Expensify’s CEO sent a letter to every single person Expensify had an email for, even simple ground floor employees who just use the software to submit expenses an email prior to the 2020 presidential election.
The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected.
I will never give this company a single cent after that stunt.
On the contrary this is exactly what I want to see from executives regardless of their political leanings. If they believe that something is a clear and direct threat to the business that they’re charged with running, they should have a fiduciary duty to speak up on it in whatever means they have available.
Following that those receiving the message can decide to continue to support the business or not. But I’d rather have that than the weasel word non answers approach that many execs take.
>But I’d rather have that than the weasel word non answers approach that many execs take.
They are free to do whatever they want, but the CEO is a representative of the company, not the company itself. I don't care one wink about what the guy handling my business expenses thinks of the POTUS. His opinion on such matters has zero value to me. It was an odd thing to do for any company which is storing sensitive data of its customers.
I agree that the CEO is not the company and should not use the company as an amplifier of their own personal beliefs or views.
That being said, I don't buy that you (or anyone, I am not pointing fingers) _don't care one wink_. Maybe you don't care on this very topic because you disagree or simply have no interest in politics. But I'm willing to bet that on another topic closer to your heart (pick your favourite), that could reflect on your views and relationship with the company.
And actually, because the voice of a CEO is globally impactful on the brand of the company, CEOs tend to be publicly rather quiet. Exceptions apply.
It makes sense that the CEO should communicate to employees the effects of politics on the company, but it's unreasonable to send this to your customers.
> Following that those receiving the message can decide to continue to support the business or not.
Actually, they could not - this is the crux of the issue. They didn't just send emails to their customers, but to their customer's employees. As an employee, I do not get to pick whether I use Expensify or not. My employer does.
Imagine your company decides to use MS services for email (e.g. Outlook Exchange). Is it OK for you to have to receive Satya's views on politics and not have a choice not to receive them (other than quitting your job)?
The way I try to put my views aside when thinking about how I feel about this is "if a CEO with the opposite political view did this, how would I feel?" and it's very clear it would make me very unhappy. So yeah, this is definitely not an okay thing for a CEO to do.
Yeah, the right thing to do is to "quietly" announce your company's political views in the "subtext" of all your marketing materials, social media posts, company culture, and job descriptions.
People really do seem to forget how crazy the natural social separation is between the red and blue tribes is in the US. The CEO didn't really have to send an email for me to who they were voting for.
If you're okay with companies really obviously announcing their political affiliations in literally everything they do but not okay with companies being explicit about what everyone already knows then I think that says more about you than the company. Expensify is straight up not at all politically neutral, never has been, and doesn't really even pretend to. This wasn't a rogue CEO -- the employees voted on and helped write the email.
What you're ignoring is that 99% of our employees don't have the ability to cease doing business with these holier than thou assholes. They're forced to get these emails they don't want and they all spent time being being mad, annoyed, confused or upset, many spent hours crafting internal emails and following the very public discussion, many were annoyed by the eventual decision to stick with them. Many still bring this up when related issues arise. It's a collective waste of time and it isn't ok.
Would you be happy about a company that sent religious recruitment emails to all your employees?
Would you be happy about a company that distracted over half your employees for the better part of a day in some cases for no fucking reason other than to push their own personal agenda?
I get recruiters from companies big and small spamming my inbox, my voicemails, and even sending me SMS messages multiple times a week (if not multiple times a day). It's really not a big deal that a company CEO sent out one email which accurately warned people that Trump was a danger to democracy.
Let me put it very simply. Trump is a dangerous despot. Anyone who opened their eyes for a day between his inauguration and now can see that. And if you believe as I do that the most powerful country in the world shouldn’t have a despot at the head of its military and federal police, then you should do everything in your power to persuade people that he is who you know him to be.
If you’re not persuaded by democracy then how about free markets? Trump has gone after multiple companies for political reasons. I mean, the guy told everyone to boycott Goodyear Tire while he was President ffs. It is absolutely reasonable to assume your company is better off when they dont have to kiss the ass of a despot in order to keep your comapny’s stock price level.
