SHOCKING: HR Tech Giants, Rippling and Deel, Now Offer “Corporate-Espionage-as-a- Service” After Secretly Testing It on Each Other

“The difference between corporate espionage and competitive research is whether you get caught hiding in the bathroom.” – Sun Tzu’s The Art of Startup War, probably.

In a twist that has shocked absolutely no one familiar with Silicon Valley’s cutthroat culture, HR tech unicorns Rippling and Deel have elevated the concept of “employee monitoring” to spectacular new heights by allegedly implementing their surveillance technologies on each other rather than just inflicting them on their paying customers¹.

The $25 billion battle between these workforce management platforms reached a dramatic climax last week when Rippling filed a lawsuit claiming Deel had cultivated a corporate spy within Rippling’s Dublin office—a modern-day tech Mata Hari who apparently searched for the term “Deel” approximately 23 times per day, which experts note is 22 more times than anyone should ever need to search for a four-letter word.

The Spy Who Searched Me

According to court documents that read like a rejected Jason Bourne screenplay written by an MBA with a minor in passive-aggressive Slack messaging, Rippling alleges that Deel’s spy spent four months “obsessively and systematically accessing Slack channels where he had no legitimate business interest,” conducting over 6,000 searches to swipe confidential sales pipeline data and internal customer interactions.

“What we’re witnessing is the natural evolution of HR tech,” explains Dr. Miranda Chen, head of the entirely legitimate Institute for Workplace Surveillance Studies. “First, these companies developed tools to help employers monitor their employees. Then they realized the most valuable application was monitoring their competitors’ employees. It’s the circle of surveillance life.”

The alleged corporate spy, identified only by the initials D.S. in court documents but whom industry insiders suspect stands for “Deeply Suspicious,” reportedly accessed everything from sales pipelines to employee phone numbers, presumably while attending the mandatory company culture workshops on “trust” and “integrity” that HR tech companies are contractually obligated to host bi-weekly.

“The most impressive aspect of this alleged espionage is that the spy found time to do his actual job while conducting 6,000 Slack searches,” notes workplace efficiency expert Thomas Reynolds. “That’s the kind of multitasking we should all aspire to. I’ve added ‘ability to spy on competitors while meeting quarterly objectives’ to my recommended LinkedIn skills section.”

The Great Honeypot Caper

Rippling’s security team, apparently moonlighting from their side gigs writing episodes of “Spy vs. Spy,” detected the unusual activity and devised what court documents describe as a “honeypot” trap worthy of a mediocre episode of CSI: Cyber.

In what can only be described as the tech equivalent of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, Rippling created an empty Slack channel called “#d-defectors” and mentioned it in a letter sent exclusively to three members of Deel’s leadership team, including the chairman of Deel’s board who happens to be the CEO’s father, because nepotism is the sincerest form of startup talent acquisition.

“The honeypot strategy represents the pinnacle of corporate counterintelligence,” explains cybersecurity consultant Marcus Lee, who definitely doesn’t sell honeypot software to paranoid tech companies. “It’s like setting up a fake birthday cake at a children’s party and waiting to see which kid sticks their finger in it. Except in this case, the cake is corporate information, and the child is a fully-grown professional who should absolutely know better.”

Within hours, the alleged spy had searched for the nonexistent channel, confirming “beyond any doubt” that Deel’s leadership was feeding information to their embedded operative. This revelation shocked industry experts who had previously assumed tech executives communicated exclusively through passive-aggressive X (formerly Twitter) posts and Medium articles about their morning routines.

The Bathroom Incident (AKA Operation Porcelain Thunder)

When confronted with a court order to preserve evidence on his phone, the alleged spy reportedly fled to the bathroom and locked the door, prompting what court documents describe as a tense bathroom standoff that will inevitably be dramatized in the upcoming Apple TV+ limited series “Pipeline: The Slack Wars.”

“I’m willing to take that risk,” the alleged spy reportedly said when warned about potential jail time for noncompliance, before fleeing the premises in what workplace consultants are now referring to as “the least dignified exit interview in HR history.”

“The bathroom incident represents a critical evolution in corporate espionage tactics,” explains former intelligence officer turned tech consultant James Harrison. “Traditional spies had elaborate protocols for destroying evidence, like dissolving microfilm or eating documents. In the digital age, we’ve progressed to ‘hide in the toilet and desperately delete Slack history.’ It’s not exactly James Bond, is it?”

Industry analysts have calculated that the spy spent approximately 87 hours over four months searching Rippling’s internal systems for competitive information, which is coincidentally the same amount of time the average employee spends pretending to work while actually shopping online during conference calls.

The Weaponization of HR Tech

This case highlights the ironic evolution of HR technology from “tools that help manage employees” to “weapons deployed against competitors,” a development that has prompted the creation of a new category in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant: “Espionage-as-a-Service” (EaaS).

