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Comment by georgespencer | Hacker News Reader

"action can be taken"

Come on. They didn't do anything wrong. They withdrew an offer of employment.

1. It could be performance related, and they just don't want to tell OP, 2. They realised quickly -- shock horror, things change quickly in startups -- that actually they don't need X guy they need Y guy. These things happen.

In situations like this you can fire well: give explicit reasons, make sure the person knows you're going to give them a great reference, consider paying them a notice period in excess of what you're obligated to. But really they didn't do anything wrong, and I don't think naming and shaming them is going to solve anything.

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> They withdrew an offer of employment.

Doing this without compensation is ABSOLUTELY doing something wrong. Maybe not necessarily tortious, but certainly unethical and indicative of someone who should not be trusted in a business relationship. The YC company made a mistake and is sticking someone else with the bill.

FWIW, There's a certain amount of "foreigners are expendable" mindset that seems to exist in the American tech sphere that might factor into this situation as well...

I had an offer withdrawn the day before I was supposed to get on a plane to move myself cross country. I had quit my job, broken my lease, etc.

The company paid me a 6 week severance, even though I never worked a minute for them, just to compensate me for what I had given up.

That was a very nice company. They were in no way obligated to do any of that. You chose to break your lease on a gamble that things would work out for you... obviously they didn't... that's just how it is.

I'm not a lawyer, but having quit a job, broken a lease, and literally packed up to move the next day, I think promissory estoppel might apply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promissory_estoppel#Promissory_...

Yes, which is why they paid him 6 weeks. I am sure in the papers there there's a "no lawsuit" clause…

It appears to me you don't have a particularly good grasp of the laws and legal code surrounding these circumstances beyond cursory Wikipedia articles. Often the laws are much much more complex than they appear on the surface.

> certainly unethical and indicative of someone who should not be trusted in a business relationship

Not necessarily. What if a major investor pulled out and they aren't going to have the capital available to hire this guy? What if hiring him meant not paying people who had been promised salaries after working for free? What if they could have hired him but others would have had to be fired?

They certainly made a mistake, but we don't know why they did what they did. It's unlikely to be malicious "Let's just screw this guy", and far more likely to be for reasons that each one of us, if we were in their shoes, would consider to be very good.

They withdrew an offer of employment.

They didn't withdraw an offer, they terminated someone who had accepted and was actively working for the company.

They didn't do anything wrong.

Yes, they did. Is it okay to let the OP go quickly because they made a mistake: no resources to deal with visa issues, wrong domain expertise, etc? Yes. Is it okay to do this without compensation, especially after rescinding other offers, working his personal network, etc? No!

The OP din't just do some code, he worked his professional network and went out on a limb for this startup. They screwed him, probably for the right reasons, but they need to admit the mistake and make the OP right.

he worked his professional network and went out on a limb for this startup.

Some in my network (former consulting clients and business friends) ended up buying the service. So the company benefited in a tangible way (real $'s). I worked as if this was "my company". So yeah, I do feel screwed for the reasons you say and more...

So they got rid of you because you had an equity stake? And by giving up your equity they could keep the money for themselves... yea, you got screwed.

> They didn't withdraw an offer, they terminated someone who had accepted and was actively working for the company.

You're right. It's even worse for OP: he just got canned.

> Yes, they did. Is it okay to let the OP go quickly because they made a mistake: no resources to deal with visa issues, wrong domain expertise, etc? Yes.

Agreed.

> Is it okay to do this without compensation, especially after rescinding other offers, working his personal network, etc? No!

He took a job, and got fired. Every time you take a job you rescind other offers. Every time you get fired you probably look back and think "damn I wish I'd taken one of those other offers". The proximity is the issue here, and the insinuating that they could have known this earlier / not made the hire in the first place.

> The OP din't just do some code, he worked his professional network and went out on a limb for this startup.

He didn't go out on a limb, he had a job there as you point out. He was a salaried employee.

>They withdrew an offer of employment. //

I thought the OP said they hired him and then 1 week in to working he was told he should leave.

If there was any package, like taking on the position would accrue shares and such then he's due that at least along with his weeks pay and his agreed/statutory notice period pay. The rest is probably down to local laws (both localities potentially if the company is operation in both).

Possibility #3 - They took a first look in months at the finantials, and don't want to tell anybody what they saw. If that's the case, they wouldn't pay anything anyway.

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