zelos144

David Sacks

* takes responsibility for the situation.

* admits that he's laying people off, rather than disguising it as performance-based firing.

* offers a severance that is generous by tech standards, and

* allows people whose roles have changed to escape with severance and their reputation intact.

This is very much not the Y Combinator way of doing things. Are we sure that Zenefits was once YC?

By tech standards, this is an extremely generous severance. And, in the Bay Area, 3 months would be more than enough time for a young (under 30) person to find a job. Unfortunately, it may not be that way in Arizona, but that's not the CEO's fault.

I have to give the CEO credit. He's probably had to fight his CFO and board tooth and nail to get that package. I view it the same way that I view Obama's work on health care. Is it perfect? No. But it's better to compromise and get something done than to get nothing accomplished at all. What do you expect Sacks to do, stand up to his board, get fired, and then have everyone get nothing?

Most tech companies, when they lay people off, don't offer severance or even announce a layoff. They hide it as a "performance" based layoff or put in a stack-ranking system. Sacks is trying to do the most honorable thing that he can.

This is also a way for CEO Sacks to distance himself from the Y Combinator way of doing things. YC would advise him to do the standard sleazy startup thing. He's not doing that.