
Ask HN: Not feeling it from the CEO. What can I do? (equity split) - njens
I joined a startup as CTO that is 9 months old (5 months with me) and has VC funding. I now have equal equity to the CEO. Now that I know how much I will continue to contribute that is core to my expertise &amp; experience, I think I should have more like 3:2 or 2:1 (CTO:CEO), and that the CEO is really CMO&#x2F;COO material. Is there something like an Equity-Split Consultancy I can use for help?<p>The startup is complex VR software that I have 19 years experience in. I&#x27;m formerly a tenured academic leading a research group in this area. I&#x27;ve also worked on big-name projects as a SWEng in this area. I have won awards for my work and know the tech &amp; product very well. I&#x27;ve also iterated similar &quot;products&quot; with customers. I have taught project management, founded a successful online business, a PhD in exactly what we are doing, and 10 years of building toward breaking away from uni to do this. So even though joining this startup seemed ideal, I&#x27;m finding that the CEO is out of his depth and I can&#x27;t follow him. The startup has excellent potential, but relies heavily on new tech coming together meaningfully to meet the customers&#x27; needs.<p>I have raised the issue and presented a strong case for change. In the subsequent meeting about it the CEO was aggressive, so I asked for a detailed response in writing. It&#x27;s really taking the shine off of the journey. I&#x27;d love to do this with the CEO in a lesser role.<p>I&#x27;m torn between; 1. suck it up and keep going, and 2. this is only going to hurt more and more so why empower <i>them</i> (it doesn&#x27;t feel like this is mine enough to warrant the massive contribs I&#x27;m making to the vision and the product day to day). Part of why it doesn&#x27;t feel like mine enough is that the vesting schedule means the massive contribs will only help me if I see it through.<p>I&#x27;ve used https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cofounders.gust.com to get some numbers. Even when I over-state his measures, and under-state mine, I come out with 2:1 in my favor.<p>Can this work out?
======
mchannon
Wow. What I can suggest is that perhaps you have misperceived the purpose and
nature of equity.

When your venture was 0 months old, it needed a CEO to get it funding. Even if
he played golf the whole time and lent only his name to the venture while you
beat the streets to scare that funding up, he delivered on his job.

A CEO's job for a startup is not to be CMO or COO. It's to scare up money, and
that money done got scared up. And now you want to move the goalposts.

Even if he's still out playing golf and you're still putting in 20-hour days,
that doesn't mean a 50/50 split is unfair. It's what you agreed to, on the off
chance you'd be anywhere near as successful as you are today.

Hate the game if you must, but your failure to understand the game has
probably put you on the outs with your cofounder, and that has destroyed a lot
of the value in the company, both yours and his. The whole purpose of a 50/50
split is to avoid this petty squabbling.

The correct advice is thus: Quit rocking the boat, roll back your hours to 8
or less (the company is not "yours" and never was), limp toward your first
half-decent exit (either the company itself or just you), and focus on a new
solo startup where you can be the CEO and CTO.

~~~
harel
I think at this point it might be too late as the boat has been rocked and by
the sound of it, and OP response to another comment on this thread, I say it's
tilting. If I was the CEO, and the person I hired and gave a very generous 50%
comes to me with that kind of demand, I'd be realising I've made a mistake. It
doesn't matter how good someone is. Everyone is replaceable, and sometimes
one's perceived "incompetence" is only that - perceived. We have one side of a
story and if I learned one thing from the internet is that every story is like
a coin - with 3 sides.

~~~
meric
He can try fix it by giving an apology, having thought over it and missed the
value his colleagues contributed, etc.

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swombat
<blunt>:

You have an over-inflated view of your own contributions, because, well,
you're human, and we tend to view our own contributions as much more valuable
(because we understand how complex and impactful they are, and we don't
usually do so for other people's contributions).

My perspective, as a technical person who started doing startups in 2007 (as
CTO in my first 2 startups), is running a successful company now (as CEO), and
has advised a bunch of companies over the last 10 years, is that a 50/50 deal
is extremely generous and if anything I would advise the CEO that he was too
generous with you and probably set up this problem of your overinflated ego by
doing that. Possibly this problem has sunk the company unless you're able to
pop your inflated head balloon and get back down to earth.

Ideas aren't everything, but recruiting great people to work on your idea is
part of execution. You got recruited 4 months in. You're an employee who
somehow miraculously has as much equity as the founder. That is an insanely
good deal and you are foolish and extremely greedy to be questioning it,
especially at this point.

