[JumpCrisscross]

> What good is buying one extra month for a doomed company?

You don't know it's doomed. Plenty of companies have turned around while running on fumes. This is fundamental to start-ups.

> month is more valuable to individual employees who can use it to look for new jobs

Everyone who lost their jobs at Convoy is eligible for unemployment. The same unemployment most workers get when they're fired. Perhaps the discussion should be around improving this benefit for everyone?

[sangnoir]

> You don't know it's doomed.

It's swell when people gamble with employees well-being on the miniscule odds of a miracle. And even better idea is to offer severance, and those employees with the same appetite for risk can get additional options from the folks who leave. That'd be a win/win, except for the leadership who would rather gamble using other peoples chips but keep most of the winnings.

> Everyone who lost their jobs at Convoy is eligible for unemployment

Unemployment benefits don't come anywhere close to tech salaries! They take time to process.

> Perhaps the discussion should be around improving this benefit for everyone?

We can multitask. What is in my power to control is to avoid working with anyone associated with this decision and encourage everyone else to do the same - board-members and the entire C-Suite. We have a - let's call it poor culture fit

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's swell when people gamble with employees well-being on the miniscule odds of a miracle

You don't know the odds ex ante! Again, they would have been roundly criticized if they'd prioritized severance (which means more for the highly paid) and preferred stockholders over their rank-and-file common holders.

> Unemployment benefits don't come anywhere close to tech salaries! They take time to process

You're arguing for special treatment of well-paid tech workers over e.g. truck drivers [1].

> What is in my power to control is to avoid working with anyone associated with this decision and encourage everyone else to do the same

The solution is to not work for a start-up. That, or gain empathy for the tens of millions of Americans who work for a restaurant or with variable hours or on contracts that provide them with zero heads up when business conditions change or their employer goes under.

[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/08/09/51c3-a09.html

[ditonal]

So tired of companies that raise hundreds of millions from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world trying to pull the “we’re a startup” card. You’re not two dudes eating ramen in a garage and you don’t get to use that image to excuse your shitty behavior.

Also tired of the “other people in poverty are exploited even worse! You asking for basic labor protections shows your lack of empathy for them!”

I’m seriously having a hard time imagining any of this was written in good faith.

The real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining. These VCs aren’t going to make sure you have healthcare. They could give it to you directly, or they could use their wealth and power to make sure the government gives it to you.

People ask “what can a union do? My office already has free kombucha”. Imagine if all the SWEs at all these VCs backed companies went on strike unless the laid off Convoy employees got six months of healthcare (it would have been in the initial employment contract). The money for this stuff would magically materialize. It doesn’t materialize because there’s no organization to advocate for it, it’s that simple.

[JumpCrisscross]

> tired of companies that raise hundreds of millions from some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world trying to pull the “we’re a startup” card

But they are one! If those wealthy people were getting perks in this failure, the way e.g. workers at Good got screwed, I'd agree with you. But if you're running with massive fixed costs and volatile revenue, knowing whether you're weeks or months from shutdown is difficult.

And again, people are assuming if he shut down six months ago everyone could have gotten severance. Convoy is $100+ million in debt. Wages are privileged; new severance obligations are not.

> real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining

The closer solution is civic participation. How many people in Silicon Valley have written to their state elected to raise unemployment benefits? (Note: I'm not saying anyone deserves what's happening. But union participation in America is stubborn and dropping. We need another drum to beat.)

[slt2021]

I was with you until you mentioned unions.

tech is fundamentally incompatible with unions for several reasons:

  1. it will drive down the wages and give power to just another bureacracy
  2. Union participation does not differentiate between highly skilled (and sought after) tech worker, from mediocre tech worker who gets by using copilot and chatgpt
  3. I dont need union to negotiate with company on my behalf - I can negotiate by myself just fine
  4. If startup goes bust - I can easily find a job at another startup, probably will even get a pay raise - just because my skills are highly sought after and in demand. There is literally zero upside for me that union can do
  5. I dont want to share my specialist employee's power with faceless union burearacy

