My Spy in uBeam

Now that uBeam is dead, I can reveal a secret that I have kept close to my chest for years. You see, for some time after I left the company I had a spy in uBeam, someone who quietly passed information to me about who they were interviewing, companies they visited and were discussing deals with. Management eventually realized this information was being leaked, and despite some significant efforts to root them out the spy evaded the devious traps that were set for them. 

Regardless of the danger to them I now have to let everyone know - that spy was...

Meredith Perry

Yep. It was the co-founder and CEO herself. You see I was still a first connection to Perry on LinkedIn after I had left the company, and she was quite diligent about connecting with every person that was interviewed, every company executive, manager, investor, or similar she spoke to. I didn't even have to actively go looking, the connections just kept appearing in my feed, as LinkedIn especially at that time just shoved them in your face. 

Knowing the industry, I had a pretty good idea of what the conversations might be about or the positions the person was interviewing for. Journalists would regularly call me at that time with questions about the company, and I would mention companies I thought they might be speaking to (avoiding any that I might have learned about while employed there). I guess the journalists called them every now and then and sometimes the people in question would ask Perry why they were contacted, thus revealing the presence of a spy.

Now at this point I have to apologize to a number of the staff who were still there at the time, because Perry immediately assumed one or more of them was leaking (to be clear, no-one at uBeam I knew socially ever told me company proprietary information, and I didn't ask). They were repeatedly warned, grilled, and placed under suspicion to a point I later learned might even have involved Perry having IT give her the access to read all the emails of the staff each day.

This does not even cover the stuff Perry would just blurt out on calls with people in the industry I knew - she'd call up people and basically just ask them to work for uBeam, talking about what they were doing, and what deals were in the works, all without an NDA. I'd then get an email about it or hear at the next conference.

So the moral of the story? I have no idea. I just still find it all funny to this day.