Now, about who wears the pants, which you mention in another comment - you
need to clarify who wears the pants in what context. You're not an expert on
everything, and neither is he. Obviously you have expertise in technical
matters, and so it is reasonable that you will want to own technical decisions
and have a strong say in product/vision decisions. But based on your post you
sound blissfully unaware of all it takes to build a larger company (I notice
you didn't specify how "successful" your online business was) so you should
defer to the CEO on most of what it will take to get this to actually become a
company. That's his job. And if you think he can't do it, quit.

------
dustingetz
People who have never started companies undervalue how hard that is. CEO's job
is literally using sales and recruiting to get outcome. He closed the funding
and recruited you. If you think you can do that, then you should have done it,
and you've already screwed up that outcome by touching this.

\--

I just did the gust survey, it says 100%/0% in my favor. He builds, I do
everything else in addition to build, including building v1 by myself. He is
also theoretically fungible, like you are. I made him a 50/50 partner for good
reasons: the product is worth $0 until its not, and morale/loyalty/not making
posts like this is more valuable to my outcome than a larger % of zero. The
survey is bullshit.

\--

I have a great therapist (ex-biglaw) to help me overcome personal
psychological barriers. We all face our ego and great leadership stems from
overcoming this.

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ghufran_syed
You are confusing 2 different things:

1) The choices that need to be made for the company to succeed

2) How much equity you have or should get.

“The vesting schedule means the massive contributions will only help me if I
see it through” ...errm, yes, that’s the point of a vesting schedule.

As noted by others, the way to succeed is to make the whole pie bigger (and
therefore your slice also becomes more valuable, even though it’s the same
percentage). You should assume that your equity slice will _never_ get bigger
in percentage terms, the investors want you busting a gut to make the pie
bigger, not fighting over percentages.

Now, if you really think the CEO is destroying value I.e. making the pie
smaller, and you can’t resolve it between you, then both of you need to talk
to your board investors. The likely result is that one of you will be leaving
the firm, and that person’s equity will return to the company since neither of
you has hit your 12 month anniversary, assuming you have a standard vesting
schedule.

I feel like some of this is due to cultural differences between academia where
it sounds like you were clearly successful, and vc-backed startup world.

~~~
njens
Thanks. This is all good to hear and something I'm struggling to reconcile. In
academia I was always keen to show and develop a real capability, as opposed
to being the comfortable academic. I wrote a lot of code and some decent
engines for the different techs relevant to my field... but that's not exactly
the point. I've been increasingly keen to learn about
startups/entrepreneurship and have engaged with mentors and local startups and
incubators for years in prep of making the leap. A large part of my value is
taking away the risk and showing investors and potential recruits that we can
get it done. My academic job wasn't handed to me.

------
ukulele
I've been in VC for ~10 years, and we see a lot of founder squabbles.

A lot of what makes for great companies is simple: a smart team in a great
market, just plowing through things for 3-5 years.

That 3-5 years part is the one that trips up (a) startup newcomers and (b)
people who were very successful in school. You get way beyond the "theory" of
what you're building very quickly, and there is a LOT of dull blocking &
tackling work.

To my ear it sounds like you are frustrated with the slow pace of the work and
want to do things that are more intellectually interesting. This is more or
less an anti-pattern at the ~1 year mark, and you might consider that your CEO
knows more than you think, just not about the technical side.

I can't see a scenario where pointing to an online equity calculator is going
to help, so don't go there. If you're convinced that the CEO is damaging the
company, you should want them gone, not still around with a little bit less
incentive to succeed. Mostly though, you should consider very seriously
whether, for all your VR chops and accolades, you are even correct in assuming
the CEO is not able, vs whether you are experiencing Dunning-Kruger or simply
don't like them.

------
fwdpropaganda
I'm going to share here my friend's insight which I think is applicable.

He said: New startups that have one brilliant individual often fail because
these people often think it's all about them.

EDIT: After reading OPs responses on this thread, I have reinforced my
previous impression, and in addition I now think OP is dishonest.

OP has made it clear that this is in part about power and thrills, not just
equity, and that he was looking to leave the academia in search of such power
and thrills.

In other words, when OP shook hands with the CEO already knew that he wasn't
happy with 50/50 and CTO title, but at the time he thought that was the most
he could get, and now OP thinks he can get more.

Completely dishonest, OP is just considering how to execute the power grab he
had planned.

------
machinecontrol
This might be an unpopular opinion, but are you sure you deserve twice as much
equity? You're both going to be working equally hard on this startup for
years. The CEO took the risk of starting the company, came up with the idea,
and raised VC funding - not trivial things to do.

