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Startups are not established businesses. They are inherently risky ventures. If you want to be coddled and showered with benefits, go join a Fortune 500. Star
by busterarm 3y ago
Startups are not established businesses. They are inherently risky ventures.
If you want to be coddled and showered with benefits, go join a Fortune 500. Startups are not for you.
- sushid 3y agoI didn't realize wanting healthcare while getting let go from a company I worked for was desiring to be "coddled."
- oh_sigh 3y agoYou can buy healthcare on the free market. And you aren't being "let go" - the entire company is going under. If you are laid off and the company stays healthy, it makes sense to have some concessions. But if the entire business ceases to exist. I don't know why would you expect anything from it.
- Apocryphon 3y agoWonder if it might make sense for the social safety net to include such a provision for workers of businesses that go under. If we're not going to have universal public coverage, might as well add provision for such an extenuating circumstance as that.
- oh_sigh 3y agoI think it makes perfect sense - in fact, divorcing healthcare entirely from employment.
- camhart 3y agoUnemployment benefits should already apply wouldn't they?
- Apocryphon 3y agoShould provide something better than COBRA
- FireBeyond 3y agoI love that COBRA isn't just paying the entirety of the health insurance your employer was paying (or partially paying for you), but an additional 5% fee on top of that. Talk about insult on injury. Gotta love the lobbying that allows that.
- dymk 3y agoTake it up with your elected representative, healthcare should not depend on your employer. Convoy literally does not have money. That's why they're shutting down.
- Fordec 3y agoThis is why dissolution isn't some whopsey-doodle word. When there's nothing left, there's nothing left. If that is a risk, including in that is your private healthcare provision, leave this stuff up to the 20 year olds that don't have the health concerns. Coddled might be too diminutive of a phrase, but if it's a risk you can't live with by your life expectations, don't get involved. Pick another job on the market. Now healthcare shouldn't be tied to employment, and it's not in my country. But this is the political choices of Americans in America. Not the fault of the individual companies who are subject to the system.
- asdff 3y agoThe whole issue with this premise is that someone has to bear the risk. There are no 20 year olds who know with certainty that they don't or will not soon have health concerns that require insurance. Anyone could be get hit with a car walking across the street or get a photon to break some DNA in their skin and cause a melanoma. 20 year olds are not invincible or always in perfect working order.
- Fordec 3y agoAnd yet, statistically, the vast majority will be healthy. And the ones with chronic issues should know where they need to be on how to manage it. It's down to you if how you want to live your life. Plenty of tech companies that aren't startups. Plenty of countries that pay less and have higher taxes that have the safety net. Pick your lifestyle and live with your decision. I did, took the risks, it didn't pay off, but I would do it again.
- asdff 3y agoI don't think you understand how much money is in the bananastand here in the US. Even with a european tier safety net, its not like a huge tradeoff will be made. You could easily pay people the same and give them solid benefits to boot with just a little bit more taxation at the top end of the economy. People act like taxing rich people will scare them off, yet there are probably more rich people in California than in Texas or some other red state where they'd be taxed less presumably.
- v1l 3y agoIs that part of the contract that if the business is shutting down or laying people off that they need to continue to pay for things for you? I don't see why there's any obligation.
- surgical_fire 3y agoHow dare you people don't want to be treated like a subhuman to make some early investors insanely rich?
- asdff 3y agoYou could easily rewrite this comment to be about child labor in coal mines and textile mills. At the end of the day people are starting to expect certain basics from businesses considering places like In n Out are now offering benefits packages, and its about time we also enforce certain standards. If that raises the cost of doing business, so be it. I expect the business would be even more lucrative if you didn't have to pay your employees at all but that's not a good argument for exploiting the worker.
- netbioserror 3y agoBoilerplate vapid moralizing nonsense. Are you assuming there's some magic stockpile of millions upon millions hiding somewhere that could be used to sever all of these people? You've already been told this is fantastically unrealistic for a startup bankruptcy. Unless you can suggest where to find the funds, you need a reality check.
