HubSpot is an marketing software firm based in Cambridge that specializes in helping companies use social media and search engine optimization to drive traffic to their websites.  The company is best known for coining the term “inbound marketing,” a concise — if not precise — description of its services. It means that HubSpot’s marketing efforts are designed to make customers come to you. The company was founded by MIT grads Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan in 2006, and now employs 887 people in its offices in Kendall Square, Dublin, and Sydney.  Though the company’s work falls into a seemingly wonky area of Internet technology, it’s acquired something of a cool factor in the technology world. Its annual conference draws big names as speakers, from comedian Amy Schumer to Buzzfeed website founder Jonah Peretti.  Thanks in part to its brand identity and rapid growth, HubSpot has had an outsized impact on Boston’s startup ecosystem, to the point where employees and former staffers jokingly refer to their alumni network as the HubSpot mafia. Alums have gone on to start their own companies, including Driftt, a document collaboration startup, the data management service BedrockData, and business analytics firm InsightSquared.  Last October, HubSpot went public, with its stock price opening at $25 a share. Since then, the stock has more than doubled, closing at $54.12 Wednesday, giving HubSpot a market value of about $1.79 billion.  Boston’s most transparent tech company went all opaque on us yesterday.  Volpe is the former HubSpot executive who was fired from his position as chief marketing officer because he allegedly attempted to obtain the unpublished manuscript of a forthcoming book about the company.  A startup veteran, Volpe joined HubSpot in 2007 as the company’s fifth hire and was one of the tech firm’s stalwarts. His influence grew because he got results, which at a marketing company meant generating sales leads. Here’s what HubSpot chief executive Brian Halligan wrote in a 2011 blog post about why he promoted Volpe to chief marketing officer:  “By far, the number one reason I promoted him is because he has built a scalable lead generation machine that powers the HubSpot growth engine.”  Volpe served as the co-host for HubSpot.tv, a popular video series webcast from the company’s Cambridge office, and “The Growth Show,” a podcast launched earlier this year.  Chernov was HubSpot’s vice president of content, responsible for its heavily-trafficked blog and popular business podcast “The Growth Show.” It was a key position at the company–HubSpot’s “inbound marketing” strategy holds that companies can indirectly drive sales by posting original content on social media, blogs, and other online forums.  Joe Chernov resigned as HubSpot’s vice president of content “before the company could determine whether to terminate him for similar violations” as those allegedly committed by Volpe, according to the firm.  Chernov previously led marketing for Kinvey, a Boston startup that helps companies make mobile applications, and Eloqua, a Toronto-based marketing software firm that was later acquired by Oracle. In 2012, he was named content marketer of the year by the Content Marketing Institute, a trade group.  Halligan is HubSpot’s cofounder and chief executive, and according to the company was sanctioned for withholding knowledge of Volpe’s attempt to obtain the unpublished manuscript. HubSpot has not specified what the sanctions were and Halligan has made no public comment.  Halligan claims credit for coining the term “inbound marketing.”  Halligan was previously vice president of sales at another technology firm, Groove Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Between startups he was a partner at Longworth Venture Partners in Waltham. He’s also a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he teaches course called “Designing, Developing, and Launching Successful Products in an Entrepreneurial Environment.”  Shah is HubSpot’s cofounder and chief technology officer, and has not been implicated in the company’s investigation of Volpe’s effort to procure the forthcoming book.  He’s known on the local startup scene as an active angel investor, backing more than 40 companies, according to his bio on the HubSpot website.  Like Halligan, Shah was part of the executive team at a tech firm that was acquired in 2005, Pyramid Digital Solutions. He and Halligan met as graduate students at MIT.  Dan Lyons is the author of an unpublished book at the center of the HubSpot incident. 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.”  Lyons recently returned to journalism, becoming the editor of Valleywag, the technology news site owned by Gawker Media, but stayed in the post for just six weeks, moving on to write the book, entitled “Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble.” Lyons has not responded multiple Globe messages seeking comment.  Non-technology wonks may be familiar with Lyons’s work as “Fake Steve Jobs,” a once-popular blog on which he used to spoof the late Apple chief executive, and his writing on season two of the HBO series “Silicon Valley.”  In addition to the co-founders Shah and Halligan, the following people are members of HubSpot’s board.  Bohn is a managing director at General Catalyst Partners, and lead the $5 million series A round of fundraising for the company back in 2007. Prior to joining General Catalyst, he worked at NetGenesis, PC DOCS, Inc., and Interleaf, Inc.  Simon is the co-founder and CEO of LogMeIn, a company that allows for remote access to computer networks. Previously, Simon founded Uproar, a publicly-traded provider of interactive and online games that was acquired by Vivendi Universal Games, Inc. in 2001. He joined the HubSpot board in 2011 as the company was ramping up its efforts to go public.  Skok is the founder of four companies a general partner at Matrix Partners. In 2008, he lead the $12 million Series B round of HubSpot’s financing and joined the company’s board. He shares a penchant with HubSpot for online content, penning a popular blog, Startup Help, which offers insights and resources for startups and entrepreneurs.  Bishop, a partner at Scale Venture Partners, specializes in digital marketing and software as a service companies. She led HubSpot’s $16 million Series C funding round in 2009, and joined the board in 2013. Prior to working at Scale, Stacey worked in mergers and acquisitions within Bank of America’s Corporate Development Group.  Gill is the CFO of NetSuite, where he oversees finance strategies and corporate development for the company. He joined the board in 2012 as HubSpot was preparing to go public, and was named chair of its audit committee at the time.  Norrington joined the HubSpot board in 2013, just a year before the company went public. Before she joined Lead Edge Capital as an operating partner, Norrington served as president of eBay’s global Marketplaces, the chief executive officer of Shopping.com, and EVP of Intuit.  Written by Boston Globe staff writers Janelle Nanos, Curt Woodward, and Callum Borchers, and Globe correspondents Scott Kirsner and Dan Adams.
The controversy centers around a former executive's attempt to access a draft copy of a book written about the Cambridge-based marketing firm.