~~~
mindfulplay
I think this is the right popular opinion.

------
bailey1541
I have been a founder of three companies that led to successful (>$100M)
acquisition over the last 20 years. Always in tech / CTO role.

Reading your post and comments, it seems to me that your ego and reality are
somewhat disconnected. Not to say that you aren’t good at what you do, but you
have no idea what it takes to actually build a company. It doesn’t matter how
good the tech is, you don’t have a company without all the other parts.

I would also like to call out your suggestion that equity balance can solve
the problem. This really makes me question the sophistication of your
thinking, and casts serious doubt on your abilities as a leader and team
builder - a key skill for a successful CTO.

From what I’ve read here, my assessment of you is a low (leadership)
potential, very high-performance employee. Not CTO material without a lot of
growth quickly.

The fault I would see in the CEO is if he doesn’t recognize his mistake soon
enough and fire you before your stock vests. I see no way for the company to
be successful with you as CTO and the huge schism in the leadership team that
already exists.

------
eoghan
If you feel this way, you should quit and start your own company, raise money,
recruit a team, and be CEO yourself. You’ll never be happy in your current
position, and you’ll never understand what your current CEO did and does until
you do it yourself. Good luck.

------
majc2
No, I don't think it can - you are being completely unrealistic about equity.
The time for negotiating equity is before you incorporate or before you take
funding; not 9 months down the line.

Frankly, if you pursue this equity issue - it is very unlikely to end well -
you are likely going to destroy value in your business based on what? Some
online calculator, put out as lead-gen?

I think you are confusing two issues - equity and leadership. Leadership is a
perfectly reasonable conversation to be having; yesterdays CEO might not be
the correct CEO today. This is probably 9 months too late, but maybe something
like 'Founders Dilemmas' could help you.

------
dirktheman
You were asked as a CTO to a very young (yet VC backed!) company. You knew
very well that a large part of the success of the startup would depend on your
expertise. You agreed to 50% equity.

What has changed that you feel you are owed more now?

------
swalsh
You sound like a talented person with a lot to contribute to the company.
You're going to help build a great product, and if you combine that with the
talents of other people you'll build a great company.

That last part is the important part. A company is MORE than a product. Do a
google search for Steven Blank business canvas. Product is just one column in
the whole thing. It takes a lot of work to build a good product, and you'll
want to best person you can get for it (sounds like you're him!) but at the
end of the day, you will also need someone who is going to help get it sold.
You'll need a sales team, a marketing team, relationships with partners,
you'll need all sorts of non-product related things. They're necessary.
Products don't sell themselves. They just don't.

It doesn't sound like you have any experience building a sales pipeline,
marketing, or business in general. Your CEO is going to work on those things
so you can put your effort on a great product. If you don't think he's up to
the task, maybe you need a new guy... but don't diminish his equity. He has an
important job, he deserves as much.

------
cirgue
> So even though joining this startup seemed ideal, I'm finding that the CEO
> is out of his depth and I can't follow him.

> I'd love to do this with the CEO in a lesser role.

Is this about equity or about who wears the pants?

~~~
njens
pants. Is it bad to address this with equity. Our handshake was based on equal
equity and standing (I asked for a lot more than 50/50 initially and took the
leap-of-faith to join forces), and that the job-titles were secondary...
that's not really working out.

~~~
dewski
I've never heard of a CTO having more equity than the CEO. Do you think you're
being slightly unreasonable in your expectations? 50/50 feels quite generous
after they raised the round of funding.

~~~
njens
CTO isn't the right title for my actual role. I've got the "map to the
customer", many options for pivots with detail, I understand the customer from
another side too (it's teaching tech... and as a former teacher that's also
part of "not just a CTO"). It's tough tech. I've already done key tricky bits.
Another part of what hurt was rolling in more tech after the fact (after the
50/50 handshake). I've taken that out, we have clearer focus without it (and I
feel better). Part of the problem is my hunger to take the CEO trail myself...
from the beginning.

~~~
cirgue
> Part of the problem is my hunger to take the CEO trail myself... from the
> beginning.