I know what it means to be a union worker - and trust me, it will never gonna work in software engineering

[sangnoir]

Here's a point by point rebuttal:

  1. Hollywood unions disprove this 
  2. Hollywood unions (SAG, DGA) disprove this
  3. Unions don't mean you can no longer negotiate. DiCaprio still does 
  4. One upside: Unions represent members who are no longer able to work
  5. Hollywood unions have some pretty specialized folk and it works well for them

As an individual - you only bargaining chip is your ability to do work. If you lose capacity to work - temporarily or otherwise - you lose the ability to negotiate. Unions don't suffer from that weakness.

The things you can negotiate for are capped at the value of your work. You can't forbid your employer from replacing you/your teammates with AI foe instance, but unions can, because the collective value of their output is beyond what the employers may gain from ML models. Not so on the individual level.

[slt2021]

You skipped the downsides of hollywood unionization:

Cost of hiring increases and there are fewer gigs around. Unionisation adds nontrivial transaction costs, so there will be fewer opportunities for new entrants, and fierce competition among existing workers for shrinking number of gigs.

For example look at how women actors get their cast roles with harvey weinstein studio - did union protect them from sexual predators?

Look at average unionized actor - very few are making big bucks, most are just surviving and have other day jobs.

UAW workers are still at the mercy of their employers, and are only dragging their companies down, while non-unionized automakers are taking over market share.

I am totally fine that my bargaining chip is my ability to work - it is the only austainable way. Otherwise there will be a lot of useless dead weights who dont contribute to the topline, and leech off of bottomline. (There is already unemployment for this use case).

Look at NYC MTA - all unionized and completely inefficient, unionisation can only work in monopoly situation.

Tech in the other hand is high growth particularly because all monopolies are being attacked by more flexible and lean startups.

Hollywood is not growing at all, while big tech is carrying the whole world

[JumpCrisscross]

SAG really is a gold-standard union. Critically, it has a monopoly to multiple buyers of its talent. (Sort of like the UAW.) Single-employer unions are more constrained.

[idiotsecant]

You're taking a remarkably short sighted position here. Blacksmiths and cobblers were once highly in demand workers as well. Do you really think writing code is such a special beautiful skill that it's immune to the same forces of automation?

Software development is a trade skill, like any other. We're in a very brief window of time where it's a very lucrative skill to have. Don't expect that to last forever. When that stops being the case you'll want something between you and the harder facts of life that you might have had the privilege of ignoring for a while. There's a reason people bled and died to make these organizations. The moment it's possible the capital class will grind you into a fine paste and sell you in tubes to make a few extra percent on the quarterly financials.

[eru]

> You're taking a remarkably short sighted position here. Blacksmiths and cobblers were once highly in demand workers as well. Do you really think writing code is such a special beautiful skill that it's immune to the same forces of automation?

No, but that's not required for the argument. Do you think any amount of unionisation would have forced society to keep lots of well paid blacksmiths and cobblers around?

(And if the answer to that is Yes, isn't that an argument against tolerating unions?)

[slt2021]

I am not at the mercy of my employer or capitalist class for that matter.

And I will be the first one to automate my job and reap the benefits of automation myself.

This is the way of life - if you cannot adapt - those more flexible, more adaptable, smarter, younger, hungrier - will eat your lunch.

There is no way any tech union can enforce monopoly, because there will always be new entrants ( ew grads) and offshore workers and immigrants willing to take the job, if union workers decide to strike.

In fact, I will be the first one to create outsourcing and offshoring consulting company to help companies fight unionisation.

This is the way of capitalism, the way of life. Smarter, faster, nimbler will get larger piece of the pie.

If union is willing to get $xxx mln in labor costs from a company, I will happily help this company fight unionisation for a fraction of that - to drive unions out of business while pocketing the profits by myself

[eru]

> The real solution is, and always will be, collective bargaining.

As long as I can opt-out of your collective bargaining (both as a worker and as a founder), I don't care what you bargain for.

