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I have a lot of respect for what Zenefits has done to date in shaking up the insurance space, but you have to REALLY question what the heck is going on with Par

I have a lot of respect for what Zenefits has done to date in shaking up the insurance space, but you have to REALLY question what the heck is going on with Parker's leadership there. What is going on that the founder/CEO has enough time to chastise an engineer candidate on Quora and put out factually inaccurate posts on topics like healthcare reform (he had something out on LinkedIn a few weeks back) but doesn't have the foresight to build a "real" integration with a payroll vendor that has one available (and an established track record of integrating with competitors in many cases mind you). You read the glassdoor reviews of Zenefits and you get this picture where no one knows what they are doing. All symptomatic of a company in hyper-growth mode, I get that. The questions becomes, does Parker have the leadership chops to see this through?

iamshs 11y ago
First thing that came to my mind was; where I work, if employees do not get paid on time, company will have to deal with quite a lot of grief and substantial monetary loss due to the work arrangement company has. I am sure something like this exists in other jobs/industries/countries too. How come such a critical component was not taken care of? Also, I had to wean off from using the Mint app because I was concerned about violating my bank's TOS by giving login credentials to a third party, and if something happens in future my claim will be a bit weak. So are SMBs not violating ADP's TOS by providing them login info?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gravity13 11y ago
I was curious what "chastise an engineer candidate on Quora" meant so I looked it up: http://qr.ae/7IErH1 http://qr.ae/7IErH1 Sounds like a perfectly reasonable answer to me. Especially after reading the question. It gives me a bad taste, I wouldn't want to work with that guy. He's the annoying guy at the table who is like "I work at x" and wants everybody to go "oooh," not "wtf is zenefits?" It reeks of the almost ubiquitous entitled tech engineer stench. If anything, this makes me appreciate the integrity of Conrad.
- spicyj 11y ago
  See also http://qz.com/400027/engineer-asks-quora-which-job-offer-to-take-ceo-replies-not-ours/ http://qz.com/400027/engineer-asks-quora-which-job-offer-to-....
- ahlatimer 11y ago
  The worst part of that answer was edited out. He had "(n.b. -- we are revoking the questioner's offer to work at Zenefits)." Which is a reasonable thing to do, I guess, if you feel the person isn't all that interested in working for your company, but it isn't all that reasonable to say in a public forum. Edit: Here's a link that has the quote about rescinding the offer: http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-Offer-May-2015/Should-Zenefits-CEO-Parker-Conrad-regret-publicly-rescinding-a-job-offer-on-Quora http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-Offer-May-201...
  - gravity13 11y ago
    lol I didn't know that. Meh. It's something I would have done myself in the same situation.
    - jasonlotito 11y ago
      You would have shared publicly that you are revoking someones employment offer because you found them seeking career advice on a Q&A board?
      - bsder 11y ago
        This one is kind of tough. I'd like to think that I'd be better than the Zenefits CEO, but, man, this kid makes it really hard to take his side. First, it shows really poor judgment on the part of the junior engineer. Dear God, did you think that people can't identify you, specifically? It's not like Zenefits is giving out 10 job offers a day. Second, you're likely to jump as soon as you get the chance. Neither employer nor employee have any commitment to one another. Okay, fine. But, as an employer, will you completely leave me hanging at a critical time or will you stick a couple of months to complete your task before jumping. Given your lack of discretion, probably you'll leave me hanging. Third, are you going to air dirty laundry in public? Every company has some, even successful ones. Startups are worse. Again, lack of discretion. So, yeah, I'd rescind that offer very fast. He'll be lucky if Uber doesn't rescind his offer. I guarantee if I were HR at Uber I'd be trying to pick him out to rescind it. Would I air that publicly? Probably not. However, this kid should consider himself lucky that the CEO called him out publicly so he knows what he did wrong. If I were the CEO, I'd probably just rescind his offer without comment. I'd call Uber HR, and they'd rescind his offer without comment. And, he'd be wondering what the hell happened.
nadams 11y ago
> You read the glassdoor reviews of Zenefits Am I the only one that finds it strange their reviews seem to alternate between "worst company ever" and "greatest job ever"? One of the reviewers wrote: > Don't "advise" your employees to go to this website and leave good reviews to cover up the truth. Oh yeah well that explains that. update: typo
- x0x0 11y ago
  Or they could be outright lying. Like HealthTap. If you read their reviews on glassdoor, every 10-15 you get an honest review. And if you google the ceo, he goes through dev teams like tissue, both in this and in prior startups. But the majority of reviews are glowing. contrast this: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/HealthTap-Reviews-E453567.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/HealthTap-Reviews-E453567.h... to http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-RVW5399694.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R... or http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-RVW5314771.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R... or http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-RVW4699354.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R... etc

