Tech giants are not doing so well these days. Both Uber and Tesla have recently come under fire (or under lawsuit, as the case may be) for systemic sexism and accusations of "pervasive harassment" of employees. And then, to top it all off, Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes publicly tweeted a sex hotline — specifically, 1-800-EAT-DICK, because apparently Holmes really has zero class — at a reporter he was unhappy with.
Come on, Holmes. We expected better. Besides, sending petty tweets is a job for the White House now, anyway.
What happened was this: Reporter Gerrit De Vynck published an article in Bloomberg that questioned Hootsuite's supposed $1 billion value. This led Holmes to send De Vynck a tweet criticizing his story, "Hootsuite: The Unicorn That Never Was," for having a "salacious" headline (Really? Lascivious, lustful, or pornographic?) and for not including a comment from the company. De Vynck responded to let Holmes know that he had indeed reached out for comment, had received no response, and "would love to talk now." Holmes then told De Vynck to call him at 1-800-328-3425, a.k.a. the sex hotline 1-800-EAT-DICK. Tech-bro CEOs: They're just like fifth graders!
Holmes' tweets have since been deleted, but BuzzFeed reporter Caroline O'Donovan was able to screenshot them for posterity. See the whole absurd exchange below — and retweet if you can. Because when a person in power puts offensive, troll-y shit like that out there, they're going to get caught — and retweeted, and written about, and remembered. And it's time for the tech industry to put a stop to this idiotic, little-boys'-club harassment. Because techies have way bigger fish to fry these days.
it's never a good time for tech ceo's to be sending tweets like this, but this is a particularly bad week https://t.co/ik5OgCVJRo pic.twitter.com/yU8Yg4H39t
— Caroline O'Donovan (@ceodonovan) February 28, 2017