Turnover at Twitter is getting a bit ridiculous.
Yesterday (Oct. 18), TechCrunch reported that Twitter had hired Greg Gopman, formerly in business development at virtual-reality media company UploadVR and the founder AngelHack, a startup that runs hackathons, to lead its burgeoning VR business. Today, it’s reporting that Gopman has been fired.
Twitter isn’t commenting yet, but the quick reversal may have to do with an old social media post that TechCrunch ran in full as part of its story.
In 2013, Gopman wrote a Facebook post decrying San Francisco’s streets that, in his mind, had become “overrun by crazy, homeless, drug dealers, dropouts, and trash,” specifically on Market Street, which runs through the heart of the city’s downtown. He’s since deleted the post, and seems to have spent a better part of the last few years trying to understand and ameliorate the issues of homelessness and mental health in the city.
TechCrunch didn’t need to look far for the background on Gopman. Even a cursory Google search of Gopman’s name would bring up articles about what he had said three years prior. It’s unclear whether Twitter’s HR department did similar digging before hiring Gopman. Twitter’s headquarters happens to be in a San Francisco neighborhood called the Tenderloin, where some 6,000 homeless reside—right on Market Street.
Twitter hasn’t responded to queries about whether Gopman was actually fired, and if it he had, whether it had been because of his comments from 2013. But TechCrunch updated its story this afternoon with a new Facebook post from Gopman:
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this headline incorrectly stated that Gopman had been fired a day after he was hired. He had been employed at Twitter for a few weeks.