An American CEO and founder has been slammed on social media after she revealed that she intentionally makes it hard to get hired at her company by scheduling job interviews on weekends, at nights and early mornings. By doing so, she meant to test the candidate. If they follow up, she goes ahead with the hiring process, if they don’t, she moves on.
Although Warrant’s Austin Carroll called the process necessary to set the right expectation, netizens called it “toxic”.
“I purposely make it hard to get hired at Warrant,” Carroll wrote in a now-deleted post on LinkedIn. “We require candidates to send a loom video as a first round (waived if they reach out to us when they apply). We do interviews on weekends and at night and before 9 am. Our process is candidate‑directed. If they follow up, we move forward. If they don’t, we assume they are no longer interested.”
Carroll argued that avoiding recruiters and traditional business‑hour interviews prevents setting “the wrong expectation” about the company’s pace.
“We are growing uncomfortably fast. Most days, the team feels stretched. We create processes and tear them down within days. The people we hire thrive in this environment. They may have spent most of their career in startups or are looking to leverage AI or are just looking to learn.
I tell them not to work here and they tell me they still want to,” she said, adding that it won’t be like this forever, but for now, it works.
A screenshot of the post was shared widely on Threads, and the post was met with strong criticism. One user wrote, “When you think you’re the hero but really you’re the villain.” Others called the process “terrible,” “disgusting,” and “rage-inducing.”
A career recruiter commented that “excellent candidates don’t tolerate a terrible hiring process,” while another user predicted high turnover, saying most employees would be “actively interviewing elsewhere.”
The backlash quickly labelled Warrant a “toxic workplace,” with users drawing parallels to high‑pressure startup norms that have increasingly come under scrutiny.
Founder issues clarification
Following the controversy, Carroll deleted the original post and shared a clarification, arguing that the criticism stemmed not from the video requirement—“even Starbucks does that,” she wrote—but from the depiction of early‑stage startup life.
In the follow‑up post, Carroll said Warrant operates in a “fast‑moving” environment where tools and processes shift frequently. “Our sales stack changed 3x this month as AI tools evolved,” she wrote and acknowledged the “toxic workplace” discussions. She also disagreed with equating high intensity with toxicity.
“I don’t think demanding and toxic are the same thing. High-pressure environments exist across medicine, finance, manufacturing, hospitality, and entertainment. I’ve spent most of my career there. What matters is whether people feel ownership, respect, and meaning in what they’re doing,” Carroll added.
She also maintained that the team has “one mandatory meeting a day,” that employees “own their work fully,” and that schedules remain flexible.
“For the right person, that’s energising. For the wrong person it’s not, and that’s okay,” she added.