Yeah it does, especially now in the USA because new healthcare laws don't allow insurance companies to refuse coverage to consumers for any reason. If you have medical issues, or your spouse does, or your kids do, a licensed knowledgeable health insurance professional will take the time to help you select a plan that will actually be beneficial for you and your family.
Zenefits was hiring people who worked at the Yellow Pages and Yelp, previously selling advertising, and was turning them into "insurance brokers". Apparently in very short order.
Healthcare is complicated, and assuming that it could be treated in such a careless and reckless manner, or that 52 hours of training is a waste of time, it is beyond irresponsible, it shows an incredible lack of respect for the companies that Zenefits is supposed to serve, people who are relying on them for advice on the most important benefit employers provide, and finally their families. It's shocking and sad that Parker, someone who survived cancer, would be careless with peoples lives.
If Zenefits ended up being the "hub" that millions of consumers within the USA had to rely upon, there would be a lot of people hurt by that.
There are lots of companies who not only struggled to get coverage for their employees via Zenefits, but some didn't end up getting coverage through them at all. I have heard direct from CEO's of some small but successful companies who very much wanted to support Zenefits, that they gave up on working with them after exhaustive efforts to get coverage that in some cases went on for as long as seven months. Not providing coverage for your employees for seven months, that's disgraceful. I can not imagine how the CEO's of these companies felt.
Parker had to go, as should Sam Blonde, his right hand. Parker just cared about scaling the business, at any cost, he didn't care about the collateral damage.
By messy, do you mean like creating a working environment that encourages people to commit felonies in order to accelerate sales? Because usually employees get screwed out of stock in hyper-growth start-ups that raise hundreds of millions at unsustainable valuations, not go to jail. No one typically has to worry about breaking the law in order to meet absurd sales goals. You think maybe just maybe Parker kind of painted the company into a corner by telling investors like Fidelity and TPG that Zenefits could become a $100 Billion market cap company and that they're leaving money on the table. Zenefits fall from grace will become the cautionary tale from this technology boom. Disrupt an industry all you want, just don't put your employees freedom, or your own, at risk.
Also, invoking TK is pointless and shows that you can't distinguish apples from oranges.
Winning? The company is a giant mess, and the shit has not even hit the fan yet, this is just the start.
Parker didn't accomplish anything positive as CEO of Zenefits, ever. There's a ton of companies using Zenefits services who aren't happy. They haven't left because switching is a major pain in the ass. You think it's by accident that Parker chose to disrupt three of the industries with the highest customer retention rates. This board knows damn well that it's not because the (industry) solutions are awesome, it is because switching is painful and costly. Zenefits overall customer satisfaction sucks, as does feedback from employees and overall morale, check GlassDoor.
Parker found a way to piss off not just one highly regulated industry (health insurance) but three. He told a "journalist" from BI that the CEO of ADP "threatened him like Dirty Harry" in true SF/SV tabloid fashion. You think Warren Buffet ever did something like that?
From day one, on stage at TC Disrupt, he acted like a cocky spoiled brat, which is precisely what he is.
He managed to create enemies with many of the companies Zenefits originally did business with, and then relished in it when it made headlines, ala "project nutshot".
Zenefits is a company that is not only on track to lose hundreds of millions of its investors money, but it literally put its employees freedom at stake. People could be facing jail time because of how blatantly Zenefits ignored the law. More than 80% of sales in WA were by unlicensed reps. Tip of the iceberg.
Had Zenefits reached a $60M run rate without breaking the law, without requiring over $500M in VC, without requiring a near $100M burn rate, without Parker being abusive and unprofessional, well I'd have no choice but to congratulate Parker on his accomplishments.
All this guy did was burn through a ton of money, make a fool out of his investors and mismanage this company to the point where the massive fundraising at a $4.5B valuation, and all but inevitable write down, have sent every employees shares into a watery grave.
Learn from this. Don't try to romanticize the Zenefits story. If you look beyond the PR machine, you'll find a company that has done almost everything wrong under the helm of someone who was more interested in accomplishing something for himself, "proving people wrong", because of the self-described chip on his shoulder.
Just be glad you're not David Sacks, because unwinding this mess is going to be nearly impossible, and investors are going to be brutal. I wouldn't want to have to answer to Jordan Catalano.
This website has ADP's official response to Zenefits motion to dismiss. More interesting is the way that the reporter humorously points out that Zenefits kind of brought this on themselves. http://dnsr.com/adp-vs-zenefits-the-unicorn-who-lives-in-a-g...
Zenefits was hiring people who worked at the Yellow Pages and Yelp, previously selling advertising, and was turning them into "insurance brokers". Apparently in very short order.
Healthcare is complicated, and assuming that it could be treated in such a careless and reckless manner, or that 52 hours of training is a waste of time, it is beyond irresponsible, it shows an incredible lack of respect for the companies that Zenefits is supposed to serve, people who are relying on them for advice on the most important benefit employers provide, and finally their families. It's shocking and sad that Parker, someone who survived cancer, would be careless with peoples lives.
If Zenefits ended up being the "hub" that millions of consumers within the USA had to rely upon, there would be a lot of people hurt by that.
There are lots of companies who not only struggled to get coverage for their employees via Zenefits, but some didn't end up getting coverage through them at all. I have heard direct from CEO's of some small but successful companies who very much wanted to support Zenefits, that they gave up on working with them after exhaustive efforts to get coverage that in some cases went on for as long as seven months. Not providing coverage for your employees for seven months, that's disgraceful. I can not imagine how the CEO's of these companies felt.
Parker had to go, as should Sam Blonde, his right hand. Parker just cared about scaling the business, at any cost, he didn't care about the collateral damage.