In signing up for a 50/50 split, you made your decision about this already. If
you don't feel like your co-founder is pulling their weight, maybe figure out
a way to change the division of responsibilities so that he is instead of
approaching this like a zero sum situation.

------
quantumleap22
The chaos coming out of an equity battle will make the 2 of 2:1 worth less
than making the thing successful. You have no power here, as you should know
as a c-suite guy, so suck it up, work hard and wait.

------
AndrewKemendo
There is no good outcome here.

You clearly don't have mutual respect for the CEO (not that you should or
shouldn't necessarily) and in less than half a year find yourself in pretty
fundamental conflict. In what amounts to a founder level role at a startup, if
you aren't on the same page about almost everything, then it will blow up.

My suggestion is to find someone to take over your role and go do something
else. The VR space requires too much grinding and grit right now to succeed
while not having a great working relationship between founders/C-Level people.

------
kalkut
Honestly as a technical founder in VR too I understand where you come from but
you are wrong on this.

You don't get equity for having a good background, you get equity for being
important to the business and damn you got the same amount that a guy that
most likely handled a fundraising by himself.

At this stage _they are investing in you more than you are investing in them_
yet you absolutely did not talk about what you actually achieved for them.

Worse only 5 month after signing you are talking about the demotion of your
partner who from an exterior standpoint already contributed more than you both
in time and in money gained.

I think that :

1) You are not the guy they need. I am sure that you are great but you are
just too high maintenance at a stage that is too early for that.

2) You need to run your own show, you sound like the type of guy who have an
hard time following others.

If you think that either doing it by yourself or associating with someone who
is "CEO material" would be hard, then it can very well be an indicator that
you currently are pushing your luck.

------
goatherders
The CEOs job is to sell the vision. To investors, employees/recruits, and
early customers. That's the job. Not to code or do sprints or stay up 3
straight days testing a release.

------
rajacombinator
Sounds like the stereotypical clueless academic ego quite honestly. Asked for
a response in writing? Using online equity calculators 5 months post facto?
What planet are you living on? Maybe you are undercompensated and deserve more
but the way you’re approaching this shows you are definitely not 2:1 CEO
material. Reality check time.

------
mindfulplay
I suggest reading the book E-Myth. It's superbly relevant to your case.

Technicians who start a company think that they are everything. Yes, you have
the technical prowess but that means squat if you want to participate in
market economy. If you want to be appreciated purely as a technician, academia
is a better fit.

Entrepreneurs who start a company know that the product is not a company.

And a manager knows how to deliver results for the company not create the
product.

Really good book...

------
cvaidya1986
I think a professional mediator may help resolve this situation. Everyone
should feel they are fairly compensated. From a technical person’s perspetive
they are doing all the work. A business person often looks at a chief
technical person as a key component of the overall business model. In my
opinion, the most important question is will both of you do whatever is
necessary to make this startup successful? A healthy cofounder relationship is
essential to this. Could you have done this startup all by yourself? Remember
half of a billion dollar company is better than a 100% of a broken startup. I
would also encourage you to look at several Harvard business cases where there
was tension between a CTO and non technical CEO. Many times a technical CEO
would be moved to a CTO role. Once they sold that company, investors would be
confident in them being the CEO a next time. In short, I would suggest
thinking of this from a lot of perspectives before jumping to a decision. In
general, a healthy cofounder relationship is critical to a startup and please
resolve this now rather than later. Best of luck!

~~~
njens
No, I can't do this startup by myself. He's done some great things already
getting the company funded and finding me. (Hard words to say.) I left my
academic job to experience the thrills and spills of founding+leading, that's
something I feel like I've lost that is part of this. I'm striving to keep
this real and face all the truths. I don't want to kill this venture, but know
what I've felt growing over the past few months. Perhaps it's transient and I
need a better focus on the bigger picture. (CTO vs non-technical CEO readings
sound like a great move.)

~~~
majc2
> (Hard words to say.)

I would encourage you to reflect hard on this.

Personally, I would worry that you're finding it difficult to give your
CEO/co-founder credit. I don't know you, so it is not for me to judge the
reasons - but I think you should try and understand why you find it hard, and
if that is a problem with you, a problem with the CEO or something else.

------
charlieg91
It seems like you are in the product phase. So right now, yes you probably are
more valuable. However, there is so much more to building a business than just
building a product. When it's sales and business development time the CEO will
be the most important.

