Expensify’s Good Intentions, and Weird Execution

There’s a fine line between a company saying what it thinks and delivering a lecture

Along with about 10 million other people, I got an email overnight from the CEO of Expensify — an expense management service used by many companies — urging me to vote for Joe Biden, and assuring me that any other vote was a “vote against democracy.” It’s a rather lengthy email, and it evidently went to every Expensify user at every one of its client companies. This, to put it mildly, is an unusual move for a company whose business has nothing to do with politics.

I’ve argued in the past that consumers increasingly want companies to look us in the eye and say what they believe; I’ve also encouraged companies to explicitly give their workers time off to vote. And it seems that Expensify management took a thoughtful approach to its decision— an “inclusive process that really engaged the whole company,” the CEO told Protocol; the letter and its particular elements were broadly discussed in a companywide Slack channel before a group of top employees sorted through the arguments and settled on the final product.