Car rental startup Kyte didn't know money was running out, rescinds offer(s) | Hacker News Reader

Car rental startup Kyte didn't know money was running out, rescinds offer(s)

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66 pointscozos16 comments

These things happen, the finance team and the hiring team are generally different people.

I would have tried to negotiate for a larger settlement, two weeks to sign an NDA is actually pretty reasonable to me. Assuming you didn't burn any bridges on your way out of your last company, you should be able to just go back.

I've done it, I don't think him telling the entire world is going to accomplish much. Maybe you'll get a couple of retweets, but that can also scare off future employers.

Generally, you should take your emotions out of the equation, and evaluate what's going to benefit you the most. Is mouthing off on Twitter really worth $6,000 or $10,000?

It is probably worth that collectively, to other people that might consider working for Kyte in the future.

Rescinding an offer is a fairly big deal to me...you've likely invested more than 2 weeks of time (he mentioned 6+ rounds of interviews) and effort and walked away from some existing job and probably other offers.

It reads like there's less than 200 employees there, total. So there's not really a good argument that one hand didn't know what the other hand was doing.

This is fair advice, but this also makes the big assumption that the severance pay will actually be, well, paid. The company is legally obligated, but what happens if they choose not to send a check? What would it cost to hire a lawyer to go after it vs. the $6k-10k we're assuming was even on the table here? Would you trust the company if they pulled this?

The company appears to be in real trouble, too. In some parts of the world, promised severance pay is not necessarily guaranteed if the company is insolvent.

If he signs a settlement agreement saying that for a certain amount of money he'll keep his mouth shut, and then they renag on paying him, he can go on Twitter rants.

Personally, I just don't see all that much of a point in even doing the Twitter rants in the first place.

OP here, wouldn't letting people know so they wouldn't apply there and have this happen to them a thing itself?

As for the money, I'm in Germany, it's nowhere near 6-10k. It's barely 2500 euros after tax, so..

If they’re so out of money that they’re breaking out of signed offers, would you trust them to pay $10,000?

If you are then, I’m sorry to tell but you’ve probably not experienced enough on this topic. Reneg on signed offers 3 days from joining date is a signal for catastrophic problems that are already in motion (not ahead). They’re done.

(Source: Old enough in the industry to have seen 3 recessions.)

My main concern would be other employers would see my Twitter rants and decide not to hire me.

Sometimes it's better to let things go

On their careers page (which is still up: https://jobs.lever.co/drivekyte/71e87269-e957-4604-a817-c528...), they mention the following:

> The opportunity to be a part of the exciting early stages of a well-funded, Silicon Valley based startup that has massive growth and venture potential

They're saying it themselves - this is a "growth and engagement" operation, not "build a sustainable business" operation. At least they were honest about it from the beginning, I'll give them that.

This kind of "business" is a sinking ship in the best of times, let alone during a recession.

> well-funded

A startup in a recession might have a good recession compatible plan or a long enough runway. Do we need a whole separate recession vocabulary so this job ad wasn't a lie?

Very unfortunate but it does happen. I worked for a company where we had recruited 10-15 summer interns, they had already accepted their offers and we had started planning who was joining which teams, and then our finance department decided we couldn't afford to bring them in, so we had to rescind the offers.

It was pretty embarrassing professionally, and we actually didn't go back to the 3-4 universities from where they were recruited from for several years. Hopefully those kids ended up finding something else that late in the intern-recruiting season...

Sure, mistakes happen, but there are different ways to fix those mistakes. Perhaps someone in the finance department should have lost their job in order to pay for those internships.

That's just not how startups work. The entire phase startup of company is growth growth growth so any indication of that trajectory slowing/stopping is death. It's always coming overnight with no forewarning just due to the nature of it. There is no maintenance mode to pivot staff to, because there is no customer base or revenue yet to keep them afloat.

The finance people are going to be far more valuable to the existence of the company at that point than any cohort of interns so it's silly to suggest that they should prioritize undergrads with no experience to the actual financial professionals who need to restructure how the company will operate moving forward.

> I was going to write this story everywhere and let the good people of the internet do their thing.

So you have no money, and any sense of "getting back" at the company probably doesn't matter since they're likely on the ropes anyways.

They have tons of open positions, some posted after this happened. They are not on the ropes, they just decided to change directions

I don’t get it… they added him to email lists and docs before he was officially hired?

I'd like to think companies rescinding offers after they've been formally accepted on clearly agreed terms would be a rare thing, but it's happened to me three times since early 2020, and I wasn't offered any compensation.

So, unfortunately, I don't consider it rare any more, and I recommend people do not shut down other prospects after agreeing to an offer, until the job has actually started.

One one occasion, there had been a particularly clear exchange of agreed terms in full view of their recruitment firm, with a start date, and we'd gone through many steps to get there.

That job was rescinded by the company ghosting me (and their recruitment firm) for 3 weeks, immediately after telling me to expect my shiny new employee welcome pack in the post. It felt weird and I kept telling myself I was just paranoid, as I was expecting further contact (and welcome pack), but perhaps it was just the company being slower than I expected?

After 3 weeks, they finally reappeared, to arrange a meeting the following week, still keeping me in the dark. The following week they let me know the "bad news" (which they'd known for some 2 weeks but didn't let me or the recruiter know). According to HR's explanation, it was normal for them to send "high level" (principal engineer and above) new hire contracts up to an executive to review, and on this occasion the executive decided the role was no longer required.

Wtf? They start that review after terms are agreed with the candidate? A process which counting interviews and delays took about 8 weeks total, and has a job start date coming up? A circumstance in which the new hire is expecting work materials in the post? I hadn't even negotiated changes: there was nothing special in the terms, just what they had offered.

The recruitement firm were surprised (I believe them) and said they'd be in touch with me and the company to "sort it". Or at least find out what happened.

And then the recruitment firm ghosted me as well. I guess their contract was more important than treating the candidate well.

I stressed out for most of a week after that one, because it was a shock and I was getting ready to start the job. Trying out legal theories to decide if I would win if I sued in tribunal or regular court, considing the clear agreement, the size of the signup bonus I was expecting, and severance pay written in their terms. In some respects, a role being no longer required after a contract is established ought to be like being made redundant. Total with the signup bonus would come to about 5 months salary. Add a bit more because I'd brought another contract to an end, to start the new job.

But I decided not to purse it. Within a few weeks luck happened and I ended up with a surprising, much more interesting job that also paid better, so it worked out well for me.

Reading around, but not consulting a lawyer (and I'm not one), the impression I obtained of the legal scenario when an accepted offer is rescinded is this:

- It's technically a breach of contract, because an employment contract is established when the candidate sends their agreement to offered terms in some evidenced way (such as posting an acceptance email).

- But companies will find a loophole. "Contract subject to references" is often that loophole, but to me that seems challengeable in cases where the company terminates the contract with clearly no intention to contact the references.

- The dropped new hire rarely pursues in these circumstances, and companies know this.

- "You haven't signed the formal legalese paperwork (in the welcome pack)" is what they may want you to believe is what counts. That happened in my case: HR nodded agreement that if I'd received the pack and signed they would have to pay. But a contract generally depends on offered and accepted terms, not whether subsequent paperwork is signed, and we had those terms clearly written out in email form already, with several witness (the recuitment firm). Not to mention a several phone calls with HR (after interviews were completed), making sure terms & start date were crystal clear, and pursuing me to get my acceptance in writing.

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