Ask HN: Getting Rid of the Founder?

> He is constantly changing directions without consulting the rest of us, and is very opaque and autocratic about the whole thing. Many of the team members have left or developed serious mental health issues because of him.

Have you talked to him, voiced your concerns? What was his response?

Going to the investors could be a toss-up, especially if you haven't interacted with them beforehand. It may well be that the investor doesn't the capability to do anything or make any good judgement on the situation, or they don't care about attrition rates. Cruel but that's the way the world works, that's why investors don't really care about layoffs.

In any case, if you're going through with this, you should draw a line in the sand, know what you want, deliver an ultimatum to your CEO and follow through on them if he doesn't comply. Either you get fired, or he gives in. That's all there is to it.

You need a “company uncle” and fast. Normally this would be one of the more experienced investors but could be someone hired in by them. This sort of this is quite a common growing pain, I saw it in my own startup and in the startup in which I was an early employee. Unfortunately our “company uncle” has long since retired. Thanks for all you did David, wherever you are.

I think it's worth appreciating there's a good chance the founder feels threatened by this kind of talk on a regular basis and perhaps they may even be experiencing uncertainty around their own decision making process or feeling out of their depth.

As others on this thread say, it might be a good step for the investors to talk privately with them about the issues involved, and perhaps ask what the founder's own recommendations would be to remedy the situation. There's always the face saving option of buying the founder out if the alternative is the company collapses from key staff quitting. The founder would have doubtless worked hard for the company themselves and wouldn't want to see it come to nothing or get themselves involved in costly legal proceedings.

Such a buy-out might even bring the founder some welcome relief from stress of everything being on their shoulders.

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I think this is sound advice. What I’d add builds on this point:

> he does not see the situation as you do

At the moment you may be lacking the perspective of the founder, perhaps the coaching and input they’ve had from investors and other advisors on the direction of the business. I would go into a conversation with the founder but seek to gain a true understanding of their perspective as much as to emphasise your own point.

> we unanimously felt that the product works, and the team is amazing

It takes more than a working product and an amazing team to make a startup succeed. The product might be amazing but do the unit economics work? Is there a market fit? Does the market fit scale? Is there something that needs to be hit to secure the next round of funding? Maybe you have this info and omitted it for brevity in your post… but if you approach your investors for a dialogue without a complete understanding of this side of the equation I’d say your in for a rough time.