[notahacker]

A backstory where he explains dispassionately that after repeatedly unsuccessfully pivoting into industries neither of them understood, he came to the conclusion his cofounder wasn't learning from these mistakes and he needed to take a different approach even if it meant starting again with nothing doesn't sound any harder to sell than a backstory where he explains the rationale behind pursuing four more pivots he didn't believe in before running out of money. Also sounds like a situation where his existing investors have probably written off the money and may even agree with his perspective on the pivots.

Bailing from a startup with significant traction or bailing when it's too early to tell could be much harder to explain away, but it doesn't sound like that's the problem here...