Super woke company alienates millions of customers
When it comes to employee expenses, businesses struggle with categorizing the receipts that flow in and dispensing reimbursements. Expensify is a popular software company that automates many of those tasks for its 10 million clients. Up until about five minutes ago, it was a profitable company that had attracted over $38 million in funding. However, David Barrett, the founder, CEO, and director, couldn't keep his Democrat political opinions to himself. As a result, the company instantly began to hemorrhage customers.
On Thursday, Barrett emailed a long letter to every single one of the company's 10 million customers explaining why they should vote for Biden to save democracy:
Wow. Just received an extraordinary email from @expensify CEO @dbarrett. I can't remember ever seeing anything even remotely close to it. pic.twitter.com/lPCBMjQSh4
— Rick Klau (@rklau) October 22, 2020
Rick Klau, who wrote the text above, was super-duper excited about receiving an unsolicited political letter from a company that was handling his expense accounts:
This interview @dbarrett did with @protocol reveals the process the company followed to engage all employees in the discussion ahead of making a statement. It's a fascinating look into a company leaning into the moment. Thoroughly impressed.https://t.co/8XstZGY4Dg
— Rick Klau (@rklau) October 23, 2020
Others were less impressed. Much less impressed:
Wow, surprising that anyone so poorly informed can become a success in America. BTW America is a Republic. A democracy is three wolves and a lamb deciding on what's for dinner. @dbarrett
— Joe Kennedy (@Freedom4USNow) October 23, 2020
I can’t even describe how offensive this email would be to me. Granted I did not get it, only reading it via you but wow! How self centered do you have to be to believe you can lecture to your clients? A vote against democracy?
— Kassing (@Michael_Kassing) October 23, 2020
I do have to give my sincere thanks to @dbarrett. He and his company @expensify’s misuse of my personal data to send me a pro-Biden spam email prompted me to do some thinking. Turns out we have the capacity to add users to our QuickBooks and dump his product thus saving money.
— Joe Pilot, MD (@JoeSilverman7) October 23, 2020
Friend of mine who runs a biotech company canceled his @expensify account. He emailed a few of us about it: "If I wanted to pay someone to tell me to vote Democrat I'd enroll in a university" https://t.co/6vpFCmLlNj
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) October 23, 2020
It was bad enough in June getting spam email with Black Lives Matter virtue-signaling from every single company with which I'd ever done business. At least the college graduates staffing those businesses — 99% of which I've been able to cut from my life — were marketing their company. Barrett's ignorant Biden shilling goes too far. The best response came from Daniel M. Rothschild, who scolded Barrett for violating his customers' trust and contributing to societal breakdown:
I sent an email to the CEO of @expensify pic.twitter.com/RmdRM55m43
— Daniel M. Rothschild (@danrothschild) October 23, 2020
I sincerely hope Barrett's arrogance destroys his business, because people should pay a price when they are absolute morons with other people's money.
Image: Expensify logo. Website screen grab.