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Comment by infrawhispers | Hacker News Reader

I find it very interesting how he (Ryan Petersen) bragged about Flexport having $1B in cash [2] but now implies that things are tight so they cannot pay any form of severance[1].

Don’t let the SV propaganda fool you. The implicit contract betweeen white collar workers and employers has been gone for quite some time. Employees should always prioritize what is best for them.

[1] https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1700114432792363016?s=4...

[2] https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1700108412024127569?s=4...

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It also just occurred to me that _he was on the board signing off on the equity grants_. So it is insane that he says he has no idea how this happened and later backtracks and says they were aligned on a growth plan that didn’t pan out. The rule that company CEO tweets a ton == poorly managed company never ceases to fail.

How does equity grants at flexport work? In all my jobs, there is a number on the offer letter, but the actual sign off happens only at the first board meeting post starting date/

This is true, even somewhat well run management will share the projected plan with the board and get their buy in. The board resolution approving it formally is typically on first board meeting after the employee joins.

It is possible for management with poor relationship with the board and ex-CEO/Founder and issued offer letters without board consent or awareness.

Approval may not be necessary depending on how the options are structured, for example phantom stock plans wouldn't need board approval per se since no actual stock ( or option for it) is issued.

This is what I've seen as well. It's possible he really hadn't seen the 75 offers before SHTF.

Elon Musk tweets a lot and Tesla has the best electric car batteries in terms of mile range, and the reusuable rockets at SpaceX are managed pretty well

> Elon Musk tweets a lot and Tesla has the best electric car batteries in terms of mile range

Actually, that would be the Lucid: https://www.forbes.com/wheels/best/electric-vehicles-for-ran...

> and the reusuable rockets at SpaceX are managed pretty well

My understanding from talking to multiple people at SpaceX is that Elon isn't really involved there. He shows up and says "do stuff" and they say "yes Elon" and then just do what they were doing anyway.

Besides, it seems like most of his focus is on Twitter these days, which is clearly circling the drain.

Wow. As if rescinding offers isn't bad enough, doing so with $1B in cash makes you a mega asshole.

He left Flexport to do VC with Peter Thiel’s company. That speaks volumes.

How else are they going to pay the bonuses to the C-suite occupants?

Yeah this is quite ridiculous. Even at very high salaries (no one makes these at Flexport, FYI) you're talking about a few million dollars to make this right (2 months severance).

Two months' severance? That hasn't been a norm in ages. You're lucky to get 2 (maybe 4) weeks and a month's worth of COBRA (in California).

Edit: I'm not defending it and it's just anecdotal; but it's definitely what I've seen/experienced.

Anecdata: Spouse was let go from Salesforce in the January round of layoffs, after 2 years there. She received 6 months salary, was allowed to keep RSUs that would have vested within 90 days (which amounted to another ~2 months salary), and the company paid for COBRA for her and family for 6 months.

That was very generous, but it's not at all unheard of. There are people who were on her team who got more than 12 months. They had been there quite a bit longer.

I’ve been on the company’s side of a few RIFs lately, it’s not fun for anyone, and clearly worse for the employees. But even for brand new employees we do at least a month’s severance + health care etc. For many, it’s 90+ days. Unless your company is at urgent risk of bankruptcy, just be a normal human and spend the few extra dollars so a bad day is a as good as possible.

I like how everyone tosses out COBRA. However, COBRA fees will chew up a large chunk of that severance.

Afaik, all employees are entitled to COBRA - in my experience, when it’s mentioned as a severance benefit, the company is paying the employee’s portion of that expense (it’s what all the companies I’ve been involved with have provided) and the remainder of the severance is in addition to that.

That sounds like a decent severance. I’ve only ever been offered COBRA at my own expense which is the full rate of the insurance including the part the company normally chips in.

I had always heard the default to be "a month per year of service," so paying nothing to people who hadn't started is definitely crappy for the people who had probably put in notice elsewhere (who are now, for unemployment insurance purposes, considered to have voluntarily quit their last job), but it doesn't really surprise me.

I never said it was the norm, but I would think it would be a good sign here if they gave two months. I suspect they will give something like two weeks when this shakes out.

75 offers at 200k is 15 million for a year (and I doubt all were that high). This is a drop in the bucket for a company with that much cash. This action also severely damages their reputation: good luck hiring in tbe future, and good luck getting futute investors or business when you've given the impression the ship is sinking.

They deleted the post [1], does anyone have a screenshot?

One was on Google Cache and another was on internet archive. Both are September 8, 2023:

https://archive.is/t2Wsr - "We're going to help them find jobs. Can't just give out cash tho."

https://archive.is/RAWQp - "Flexport has $1B in net cash. But we're far from profitable right now and will be laser focused on profitable growth from now on."

747s are expensive, yo!

Check the various archive sites, someone may have grabbed it.

What is this implicit contract you speak of?

There used to be this idea of loyalty between companies and employees, with people staying one company for years, and sometimes their entire lives, and pensions given for retirement, and extreme circumstances needed to be fired. This has been gone for decades, but corporations have held on to the illusion as long as they could to coerce employees to work against their own interests. Most smart people now act as hired guns now and recognize that it's all business and contractual obligations, and only act in their own interest.

This has not been true since the 1980s. Note that even before that, it was a fairy tale because no one can foresee the future, and when things get bad, even loyal employees have to go because there is no money to pay them (if companies kept them, they would run out of money and go bankrupt).

This is still the thing today for many people in trades. I know at least a handful of people who have been at their company for 10+ years, including my father, who works in the trades. Not an unheard of thing - tech is just immature, I think, and they have a lot of immature leadership, unfortunately.

YC is complicit.

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