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by stephengillie 3984 days ago
Maybe a better way to rephrase this is: "How would you fire your boss?"

You say the technical founder is well-liked by the other employees. How do your peers feel about you?

Respectfully, you sound like a fresh Alpha Male who's found a new pride, topped the old Alpha, and now you're looking to push him out entirely to cement your dominance. But you're doing so under a passive-aggressive cover, as us tech workers often do.

How long do you expect to be with this company? What do you think about leaving and finding another startup to work with? Maybe somewhere whose work and founders you will respect more? Or even starting your own startup?
1 comments
tech_nofounder 3984 days ago 

  Respectfully, you sound like a fresh Alpha Male
  who's found a new pride, topped the old Alpha,
  and now you're looking to push him out entirely
  to cement your dominance.
I can see that it comes off that way. But the reality is, everyone seems to know this guy isn't hacking it, and I could tell almost immediately -- yet decided to do nothing for over half a year. For exactly that reason: I didn't want to risk the appearance of being an ego/power-maniac. But I'm now debating the wisdom of "just ignore it".

It's things that are borderline embarrassing (real example: not knowing what ssh is) in addition to just poor coding habits (breaking every style rule in the book), no systems instincts, and so on. Plainly, I don't think the CEO knew how to vet this guy.

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charlesdm 3984 days ago
Honestly, the only way to solve this is to be direct and ask him to leave the company. Bringing that up could go two ways; really good or really bad.

If he leaves then the company will probably have to buy back his equity stake, which will be expensive.

Also, don't forget, he probably has the power to fire you on the spot. These things do happen.

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jacquesm 3983 days ago
Nonsense. You don't crash a start-up on the say-so of an early hire.

A founder is a founder and barring actual misconduct or behavior that goes directly against the interest of the company should not be treated like he/she was a new hire, especially not by a new hire.

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