Fired Iterable CEO says he was tarnished as the ‘LSD CEO’ for accusing investors of anti-Asian bias
- ByStartupStory | December 6, 2022
Justin Zhu got fired from Iterable last year for using LSD. Iterable is valued at $2 billion and is a VC-backed marketing startup co-founded by Zhu.
Zhu, in a new lawsuit filed against Iterable in San Francisco, says that painting him as the “LSD CEO” only serves as a distraction and a way to discredit his allegations about experiencing anti-Asian bias by the startup’s investors, who he claims wanted to replace him with a white CEO. The ousted CEO explained his actions in the lawsuit and said that he used micro-dose LSD in 2019 to cope with some of the mental health difficulties he was experiencing at work at the time.
“The ‘LSD CEO’ label is deliberate, but it’s a wrong characterization,” Zhu told Insider. “It’s an excuse that they used as a pretext for covering up racial discrimination,” he said, referring to his former employer. Iterable’s current CEO Andrew Boni, who co-founded the firm with Zhu, is also of Asian descent. “Iterable upholds a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination and racism in the workplace and continues to foster a diverse, equitable, and compassionate work environment,” a representative for the startup said in a statement.
The statement said that Zhu was fired after “multiple instances of violating the company’s employee handbook, policies, and values,” and denied any discrimination was at play. The company did not elaborate on the details of those purported violations.
“While Andrew is half Asian American, I don’t think his experiences — better, worse, and similar — change what I went through,” Zhu told Insider. “Likewise, I don’t know if my speaking publicly about anti-Asian racism prompted the board to elevate a half-Asian American person.”
In his lawsuit, Zhu related an account of facing persistent doubts from investors about his ability to helm the startup, despite what he described as his role guiding it through multiple fundraising rounds including a $200 million Series E in 2021.
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