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Email to Former Board Member

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Re: Email to Former Board Member

#5
Here's the context, from the author:

"Simultaneously, we were forced to deal with a board member who was beyond counterproductive. After we bought him out fully in 2019, I sent this feedback email detailing the ways in which he had disrupted our board and company. Dealing with this issue was one of the loneliest times I faced as a CEO. To be clear, this email is unlike anything I’ve sent in my life, and I’ve thought long and hard about the decision to share it. I’m not doing so to disparage the individual in question; the only objective is to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation. (Nothing has been removed, including typos, from the email except for names.)"

https://ryancaldbeck.medium.com/transitions-fa7ce4af435

Re: Email to Former Board Member

#7
Releasing this as-is seems like a bad idea. He's likely addressing a former board member by name, as well as their firm. Couldn't you just look at all of the names of board members and their firms, compute the metrics of those names with the typeface being used, and then figure out exactly who he's talking about?

Re: Email to Former Board Member

#8
I regret that we went thruogh the "diligence" process in just a few weeks

Does anyone work in M&A? What in your experience is a sufficient timetable for diligence and discovery? I ask working for a company that "grows by acquisition", and being in a middle management role I find myself often playing clean-up crew to some alarming things that should have been caught during diligence, but am growing increasingly weary being told "we didn't have time".

This is no attempt at malingering my duties, but I've lost one staff member already to the burnout from this, and am quite fearful I'm about to lose another. Both have told me "it's not you, you've been a great manager" yet both have lamented feeling like their jobs have turned into playing the 'janitor' role for messy acquisitions saying "you did what you could"

My own complaints up the food-chain have been returned with shrugs by a director who seems equally powerless in a process that is burning people out--and I'm considering looking for the door at the end of the year from it.

Re: Email to Former Board Member

#9

Releasing this as-is seems like a bad idea. He's likely addressing a former board member by name, as well as their firm. Couldn't you just look at all of the names of board members and their firms, compute the metrics of those names with the typeface being used, and then figure out exactly who he's talking about?

[deleted]

Re: Email to Former Board Member

#10

Releasing this as-is seems like a bad idea. He's likely addressing a former board member by name, as well as their firm. Couldn't you just look at all of the names of board members and their firms, compute the metrics of those names with the typeface being used, and then figure out exactly who he's talking about?

I know a few people on Twitter have tried, but AFAIK no names have been leaked. But let's say he had said the name... is that a problem? People write blog posts about bad experiences quite frequently.

[EDIT: I was wrong, yesterday the person publicly acknowledged it's him.]

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