It’s so incredibly sad how quickly we normalized that man’s politics.
One of my coworkers praised this in Slack that they wish more people have the courage to do this.
I am like: what are you saying? You would load all customer emails in order to push your political belief? I didn't say that out loud. But that was what I was thinking.
And we work at a financial company where personal data, arguably, is the most important thing.
I feel that means the email did exactly what it was supposed to:
- Encourage those that agree with it
- Inform those who disagree or are uncertain/unfamiliar
- Provide honest, clear message on what they stand for and priorities
Assuming they aren't surprised / are willing to bear consequences for their actions (both positive and negative), that's great. That's small-business mentality - openness with clients, making a stance, standing for more than just profit. Compare that with typical corporate communication which has such low informational density content it's worse than useless, and I miss it. And again, I say that on any given side of an issue (whether I disagree or disagree; and hopefully there's more than such a limited binary choice). If you CARE about it, don't hide it and pretend otherwise - Just makes discussions and decisions and life more onerous/hypocritical/annoying.
Where I was working at the time had no employees in the USA but yet we all got this email telling us how to vote in the upcoming USA election. Given none of us had the right to vote in the USA elections we found this email to be very strange.
Penzeys Spices is also really well-known political activism and it seems to be working for them -- it's just part of their brand now to get emails from an impassioned CEO who really really hated Trump and willing to put his money where his mouth is to the tune of almost a million dollars last election.
So many people vowed to boycott them but it never really came to anything and they made a nice profit off of trolling Trump supporters.
Non-traditional for sure. And I think most PR heads would highly discourage. Seems to work for this company OK. Thinking different can be an advantage.
I feel like HN users reflexively downvoted this comment but it does have merit. Personally, I'm no supporter or Trump or his right-wing viewpoints but even I felt slightly uncomfortable with the CEO's decision to send such an email.
I don't care if a CEO spends their own money on PAC donations - but sending a mass email to all your customers (including international ones) about an election is just bizzare.
They were actually protesting what they thought was a stolen election, ie, the "end of democracy". See how we're all on the same side rhetorically? We all want democracy.
Original comment: CEO was bad because he emailed people saying Trump wanted to destroy democracy.
Reply 1: And he did try to destroy democracy when he lost.
Reply 2: Well, the people he incited didn't realize they were destroying democracy.
I think this is what they call missing the forest through the trees.
Is it because you disagree with the political leanings of the CEO?
Is it because you don't think that corporations should express political biases?
If so, do you maintain a list of companies that you won't do business with based on corporate donations?
Is it because you disagree with a founder or CEO using the platform that their company provides them to amplify their voice?
Your comment is a condemnation of the action of the CEO without any specific concern raised about the action taken, and leaves one to conclude that you are a Trump supporter. That is also fine - the whole point of democracy is to allow people to choose who they vote for.
If I give an organisation my personal data (contact information), and they use it to tell me their personal political opinions, no matter how valid, I would not appreciate that.
> Your comment is a condemnation of the action of the CEO without any specific concern raised about the action taken, and leaves one to conclude that you are a Trump supporter.
This is a good example of "I cannot understand why you do X, therefore I'm sure the reason is Y."
If the email had been in support of Trump, I would feel similarly about not wanting to do business with Expensify, so I can sort of see where OP is coming from. I would feel much less strongly, but also have a distaste in my mouth, if the CEO emailed in support of Romney or McCain during those elections.
Political advocacy can complicate business relations, and its best for everybody to realize that. Which isn't to say that one should avoid political advocacy, just that the costs should be evaluated before deciding to do it or to not do it.
> Which isn't to say that one should avoid political advocacy, just that the costs should be evaluated before deciding to do it or to not do it.
It is pretty clear that the decision to write the email was written with business impacts in mind. Two of the longer paragraphs are essentially business justifications for why he wrote the email.
The CEO sent a long diatribe about how the election of Donald Trump would be the end of democracy as we know it, and it is imperative that Joe Biden is elected.
I will never give this company a single cent after that stunt.