CypherStack's relationship to Monero's core team is being questioned by the community

StableRare¹ opened up a debate² in which Cypher Stack³’s relationship to Monero’s core team, the General Fund, the community and the CCS process is being discussed:

What is this company’s relationship to Monero? Is it collaborative, antagonistic or just a neutral resource for hire? It does seem the Monero project completes with them on occasion for talent and they do work for alternate privacy crypto-projects such as FIRO [..]

[..] why do some researchers prefer to work through Cypher Stack instead of being funded via CCS process?

Diego rehrar Salazar⁴ is the founder⁵ of Cypher Stack. He had to step down from the core team due to controversy, as reported⁶ recently.

Monero Outreach’s geonic_⁷ slammed the company:

Their past behavior (referenced below) and continued attempts to poach talent before the community has a chance to fund them directly raises some questions about their professed motives and whether it is a good idea to insert a self-interested third party between the project and its contributors.

And concluded:

I do not plan to support any future proposals by them, regardless of who will be performing the work.

The community seems to agree that something doesn’t feel right:

Every time they come up they sound shady AF.⁸

If Diego or someone at Cypher Stack would like to comment and gets in touch, I will post it here.