Hey - I've been in exactly this position last October, with a fairly messy end. We had to give up on the company.
More than happy to talk it through with you and let you know what worked well/didn't for us. Twitter: @MackMackTweet
Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
81–88 of 88 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#82Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is important If you want to (you should and must) get to the board and present your concerns, they are going to need those questions answered It will only help your case If your cofounder is as bad as I'm imagining, you should do your homework: get emails, recordings, etc which is strongly hinted by his threat (make sure you get him on that, record with your cell phone - hidden - or something) But there's also a…
>make sure you get him on that, record with your cell phone - hidden - or something Be incredibly careful: this could be a violation of state privacy/wiretapping laws.
Yes, what you need to check is whether your country/state requires one party, or two- (all-) parties consent. See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws
Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the advice. I might go with this one after holiday ends. The only problem I see here is that he has more rapport with them (since I'm more product oriented and he's money oriented). It's going to get real messy, especially since he holds all money, bank, passwords info (now I understand why he wanted to take control of those stuff in the beginning). Firing him will be so messy, and the 3 employees we have…
"the 3 employees we have today respect him a lot" This is a big red flag. Who hired those people? Why did you agree to hire them if you don't respect their judgement? Or is your co-founder also doing all the hiring as well as taking care of everything else? Starting to sound like you should be asking yourself what you contribute.
I am seeing this red flag here too. This is sounding a bit ridiculous. It seems to me if the other guy is the money guy and OP is the product guy, and the employees, board, logistics are all in the hand of the money guy, then he is doing precisely his job.
What does OP really want his cofounder to do, maybe its time he explains why is he an 'overrated' person.
Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#85I apologize in advance, but since nobody else seems to have taken the initiative I will opt for being the ass_ole in this situation. Before you go to the board (you ethically should) let ascertain a few things. Are you sure he's an overrate person or is it just that you don't see the value in his input? Some where in the thread you mentioned: > It's going to get real messy, especially since he holds all money, bank,…
>>Could you have raised the funds with a 100% surety without him if you were a single founder?
I see this problem clear in many situations these days. A lot of angel investors/fund raisers tend to think themselves as founders.
The problem with such a though is that, your job ends once you give the money. Though arranging for money is important once sales get going you tend to be looked up as some one who did an initial favor but is by and large not contributing anything to the company for months/years.
Mean while other people, even non founders who throw in insane efforts to keep the company going look at such people as dead baggage to carry whose only role was raising that initial investment and riding that accomplishment wave since then.
After some time it makes more sense to honorably give back the investment + profits to that initial investor than have them control you, while not contributing anything meaningful to the company.
Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is important If you want to (you should and must) get to the board and present your concerns, they are going to need those questions answered It will only help your case If your cofounder is as bad as I'm imagining, you should do your homework: get emails, recordings, etc which is strongly hinted by his threat (make sure you get him on that, record with your cell phone - hidden - or something) But there's also a…
>make sure you get him on that, record with your cell phone - hidden - or something Be incredibly careful: this could be a violation of state privacy/wiretapping laws.
I don't mean telephone necessarily, but 'live' recording
Not sure what's the laws on that, but yes, it's better to check
Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#87I would certainly not take such drastic action based on pattern recognition built out of some HN article. Would you file for divorce based on an HN article about overrated spouses? As others have pointed out, it sounds like he does do a fair bit for this company but you're blind to it. The one trick he's clearly missed is getting to this level of distrust with his cofounder. For that, though, it is not clear that you…
Could not agree more. You are not thinking of firing your co-founder, you are thinking of divorcing him.
No matter what its going to be messy, and you need to be absolutely sure its worth going down that road before you do it.
Re: Ask HN: How to fire your co-founder?
#88Lots of good advice. There are people who might say, "This is why you have think things through better in advance" but your situation is what it is. I'd also seriously consider whether his bad points could still be good for the company. (Zuckerberg clearly had an ego.) Also remember there is a cost for the divorce. If your contribution is 70/30, but you split the money evenly, the damage from the divorce may still be more than the benefit of finding a more equitable partner. (He may leave with all his equity, and perhaps some folks leave with him.)
All that said, here's my advice:
1) You have to be mentally prepared to walk, and go do something else, because there is a good chance you won't be able to work with this person again. You also should be prepared to rebuild the company from scratch.
2) If you have a good enough relationship with your co-founder (and one that's worth preserving) you have to go to them and say, "I think this isn't working. Can we figure an equitable way out of this?" You may have to be the one that leaves. You have to be prepared to let him have a large chunk of equity. If you skip this step, you will have an enemy for life. (You should only skip it if you already have an enemy for life)
3) After step 2, you should contact the board member that's closest to you and tell them, "I'm considering moving on. Can we talk?" They will be savvy to know that something is up, and they can help make the call for which of you two will stay.
4) No matter what the outcome, conduct yourself professionally at all times.
In the end, the code/passwords/money won't disappear. If your co-founder does something crazy when there are outside investors, his career is doomed. He may get angry, and you may get fired, but he won't so overtly steal.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.