4. Dharmesh Shah:
Shah, the co-founder and CEO of HubSpot, a marketing software company, got really publicly defensive after a book revealed shenanigans going on with the company’s walls.
In his book Disrupted, author Dan Lyons, who spent time working for HubSpot after working for decades as a journalist, described some truly cringe-inducing scenarios. He wrote about the lack of diversity, ageism, and some really bizarre stuff, including shower rooms that the largely Millennial-aged staff use as “sex cabins†for workplace hookups.
Lyons was also brutal in his depiction of some of the laughable management practices. Before the book was released, HubSpot’s marketing head was fired for ethics violations for trying to obtain an early release of the book–no doubt, in order to plan damage control. The stunt only helped underscore Lyons’ observations about the buffoonery taking place at HubSpot.
Shah wrote a lengthy tome on LinkedIn answering the accusations in the book and the criticisms of HubSpot. It was an overwrought, defensive blog post that gave further ammunition to HubSpot’s critics.