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
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.
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.)
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)