close
close

Payroll startup Warp distances itself from ‘collaborator’ who posted about white superiority

Posted on by darion

Warp, a young New York City payroll startup, has found itself in the spotlight due to controversial posts on an account associated with the company.

On Thursday, a user with the nickname Vittorio wrote on X: “I like white people more, they do more, they are better at their roles, I need to climb the Kardashev scale, I will let black people run and play basketball.”

The account profile included a badge indicating that “Vittorio” was affiliated with Warp, whose software focuses on automating state-by-state tax compliance and was part of Y Combinator’s winter 2023 cohort. The badge is something X (formerly Twitter) created as part of its X for Business program in 2022 and is typically awarded to employees, but Warp appears to be distributing it more broadly as part of an unconventional marketing strategy.

Indeed, when the outcry invariably erupted, it was focused not just on “Vittorio” but also on Warp, who later distanced himself from his post as “erroneous,” adding, “We believe excellence can come from anywhere.”

The company added that Vittorio “was never an employee of Warp” and said it had removed his partner badge.

The post and Vittorio’s account have since been deleted. Warp also said it was “restricting partner badges more broadly, limiting them to a smaller group of people we know personally.”

The company did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s email seeking more details about its relationships with partners, some of whom defended the original post. (One of them, “Pico Paco,” said that “Vittorio did nothing wrong” and that it was simply a “PR crisis,” before apparently losing his partner badge as well.)

Earlier this week, writer Gergely Orosz lamented that his entire X feed had become filled with blue Warp-affiliated accounts “posting what appears to be ‘engagement bait’” — not only knowingly controversial political opinions, but also mimicking posts that are clearly intended to go viral.

Orosz speculated that Warp was pursuing a new kind of marketing strategy: “Give that partner badge (that most companies use for employees, for example) to ‘trendy’ accounts that will draw attention to Warp and promote it.”

In a now-deleted post, Warp CEO Ayush Sharma wrote that “free speech is essential” and that Warp is “comfortable taking risks but is also open to feedback.”

When another user suggested that this meant Warp was comfortable with racism, Sharma responded, “No, I’m mainly talking about all those people saying ‘why are you giving people Warp badges’ – we’re fine with trying/experimenting with anything and like I said, we’re always open to feedback.”