Former Hubspot execs won't face criminal charges for allegedly trying to get unpublished book manuscript
The Justice Department has dropped its criminal investigation of the executives' alleged efforts to get ahold of a draft of a book about the company, The Boston Globe reports.
The Boston FBI office also sent a letter to that effect to former HubSpot employee, Dan Lyons, the author of the forthcoming book.
HubSpot prides itself on a culture of "uncomfortable level of transparency" cofounder Darmesh Shah once told Business Insider.
So it issued a press release in July that revealled a bit of detail about the incident. It said that chief marketing officer Mike Volpe had been terminated for "violating the company's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics" and vice president of content Joe Chernov resigned "before the company could determine whether to terminate him for similar violations."
HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan was also aware of the incident, the company said, though he wasn't directly involved. He was "sanctioned" for not reporting the situation in a "timely manner."
But we're not sure exactly what happened.
Lyons, who cut his teeth as a tech journalist (Forbes, Newsweek, ReadWrite) worked for HubSpot for just less than two years, from April 2013 to December 2014, which included the company's IPO.
He's since been working as writer for the HBO series "Silicon Valley." He's also written books, including one called "Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs." He's known for a sharp-tongued humor.
So it's not surprising he was turning his HubSpot experience into a book. He's named it "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble" due out in April.
Apparently, it was the manuscript of this book that the executives were allegedly trying to obtain.
Lyons tells Business Insider that he still has "no idea" what the executives did to try and get it.
"None. And I have asked, repeatedly," he told us. No one at HubSpot will tell him and the investigators didn't tell him either, he says.
"Maybe they hacked me, maybe they didn't. Maybe they broke into my house, maybe they didn't. Maybe they hired hackers and those hackers still have all of my personal information, including information about my kids. Maybe they followed me," he told us.
"Halligan told the Globe last summer that the matter involved 'really aggressive tactics.' That alone scared the heck out of me and still does."
HubSpot had no further comment for the company or for Halligan beyond the press release issued last summer. Volpe and Chernov did not immediately respond to requests for comment.