Cornell student turns down interview, saying ‘not interested in working for a Jew’

Austin Franco, 19, had applied for summer internship with VryfID co-founders the Einhorn brothers; in follow-up, he explains his ‘experiences with Jews have not been pleasant’

A Cornell University student turned down a job interview with a New York company because he found out it is owned by Jews.

In response to New York City startup VryfID contacting him after he applied for a summer internship, Austin Franco wrote back, “Not interested in working for a Jew,” the New York Post reported on Saturday.

VryfID, which links renters with landlords using a system aimed at preventing fraud, was co-founded by brothers Gabe and Aiden Einhorn, described in the report as “proudly Jewish.”

Franco, 19, from Virginia, had contacted VryfID via online job board Handshake.

But when Gabe Einhorn contacted him to come in for an interview, he responded with the antisemitic rejection.

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Last Monday, Einhorn posted to X the message he received from Franco, along with the comment, “Sad world.”

He blacked out Franco’s surname in the image he posted of the message, but other social media users quickly identified him.

“Not interested in working for a jew”

This kid applied to our job on handshake, we accepted him, and then he responded this.

He probably knows nothing about Jews accept for what they tell him in college and on social media. Sad world. pic.twitter.com/6dFhpT7iST

— Gabe Einhorn (@EinhornGabe) June 8, 2026

“Me and my brother kind of looked at each other like, ‘What?’ We never really experienced this directly,” Gabe told the New York Post about the blatant antisemitism. “The whole thing was just very shocking and uncalled for.”

“I felt bad exposing him because I thought he could have made a mistake and he really doesn’t believe this wholeheartedly,” he said.

Franco, who reportedly studies industrial and labor relations, followed up with a typo-ridden post to his own X feed in which he tagged Einhorn, and explained his initial application to work at VryfID because “I found out you were Jewish after the fact.”

Addressing Einhorn, he wrote that “My experiences with Jews have not been pleasant, both in person and online. This is not to say I havent had positive experiences, but on the aggregate that is not the case.”

“Obviously, the reactions by your community only serves to further prove my point,” he added.

Franco’s message to the Einhorns was sent about a month after the Cornell semester ended.

Cornell, which has a Jewish president, Michael Kotlikoff, said it was looking into the incident, with a spokeswoman telling the Post that the school “condemns antisemitism and all forms of hatred and discrimination in the strongest possible terms.”

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