
In India, TinyOwl Founder Detained for 2 Days by Laid-Off Employees and the Police - BIackSwan
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/05/in-india-tiny-owl-founder-reportedly-detained-for-two-days-by-laid-off-employees-and-the-police/
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tmsam
So, after "[announcing] $7.67 million in fresh funding... TinyOwl was
reportedly offering post-dated checks to [the laid off employees], which
concerned them as previously laid-off employees had yet to receive their
payment." And we're supposed to feel bad for the guy?

~~~
antidamage
Indian employees have a long history of being abused and taken advantage of to
the point of actual slave labour, a lot of the time by other Indian people. If
they're based in another country they frequently hold on to their employee's
passports so that they become virtual prisoners.

This guy should lose his funding, at the least for following this pattern of
behaviour and choosing to exploit the local economy by paying his workers well
below what would be considered a reasonable wage anywhere else.

~~~
thedesihobbit
You must consider a few things. India didnt have a lot of private
organizations to work for before the 80s. And most of the youth are second
generation college educated. At least the ones you're reading about.

Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no
one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage.

Getting fired is a concept is still a new concept for most. People don't get
fired, they're asked to resign. Even labour laws haven't been updated with the
times. You can hire, but can't fire.

Also, people feel entitled to job security here and have not experienced a
single recession in the last 30 years.

You must understand, Tiny Owl pays very well. Relatively. People with six
months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000. That's a lot here.
It takes 8-10 years to get to that pay in regular large organizations.

But where they went wrong: 1\. Hiring one bad apple who encouraged others to
gang up on the founder. This is no way to resolve a professional dispute.

2\. Not anticipating redundancy in positions well in advance, and
communicating and disclosing the risks. Perhaps those jobs could have had a
built in expiry and conditional renewal clause in their contracts.

But had they been growing as they did earlier this year, there would not have
been any redundancy. The problem was credit dried up and competition became
too fierce.

~~~
balladeer
There's a lot of inconsistencies here in your comment and a lot of deliberate
omissions.

> India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s.

A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India.

> Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and
> no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage.

Nothing changed in this regard.

And, no

> People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000

is an exception and not a norm. Your comment makes it look like, it's the norm
here. I work in one of the blue eyes Indian startups (which translates to yes,
it's burning money like most of the Indian startups but has more hope riding
on it than the others) and I see these salary figures from up close.

What TinyOwl's founder(s) did is very simple - fraud! That's why they were
held hostage knowing that being moneybags they would be untouchable once they
are out and they (the employees) would probably never get their wages. You
didn't even mention this issue in your comment. Or are you deliberately trying
to spin the story? Is it a PR attempt, considering the age of your account?
Anyway, that's another debate.

Also, the people holding the founder hostage were not at all those "management
graduates" with that kind of salaries. They were the people who were kind of
making ends meet, of course relatively speaking. They saw they were being
cheated and took matters in their own hands, which, IMHO, even though illegal
was/is the most effective way here.

What I have noticed in Indian startups (where I work included and maybe this
is how it is worldwide), the founders wants quick numbers - by the hook, or by
the crook. Well, the difference is in the west (US/EU) there's the law and the
watchdogs who bring the crooks to the book, in India everything has a price
and you can buy it if you can pay including the law and the courts. So that's
there.

~~~
thedesihobbit
Haha. I agree, my previous answer doesn't come across as consistent. But I was
typing from an app I recently started using and I didn't know where the edit
button was. It might explain the age of my account too. I just discovered this
site.

The central point I was trying to make in my reply was that getting fired (or
being a college dropout or bankrupt) is a huge social stigma. It's a relic, in
my opinion, of the pre-liberalization times.

"A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India."
This is plain wrong. It was hard to open new business because of lack of cheap
credit and license permit system. Most of the developed world had systems in
place for half a century before we had them. We didn't have banks, we relied
on funds from friends and family, or the shadow banking system that is so
prominent in Gujarati and Marwari communities. We didn't have the economic
freedom to start large organizations, and those who could, were the elite
families who had access, and stranglehold over the govt. They had the power
and connections to use their levers in govt to acquire licenses and contracts.
Which might explain why we have most number of inherited billionaires in the
richest Indians list.

Ok, so why is this history relevant? Getting laid off as a concept hasn't
seeped in the public psyche yet. Because it a huge social stigma and because
for many working for corporate is recent experience. There weren't many to
speak of. Add to that, there hasn't been a single recession.

".. they (the employees) would probably never get their wages." Do you really
think the founders would not pay? In this age where the smallest stories can
get wide attention, I don't think they can ever get away with something like
this.

So what is the dispute about? 1\. On the surface, about timing of payment. For
which they can work out a resolution, but ganging up on anyone is not a good
way to resolve issues. Employees aren't that powerless, that they have to
resort to physical means - it is not the most effective means. Internet and
sites like Twitter has leveled the field a little for everyone. If ganging up
is the most effective means to deal with this, then it is mostly a lack of
imagination on the part of those employees.

2\. At the core, about getting fired. Their anger is about getting fired.
Founders have handled it ineptly. If their jobs became redundant because of
automation of orders, the firm should have set the expectations right from the
start. They certainly shouldn't have laid them off in a sudden move.

Also, what I think, from a plain econ 101 pov, is that harder we make firing,
slower hiring becomes - because vacancies won't open easily, and more
difficult is it to get hired into good jobs. Hiring and firing should be easy
- determined solely by economic rationalie. The more efficient labour market
is, the better off everyone is.

