
Ask HN: Where do I report ethics violation at a YC startup? - startupethics
I have a report of a YC startup that done the following:<p>* Dismissed a summer intern with no pay and no recommendation (to save money). Intern stayed with us 2.5 months. Salary was promised upon good performance. Intern was dismissed at the end of internship, told off he is no good. I have the experience to tell, kid was actually fine and it simply was a &#x27;frugal&#x27; money saving move.<p>* Hired H1Bs from India with no prior announcement in the office. This was not following legal immigration procedures. Had effect of changing cultural dynamics with no warning (became 100% Indian).<p>* Announced new stock grant to early employees as a reward (with 1 year cliff). In reality, diluted early employee stock 50% without any notification. At a later time (months) some employees accidentally learned that new stock issue had barely covered dilution. Employees who left lost money because of that dilution&#x2F;cliff effect (on the order of 100k).<p>This had happened quite some time back, and wouldn&#x27;t affect outcome of the startup and YC investment (company was acquired, years passed).<p>Where do I report it?  Where other employees should report similar issues with YC startups?  Would a report like this be of any use to YC?  Will it kick out a founder from alumni network?
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trcollinson
This sounds somewhat unethical, I guess. IANAL but frankly it sounds like the
biggest mistake are:

1) If the intern was released and promised money but was not treated or paid
fairly according to the written contract, then they should contact a lawyer
and sue. If they did not do this, then it's hard to make an ethical argument
about the situation. You might be 100% correct, but how can the issues be
verified?

2) What you describe is against the law. However, it is not an ethical
violation necessarily. It could be that they were not aware of their legal
requirement. You could have turned them in and they might have been fined. But
it's very hard to judge intent. Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe they posted
but you missed it. Maybe their are unethical. How do you prove it? As for the
cultural effect, that's not unethical. That may have been their intent. Why
would becoming 100% Indian be unethical? If you don't like it as an employee,
leave.

3) If you feel that the stock was diluted in a way that was against the law or
in some way against your contract, you get a lawyer and sue. If you were
slighted illegally for $100,000.00 get a lawyer. Prove it in court then prove
it is unethical.

Proving ethical issues is like proving defamation. It's really hard. I guess
you could write to the the partners at YC but you might come out looking
poorly yourself.

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samfisher83
Oral contracts are binding as well. If they didn't pay the intern he needs to
go report it to his state workforce commission.

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trcollinson
Exactly! Again, get a lawyer, go about things the legal way, make them pay for
the unethical and illegal behavior.

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SmellTheGlove
I'm not going to address the merits of any of the above, as I really can't get
into legal advice, so please take this as simply some things to think about:

First, not all ethical violations are legal violations. You probably have a
mix of things here. Consider what you want to raise, and who to raise it to,
for each bullet. You may want to discuss with an attorney to decide whether
any of these have merit line by line.

Most importantly, and especially if this is your employer, you absolutely
should talk to your lawyer first before doing anything. I say your lawyer in
the sense that if you do not have one, find one. Whether you're right or
wrong, whenever you might stir up trouble for someone, you need to know what
the blowback could be and your lawyer is the person to advise you on that.

I know I'm not really helping with your question head-on, because I really
don't want to suggest who to raise ethical and/or corporate legal issues to -
it's best to have that discussion with someone who is your attorney. I'd want
anyone looking at this thread for similar reasons to get the same message.

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yshiran
Obviously some of the actions are illegal (like not paying an intern, no
matter the reason) and should be handled in court. Other way is to write about
them in social media and create bad press on the company.

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techthroway443
This happened quite some time back? Forget about it man, why bring this up
now?

~~~
startupethics
I think it is a good idea to have official public channel to report ethics
violations of founders. My guess is that YC partners would try to uphold
[https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/](https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/) And
quietly weed out rogue founders from the network. But this is just a guess.

