Executive fired after trying to obtain manuscript of book

A HubSpot executive has been fired for violating the company’s code of ethics after he tried to obtain a manuscript of a book about the company written by tech journalist Dan Lyons.

A Boston Globe story states, “The Cambridge marketing firm has not publicly identified the writer whose manuscript Volpe allegedly tried to obtain, but Lyons is working on a memoir about what he calls his ‘misadventure’ at HubSpot that will be published next April. In a tweet last month, he said his forthcoming book would be ‘scathing.’

“It’s unclear why Volpe would have wanted early access to the book, but a teaser on the publisher’s website suggests Lyons’s depiction of HubSpot isn’t entirely flattering.

“‘The office vibe was frat house meets cult compound,’ the publisher’s description reads. ‘Shower pods became hook-up dens; Nerf gun fights broke out at lunch; and absent bosses specialized in cryptic, jargon-filled emails.’

“Lyons spent 20 months as a marketing fellow at HubSpot between April 2013 and December 2014, a period that covered the company’s initial public offering. A career journalist who was previously a technology editor at Newsweek magazine, he wrote in a blog post at the time of his hiring by HubSpot that he ‘came to the realization that advertising is dying, and therefore any business that depends on advertising to pay the bills is a dead end.'”

Read more here.