The loud lacrosse bros, eerie employee disappearances and lack of any discernible leadership should all have been clear warning signs that something strange was going on at HubSpot.

But it took a teddy bear to really drive the point home for Dan Lyons, a veteran technology writer who joined the billion-dollar marketing startup in 2013 in his early 50s to kickstart a second career and support his family.

After more than two months of struggling to find his way at HubSpot, Lyons hit one of many breaking points when everyone at the company was instructed to share and praise a LinkedIn post by one of the co-founders, who touted the benefits of bringing a teddy bear into meetings. Not a metaphorical teddy bear, an actual teddy bear. Read more…