Tech CEO Tweets Sex Hotline Number at Reporter
Hootsuite’s chief told the writer questioning his company’s value to call 1-800-EAT-DICK.
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Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes didn’t like questioning his company’s $1 billion valuation. He disliked it so much that he to call 1-800-328-3425 — or 1-800-EAT-DICK. Bloomberg’s write-up said the social media managing platform’s true valuation is around $700 million to $750 million, so it doesn’t really have “unicorn status.” The term “unicorn” is used to describe a start-up or a non-public company with a valuation of over $1 billion, and it’s a status that could help attract both talents and investors.
Holmes took to Twitter to call Bloomberg’s headline (“Hootsuite: The Unicorn That Never Was”) salacious, telling the writer, Gerritt De Vynck, that the piece was published before his company could make a statement. When De Vynck told him he waited for the company’s response for a day and asked for a phone number to get in touch, Holmes gave him the phone sex hotline number 1-800-328-3425. All those tweets are gone now, but was there to screencap it all:
it’s never a good time for tech ceo’s to be sending tweets like this, but this is a particularly bad week
— Caroline O’Donovan (@ceodonovan)
As Buzzfeed writer Caroline O’Donovan said, this is a particularly bad time for a tech CEO to tweet like this. Silicon Valley’s sexism problem recently became the center of attention after reports of sexual harassment at , and other companies made headlines. Hootsuite might not be as big a name, but when all eyes are on you, it’s probably a bad idea to tweet inappropriate messages. That said, Holmes made a public apology in the end:
Apologies on an attempt at humour today. It was offside.
— Ryan Holmes (@invoker)
Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes didn’t like questioning his company’s $1 billion valuation. He disliked it so much that he to call 1-800-328-3425 — or 1-800-EAT-DICK. Bloomberg’s write-up said the social media managing platform’s true valuation is around $700 million to $750 million, so it doesn’t really have “unicorn status.” The term “unicorn” is used to describe a start-up or a non-public company with a valuation of over $1 billion, and it’s a status that could help attract both talents and investors.
Holmes took to Twitter to call Bloomberg’s headline (“Hootsuite: The Unicorn That Never Was”) salacious, telling the writer, Gerritt De Vynck, that the piece was published before his company could make a statement. When De Vynck told him he waited for the company’s response for a day and asked for a phone number to get in touch, Holmes gave him the phone sex hotline number 1-800-328-3425. All those tweets are gone now, but was there to screencap it all:
it’s never a good time for tech ceo’s to be sending tweets like this, but this is a particularly bad week
— Caroline O’Donovan (@ceodonovan)
As Buzzfeed writer Caroline O’Donovan said, this is a particularly bad time for a tech CEO to tweet like this. Silicon Valley’s sexism problem recently became the center of attention after reports of sexual harassment at , and other companies made headlines. Hootsuite might not be as big a name, but when all eyes are on you, it’s probably a bad idea to tweet inappropriate messages. That said, Holmes made a public apology in the end:
Apologies on an attempt at humour today. It was offside.
— Ryan Holmes (@invoker)
