesterday. They are claiming that they are growing their engineering team.
- lsh123 6y agoThis is a short term, no guarantor loans business. This is exactly the same predatory model as payday loans, subprime debt, ... I don’t understand how they raised so much money.
- goatinaboat 6y agoI don’t understand how they raised so much money. Because “disrupting” is the Silly Valley code word for “ignoring regulations”. And all VCs know it. Having said that: They will provide the employees with two months’ worth of severance pay, keeping those affected on the company’s health insurance for the rest of the year, dedicating a recruitment team to find those affected new job opportunities, and allowing the employees to keep any company equipment such as computers. Many firms would not have done that, so credit (no pun intended) where it’s due.
- phonon 6y ago60 days severance is mandatory, due to the WARN act. I don't know if "keeping those affected on the company’s health insurance for the rest of the year" means they will pay the full amount, or just the corporate contribution. So, eh.
- goatinaboat 6y ago60 days severance is mandatory, due to the WARN act. Interesting. Here in the UK the statutory minimum is something like 1 weeks pay per year of service, where a week is capped at around £400. It's ludicrous, but it's what companies like IBM pay when laying off workers. It's strange to see a situation where American workers have more protections than workers, well, anywhere else!
- phonon 6y agoBasically in the US companies with 100 or more employees have to give 60 days notice before doing a mass layoff. If they don't give the notice, they can give equivalent severance instead. UK has notice AND consultation requirements. https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant/redundancy-consultations https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant/redundancy-consultations
- christiansakai 6y agoI got rejected from their interview about 2 months ago despite killing (DS&A interview) it. Culturally seemed that I don't match with them. I accepted an offer with one of the big tech companies instead. Glad they rejected me.
- someonehere 6y agoI know someone who almost jumped ship from there. This person described it very much like Uber’s early days going after Lyft. Hiring as quickly as possible to reach a goal of something. Like to be the credit card for businesses. It’s crazy how this person described how fast they hire without considering logistics (real estate, equipment, etc.).
- dianastamm 6y agoOverhyped company
- danielfoster 6y agoJust transferred my Brex points away to an airline partner. After using Brex for a year I don’t see the point. It has nice benefits for tech startups, but these are easily obtainable elsewhere. I get much better benefits and service from Amex.
- nopzor 6y agoamex won't give most startups a credit line that is free of personal guarantees. that's the point.
- pkzip 6y agoSo many people.So little product.
- jiveturkey 6y agono idea why this company exists. contrary to those talking about personal guarantees, any bank will be happy to give you a charge card (what brex is), that draws directly from your deposit account. ISTM brex is a co-marketing exercise with xero. OTOH if you have a charge card from your bank, you don't need the API integration as transactions post directly. most importantly, you have to trade off your corporate privacy! they require access to your bank account, purportedly so they can verify your sole use of brex and not any other cards. but come on, obviously they are doing some data mining.