‘Your first & only warning’: Founder gets threat from rival firm

Sharing a screenshot of the threat received from a CEO of the rival firm, warning not to “poach” employees, the founder of a US-based marketing and sales company, Simple Strat, said: “Instead of being pitch slapped, now LinkedIn comes with threats.”

The screenshot, shared by Ali Schwanke, the founder of Simple Strat on X, shows a LinkedIn message from the CEO of Optima Solutions asking her not to poach employees from their company.

Poaching is an act of actively recruiting an employee who already works for another company, usually by providing higher pay or more incentives.

In a LinkedIn message to Schwanke, the CEO of Optima Solutions wrote, “Your first and only warning do not try to poach my employees, or you will have no employees yourself.”

Since being shared, the post has been viewed nearly two million times. The post also gathered reactions from several users including some other CEOs.

“I could understand if you personally knew each other, and in which case I’d be like, ‘Dude, why are you trying to poach my peopleeeee?!’ But the aggression is somethin’,” Cat Noone, CEO of software company Stark, wrote.

To which Schwanke said: “Right? I haven’t talked to anybody and haven’t heard of his company before. Maybe somebody follows my YouTube channel or podcast.”