There are a host of laws regarding termination, even in at will states, especially for companies of Cloudflare's size.

Giving an invalid reason that is unsupported by facts is generally a strong place for a lawyer to assert "wrongful termination" and invoke those laws.

That's a false accusation.

They gave a reason: performance and the girl mentioned to have 0 sales + 3 opportunities.

I wouldn't bet a penny on that lawsuit to win.

Then she should’ve had that communicated to her earlier.

We don't know specifics.

If she's doing all the things she should do ( as she mentions), but lacks technical knowledge for a technical product.

Than if she asks feedback, she'll get points for the effort.

But concerning technical knowledge, there's not much to do in a short period to get an employee profitable in a lot of cases. Definitely with a product like Cloudflare.

And saying you lack basic knowledge, is very hard to do/fix. Because the knowledge is not solely Cloudflare related. It's development, website, networking, ... There's a difficult gray area on what training someone needs for technical things.

Even if the employee is motivated. They won't be profitable within a year.

Where to start? Where does it end?

They gave a reason. That doesn't mean the facts supported that reason. The employee didn't believe they did.

Not closing a deal in your first month of sales is not exactly unheard of or even uncommon.

Either way, WT lawsuits don't generally "win or lose". They settle.

The facts support the reason ( 0 sales), although there are nuances ( timeframe - 4,5 months)

There's also a lot of missing context.

- what happened in those 3 opportunities that she tried to close a deal

- perhaps she's missing a technical background to actually close a deal, since Cloudflare is a very technical product

No one from us knows the details, so it's speculation.

4,5 months is still a bit fast though. Getting a new employee up to speed takes 6 months in a lot of cases.

But mostly you know it sooner when it wouldn't work out.

You went from "the facts supported the reason" to "we don't have all the facts necessary to know if the facts supported the reason." to "from the facts we know, the reason seems sus."

?

You don't need to know everything, to acknowledge that 0 sales supports a bad performance review.

Here's additionally info that you didn't knew: https://softwarestackinvesting.com/cloudflare-net-q2-2023-ea... - profitability

100 people were fired and replaced, in the hope to get less underperforming sales people.

=> Facts support this situation and it's consistent to what happened in may last year too.

This is a follow up with the people that were layed off for underperforming. To see if they weren't...

In California, you sometimes have to announce layoffs. This strengthens a class action lawsuit that this is a layoff and not a termination for performance. There will be penalties associated with that.

You can simply say "We are terminating your employment." However, that generally means that you cannot demand back relocation, bonuses, stocks, etc. and you're going to have to cough up equivalent severance to everybody else--otherwise you're staring at a discrimination lawsuit.

America is a pretend country with pretend rights.

Yeah, you can terminate them with absolutely no reason, and then get sued. Read up on how employment laws actually work. There are all sorts of factors you aren't considering, which play into the legal realm at hand here. Factors like employee count. Yes, even in at-will states. You think that major corporations do PIPs and pay severances out of kindness?

Rules for layoffs vary greatly from state to state.

> At will employment is a thing. You can terminate people with absolutely no reason if you want, most of the time.

In which case fire them with no reason. If however you waive that choice and offer a specific reason then you probably should make the chosen reason true unless you want to be sued for wrongful dismissal.

You see?

Damn if you do, damn if you don't.

It's then better to just fire and give no motivation whatsoever.

Except this reason was most likely a fabrication due to the fact that they never communicated performance issues in the past.

Cloudflare lied. It’s plain and simple.

Or maybe they did and she didn't tell in the TikToks?

Don't believe everything you see on the internet. Be smarter than that, form opinions based on as many facts as possible, not only partial, biased, information.

I have more reason to believe this person than I do cloudflare.

Practice being skeptical.

You should probably do the same thing.

Given the information, and given what I know about Cloudflare’s internals and how they have behaved, and given how Matthew Prince has been in the past. It is unreasonable to think Cloudflare is in the right here.

Right? I mean who is more likely to be shady and do crooked things? Some person or a business? Can anyone even name a single time when a company has fired someone without real cause and lied?

/S

Companies are made of individuals, and individuals can be shady and crooked. In a vacuum, it’s probably somewhat as likely that the person getting fired and the company doing the firing are scumbags. I’d personally argue that companies have more of a reputation to uphold for profitability reasons, and will therefore be incentivised to act less scummy than individuals.

In this case, the company has nothing to gain no matter how they sever the contract. They’re simply getting rid of an employee who was either costing them money, or getting rid of many employees at a time to navigate a difficult economic situation.

The person making the TikTok on the other hand has a lot to gain from making a controversial and attention-grabbing spectacle out of this.

If you give a reason, it must be true. Otherwise it opens you up to "well, what was the real reason then?"