“Both Rippling and Deel have achieved what we call ‘full-stack surveillance capabilities,'” explains technology analyst Sarah Johnson. “They’ve vertically integrated every aspect of employee monitoring, from tracking keyboard activity to embedding actual human spies in competitors’ offices. It’s what we in the industry call ‘taking your own medicine,’ except in this case, the medicine is deeply unethical corporate espionage.”

The alleged espionage has already sparked innovation across the sector. Multiple HR startups have begun developing “anti-spying” software packages specifically designed to detect employees who might be spies from competing HR software companies, creating what economists call a “recursive surveillance economy” where everyone monitors everyone else for signs they might be monitoring someone.

“We’ve developed SpySpotter Pro, which analyzes employee search patterns to identify potential corporate spies,” explains Gregory Chen, founder of SecurityMetrics AI. “If someone searches for your competitor’s name more than five times a day, our software automatically redirects them to fake internal documents filled with incorrect information and pictures of cats wearing business attire.”

A History of Tech-Spy Relations

This isn’t the first time the tech industry has been rocked by espionage allegations. In 2023, a major crypto exchange accused a rival of embedding spies disguised as “blockchain evangelists,” identifiable only by their slightly more reasonable views on cryptocurrency’s future. And who could forget the infamous 2020 incident when a prominent social media company allegedly hired people to infiltrate a competitor’s virtual happy hours, identifiable only because they were the sole attendees who actually seemed to be enjoying themselves.

According to a report from the International Association for Corporate Counterintelligence that we just made up, approximately 38% of all employees at companies valued over $10 billion are actually spies working for competitors, 27% are spies working for foreign governments, and the remaining 35% are just trying to do their actual jobs while wondering why their coworkers take so many notes during routine meetings about coffee machine maintenance.

“The modern tech workplace is essentially a John le Carré novel where everyone has stock options,” explains workplace culture consultant Dr. Aisha Johnson. “The average tech company has more infiltration than the average intelligence agency, which is why the CIA now recruits exclusively at Y Combinator demo days.”

The Future of Corporate Espionage

Industry experts predict that by 2027, corporate espionage will be fully automated, with AI spies capable of infiltrating competitors’ systems without requiring bathroom breaks or displaying suspicious search patterns.

“Human spies are simply too unreliable,” explains AI ethics researcher Dr. Jonathan Weiss. “They develop conscience issues, need to sleep, and occasionally lock themselves in bathrooms when confronted with court orders. The future of corporate espionage is AI systems that can continuously monitor competitors’ internal communications without the messy human element.”

In anticipation of this trend, several startups have already begun developing “counter-AI” systems designed to feed misleading information to competitors’ AI surveillance tools, creating what futurists call a “misinformation arms race” where no one knows what’s real anymore, which is essentially just Twitter with better funding.

“By 2030, approximately 82% of all corporate data will be intentionally fabricated specifically to mislead competitors’ spy systems,” predicts futurist Dr. Elena Martinez. “Companies will maintain two completely separate business operations: one real and one entirely fake but meticulously documented to waste competitors’ time.”

The Unexpected Twist: Spyception

In a final ironic twist that would make Christopher Nolan proud, sources close to both companies report that Rippling’s lawsuit might itself be an elaborate counterintelligence operation. According to three people familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak publicly because they’re entirely made up for this article, Rippling may have intentionally allowed the alleged espionage to happen.

“What if the real operation wasn’t catching the spy, but feeding them exactly what Rippling wanted Deel to see?” suggests corporate intelligence consultant Rachel Kim. “It’s entirely possible that Rippling identified the spy months ago but kept them in place to transmit carefully crafted misinformation while publicly ‘catching’ them to damage Deel’s reputation.”

This theory, which we’ve dubbed “Spyception,” suggests that the entire lawsuit might be the corporate equivalent of posting unflattering photos of your ex on Instagram after they’ve blocked you—a very public way of saying “I caught you” that conveniently ignores any complicity in the relationship’s toxicity.

When reached for comment, both companies responded with carefully worded statements crafted by their legal teams that essentially translate to: “No comment, but the other guys are definitely the bad ones in this scenario.”

Meanwhile, HR departments across Silicon Valley have begun implementing new employee onboarding modules specifically covering “bathroom protocols during evidence preservation orders” and “how to search for competitor information without creating an obvious digital pattern.” Progress marches on.

As the case proceeds through the legal system, one thing remains clear: in the cutthroat world of HR tech, the tools designed to manage employees have become the perfect weapons to spy on competitors, creating the ultimate irony—companies that sell trust as a product but can’t seem to trust each other.

Or as one anonymous tech worker put it: “The real innovation in HR tech isn’t helping companies manage employees better—it’s helping companies steal other companies’ ideas about how to manage employees better.”

Welcome to the future of work, where your HR platform is watching you. And your HR platform’s competitor is watching them watch you. And you’re just trying to figure out why the bathroom door is suddenly locked during a routine workplace investigation.

References

1. https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/02/the-affidavit-of-a-rippling-employee-caught-spying-for-deel-reads-like-a-movie/ ↩︎