A Statement from Verse Founders, David & Avi Tal

A Statement from Verse Founders, David & Avi Tal Featured Image

To My Dear Verse Team Members,

We hope that this note finds you well, and that you are staying healthy and safe, and we’re wishing the same is true of your families and friends.  Covid has brought a lot of pain, sickness, uncertainty, and financial and personal loss to all of us, but none have felt the impacts as strongly as our Black Communities around the country.  To add to that pain, in these most difficult of times, our black friends and families have also experienced shocking senseless killings that have brought this disgusting injustice to light more than ever over the past couple of weeks with the cowardly murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.

Let’s be clear.  This is nothing new, and the systemic injustices the Black Community continues to endure, including individual and institutionalized racism and violence have been around for far too long.  Enough is enough!  While we don’t pretend to be even close to truly understanding the unique and complex experiences within the Black Community, we are committed to doing something about this, as human beings, as friends and neighbors to our black brothers and sisters, and as a company that’s dedicated itself to creating better connections between people!

At Verse, we are a company built on community and caring for our customers and our team members.  What does this mean for our actions ahead?  I’m not sure yet.  The first step is this message to all of you, to let those of you hurting know that we hear you, and that we aren’t going to let this moment pass by without taking action as a company, and taking a stand, and being a part of the solution.

As a next step, we’ll be working with our leadership team to organize and form an employee-led committee to learn more about social and racial justice and see how we can make an impact as a company.  We will also look to support organizations that are on the frontlines of tackling these same goals.

We stand with you, our colleagues and the Black community. We stand with those fighting racism and injustice every day.  And as a company we WILL NOT stand for anything that gets in the way of real progress and human rights. We’re in this together and stronger as a community of coworkers, leaders, and friends, and together we can create a just and equitable future.  

We leave you with this quote from Nelson Mandela. 

“Nobody is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background or religion.  People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, because love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

 

David Tal & Avi Tal

Co-Founders, Verse.io