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I don't know ... this guy seems to have no knowledge of how complicated transferring employee benefits between organizations is. Its not so simple as just hitt

I don't know ... this guy seems to have no knowledge of how complicated transferring employee benefits between organizations is. Its not so simple as just hitting a switch. The whole system conspires to fuck over individuals and small companies. Its nearly impossible to smoothly transition benefits during an acquisitions unless you get things exactly right ... or the acquirer is someone like Google that has an endless pool of money and just throws money at the problem to avoid a PR issue. As for this guy complaining about his acquisition bonus. Why didn't he negotiate for stock when he was hired? I have always negotiated for a lower salary and more stock, as I wish for the lottery ticket and potential upside. If he wanted to trade off cash for stock, he could have done that. And it that was not on offer at Mailchimp then why didn't he go work somewhere else? Seems like they had some inducement, right? Or did he not understand the terms of his employment. People are so TERRORIZED by the fact that they are only paid the amount they negotiated in their employment contract. YES, capitalism sucks if you just naively enter into employment without understanding what the compensation entails. What would you like instead? Employment at a Public Sector Unit? I can assure you PSUs suck BAD for engineers. My father and uncles worked at PSUs before immigrating to the US and improving their fortunes 20X to 50X (no exaggeration).

ezrast 5y ago
If employees shouldn't complain about not receiving benefits they didn't negotiate for, surely they should get to complain about not receiving benefits they did negotiate for. Knowing anything about benefits administration is not the employee's job and it being "complicated" is not remotely their problem. If the terms of MailChimp's acquisition were incompatible with the terms of its employment agreements, then it shouldn't have agreed to the acquisition. Or it could make an honest attempt at recompense such as through bonuses. But they don't get to both eat and have their cake.
- TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
  I agree with that. But employment is generally at-will in tech. Not fixed-term. Would he prefer to be terminated? When you go from one company to another there's a change in benefits. He could have COBRA for a period of time and then be back on the payroll of the acquiring company. That's no better.
phonon 5y ago
> Why didn't he negotiate for stock when he was hired? Mailchimp didn't offer stock options, only yearly profit sharing. They claimed they were never going to sell the company. https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/why-intuits-12-billion-mailchimp-acquisition-stands-out-7465461.html https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/why-intuits-12-bi...
abeppu 5y ago
> Its not so simple as just hitting a switch. I know nothing about this area, but why _isn't_ it as simple as flipping a switch? When the tweet mentions their insurance becoming retroactively available, this sounds very similar to the experience everyone has when starting with a new employer -- even if you're eligible for their insurance program with coverage starting your first day, it takes a bit for your benefits selection to end up in the insurance company's system. Why? Why can't this be instant? Is something happening other than a couple writes in a DB somewhere? Why can the new employee not fill out the registration form online, and be immediately covered, and given a digital insurance card?
- TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
  I have no idea. It has to do with the insured transferring from one insurer to another. There can be no overlap due to insurance laws and other complications. There has to be a perfect transition with 0 time in-between.

ezrast 5y ago

If employees shouldn't complain about not receiving benefits they didn't negotiate for, surely they should get to complain about not receiving benefits they did negotiate for. Knowing anything about benefits administration is not the employee's job and it being "complicated" is not remotely their problem. If the terms of MailChimp's acquisition were incompatible with the terms of its employment agreements, then it shouldn't have agreed to the acquisition. Or it could make an honest attempt at recompense such as through bonuses. But they don't get to both eat and have their cake.

TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
I agree with that. But employment is generally at-will in tech. Not fixed-term. Would he prefer to be terminated? When you go from one company to another there's a change in benefits. He could have COBRA for a period of time and then be back on the payroll of the acquiring company. That's no better.

phonon 5y ago

> Why didn't he negotiate for stock when he was hired? Mailchimp didn't offer stock options, only yearly profit sharing. They claimed they were never going to sell the company. https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/why-intuits-12-billion-mailchimp-acquisition-stands-out-7465461.html https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/why-intuits-12-bi...

abeppu 5y ago

> Its not so simple as just hitting a switch. I know nothing about this area, but why _isn't_ it as simple as flipping a switch? When the tweet mentions their insurance becoming retroactively available, this sounds very similar to the experience everyone has when starting with a new employer -- even if you're eligible for their insurance program with coverage starting your first day, it takes a bit for your benefits selection to end up in the insurance company's system. Why? Why can't this be instant? Is something happening other than a couple writes in a DB somewhere? Why can the new employee not fill out the registration form online, and be immediately covered, and given a digital insurance card?

TheMagicHorsey 5y ago
I have no idea. It has to do with the insured transferring from one insurer to another. There can be no overlap due to insurance laws and other complications. There has to be a perfect transition with 0 time in-between.