Zenefits founder Parker Conrad takes another crack at HR onboarding

techcrunch.com

4 points·stanleydrew··5 comments

I'm probably missing something here, but how does one oversee a downfall as ethically dubious as Zenefits' and retain the confidence of 90% of his investors?

I try to be optimistic about venture capital, and I want to believe when I hear investors opine on the importance of integrity, honesty, etc. in founders, but this seems like pretty naked evidence of $ > all.

There's probably ethically dubious activity happening in most startups. YC in particular explicitly encourages "naughtiness"[0].

0: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html (scroll down to part 4)

"this seems like pretty naked evidence of $ > all."

Is this even the case? Did any investors make any money on Zenefits? If so, how?

Edit: Maybe investors didn't make any money, although it looks like Conrad himself sold $10M of stock before things hit the fan: https://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-co-founder-so...

the company still has a paper valuation of 2 billion (it got cut from 4.5 to 2 billion last year), not a total wash like the media make it sounds, for companies started from 2013-present, Zenefits still has one of the highest valuations at the moment

true but that valuation was from last year

they just had a whopping 45% layoff, so highly doubt the current value is anything near that

at least Conrad was able to sell high

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