iamshs 11y ago

First thing that came to my mind was; where I work, if employees do not get paid on time, company will have to deal with quite a lot of grief and substantial monetary loss due to the work arrangement company has. I am sure something like this exists in other jobs/industries/countries too. How come such a critical component was not taken care of? Also, I had to wean off from using the Mint app because I was concerned about violating my bank's TOS by giving login credentials to a third party, and if something happens in future my claim will be a bit weak. So are SMBs not violating ADP's TOS by providing them login info?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gravity13 11y ago

I was curious what "chastise an engineer candidate on Quora" meant so I looked it up: http://qr.ae/7IErH1 http://qr.ae/7IErH1 Sounds like a perfectly reasonable answer to me. Especially after reading the question. It gives me a bad taste, I wouldn't want to work with that guy. He's the annoying guy at the table who is like "I work at x" and wants everybody to go "oooh," not "wtf is zenefits?" It reeks of the almost ubiquitous entitled tech engineer stench. If anything, this makes me appreciate the integrity of Conrad.

spicyj 11y ago
See also http://qz.com/400027/engineer-asks-quora-which-job-offer-to-take-ceo-replies-not-ours/ http://qz.com/400027/engineer-asks-quora-which-job-offer-to-....
ahlatimer 11y ago
The worst part of that answer was edited out. He had "(n.b. -- we are revoking the questioner's offer to work at Zenefits)." Which is a reasonable thing to do, I guess, if you feel the person isn't all that interested in working for your company, but it isn't all that reasonable to say in a public forum. Edit: Here's a link that has the quote about rescinding the offer: http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-Offer-May-2015/Should-Zenefits-CEO-Parker-Conrad-regret-publicly-rescinding-a-job-offer-on-Quora http://www.quora.com/Zenefits-CEO-Rescinds-Job-Offer-May-201...
- gravity13 11y ago
  lol I didn't know that. Meh. It's something I would have done myself in the same situation.
  - jasonlotito 11y ago
    You would have shared publicly that you are revoking someones employment offer because you found them seeking career advice on a Q&A board?
    - bsder 11y ago
      This one is kind of tough. I'd like to think that I'd be better than the Zenefits CEO, but, man, this kid makes it really hard to take his side. First, it shows really poor judgment on the part of the junior engineer. Dear God, did you think that people can't identify you, specifically? It's not like Zenefits is giving out 10 job offers a day. Second, you're likely to jump as soon as you get the chance. Neither employer nor employee have any commitment to one another. Okay, fine. But, as an employer, will you completely leave me hanging at a critical time or will you stick a couple of months to complete your task before jumping. Given your lack of discretion, probably you'll leave me hanging. Third, are you going to air dirty laundry in public? Every company has some, even successful ones. Startups are worse. Again, lack of discretion. So, yeah, I'd rescind that offer very fast. He'll be lucky if Uber doesn't rescind his offer. I guarantee if I were HR at Uber I'd be trying to pick him out to rescind it. Would I air that publicly? Probably not. However, this kid should consider himself lucky that the CEO called him out publicly so he knows what he did wrong. If I were the CEO, I'd probably just rescind his offer without comment. I'd call Uber HR, and they'd rescind his offer without comment. And, he'd be wondering what the hell happened.

nadams 11y ago

> You read the glassdoor reviews of Zenefits Am I the only one that finds it strange their reviews seem to alternate between "worst company ever" and "greatest job ever"? One of the reviewers wrote: > Don't "advise" your employees to go to this website and leave good reviews to cover up the truth. Oh yeah well that explains that. update: typo

x0x0 11y ago
Or they could be outright lying. Like HealthTap. If you read their reviews on glassdoor, every 10-15 you get an honest review. And if you google the ceo, he goes through dev teams like tissue, both in this and in prior startups. But the majority of reviews are glowing. contrast this: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/HealthTap-Reviews-E453567.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/HealthTap-Reviews-E453567.h... to http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-RVW5399694.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R... or http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-RVW5314771.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R... or http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-RVW4699354.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-HealthTap-R... etc