Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by MarkCole 3983 days ago
You mention that he has taken to the mentor/mentee relationship, and have said elsewhere that he lacks skills or knowledge of things like SSH.

Are they actually learning and making progress? Or are they unwilling to learn and actually holding you back? If they are learning and developing, why can't you treat them as a very junior developer, help them develop their skills, and eventually they will become a useful asset to your team. You can maybe even sit them down and talk this through with them, I'm sure they have probably realised that their skills could do with improvement. It would likely turn out much better than going behind their back and trying to persuade the other co-founders to fire them.

They must have skills of some kind if they got the product to a point where they could raise money and hire others in the first place?

As for the equity issue, even if they do get fired, that doesn't mean their equity is up for grabs to award to new engineers. So it probably won't solve your issue their.
1 comments
tech_nofounder 3983 days ago 

  If they are learning and developing, why can't you
  treat them as a very junior developer, help them
  develop their skills, and eventually they will
  become a useful asset to your team.
This has been my attitude so far, and my original title (before being edited) had "[How]" in brackets: I'm not at all sure what to do. But the alternative strategy, the optimistic, mentorship one you outline, hasn't been working.

  They must have skills of some kind if they got the
  product to a point where they could raise money
  and hire others in the first place?
It's absolutely true, and I would never advocate anything but generous treatment of the employee. But not meeting today's expectations (not just mine, the whole team's) also matters.

  As for the equity issue, even if they do get fired,
  that doesn't mean their equity is up for grabs to
  award to new engineers. So it probably won't solve
  your issue their.
Very true, and as others have stated legal matters around termination can make this very complicated.

I bring it up more to worry about simmering resentment from e.g. peers. I'm happy with my compensation, but I worry what an impression of "early, ineffective dead weight" can have on newer recruits. It's something I've seen earlier in my career.

link