
Rippling’s funding round gives founder second unicorn chance - totaldude87
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-04/rippling-s-funding-round-gives-founder-second-unicorn-chance
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whoisjuan
Every time I hear about this dude I only can remember that he publicly
rescinded the offer of an engineer who asked in Quora on whether he should
take an offer from Zenefits or an offer from Uber.

A harmless and rightful question that many people do ask themselves when
considering an offer (taking x or y job offer) and the dude treated it like it
was some sort of cult loyalty matter.

I hope he has learned from his past mistakes since he seems pretty smart and
driven.

I just can't stand those cult-like cultures some companies/founders try to
create. And I'm talking also about those companies that pose like they are a
family and everyone is together no matter what. Drinking their own kool-aid...
That's so far from the real transactional nature of a job.

To create good working cultures founders should start by realizing that the
relationships between employees and employers are no different from the
relationship between a buyer and seller. Both parties should seek for
transparency, respect and fairness in their relationship. It shouldn't be some
sort of lifestyle type of decision and they should never be challenged to pick
between their personal life and their professional life. Your employees will
never be as passionate as you're about the mission's company so if you want
them to really stick and do their best, start by realizing they are not you.

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dvt
> Every time I hear about this dude I only can remember that he publicly
> rescinded the offer of an engineer who asked in Quora on whether he should
> take an offer from Zenefits or an offer from Uber.

Hah, same here. I'd avoid the guy like the plague as an employee (and maybe
even moreso if I were an investor). Not to mention that Zenefits was marred by
a few HR scandals, too. Just goes to show it really must be "who you know."

~~~
stopachka
re: "who you know" \-- this may indicate the opposite.

Consider how "looked down" this kind of investment would be, if the CEO has a
bad record.

Yet, they still invest -- why? Because they think they will make a good return

~~~
majormajor
"Who you know" is about people being treated certain ways by the people they
know _regardless_ of reputation or underlying attributes.

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seizethecheese
We are in the process of closing our Rippling account. A few things that
happened:

\- They signed us up on an introductory deal, claiming they’d reach out before
the deal expired. This never happened and we got billed for tons of services
we had not ever used.

\- We used their 1password copycat to share passwords between team members. We
discovered that a former employee we had terminated through rippling had
access to tons of sensitive accounts several days after their departure date.
They claimed there was a bug and it took them a week to solve it.

Basically, highly negligent behavior.

~~~
digitaltrees
We had a similar experience, and to be honest, I am disappointed that a
founder with prior bad behavior is so easily forgiven and able to seemingly
repeat this type of behavior in SV as it makes it harder for founders with
less comfort with aggressive tactics to compete. Long term it will undermine
consumer trust and do real damage to the market.

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wbronitsky
Interesting. Rippling is the only company I’ve ever interviewed at that, with
full knowledge that they were doing so, offered me a job working more hours
for significantly less pay than I was currently making. When challenged, they
calmly assured me that it was a good deal, asked me to value the equity at
something quite above this new valuation, and urged me to take the offer.
Bold, but not the way I would choose to try and grow a company.

~~~
jaksmit
that's the same with many startups, that you'd need to work longer and for
less salary. but more potential upside on equity. they would have been telling
you that the equity could be worth more in the future if they IPO etc. not
that it'd be worth more in this round of funding.

~~~
ignoramous
Rippling pays top dollar in the Indian job market. Know a couple ex-FAANG
engineers who are quite happy with their compensation and work.

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cactus2093
One thing I will say about Rippling, their sales team is clearly incredible.
And this fraudster asshole of a founder must be good at what he does too.

I've used their device management and single sign on products, and those are
horrible. Much worse than the competition. Maybe their payroll and benefits
management is fine? But so is Gusto, and Zenefits, and Just Works, it's
basically a commodity at this point.

It all makes no sense to me at all, but hey it seems to be working out. Wild.

I guess it's another example of how unintuitively massive the enterprise
software market is, as patio11 has written a lot about.

~~~
entee
We use Rippling, and it's fine as payroll software. I chose it over Gusto
because the complete integration between IT and HR is a really great and as
far as I can tell unique offering.

In addition to payroll I get a "good-enough" password manager, MDM, SSO,
integration with Gsuite, equipment purchasing. In theory, one-click and an
employee is commissioned or decommissioned. If/when it works, it's a great
idea. Having worked in a SOC2 compliant enterprise (we aren't and don't expect
to be) previously, this would have saved me from purchasing several services
AND given me documentation to pass my audits.

There's totally unique value there, and I wonder why they're basically the
only ones to do it, though it's not currently as smooth as advertised.

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anonAndOn
This guy, again? How can I bet against any company founded by the guy
responsible for the "creation, distribution and use of software designed to
evade broker licensing education requirements."[0]

[0][https://dfs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/03/ea170407_y...](https://dfs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/03/ea170407_yp_dba_zenefits.pdf)

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cs-szazz
We use Rippling at work, and I'm not quite sure what justifies a billion
dollar plus valuation. (not to say it doesn't, I'm just super curious)

Anyone care to weigh in? I suspect there's a lot of things that behind the
scenes as an employee, but to 5x it's valuation in a year... must be special.

~~~
staysaasy
It's almost certainly based upon a multiple of revenue. That multiple will be
adjusted for growth, margins, and sector-specific hype.

~~~
jaksmit
I'd argue that it's almost certainly NOT valued on a multiple of revenue at
this stage. still a lot about the founder, market size, story etc

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jgalt212
Well, at the very least cancel culture has not yet permeated the SV / VC
bubble.