If you are saying he will not be able to do this job well, that is a tough
problem to have. However, changing the equity is certainly not the answer.

You need to ask yourself what is the best way for the business to succeed. Not
for you to obtain the most equity.

------
yodon
> Can this work out?

You’ve pretty much set yourself and your company on fire with your public
“negotiating strategy” here.

People have certainly been forwarding this thread to your investors all
morning, it’s not like you tried to obfuscate anything here. This is not how a
board wants to learn about problems.

If it’s not already toast, shut up and take notes because whichever investor
helps you two work through this is a rockstar. You personally have more to
learn from them than from anyone else you’ll ever meet.

------
dumbfounder
Why did you join if the CEO is so-so? I think it can work out, if one of you
leaves. Why are you so worried about his compensation compared to yours? If
you feel you are undercompensated then demand more. If you feel like he is
overcompensated, then question the board's judgement. It sounds more like sour
grapes than anything the way you want to structure your equity with respect to
the CEO.

------
pavlov
If a share vesting schedule makes you feel like it's not your company, why not
get rid of that?

Have both of you own equal 50/50 stock directly and without conditions —
that's the only way to really feel like you're the entrepreneur. If he doesn't
want to do that, it's a sign that you're not being trusted either.

~~~
swombat
Generally VCs won't let you do that and will occasionally make you re-vest
shares you'd previously vested as part of a new round of investment.

~~~
pavlov
Right — I actually missed the "has VC funding" part in the original question.

I don't think most VCs would feel great about one founder going behind their
backs to get an absolute majority of equity after the funding is already
executed. Since the OP is effectively looking to demote his co-founder from
the CEO position, he should make sure the VC partner and company board
understand what's going on if he takes any action.

------
thisisit
You have a point on the amount of effort you are putting in.

But, there is a larger point here - People come up with ideas left and right.
It is often said "Ideas are dime a dozen". Not many people put in effort to
take a risk and start something.

So, when someone joins a startup they have to understand what they are getting
into. Is the founder good enough or he is just hot air? People take a huge
risk in joining a non-technical CEO on tech-oriented/facing projects. The
founder/CEO might not be up to speed on tech methodology. They might even be
reading stuff off magazine covers. And then demanding that their software work
exactly like what they have read. This can be frustrating.

Unfortunately, not much can be done about it.

------
romanovcode
You agreed on 50/50 when you joined, there is no way CEO will give his equity
to you. Would you do it?

------
pfarnsworth
Asking a forum filled with aspirational CEOs whether the CEOs should give up
2/3s of her equity to an employee doesn’t sound like a promising idea.

------
joshjkim
a lot of the comments are about the validity/tenability of your position, and
while I overall agree with a lot of what is being said (unfortunately, the
fact that an adversarial dynamic has been introduced strikes me as the hardest
thing to overcome here, though still entirely possible to overcome) here's a
few other things to consider:

1\. you can lead without being CEO. early on in the life of a company, co-
founders often share CEO-like responsibilities on strategy matters and each
will separately own / be responsible for their own domain (so in this case, it
sounds like you should own the technical part, and your co-founder may own
sales, marketing, fundraising, etc.). i think at this early stage the concern
regarding leadership can be managed without explicitly changing title - as CTO
and co-founder you should have significant influence and decision-making,
regardless of title or equity split. if the problem is that the CEO is trying
to steer / control things that they don't have an understanding of that you DO
have a much better understanding of, regardless of position / equity you
should view your job as helping both your cofounder (and any other people on
the team) to understand and get behind the strategy that your expertise and
experience tell you is right - this is a big part of leadership, getting
people to believe in your vision, and the substantive act of succeeding at
that should be more important than title, especially at this early stage.
don't think to yourself "I'm not the CEO so therefore I can't lead" \- you
can! especially if you have good logic / basis for your positions. now, if the
CEO is intractable, doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand and you
can't convince them or the team, I'd say it's not a good match regardless of
position (and truthfully, while you may have good reason to consider your
cofounder at fault, I'd also argue that the inability to communicate the
strategy / expertise is a at a minimum a joint failure in communication,
again, good reason to just call it, as understanding each other is key, esp.
at this early stage). this is all to say: you should be able to position
yourself as the leader on the things you want to lead, regardless of title,
esp. at this stage.

