I think Sacks has done an extraordinarily good job as CEO. Hard to put oneself in the CEOs shoes here, but this guy had to make multiple huge decisions and changes to Zenefits over the past year. Sacks' consistency of right calls and handling things deftly under a ton of pressure, I can't remember the last time a CEO had to run such a gauntlet, maybe Iceman back in 1986. The guy deserves more credit than he has gotten. Though it's not surprising the press missed this part of a story as they tend to do when they smell unicorn blood in the water.
I also don't think it's too surprising he is stepping down. How long can someone work on cleaning up someone else's mess? While under-compensated for it. And while putting better more interesting potential opportunities on hold.
There's a difference in the scale of the offense (but in either case people weren't physically harmed), but contrast this with the thread about the Wells Fargo CEO stepping down, where people here thought the CEO should go to prison for the culture he set at the company.
The SV guys get sympathy and an "'atta boy!"
Yeah, news here is Sacks thinks this is no longer the number one opportunity in the valley. Probably when they turned their back on the enterprise market. And now internal numbers might not show rocket ship growth in SMB market. Can't "push" into 20 employee companies, and the "pull" must not be there.
“David Sacks is still the CEO of Zenefits and remains very committed to the company,” she said in a statement. “This is not a role that David sought, but he accepted it without any compensation at the request of the board to get the company past a crisis. Now that the crisis is over, David is leading a process to determine what senior talent the company needs to get to the next level.”
What I didn't know until digging tonight was after Peter Thiel founded the Stanford Review that David Sacks was one of the editors who succeeded him.
He was already COO. Does he bear no responsibility for the "trouble"? Do you think that falls solely on the CEO (which he ended up becoming)?
Really, the big news here is Gusto. Gusto has hands-down slipped right passed Zenefits and will consume their market.
This will be a good way to close out that chapter and for everyone to move on.
FWIW,asides the throwing of Conrad under the bus, Sacks seemed to have done a pretty good job (from the outside) of steadying the Zenefits ship after last year's collusion.
I expect Buzfeed to have the gossip back story by early next week.
The "still the CEO of Zenefits" quote from his last-to-know PR person is now gone.
