There has been intense debate within the company about whether to send the message, says David Barrett, CEO
There has been intense debate within the company about whether to send the message, says David Barrett, CEO
Silicon Valley companies are very divided on whether politics belongs to the workplace On Thursday, one of the largest providers of expense accounts software sent out an appeal to all of its customers urging them to vote for Joe Biden, injecting politics into 100,000 companies that use Expensify IncOutils from
The plan sparked heated debate within the San Francisco-based company, and some employees disagreed with the move, CEO David Barrett said But he went on and sent the Biden email to the 10 million people who use the Expensify software, he said.
“We had to stay true to what we believe in and hope most people agree with us,” Barrett said in an interview. “It’s not like we’re doing this with a lot of enthusiasm We did it out of perceived necessity «
In the email to clients, Barrett wrote: « Anything less than a vote for Biden is a vote against democracy » If President Donald Trump were re-elected, Barrett wrote, it « would hurt our democracy to such an extent, I am obliged on behalf of the shareholders to take all the measures that I can to avoid itBarrett suggested Trump victory would fuel civil unrest « Few expense reports filed during civil war » Protocol from the technology news website previously reported in the email
Tech workers have made political activism a common part of office life in Silicon Valley in recent years But in recent weeks a countermovement has emerged from startup executives led by Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase Inc, which operates an online exchange for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies Armstrong said last month that Coinbase employees would not be allowed to advocate for causes or candidates and offered compensation of departure to those who refused About 60 workers took the buyout
Armstrong’s position has drawn support from some in the tech world, as well as strong reprimands from Jack Dorsey and Dick Costolo, current and former CEOs of Twitter Inc.Coinbase’s move, according to Barrett, was « just very cowardly »
“All evil needs is for the right people to stand aside,” Barrett said. “Not standing up for anything means you’re for the status quo” His actions can reinforce a widely held view among many Republicans about an anti-conservative bias within tech companies
Barrett, from Michigan, started Expensify in 2008 The company competes with Concur of SAP SE, the largest provider of travel and business expenses Expensify is backed by Redpoint Ventures and other equity firms -risk
Earlier this year, Expensify joined a corporate demonstration in support of the Black Lives Matter movement by blackening its homepage Many customers supported the move, Barrett said, but some threatened to take their business elsewhere. « Some people leave, » he said. « Most don’t »
When Barrett offered to send the email in support of Biden to employees at Expensify, some took issue with the claims in his draft and offered their own fact-checks in the Slack chat room of the company Workers also raised concerns about the repercussions on the business Barrett recalled that the discussion went as follows: « We have 100,000 customers How many of them are just going to panic about it? » How many of our users are going to be upset? «
In the first few hours of sending the email, the company received a mix of positive and negative customer reviews, Barrett said. So far, he said, none of his employees have resigned
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World news – United States – Expensify CEO sends email to 10 million customers urging them to vote for Biden
