Warp, an emerging New York payroll startup, has been in the spotlight following some controversial posts from accounts associated with the company.
On Thursday, an account posting under the name Vittorio wrote to X, “I prefer white people. White people do more and they are better suited for the roles. I need to climb the Kardashev scale. I let black people run and play basketball.”
The account profile included a badge identifying “Vittorio” as affiliated with Warp, whose software focuses on automating state-by-state tax compliance and was in incubator Y Combinator's winter 2023 cohort. The badge, created by X (formerly Twitter) as part of its 2022 X for Business program, would typically be given out to employees, but Warp appears to have distributed it more broadly as part of an unconventional marketing strategy.
In fact, whenever an outcry arose, it was directed not just at Vittorio but also at Warp, who later denied his post as an “error,” adding that he “believes excellence can come from anywhere.”
The company also said that Vittorio “was not an employee of Warp Inc.” and that it had removed his affiliate badge.
Vittorio's post and account have since been deleted. Warp also said it would “reduce affiliate badges more broadly, limiting them to a small group of people I know personally.”
The company did not immediately respond to an email from TechCrunch asking for more details about its relationship with the affiliates, but some affiliates defended the original post. (One affiliate associated with “Pico Paco” said that “vittorio did nothing wrong” and that it was just a “PR crisis,” but it appears that they've since lost their affiliate badge as well.)
Today, it came to light that one of Warp's affiliates was involved in multiple erroneous posts. We fundamentally believe that excellence can come from anywhere.
Warp is focused on building the best payroll platform for founders to make the world a better place.
— Warp (@joinwarp) September 6, 2024
Earlier this week, writer Gergely Orosz complained that his entire X feed had become filled with Warp-affiliated, blue-checkmark accounts posting “like 'engagement bait,'” including not only self-consciously extreme political opinions but also copycat posts that appeared to be intended to go viral.
Oros speculated that Warp was pursuing a new type of marketing strategy: “Giving this affiliate badge (which most companies use for their employees, etc.) to 'stylish' accounts to bring 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 “willing to take risks, but also open to feedback.”
When another poster suggested that this meant Warp condones racism, Sharma responded: “No, I'm mainly talking about people saying, 'Why are you giving out Warp badges to people?' We're comfortable trying and experimenting with all this and like I said, we're always open to feedback.”
Silicon Valley in 2023: We've built an AI so powerful it will destroy the world
Silicon Valley 2024: We created a racist payroll provider
— Luke Metro (@luke_metro) September 7, 2024