[kortilla]

Raising lots of money doesn’t mean it’s a sustainable business. I don’t think you know the colloquial definition of startup in Silicon Valley.

Raising millions doesn’t mean making millions either. If you took a bunch of investor money and just paid it all out to your employees and closed up shop that’s a misappropriation of funds.

> Imagine if all the SWEs at all these VCs backed companies went on strike unless the laid off Convoy employees got six months of healthcare

Why would they do that? I’m not going to go on strike because other employees are incapable of understanding the risks of joining an unprofitable company that is default dead. If you want 6 months of paid healthcare, quote it and demand it as a signing bonus before you start.

Startups blow up. It’s your responsibility to prepare for it. Established companies blow up too. Sometimes you even just get fired because you suck.

SWEs have zero excuse to not have saved enough money to pay for cobra for six months if things fall apart.

[cma]

> Imagine if all the SWEs at all these VCs backed companies went on strike unless the laid off Convoy employees got six months of healthcare (it would have been in the initial employment contract).

Congress made secondary strikes illegal a long time ago. Maybe it would still be OK since that wouldn't technically be cross-industry; I'm not sure.

[vidarh]

There was a time when US unions striked despite being met by a risk of people getting outright murdered. Without hyperbole, the 8 hour working day was won with blood. The question needs to be whether you think a strike is right and morally justified, and worth the potential consequences, not whether it is legal.

[eru]

Leisure and comforts like the eight hour workday are what economists call a 'normal good'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_good

> In economics, a normal good is a type of a good which experiences an increase in demand due to an increase in income, unlike inferior goods, for which the opposite is observed. When there is an increase in a person's income, for example due to a wage rise, a good for which the demand rises due to the wage increase, is referred as a normal good. Conversely, the demand for normal goods declines when the income decreases, for example due to a wage decrease or layoffs.

It's entirely expected that people will want to consume more comfort and safety at their income increases.

If you compare different countries, you will find that these kinds of things track with income much more than with history of union activism.

For a striking example see https://pseudoerasmus.com/2017/10/02/ijd/ which is an article on the divergence between Japan and India. Japan has a long history of labour repression, especially compared to India. But by and large Japanese workers have a it a lot better today than workers in India, especially if you go by what's happening in reality and not just by what's promised on paper.

And that difference tracks with the difference in incomes between the two countries, but stands in stark contrast to what we would expect from your sketched theory of union activism driving these things.

[idiotsecant]

Ok, so it's illegal. Now what? Strike anyway.

[sangnoir]

> You don't know the odds ex ante!

No, you can simply choose your cut off time for a hail-mary at 2 months of runway, rather than 0 months of runway. Leaders don't have to rundown the clock (and bank balance) to 0 - they may choose to, like they did in this instance.

> You're arguing for special treatment of well-paid tech workers over e.g. truck drivers

Again, no. I'm arguing against your suggestion that the Convoy folks without severance are going to be alright because they have unemployment. I hope none of them are on H-1B visas as they just lost all control to when their clock starts ticking.

> The solution is to not work for a start-up

This is a false dichotomy. There are plenty of startups led by people who do right by their employees; I have worked with some before of them, and I will not hesitate to work with them again in the future because I trust them not to screw me over like this.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you simply choosing your cut off time for a hail-mary at 2 months of runway

I'm saying it isn't that simple to project runway in some businesses.

> arguing against your suggestion that the employees without severance are going to be alright because they have severance

Sorry, we agree on this. This will suck for everyone involved. If it was preventable, that's on management.

> plenty if startups led by people who do right by their employees

When push comes to shove, constraints apply. Shutting down a start-up with cash in the bank isn't something that happens without a fight. There will be lawyers, possibly lawsuits, and delays. Convoy had $100+ million in debt; the employees would have had to fight claims of wrongful conveyance.

Put another another way: the CEO paid employees another few months' salary instead of handing that cash to its lenders.

[fsckboy]

>millions of Americans who work for a restaurant or with variable hours or on contracts that provide them with zero heads up when business conditions change

wouldn't you consider your statement itself to be a giant heads up, right now? Heads up! save some money, don't spend everything you earn. And don't tell me you didn't get a heads up.

