[klibertp]

No, he was hired to do the job his employer want's him to do. If the founder says "stop thinking about stupid/unnecessary/other's things/jobs/responsibilities" then he HAS to do just that. It's not his role to tell the founder how bad a management this is. And yes, I saw such founders in action, it does happen... Quite often in my experience, though obviously YMMV.

[jeffasinger]

I wouldn't ever want to work in a company, or run a company where it's unacceptable for an employee to say:

"Hey, the company would be a lot better off if I spent some time on X, instead of my usual responsibility Y."

[bennyg]

Exactly. A discussion between manager/employee needs to happen there. Either it's actually a good idea to do X and the employee can rationalize why or it's a better idea to do Y, and the manager can rationalize why.

[guiambros]

I have no doubt it does happen. I saw it myself several times. Heck, maybe I have done it, when I was a first time entrepreneur.

But as I said, if I were ever in this position, I'd just pack and go. It's hard to build a successful startup; even harder if the CEO thinks he/she has all the answers and is not open to collaboration and sharing the burden of the key early decisions.

This is particularly true when the company is small; not so much when you get to triple-digit headcounts.