[PragmaticPulp]

> if that's all true then what else could this person do other than air out the dirty laundry?

Simply leaving the company quietly is a huge statement in itself. A founder who leaves an active company and tactfully announces that they’ve chosen to move on speaks volumes.

Airing dirty laundry like this is politics, plain and simple. It doesn’t benefit the author to advertise his issues as a co-founder and it doesn’t benefit the remaining employees who are now at a company known primarily for founder drama.

[munificent]

There's a tricky balancing act here. I agree in general that it's good to not air dirty laundry and I personally would be very unlikely to publicly write something like this about a previous coworker.

At the same time not sharing information widely about a toxic member of your community can create a "missing stair"[0] effect where those with inside info know to steer away from the person. Meanwhile, newcomers to the community don't have that knowledge and end up getting burned.

I don't think there's any perfect solution here. We each have to judge for ourselves where to draw the line between public shaming and the duty to protect others from potential harm.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair

[Floegipoky]

It might give somebody enough information to decide not to work for that CEO.

[slibhb]

Ah, so the author of this blog is a humanitarian

[stilist]

If there's no public acknowledgement that the CEO ran an awful workplace, there's not much to stop him doing it again with another company.