[JumpCrisscross]

> wouldn't you consider your statement itself to be a giant heads up, right now

No, I'm saying it's fucked this is the status quo across the country. Making severance--particularly in cases of business failure--the private obligation of the employer is recapitulating employer-funded healthcare.

(That said, yes. If you work at a start-up you should maintain a cash cushion if possible. That, and check your contract's severance terms and ask for them to be proper before the company enters shitsville.)

[bhhaskin]

That is the risk of working at a startup as an employee though. If you aren't willing to take that risk don't work at a startup.

[kortilla]

Don’t join a fucking startup if you can’t handle it shutting down at any given moment.

If you want employment stability join a profitable company or the federal government.

> That'd be a win/win, except for the leadership who would rather gamble using other peoples chips but keep most of the winnings.

It’s a startup! You’re there to try to make the options work out as an employee as well. I would 100% rather ride to the end with any chance that it will take off.

They failed to get a loan in time, it’s not like they knew it was a fantasy that could never work out. They had a viable business and got caught in counter-party risk.

[eru]

> Everyone who lost their jobs at Convoy is eligible for unemployment. The same unemployment most workers get when they're fired. Perhaps the discussion should be around improving this benefit for everyone?

I think you can take out private unemployment insurance, if you are worried about that? (Or just have savings.)

[webdood90]

> Perhaps the discussion should be around improving this benefit for everyone?

Red herring

You're participating in mental gymnastics to validate what is essentially poor leadership. Why?

[suoduandao2]

You’re calling this poor leadership, can you share a time you were in a similar situation and did something different or are you armchair quarterbacking?

[JumpCrisscross]

> to validate what is essentially poor leadership

We don't have enough information to know if it was reckless leadership. If the CEO had an email from a reputable lender saying we'll have funds in your bank account in two weeks, it would have been irresponsible for him to shut down the company to pay off creditors, preferred shareholders and severances.

I'm not advocating for the CEO. Just against condemning him while in the maelstrom. More fundamentally, there is a thread through this discussion which essentially holds that tech workers--we're highly paid!--should have post-termination benefits others don't.

[hluska]

You responded to that with even more mental gymnastics - this time a ‘reputable lender’ who will jump in with an emergency loan then run off.

Then you’ve thrown in another red herring claiming this thread argues that tech workers should have more options. Nobody said anything close. Rather, the argument is that letting your company run down to zero is irresponsible.

[JumpCrisscross]

If the hypothetical of terms on the table for a loan is a red herring, so is the supposition that management had months of visibility into their demise.

Convoy wasn't a pure software business. It didn't operate on massive gross margins; it was operationally (and financially) levered. Decades-old trucking companies are going down unexpectedly; I'm not sure why HN's armchair executives figure they could have called this cleaner.

[FireBeyond]

At least two ex-Convoy employees have posted in this thread saying they are "extremely unsurprised" that this happened, and could see it coming.

Handwaving away things like you have doesn't add value - many of us have worked at startups, and the warning signs are common and repeated. A handwaving dismissal along the lines of "plenty of companies have turned things around at the last moment, running on fumes, so it would have been irresponsible for Convoy to do anything but run it to zero!" is disingenuous, fatuous or both.

[JumpCrisscross]

> two ex-Convoy employees have posted in this thread saying they are "extremely unsurprised" that this happened, and could see it coming

They were laying people off every few months for over a year. There is a difference, however, between a material chance of default and being completely fucked.

> it would have been irresponsible for Convoy to do anything but run it it zero!"

They should have put severance terms into their original employment contracts. Providing employees with de novo severance after you know it's going under guarantees creditor lawsuits. (Remember: Convoy was heavily indebted.) One thing worse than getting shafted like these guys would be receiving a subpoena months later clawing back severance.

If there is a non-civic action item from this, it's to put good severance terms into your employment agreements before shit hits the fan. (Counterpoint: it could accelerate your demise.)