Spy games in HR tech: Inside Rippling’s wild lawsuit against Deel

Rippling’s latest lawsuit reads less like a legal filing and more like the plot of a corporate espionage thriller, complete with secret crypto payments, an alleged mole, and a fake Slack channel trap.

This week, the HR tech startup publicly named the employee at the center of its case against its rival Deel, claiming the company paid him not-exactly-life-changing sums to spy from the inside. Deel, for its part, has denied the claims, calling this a dramatic distraction from Rippling’s own legal troubles.

Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Max Zeff and Anthony Ha are catching us up on the week’s headlines, including a breakdown of how this saga between two HR tech giants escalated from business rivalry to accusations of racketeering, and why, according to Max, smashing the phone you use for corporate espionage with an ax at your mother-in-law’s house is “the oldest trick in the book.”

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.