No, that information was already mentioned in the second BuzzFeed article:
<<That was how executives discovered the macro, which Conrad had created based on a belief that 52 hours was too long to spend in training, the lawyer for Sacks said.>>
I understand your concern, but depending on what product(s) you are selling, startups (and by startups I am referring to the PG definition of startups) are actually great customers for a couple of different reasons:
- Willing to try new products that help them focus their (limited) resources on their core product.
- No legacy integration issues.
- Generally high quality employees that provide strong product feedback.
- Willing to move quickly.
The downside is of course that they may not have a lot of money and in total, usually represent only a very small part of the market, so you have to use the initial feedback / momentum you got from your work with startups to move into more traditional customer segments, but they are still a great way to get started. The risk is of course that you end up building a product that only works for startups, but as long as you understand that risk and validated that the problem you are solving is not exclusive to the startup community, in my experience you should not avoid working with (reasonable) startups.
<<purchased by professional buyers at Japanese auctions>>
How did you find these buyers? Are these just auto brokers (e.g., these guys are popular in SV: http://www.hammerauto.com/) or is this something different?
The buyers conduct inspections, supply photos and place bids at the request of the broker. I pay the broker for their contact with professional buyers and their knowledge of the imports process (ie, paperwork, shipping contacts, etc).
I never had any contact with the buyers themselves - they may not actually speak english.
If I had to guess, I would say the buyers work for many different brokers.
According to the article, Sacks discovered the issue in January, and then forced the company to report it to the California regulator - if you believe that sequence of events, he can't really be held accountable for the action of Conrad.
Let's say you are an engineer, take a new role at a company to work on their database, and then discover that one or your managers has stolen money, do you think you should be held accountable, assuming that you report the issue immediately when you discover it?
While there may or may not be a darker side to having an entire engineering team in the 25-30 age range, according to the reporter that wrote the article, this hacking came straight from the CEO, who also set the tone for this type of behavior:
I realize it's the law, but that is an interesting question. I'm a page-at-a-glance reader (not to brag) and sitting in front of something for 52 hours would make me feel like a character from "Harrison Bergeron".
The 52 hours is meant to be spent exploring inside of an LMS (Learning Management System). You aren't simply reading a manual, but rather going through lessons, taking quizzes on them, working through different scenarios, etc. It's supposed to be an interactive process where you're familiarizing yourself with the information, learning to identify how to handle different situations, learning what "gotchas" to watch out for, and generally reinforcing your recall of the rules and regulations around the industry.
The LMS has the actual license exam locked until you've clocked 52 hours inside of it, so the macro just ran out that timer until the broker could get directly to the exam. Scraping by an 80% on that license exam (especially with all of your colleagues around that have taken it already) is ridiculously easy.
Insurance companies are sticklers for technicalities and love to deny claims, so as a consumer I'd consider the 52 hours / 6.5 work days worth of required training to be an absolute necessity for an insurance broker.
Disclaimer: My current company got our insurance royally screwed up in the short period of time we used Zenefits thanks to their corner cutting, so I'm a bit jaded.
I think there are 2 types of twitter users. The first type follows many accounts and skim through the tweets with no effort to go through all of them. This feature is a Godsend for them.
The second type of twitter users, like myself, follow a short list of people, and we actively curate this list so that we can read all the tweets in our timeline. I have just realized that it is in Twitter's best interest if everyone was in the first group - which is likely the majority of users.
It's preposterous for him to prescribe how others should use twitter. Besides, I don't read each and every email I get either.
The thing is I do not trust an algorithm (or popularity) to accurately tag what an "important" tweet is to me. So I tend to follow single-purpose accounts with high signal to noise ratio - if I follow you for your insights in algorithms; serial-tweeting your cat pics will get lead me to unfollow you. I know I miss out on a lot of C.Sci wisdom from people who tweet prodigiously, which is a shame
I wish twitter had user-defined 'channels' like @user/cuda and @user/cats so I can selectively follow a specific channel that interests me...
We ended up going with Trinet as well after looking at them. If you look what Zenefits is really doing, they appear to be just another rent seeker - their entire goal seemed to be to get you to use their software, and in exchange become the insurance agent of record vs. cutting the actual cost of the insurance.
<< It wasn't possible to get from point A to point N (where Parker took the company) without breaking these "rules" but he didn't actually break any rules because this is all new territory.>>
This is complete nonsense. It's not hard to become a licensed commercial insurance agent, and the rules around selling commercial insurance are very clear - you have to be licensed. This is neither new territory, nor disruptive, it's simply sloppy and not something that would be tolerated by the CEO of a 20 person startup, let alone a billion dollar unicorn.
Looks like the WSJ article has some additional information, including this rather telling quote about the current company values, which seem rather different than the set of values Sacks espouses:
<<Mr. Conrad, 35 years old, is known for his brash style and the company’s operations reflected that. His company’s mantra — “ready, fire, aim” — is followed by many Silicon Valley startups meant to encourage aggressiveness.
Such a cavalier approach often works well for tech companies, such as Facebook Inc., whose motto in the past was famously “move fast and break things.” But it may have served Zenefits poorly as it operated in the regulated insurance industry.>>
Over the long run there are an infinite number of thing to "break", or "disrupt"...you'd better have a solid product when you attempt to fill the void you've created...
The analogy of conquering armies pushing forward and failing to nail down resupply lines comes to mind...
In football it's called out kicking your coverage...
Hypergrowth is not necessarily an evil, but the old maxim "cover your flanks" is generally apt...
If he were indeed following the "move fast and break things" mantra, then i guess someone should have warned him that doesn't include things like.. the law.
I don't know that this is even a particularly strong conspiracy theory - when Sacks joined, A LOT of people were predicting that he would be the CEO within 12-18 months. Parker always felt like he was the wrong person to operate such a large and complex company. Great example of his immaturity here: http://www.businessinsider.com/zenefits-ceo-rescinds-job-off...
<<That was how executives discovered the macro, which Conrad had created based on a belief that 52 hours was too long to spend in training, the lawyer for Sacks said.>>
http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-program-let-in...