[TECHCRUNCH] Carta’s CEO reaches out to customers about bad press, alerting them to bad press

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In an attempt at damage control, the CEO of the equity management startup Carta, Henry Ward, today emailed customers, telling them that if they are concerned about “negative press” tied to the outfit, they should read a Medium post of his.

In the Medium post, which Ward published five days ago, he outlines conversations he has had with Carta employees about a long spate of negative press, including, most recently, lawsuits around allegations of sexual abuse on the part of executives, a toxic “boy’s club culture,” and indecent exposure, among other things.

He says, for example, that Carta has “extensive documentation” that former CTO Jerry Talton “was inappropriate with women and abused his position.” Ward adds: “It also turns out, we discovered after he left, that he is a misogynist and a racist.” Ward also reports having extensive documentation that [former Chief Product Officer] Heidi Johnson “was a bully, had the lowest manager approval rating, and misused corporate finances for personal use.”

In 2020, the company’s former VP of marketing sued Carta, accusing the outfit of gender discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and of violating the California Equal Pay Act.

Soon after, four employees spoke on the record with The New York Times, telling the outlet that when they voiced concerns about the way the company is run, they were sidelined, demoted or given pay cuts.

Earlier this week, Insider reported that court documents, complaints filed with the EEOC and the California Civil Rights Department, and interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees paint a picture of “a company fraught with harassment and discrimination, a fast-and-loose approach to compliance, and a culture of absolute fealty to an erratic and vindictive CEO.”

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