My only point is that ganging up is no solution - which they did because of
the emotive issue. In the long run, it clips the wings of the individual.

~~~
chrisbennet
_" My only point is that ganging up is no solution - which they did because of
the emotive issue. In the long run, it clips the wings of the individual."_

While "ganging up is no solution" might make sense if there were alternatives,
in this case, it seems likely that "ganging up" was their _only_ chance of
getting paid. It seems like the police in this case, saw the unfairness of it
and sided with the workers.

~~~
thedesihobbit
Given the media attention startups are now getting in India, the contigency of
not getting paid highly unlikely. If the company was insolvent, then perhaps.
But in this case they secured $8mm. If the company defaults on their dues, the
story of startups being mythical and not value creating entities would blow in
the media.

As far as the police is concerned, they are highly inept, dysfunctional, and
enjoy discretionary powers. Most people don't trust them or their judgment,
and wish they never have to deal with the police.

------
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417).

------
newsignup
Food tech (if I may say so) is really facing the heat now.

On the other hand what piques my interest is the way VCs behave in India.
Instead of carrying an insight they tend to "follow" the "trend" which by
definition is not an optimal thing to do.

In just few months time they have gone from investing in all possible weird
food startup to taking money away from even the promising ones.

The nature of VCs is very fickle, at least in India.

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data37
Almost every single Indian movie goer agrees with the hero not following any
rules and doing things according to what he feels as justified in the movie.
Movies exaggerated the imperfection in the Indian law and encouraged everyone
to judge everything based on their own limited view of the things. Herd
mentality only got worse with all social connectivity made possible by
technology - fueling more opionated and wrong views.

------
oxryly1
So, is kidnapping not a crime in India?

~~~
tn13
Indian law and Indian in general do not understand the idea of law and
individual liberty. Hence a lot of sensible things that you might expect from
law enforcement in developed world does not work well in India.

In India police mostly see themselves as keepers of peace and would use
arbitrary force to keep things from escalating. Indian laws are complex and
hence cops can do whatever they want without impunity.

Check what happened to this Australian [1]. Not only he was harassed by people
but the police made him write an apology letter to those people who manhandled
him. (All because the guy had a tattoo that offended other people.)

There are some other crazy things in India for example "Right to Education"
law which basically forces to shut schools down if they do not comply with
arbitrary clauses but only if the school is run by a Hindu. If the school is
run by a Christian or Muslim the school need not comply with the law.

[1] [http://bit.ly/1HiJdRo](http://bit.ly/1HiJdRo)

~~~
abhishivsaxena
It doesn't matter who runs the school. However if the school identifies itself
as a minority institution it doesn't have to comply with RTE guidelines as per
the constitution bench of Supreme court. Here's an excerpt from a newspaper
report.

    
    
       However, the constitution bench exempted minority
       schools, both aided and unaided, from the purview
       of the Act. It said minority schools could not be
       put under legal obligation to provide free and 
       compulsory elementary education to children 
       who were not members of the minority community
       which had established the school. It said, 
       "In our view, if the Act is made applicable 
       to minority schools, aided or unaided, the right
       of the minorities under Article 30(1) of the
       Constitution will be abrogated. Therefore, 
       the (provision of the) 2009 Act, which made it 
       applicable to minority schools is unconstitutional." 
       [1]
    
    

So it's more about minority rights, than about religious discrimination which
your post seemed to suggest. Quite mischievously too if I might add.

And so far as schools being shut for not complying with some "arbitrary
clause", it is actually more about private schools refusing to fulfil 25%
reservation for children from socially backward communities. You also left
that out.

Jai Hind!

[1] [http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/25-pc-
re...](http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/25-pc-reservation-
for-minority-institutions-invalid-under-rte-act-sc/)

~~~
tn13
Use common sense instead of Supreme court's sophistry. Why should a one school
which admits general students for general education should not be subject to a
state regulation only because the management is Christian ? Education is a
perfectly secular activity like running a taxi service. Having tight
regulation to one regulation where as total exemption to another religion
seems stupid.

It could have been a minority rights issue if this exemption was limited to
say a church run institution for religious studies. But then why not give same
exemption to Hindu school for religious studies ?

Another catch. Some Indian states like J&K and Kerala have Hindus as
minorities. But Hindus can not run minority institutions despite this. Reason
? Any minority institution needs to get a N.O.C. from National Minority
Education Council but by law only Christians and Muslims can be members of
this council and are allowed to give permissions only to Christian and Muslims
schools.

~~~
abhishivsaxena
Because such institutions were explicitly founded to provide education to
minorities, and it would be unfair to _force_ them to allocate their limited
resources away from that goal. Most do so voluntarily anyways.

It's actually quite simple to understand I think, and the judgment says so in
what is plain language, not some sophistry.

And Hindus are minorities in Kerala? Despite being 54% of total population?
Citation please.

As far as J&K as concerned, I'm not too sure what you are saying is correct.
Maybe it's true, but then J&K never merged with the India, so it's possible
since laws enacted by parliament don't automatically apply to J&K. Citation
please.

EDIT: Your point about NMEC is invalid as well [2].

Let me know if you want me to suggest some material/books so you can better
understand this issue.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Kerala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Kerala)

[2]
[http://ncmei.gov.in/writereaddata/filelinks/c296efcb_Guideli...](http://ncmei.gov.in/writereaddata/filelinks/c296efcb_Guidelines.pdf)

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jonsterling
Screw that guy; love that the "disgruntled" workers took action.

