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How To Fire A Co-Founder

blog.eladgil.com

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Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#11

Post by goodchild »

eladgil wrote: post #5
adnam wrote: post #2

So basically, talk to the other founders, investors and lawyers first and hope the guy you want to fire doesn't realize what you're doing.

I think the first step is having a series of frank conversations about the issues. If nothing changes / get fixed, then I think you need to move to a mode where you take action. In some cases, your co-founder will decide to part ways or resign as they will know things are not working and may be quite unhappy themselves. If it gets to the point where you are actually firing someone, it should not be a surprise to them…

It helps if before there is a problem you accuse them of mental instability and create a culture of bias and ostracism and lighten their workload. Prevent them from participating in any way with the running of the company. Send them on wild goose chases. Assign them things that do very little and will never see the light of day. This has the double effect of giving them more time to worry about the immense workload that is being neglected and making them look useless. If they weren't crazy before they sure will be in a few months when the pressure to meet deadlines builds and they are unable to do anything about it.

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#12

Post by michaelochurch »

tom68 wrote: post #10
tptacek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early-stage employees who _don't_ have the "founder" word in their title, but who still contribute(d) pivotally to the team are oftentimes "let go" right before their stock vests. These early stage employees are often paid _far_ below market rate for their experience and education, but promised equity with a slightly accelerated vesting period. Early stage employees work themselves to the bone, and right before they…

I was let go by a startup on the very same case. They hit it big , I hit Skid Row. Bummer

Out them.

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#13

Post by tptacek »

tom68 wrote: post #10
tptacek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early-stage employees who _don't_ have the "founder" word in their title, but who still contribute(d) pivotally to the team are oftentimes "let go" right before their stock vests. These early stage employees are often paid _far_ below market rate for their experience and education, but promised equity with a slightly accelerated vesting period. Early stage employees work themselves to the bone, and right before they…

I was let go by a startup on the very same case. They hit it big , I hit Skid Row. Bummer

You were let go before your cliff, that is, at the end of year one, for no reason other than to deny you one year's vested options that you'd have to pay to exercise?

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#14

Post by neurotech1 »

goodchild wrote: post #11
eladgil wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the first step is having a series of frank conversations about the issues. If nothing changes / get fixed, then I think you need to move to a mode where you take action. In some cases, your co-founder will decide to part ways or resign as they will know things are not working and may be quite unhappy themselves. If it gets to the point where you are actually firing someone, it should not be a surprise to them…

It helps if before there is a problem you accuse them of mental instability and create a culture of bias and ostracism and lighten their workload. Prevent them from participating in any way with the running of the company. Send them on wild goose chases. Assign them things that do very little and will never see the light of day. This has the double effect of giving them more time to worry about the immense workload t…

IANAL but that would make it even worse, and likely lead to a lawsuit. Hostile work environment, or discrimination based on medical condition would be actionable.

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#15

Post by goodchild »

neurotech1 wrote: post #14
goodchild wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps if before there is a problem you accuse them of mental instability and create a culture of bias and ostracism and lighten their workload. Prevent them from participating in any way with the running of the company. Send them on wild goose chases. Assign them things that do very little and will never see the light of day. This has the double effect of giving them more time to worry about the immense workload t…

IANAL but that would make it even worse, and likely lead to a lawsuit. Hostile work environment, or discrimination based on medical condition would be actionable.

lolwut?

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#16

Post by [deleted] »

j45 wrote: post #6

Partnership is harder than marriage. People are often quick to rush in and slow to leave. We should be slow to enter, and quicker to leave once we know how to recognize, and see the writing on the wall. You will learn more from business partnership and making one succeed will make it that much easier to succeed in other relationships including love, and marriage.

[deleted]

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#17

Post by myko »

goodchild wrote: post #15
neurotech1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but that would make it even worse, and likely lead to a lawsuit. Hostile work environment, or discrimination based on medical condition would be actionable.

lolwut?

Please don't make comments like that here.

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#18

Post by rdl »

tptacek wrote: post #13
tom68 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was let go by a startup on the very same case. They hit it big , I hit Skid Row. Bummer

You were let go before your cliff, that is, at the end of year one, for no reason other than to deny you one year's vested options that you'd have to pay to exercise?

Yeah, it seems odd that there are startups who know enough to do 4/1 vesting with a cliff, but also don't know enough to not abuse it this way.

The most unpleasant "founder disputes" I've ever seen have been in partnerships, not silicon valley style startups with vesting, and usually result from not having anything documented.

I'd be willing to say most "valley style" startups don't do this cliff-fighting options thing, which is why it's so astounding when it happens. Even what Zynga and Skype are said to have done wasn't outright "take stock away from someone right before a cliff since it has appreciated".

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#19

Post by goodchild »

myko wrote: post #17
goodchild wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lolwut?

Please don't make comments like that here.

Just ignore Myko guise. I've talked to him about his attitude. We're hiring a guy to replace him. Just ignore him for now. srsly. I know what I'm talking about. I ran a t-shirt company.

Re: How To Fire A Co-Founder

#20

Post by zaidf »

A. Is this something you can work out?

Stop right here and define "this" and think about it from many different perspectives. One of the biggest challenges with founder issues from my personal experience and from talking with other founders is lack of clarity people have in their heads about the objective position. They immediately want to jump to solutions or to fixing the problem without even being able to elaborate the precise problem beyond "he sucks" or "he can't do x" etc. The problem with stopping there and not critically thinking further is that you risk not trying hard enough and smart enough to make conflicts between founders work out. For every tragic founder story, there are plenty of successful stories where if you dig deeper, you will find the successful founders who at one point were at significant disagreement but instead of moving on, they took the time to deliberately make things work out. This may require Founder A to coach Founder B in a specific area or for Founder B to rapidly change certain behavior etc.

From the outset, be willing to invest time and brain to making things work out before deciding to split. This itself is a huge ask. If a founder isn't willing to engage in good faith difficult conversations on a daily basis(about any topic), that is a bigger grounds for splitting for me than any specific issue.

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