Employment | A View from the Valley

Perspectives on issues affecting founders, startups and investors from a veteran startup lawyer in Silicon Valley

Category Archives: Employment

Job Description for a Startup CEO

posted Aug 23 in Employment, This and that

On various occasions we’ve looked at some serious employment law issues that startups face. On the lighter side, startup CEOs should be prepared for some fairly unorthodox job duties, such as Chief Barista. The video below shows how this would work with a demonstration from Corey Reese, CEO of our client Trumpet Technologies. This originally appeared in…

Avoiding Mistakes with Independent Contractors

posted Aug 20 in Employment

In this blog we’ve written before (here and here) about employment issues involving the use of independent contractors. This is an issue that continues to bite companies of all sizes, from the largest tech companies to the smallest startups. Recently Mike Droke, the head of our Seattle office and the Co-Chair of Dorsey’s Labor &…

Independent Contractor or Employee: Getting It Right Is More Important Now Than Ever Before

posted May 11 in Employment, People issues, Startups

In a prior post, we took a look at some of the top mistakes growing companies make in the employment arena. Now let’s take a deeper dive into the issue of misclassifying people as employees vs. independent contractors. It’s an issue that is frequently glossed over by startups, but one that can cause significant risks,…