
Ask HN: My 50/50 CEO Co-Founder just fired me. What can I do? - SFBikeFan
I&#x27;m a 50&#x2F;50 Co-Founder in a SAAS startup that we&#x27;ve bootstrapped to nearly 10MM in ARR and growing over 100%&#x2F;year.<p>When we set up the company years ago, we split everything down the middle: We each have 50% of the shares, each have one board seat (only 2 total seats), and we&#x27;ve been making joint decisions on everything up until this point. As the business-minded co-founder, my partner took the title of CEO, and I&#x27;ve had the title of CTO since I&#x27;ve been in charge of the product and engineering.<p>Without warning my Co-Founder told me that he had asked our attorneys and they said that since in my role as CTO I&#x27;m an at-will employee, as CEO he decided to terminate my employment. So now I&#x27;m still a board member and stock owner, but without a salary to pay the bills.<p>I didn&#x27;t know that this was even possible! Has anyone been in a similar situation? What options do I have as a board member and stockholder to fight back?
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mchannon
You need to get in touch with your lawyer. Not the company's lawyer (who signs
their checks?). Don't have one? Now's a great time- head downtown and pick
whichever one doesn't already represent your company or your partner.

What your lawyer would probably advise (and definitely don't do this just
because I suggested it) is if you have an invention assignment, which says
your work product is the company's because the company pays you, issue a
notice that your agreement(s) have been breached.

Hopefully you're not in a situation where you've relinquished all password
control. If you have shared passwords with the CEO, change them to where
they're no longer shared.

Next, you may want to arrange for an indefinite maintenance update on your
servers while you get this taken care of. Refer any and all complaints to the
CEO and tell your customers that he has the ability to fix it. You're not
going to get your cofounder to see your side by being the sane one in the
relationship.

One of you has declared war, while the other is trying to decide whether a
state of war exists. Trust me, it does, and you lose ground every second you
don't marshal your resources to win decisively.

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Lordarminius
> ...You're not going to get your cofounder to see your side by being the sane
> one in the relationship ... One of you has declared war, while the other is
> trying to decide whether a state of war exists....

100% in agreement

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bsvalley
CEO thug life - "I just fired the CTO."

I'm sure you're already talking to a lawyer. He or she will be more helpful.
It is interesting though for the HN community to know that drama does exist
between co-founders. Chose your co-founder wisely!

I wish you all the best.

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AznHisoka
I am curious: do you guys have any dividend/cash-out strategy currently? or is
all the profits in the bank and you just take out a salary?

If the latter, consider having a dividend payout in the future if you have no
other investors. ie both take out 25% of profits every quarter. This way if
your other cofounder fires you - so what? you still get the profits and now
uour cofounder has to do all the work and worry about everything!

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Sounds like there's a lot more to this that has been omitted. Bootstrapped
cofounders and one fires the other without warning? And without reason?

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akulbe
Talk to a lawyer. Yesterday.

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z3t4
ianal. buy him out. let him stay as ceo. what did you do to get fired ?

