Intercom CEO promises to be ‘more thoughtful’ in Twitter engagement

Intercom chief executive Eoghan McCabe has pledged to be “more thoughtful” about his public Twitter activity after questions were raised about his engagement on the platform.

In a companywide meeting held on Thursday, Mr McCabe also addressed a number of issues that had been raised in recent days following reports in The Irish Times about Intercom’s pullback in public support for Pride this year. He promised the company would learn from it and “do better” on communications.

On the matter of his Twitter activity, Mr McCabe said he would be more thoughtful about his engagement in the future. Questions had been raised about his activity on the platform, including by staff members, over contentious tweets he had liked.

These included retweeting a Tweet by former Fox broadcaster Tucker Carlson declaring “America’s principles are at stake” as he tried to establish a new presence on air, and another from a different Twitter user celebrating the Supreme Court decision to overturn affirmative action in higher education.

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Mr McCabe also posed alongside Robert F Kennedy jnr, writing: “Met a very special man tonight,” and “God speed.” The long-shot Democratic presidential candidate is an anti-vaccine activist and believes 5G causes cancer, DNA dysfunction, penetrates the blood brain barrier, and “is making our children stupider and sicker”.

[ Intercom CEO’s approach to ‘divisive and political issues’ does not extend to his own Twitter timeline ]

“It’s super important that everyone, including me, is allowed to be their whole selves in their personal lives, on their personal accounts. Yet I’ve learned too many times that Twitter is a terrible way to communicate,” he said. “But I’ve been misunderstood too many times. I need to be more thoughtful with what I engage in so I’m not misunderstood.”

Intercom had attributed the change in policy on Pride to a desire to focus solely on building the business, leading to a pullback in support for employee-focused initiatives, including the employee resource groups.

Speaking to staff, Mr McCabe acknowledged that the policy had been poorly communicated. He described the decision to remove flags from the Dublin office as “knee jerk” and “too hasty”.

The chief executive denied that the company had cancelled all its Pride support, following reports in The Irish Times that the company had pulled back its public support for the event, noting there had been some internal events and “Pride swag” that had been approved.

“The essence of Pride is a vehicle for celebrating acceptance ... it’s a sentiment I and all of the Intercom senior leaders support,” he said.

[ Opinion: Intercom’s Pride row shows the fickleness of corporate allegiance to LGBTQI+ causes ]

In a previous staff meeting, excerpts of which were shared with The Irish Times, Mr McCabe said the decision not to support Pride outwardly was “tough” as the company had previously been supportive of the event. “What’s really tough now is that Pride has got wrapped up, unfortunately, within some circles in kind of more divisive and political issues,” he said.

In Thursday’s all-hands meeting, Mr McCabe also clarified that employee groups were still active. “The change we made is simply that we wouldn’t [automatically] invest our money and exec time in them,” he told staff.

He also encouraged staff who had concerns to contact him, saying his direct messages and Slack were open.

Founded in Dublin in 2011 by Eoghan McCabe, Des Traynor, Ciarán Lee and David Barrett and based both here and in the US, Intercom’s software platform brings messaging products for sales, marketing and customer support together. Its products allow companies communicate easily with customers through their own websites and apps, on social media and by email.

Customers include Microsoft, Amazon, Aer Lingus, Scottish Power, Eurotherm, Atlassian, Shopify and New Relic.

The business became a tech unicorn in 2018 after raising $125 million in a fundraising that valued the business at $1.28 billion. At the time it was seen as being on course for a stock market listing. Last November, it cut almost 40 jobs in Ireland as part of a 13 per cent cut to its worldwide staff, saying it had grown its workforce too quickly.