CEO delivers witty response after man brags about being 'super good friends' with her company's CEO

We've all met someone who loves to brag about knowing influential people at big companies. Usually, these claims are exaggerated or completely false. This can lead to some hilarious and awkward situations, as it did for Kieran Snyder (@KieranSnyder on X), CEO of the text-based HR platform Textio. She shared a funny encounter she had with one such individual at an airport.

"Guy at the airport, seeing my laptop sticker: Do you work for Textio?" the CEO wrote. She recounted that she replied in the affirmative. The guy went on to boast and said, "That's awesome! I'm super good friends with your CEO. Yeah, we used to work together. Awesome, dude." Snyder seemed to show interest in what he had to say as the man seemed completely oblivious that all this time, the CEO of the company was sitting right in front of him. Snyder simply said, "I'll tell him you said hi!" and went on with her day. "I regret so deeply that I didn't hand him a friendly business card as I walked away!" she later tweeted.

"But I did send this from the plane," the CEO wrote, sharing a screenshot of her LinkedIn invitation to the guy. The invitation read, "Nice meeting you at the airport this morning!" The CEO sassily got back at the man, but she also noted how common such incidents are for women in influential positions. "I don't have a soundcloud y'all, but I do have some data about CEOs and gender-biased language. Words matter!" she noted, sharing a Textio.com article on diversity and inclusion in the language used at workplaces.

The article highlighted linguistic biases in recruiting and hiring content and the lack of inclusion and diversity in corporate messages. Snyder's X thread received around 11k likes and 1.5k reposts. While some commenters found the guy's behavior embarrassing, others thought it might have been a genuine mistake rather than an attempt to show off.

@dinabass wrote, "Did he mix Textio up with a different company? Was he thinking of Jensen? Just not caffeinated enough? That's really something." @swyx commented, "Twitter could 10x their character limits and still not have enough room for me to express how big of a YIKES this is." @cody_baird remarked, "I love the way you handled this! Classic. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. Well played."

@myfriendjanine shared, "Gah! Similar story. A guy on a flight can't stop talking about the conference he was at and his company and the other cos. Then he asked who I work for and I said the name of his major competitor and he's like, 'Oh, what do you do there?' When I said I'm the CEO, he was speechless." @iamswaathik expressed, "Had something similar happen to me. Someone assumed I joined my husband's company and, by association, became the CTO. When in reality, we both started it TOGETHER."