Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#1

Post by cantlookaway » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 1:41 AM UTC

I'm the tech orientated founder (the other is the business guy), not the best coder but I understand my domain and know my abilities.

We brought in a guy as CTO to help us move past problems we were having (feature creep, project management, enterprise level etc.).

The guy has a lot of experience as CTO (I had very little, also little as a coder), and he was instrumental in getting us to the point of launch where we were enterprise grade ready (as opposed to hacker ready).

Now he is advising me to leave, that I'm not a good coder, that he wouldn't hire me if I wasn't already a founder and not what the company needs.

I have improved significantly in the last few months from where I was (generally unstructured development, no tests, poor formatting / naming etc., but functional, generally coding to working with others instead of by myself) but he has said that it's not enough.

We have hired another coder who I get along well with and I have learned from.

My question is, does he have a point? Is this something that is common? Has he overstepped the boundaries?

EDIT: He's not asking me to leave now, since I'm still desperately needed, but in 3-6 months time after we have raised more funding.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#2

Post by 9oliYQjP » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 1:55 AM UTC

First off, I'm sorry about your situation. Nobody here will be able to judge with any degree of accuracy whether he has a point. I personally would not look at this situation as a technical one; this is a business relationship situation.

Regardless of whether there is any grain of truth, the CTO has lost confidence in you. Not just a little bit. He has asked you to leave. The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your co-founder) has quite a bit of confidence in the CTO. If that is the case, I'm not quite sure you can come back from having the CTO asking you to leave, nor am I certain you should.

I think it would be advisable to talk to a lawyer to see how you can cleanly and professionally leave on your own terms. Save the emotional stuff for friends and your alone time. You will no doubt need to grieve (this was your baby). But I think it would be better for you to be proactive about leaving and professionally extract yourself from this situation. That said, make sure you know your rights and what your contracts entitled you to in such a situation.

Once extracted, take your hurt pride and prove them wrong.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#3

Post by cantlookaway » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 1:59 AM UTC

9oliYQjP wrote: post #2

First off, I'm sorry about your situation. Nobody here will be able to judge with any degree of accuracy whether he has a point. I personally would not look at this situation as a technical one; this is a business relationship situation. Regardless of whether there is any grain of truth, the CTO has lost confidence in you. Not just a little bit. He has asked you to leave. The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your c…

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

> The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your co-founder) has quite a bit of confidence in the CTO.

This is the case, it is in my interest however to remain in the company because my equity is vested, the sooner I leave the less I will get in return, apart from my time, and opportunity cost I invested all my personal wealth.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#4

Post by mintykeen » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:02 AM UTC

Wow, that's tough. I have heard that when a biz scales, sometimes the early employees don't fit as well, because the skills needed are different than when first starting out. To get things going you do a lot of everything, and later they need specialists. How passionate are you about this startup? What does your co-founder think? You would think there could be some role you could fit into, maybe COO? Depending on its success I would hold your ground , or they should be willing to buy you out or something. Best wishes!

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#5

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:18 AM UTC

He's trying to fuck you over. Remind him that he works for you, not the other way around. Start looking for his replacement. Check with a lawyer about the security of your own stake and make sure you are good with the business guy, because the CTO has probably been whispering poison in his ear about you.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#6

Post by nickthemagicman » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:24 AM UTC

I hope as a cofounder you signed contracts and have equity.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#7

Post by thejosh » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:30 AM UTC

"EDIT: He's not asking me to leave now, since I'm still desperately needed, but in 3-6 months time after we have raised more funding."

Means they do actually need you, the CTO is waiting for a payday before kicking you out for a higher stake. Tell the CTO to go stick it if they need you before funding but not after.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#8

Post by shazow » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:36 AM UTC

cantlookaway wrote: post #3

9oliYQjP wrote: post #2

First off, I'm sorry about your situation. Nobody here will be able to judge with any degree of accuracy whether he has a point. I personally would not look at this situation as a technical one; this is a business relationship situation. Regardless of whether there is any grain of truth, the CTO has lost confidence in you. Not just a little bit. He has asked you to leave. The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your c…

Thank you for taking the time to respond. > The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your co-founder) has quite a bit of confidence in the CTO. This is the case, it is in my interest however to remain in the company because my equity is vested, the sooner I leave the less I will get in return, apart from my time, and opportunity cost I invested all my personal wealth.

If you can come to some agreement with the CEO/CTO, it's possible to accelerate a portion of your vesting for your departure. Or, since you said they want to wait until the company raises funding, you could negotiate some other kind of severance.

Either way, if possible, figure out a compromise which feels fair for everybody involved. This doesn't need to be completely one-sided.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#9

Post by gtCameron » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:36 AM UTC

The question I would try and answer if I were in your shoes is the following:

Does he want me to leave the company or does he want me to stop writing production code for the product?

If its the first one, there is likely a personal issue between the two of you that needs to be resolved one way or another.

If you think the second option is what he is really trying to communicate, then I would look for other opportunities to contribute to the company. It sucks to grasp your own limitations and admit that you might not be a good enough coder to contribute to the product at this point, but this is a critical time for the future of the product. Any technical debt acquired at this phase of development is going to be very costly to pay off later since you are developing the core of the system.

However, you are a founder of the company, and I am assuming very passionate about the company's mission as well as financially motivated to see this thing through. There are tons of jobs that will need to be done as you guys grow, and each one of those is an opportunity for you to contribute above and beyond what a new hire off the street could accomplish. A lot of those jobs can also take advantage of your coding skills to either automate processes or utilize your deeper understanding of how the product works to better support it.

This is of course assuming that you guys have the cash in the bank to pay you for this work, if that is not the case then the situation is a little trickier and you will have to explore other options.

Re: Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

#10

Post by WoodenChair » Sun, Apr 13, 2014, 2:37 AM UTC

Let's assume that what the CTO says is true: you're not a good enough coder that you're any longer needed on a day-to-day basis in a few months. You're still a cofounder and I assume owner of quite a bit of equity of this company. Can't you talk to your other co-founder and find a different role for you on a day to day basis so that your stock still vests?

Or is this all about money/power? Is the new CTO threatened by you for some reason or trying to consolidate his power? Does the new CTO just not like you?

If you and your other co-founder are even remotely close, you guys need to talk. Sit down and figure out what other roles work for you at the company. Perhaps you will need to move out of management and become something like a "developer evangelist" or "head of support". Anything to keep vesting, right?