Hacker News Reader

Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

This is just how capitalism works in a competitive environment: it allocates capital as efficiently as possible.

I despise their business model, but it is what it is.

It really doesn't have to "be what it is". We can strive for actual change. But everyone's still too cushy for that, it seems.

But what actual change do you want when the very founders of these companies like Vimeo, multi-multi-millionaires decide to sell their life's work, customers and workers very well knowing what the fate's gonna be, just to be even more wealthier?

To summarize what I put in another response: I personally care less about holding the multi millionaire into account (though I wouldn't mind it at all) and more about making sure employees over such deals aren't lied to and then have lives upended at the drop of a hat. Workers and customers do not in fact "know what the fate's gonna be" and that's the problem to address.

I won't repeat the same usual solutions again, but I'll mention one thing that already exists: the WARN act. The spirit of this is good, to give employees a 3 month buffer of when their job is ending. But it's clearly abused at worst, and not enforced at best. It's not as good as other countries' worker rights, but ot exists today to be looked at. In addition, severance can help to. This is standard, but even the "generous packages" in the US tend to be on the lower end of what other countries need to do.

Basically, it shouldn't be a drop dead easy decision for a company to mass layoff and have the workers surprised at the facs. It needs to both be slowed down and give immediate short term costs. That's a start of "kinda actual change" to strive for.

> Workers and customers do not in fact "know what the fate's gonna be" and that's the problem to address.

1. Bending Spoons model is known, everybody knows as soon it's announced

2. The company belongs to the shareholders and founders. It's them making the decision.

1. we're on a tech forum and can quickly link to other discussions on the company. Many employees may not even be aware there was a change in management. If they were, their statement outright lied to them saying they still wanted to continue to grow. Meanwhile, many Vimeo clients won't know about this for months or even years. So no, not everyone knew.

2. And I'm saying a cooperation shouldn't be able to make reckless decisions like "lets lay off most of our workforce" withotu reprecussions. Like most civilized societies outside the US do. Thats's what the bulk of my previous response is about.

What are you arguing? That you can do anything you want to something you own? That's not true for nearly anything in modern society.

I can assure you everyone knew exactly what was coming from the moment the acquisition was announced

#2 is why the government, via laws, needs to establish employment rights, such as redundancy payments when someone is terminated due to their position being no longer required.

Those rights need to show up in company balance sheets as a contingent liability.

That applies when the company is acquired as well.

The employment of a company need to be either paid out to employees at net present value, or need to be transferred to the new owners as part of the sale.

In the US, with employment sponsored health insurance, it's even more important.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com