San Francisco, CA — In a move that HR executives describe as “innovative yet not quite creepy,” StartUp Inc. this week unveiled its new “Cultural Fit Scanning” system, which uses non-invasive sensors to measure how your cardiovascular response changes when you’re told your boss doesn’t like your latest presentation.

“It’s like a lie detector, but for authenticity,” said CEO Jordan Patel during a town hall that had 37 people faint simultaneously. “If your heart rate goes up even a microsecond when you receive feedback, you’re not emotionally ready for our culture of brutal, yet loving, growth.”

Employees were given wristbands for free, with the company offering a “Basic Tier” that only monitors heart rate during presentations, and a “Pro Tier” that also tracks your cortisol levels during 1:1s. The Pro Tier costs $29.99/month and includes a bonus feature: a chatbot that tells you which employees to befriend based on their “vibe compatibility score.”

The tech relies on proprietary AI trained on millions of conversations, including one notable dataset: 400 hours of recordings from the same HR director, who was told repeatedly that his “tone is too warm.” This particular director has since been reassigned to manage the company’s petting zoo, a department that is now being quietly closed after three goats reported being “misgendered.”

Early adopters have shared glowing testimonials.

“I was told my presentation was ‘clear but lacking punch,’ and my heart went from 68 to 72 BPM,” said Sarah Chen, a junior developer in the marketing team. “That tiny spike meant I was ‘over-attaching’ to my work, but the system also gave me a coaching prompt: ‘Try being more chill next time.’ Now I can just zone out during feedback sessions.”

Chen also shared that the system flagged her as “not culturally aligned” because she had smiled too much when a project was canceled. “I thought that meant I was a ‘good person’ or something, but it turns out my optimism was ’toxic’ to the company’s ‘healthy cynicism’.”

The company’s legal team insists this isn’t a privacy violation. “We’re not collecting data on you, we’re collecting data on how your body feels about things,” explained counsel. “Your body is already collecting data, we’re just helping it do a better job of organizing your feelings into spreadsheets.”

Meanwhile, the company’s rival, MegaCorp, announced it’s replacing all its Slack users with “Emo-Slacks,” which will automatically flag if you use too many emojis and require you to delete your history to clear your “digital emotional baggage.”

In a related development, StartUp Inc. also announced it’s hiring biometric engineers to develop a version of the system that can detect if you’re “performing empathy.” This means if you’re crying during a review, the system will ask you to stop, because “we need to know if you’re feeling sad or if you’re just trying to sell the narrative.”

The company’s stock rose 14% today, with analysts noting that the new system has already “reduced turnover by 22%” — though the turnover is now happening to people who are too emotionally vulnerable for the startup’s “culture.”

Patel concluded the town hall by promising to keep the system even if it means the company eventually becomes so algorithmically cold that the founders themselves don’t understand how they made decisions. “We’re building a future where we don’t have to make decisions. The AI will do it for us, and when it makes mistakes, we’ll blame the data.”

The system is available now for teams of 10 or more, with a free 30-day trial. For the trial, the company will only monitor your heart rate during your first meeting, then charge you for the rest. The fine print also states that by signing up, you agree to have your biometric data used to train the system’s “emotional empathy” models — which may include sharing your data with insurance companies, dating apps, and your high school reunion.

StartUp Inc. says it’s committed to “ethical biometrics,” which they define as “not being creepy about it.”