Ask HN: Am I getting hosed by a CEO?

Cut your losses, leave, and make sure the deal makes sense next time BEFORE you do any work. I get offers every day from people that want me to do 90% of the work of their startup for no pay and 3%. Passssssssss.

I think the reason people are so willing to stick around is 1) I don't think they really know what the norm is for compensation in a startup, 2) the others seem to have been friends with him previously (usually a bad idea to go into a startup with friends, but I digress), and 3) to your question, he was once the CEO of a company that made the same product, so he has connections in the industry, relationships with distributors, and quite honestly, he's a sales animal. He has already pre-sold a shipping container of the product (far, FAR before us engineers will have it ready - a pending potential trainwreck of its own).

In that previous CEO role, as I understand it, he left on bad terms over some kind of compensation disagreement (ironic?).

A red flag in the beginning was that one of our engineers still runs an authorized service center for that former company's returns. Yet, when the CEO started our company, one of the first things he went about trying to do was to smear the last company in the press (which would have been technically hurting part of the business of the engineer I mentioned, who still made income servicing that company's products). The guy just doesn't think about other people, yet he's good at bringing in the dollars.

I think people are seeing the sales and letting that put off their concerns (if they have them) about whether they will be compensated and when. I have to be honest - I have seen him get us out of some sticky situations by pivoting at the last minute. He used his industry experience to do that, which also contributed to the ability to even do that. It gives him a perception of knowing way more than anyone else, and so they are inclined to trust him when he says this compensation strategy will be acceptable. With this experience, he has an aura of wisdom that makes people feel almost foolish for broaching the subject of pay (I know, I've tried it).

What's doubly ironic is that he insists on air-tight contracts with suppliers and customers, and mentions it being okay to "bend them over" once in a while, since we're paying them and they're locked in. Yet, for an employee, I had to fight tooth and nail just to get the lame contract I have with him for pay.

"He'll reward people down the road based on their performance" -> you're being taken advantage of.

> He keeps telling me that I need to trust him and that he'll reward people down the road based on their performance.

I heard, and believed, that for years. I got nothing.