2\. the board decides who the CEO is, so they should be making the decision
(but proceed with MAJOR caution). the board decides who the CEO is, so i hate
to suggest this as it will get very messy, but if you really have deep
conviction then you may also want to go to the board (which presumably you are
part of, so that's good access). since you are VC-backed, there's a good
chance you have a VC on your board, and they can act as tie-breaker - if not,
you can still rely on investors who own a controlling interest of the
investor's class of shares - even if you did a note, whoever is the "lead" or
"leads" and have the most sway can help be a tie-breaker here. the board and
investors should have the best interest of the company at heart, and if you
can really make the case that the best thing is for you to lead, they can
arguably help. the problem here may be that if the CEO led the fundraising
efforts, their relationship will investors may be stronger (though I could be
wrong here), and there's a good chance that going to the board / investors
will only accelerate your getting pushed out. of course if you did the
fundraising and own those relationships, it should be easier to make a change.
the key thing here is to recognize that this is a big escalation, things will
move quickly one way or the other (boards are trained to resolve founder
disputes with total urgency), so only proceed if you have total conviction and
are not afraid to be pushed out entirely over it. I've seen this go many
different ways, and while most of the time this blows up the company, it seems
like the company would have blown up inevitably because the board maneuverings
were just a symptom of deeper underlying issues that could not be resolved. in
a small minority of cases, I've seen this work out, usually because one of the
founders gets pushed out and the company is able to recover - of course, works
out means from the company's perspective, you could of course be the one who
is asked to leave. a secondary effect is that if you lose at that level, those
VCs will view you as a trouble-maker, and getting funding may be tough for
your future projects (from those VCs, but also others as its a small world).
again, this is really the highest escalation you can make, proceed with loads
of caution and take into account the very serious risks, and view it as a last
resort.

3\. cofounders need to trust each other. overall, the key issue here seems to
be trust: you don't trust that the CEO can lead, and I would assume at this
point the CEO may not trust you to accept their position. while the
adversarial dynamic may be impossible to reverse at this point, I think more
than anything the only way for this to succeed with both of you involved will
be if you can both learn to trust each other, cheesy as it sounds this is
probably the most important things to have between cofounders, esp. at this
early stage (you are both risking a lot betting on the other, trust and good
faith is required). again, might be irreparable at this point, but I think now
that you've aired your concerns, you can try to guide that into a productive
dialogue that establishing trust of the other, acknowledges both your and the
cofounders strengths/limitations, and perhaps you can both begin learning to
trust eachother more - that being said, at this early stage where you may need
to move fast, the process of developing trust will slow the company down and
unless you have some serious financial padding (which you may), that time
spent on building trust will be what allow your more already aligned
competitors' teams (if any) to outrun you. that all being said, if you just
don't trust them and you don't think you ever will, then I'd say either leave
or think about option 2 above.

sources: worked with execs and boards of many early stage companies around
these kinds of issues, as an outside attorney, general counsel and as a
business exec.

~~~
joshjkim
also - all of the above applies to the CEO as well, so if you're not already
talking to the non-founder board / investors, then I'd guess the CEO is (or
should be).

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simonebrunozzi
Do this simple thought exercise: what happens if you leave the company?

You lose a funded company.

They lose (I'm inventing now) the only chance to get the product to work.

A VC would probably want to help you settle this dispute, to avoid wasting a)
the money and b) the opportunity to have funded a successful company.

~~~
njens
All true. I've shared a large report that I wrote with a consultant to help
unpick some of the detail. Superficially, the CEO is right. Scratch the
surface, and I'm right. Who's right or wrong is moot(?). I like the thought
that I can reduce my engagement with the CEO and focus on the
work/relationships that I enjoy. At least for a bit.

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whataretensors
Fire the CEO if you can. It seems like this CEO is one of the "who you know"
ones.

When you do hire talented engineers they won't want a leader who exists out of
nepotism, it has the potential to rot the whole company from the head(seen it
more than once).

~~~
refurb
"Who you know" can be really valuable. It can be based on past work
relationships and reputation. And it can make raising money a lot easier.

That has a lot of value.

If the OP thinks he can do better than he should leave and start his own
company, including raising funding. Problem solved.

~~~
whataretensors
From what I've seen it's mostly just incompetent people who were born rich or
friends/family of board members.

~~~
refurb
Does it matter? Connections are connections.

Again, if you think you can do it without them, go for it!

~~~
whataretensors
After thinking about this I agree