- lelandbatey 3y agoThere's been some pretty clear suggestions up thread on where to find the funds, namely "several months ago in the past". To be more clear: The business (Convoy) should have shut down in e.g. August of 2023 when it was clear that they still had enough cash to pay out severance and still cover the expenses of winding down the business. They did not take this option, choosing to instead risk it all that they could bring in an infusion of cash without firing folks. This is not "boilerplate vapid moralizing nonsense"; to take such a risk when you have a company of 500+ employees is a poor business choice.
- busterarm 3y agoEveryone knew the writing was on the wall 4 months ago when they were shopping for buyers and laid off 1000 people. The fact that they continued to operate for 4 months with no new investment is the same as if they had shut things down then and offered severance. There was no gamble here like your comment implies.
- otteromkram 3y ago
- omginternets 3y agoThe series A startup I work for just laid off 30% of its staff. They got 3 months severance, 6 months healthcare and outplacement support. So you could work for Bezos, or you could work for these guys. I've made my choice.
- busterarm 3y agoYour series A startup continues to operate and offers a severance that isn't even required for the purposes of reputation management. They want to be able to hire good people tomorrow so they pay you severance today. The company in question here is dead. There is no more money coming in and no business to operate.
- omginternets 3y agoI understand what you're saying, but I think you may be missing my point, which is: Jeff Bezos's reputation is damaged by this. I will not work for anything he touches because I don't think he's behaving decently.
- busterarm 3y agoSo he already put up and risked his personal money to even start this venture and it failed and you're saying he should continue to lose money on a failed investment even though these people will receive unemployment insurance that his business already paid tax into to fund? Startups are risky and even though you work at one, I don't think they're for you. There's plenty of other union labor jobs with pensions out there that seem to be more your speed. Your position isn't a reasonable one. You want to have your cake and eat it to. All the rewards of being an early stage startup employee without any of the risk or skin in the game.
- Larrikin 3y agoWhy is it a requirement to have "skin in the game"? What does that even mean? The risk to an employee at a company that got $250 million should only be accepting options that could be worthless in lieu of a portion of salary. There absolutely does not need to be any risk of losing healthcare, lacking severance, or any other loss of benefits. Founders want you to believe this but it doesn't have to be true.
- conjecTech 3y agoThis is the worst take I have ever seen. This company just raised $250 million. That is more money than 99% of companies will ever have in the bank. Being a "startup" does not given you license to wantonly play with your employees' lives and wellbeing. As the quote from Dalton above shows, there are norms around these things which companies 1/100 this size regularly abide by. This is not normal behavior for any company, and you should run away from anyone trying to convince you otherwise. The people responsible should be treated like pariahs.
- busterarm 3y agoThey raised $260 million and had at their peak 1500 employees. Think for a moment how far $260 million gets you when you have 1500 tech employee salaries in Seattle to pay. Plus operating expenses. Don't forget to add 15.3% for payroll tax. Median software engineer compensation in Seattle is 219k. Infrastructure and office space isn't free either. Seattle office space averages $43/sqft and the average employee space is 150-175 sqft. That. Money. Is. Long. Gone. It's not a bad take, you just won't do basic math. Raising $260M doesn't mean you're rich. The investors expect you to spend that money and otherwise why are you raising that much? They spent 4 months looking for a buyer and had already shed 1000 employees before shutting down operations. It's not like current employees were clueless about what was going on. Functionally there's little difference between operating up until now or giving 500 "chosen, lucky" people severance 3 months ago.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- conjecTech 3y agoNone of those factors are unique to this business. Somehow adults at thousands of other companies are able to handle this situation reasonably despite also having to pay rent and taxes. I'm sure very few of the people whose continued work they were depending on for a sale would have stayed this long if they realized they were going to be treated like this. Actions and comments like this are how you kill an ecosystem.
- rozap 3y agoI'd hardly call "Series E" a startup. Just a company that was bleeding money.
- busterarm 3y agoEverything's a startup until its business model is self-sustaining/provable. A lot of even large companies never leave the startup phase.