Ask HN: CTO wants me to leave

[cantlookaway]

I'm the tech orientated founder (the other is the business guy), not the best coder but I understand my domain and know my abilities.

We brought in a guy as CTO to help us move past problems we were having (feature creep, project management, enterprise level etc.).

The guy has a lot of experience as CTO (I had very little, also little as a coder), and he was instrumental in getting us to the point of launch where we were enterprise grade ready (as opposed to hacker ready).

Now he is advising me to leave, that I'm not a good coder, that he wouldn't hire me if I wasn't already a founder and not what the company needs.

I have improved significantly in the last few months from where I was (generally unstructured development, no tests, poor formatting / naming etc., but functional, generally coding to working with others instead of by myself) but he has said that it's not enough.

We have hired another coder who I get along well with and I have learned from.

My question is, does he have a point? Is this something that is common? Has he overstepped the boundaries?

EDIT: He's not asking me to leave now, since I'm still desperately needed, but in 3-6 months time after we have raised more funding.

[gtCameron]

The question I would try and answer if I were in your shoes is the following:

Does he want me to leave the company or does he want me to stop writing production code for the product?

If its the first one, there is likely a personal issue between the two of you that needs to be resolved one way or another.

If you think the second option is what he is really trying to communicate, then I would look for other opportunities to contribute to the company. It sucks to grasp your own limitations and admit that you might not be a good enough coder to contribute to the product at this point, but this is a critical time for the future of the product. Any technical debt acquired at this phase of development is going to be very costly to pay off later since you are developing the core of the system.

However, you are a founder of the company, and I am assuming very passionate about the company's mission as well as financially motivated to see this thing through. There are tons of jobs that will need to be done as you guys grow, and each one of those is an opportunity for you to contribute above and beyond what a new hire off the street could accomplish. A lot of those jobs can also take advantage of your coding skills to either automate processes or utilize your deeper understanding of how the product works to better support it.

This is of course assuming that you guys have the cash in the bank to pay you for this work, if that is not the case then the situation is a little trickier and you will have to explore other options.

[hoodoof]

Listen ‎Eduardo Saverin:

FIRST THING GET YOUR OWN LAWYER AND TALK TO THEM NOW!

The key question here is : do you have equity, and how much equity do you have in percentage terms?

If you are an equal cofounder, then when someone turns up and says "you have to leave cause better people have been employed", you say "fuck off". Think about it - EVERY company that grows will employ people who are better than the cofounders in some way, that is the whole point. You are the FOUNDER, you brought value to the company early. Just because smarter or more experienced people have been employed in no way devalues what you did in the early stages. In fact this is PRECISELY what is meant to happen. Do you think that Zuckerberg is the best developer at Facebook - legend may say so but it's not true - can't be. So should Zuck be fired cause he's not their strongest tech guy?

You also need to think separately about your rights as employee and rights as a shareholder/owner - they are not the same thing. You DO have clear contracts as both employee and shareholder DON'T YOU? Those contracts specify (or should specify) your rights.

And who the fuck does this guy think he is that he can tell a cofounder to leave? You are his BOSS.

DO NOT LEAVE. And if you do leave, DO NOT SELL YOUR SHARES IN THE COMPANY - just say "I want a MASSIVE payout to accept being fired, and I WILL NOT sell my shares as part of settlement". Hang on to those shares because now these guys are going to do all the hard work in growing the company and you can chill out and do other things and when they IPO, you'll take home your share. And if this is the path you take, look out cause some time in the future they will try to play a legal game in which you hang on to your shares but they get diluted down to almost nothing. This cannot happen if you are careful to look out for it.

This is all on the assumption that you do have equity and contracts in place. If you don't, then you should go and watch "The Social Network" repeatedly until you learn your lesson.

[avenger123]

It looks like you have real equity in the company and there is possible traction in the business.

You are a co-founder. That counts for a lot. I am also assuming that your equity stake is significant.

First of all, deal with this right now. Don't wait for the 3-6 months. You are basically being told that once they have raised money, they will find a way to get you out. Right now, it's a fishing expedition between the CTO and the other founder. Will you be a nice gentle person and go along with their approach or are you going to turn into an attack dog.

You likely have tremendous leverage right now due to this funding round coming up. They will not want to rock the boat. But this is exactly when you should be doing it as I don't believe the "we need you" bit means anything other than "we don't want you to fk up our funding round coming up".

At the end of the day, if they really want you out, they'll find a way to do so. The main thing is that you got to get on the offensive and make sure if you do end up leaving the company, you've left on the best financial terms possible for yourself. Make them pay. In fact, throw out a number you are comfortable with and have them pay you out from that in the next funding round.

If you approach this as "what's best for the company", you have already lost because that's not what this CTO and your other founder are approaching this from.

EDIT: You should provide some more detail on the equity position you have and how formalized it is (ie. proper contracts). Being a co-founder isn't about just writing code. As others have said, if you have significant equity, you have a lot of power. Don't underestimate this.

[snorkel]

That's a good point: They don't want to you to leave now, so leverage that. But this situation is not fixable by staying at the company. Recognize the CTO and CEO want you leave when it's convenient for them, and that's it's probably a personal issue, they probably don't like,working with you or else they would've suggested some other role for you. So find a way to leave now with your equity intact, with the help of a lawyer.

[midas007]

It also might depend if they were smart and have a vesting schedule for everyone. But that also means pushing people out may be selfishly advantageous in the short term, so it really matters to have known your cofounders long before the current venture.

[9oliYQjP]

First off, I'm sorry about your situation. Nobody here will be able to judge with any degree of accuracy whether he has a point. I personally would not look at this situation as a technical one; this is a business relationship situation.

Regardless of whether there is any grain of truth, the CTO has lost confidence in you. Not just a little bit. He has asked you to leave. The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your co-founder) has quite a bit of confidence in the CTO. If that is the case, I'm not quite sure you can come back from having the CTO asking you to leave, nor am I certain you should.

I think it would be advisable to talk to a lawyer to see how you can cleanly and professionally leave on your own terms. Save the emotional stuff for friends and your alone time. You will no doubt need to grieve (this was your baby). But I think it would be better for you to be proactive about leaving and professionally extract yourself from this situation. That said, make sure you know your rights and what your contracts entitled you to in such a situation.

Once extracted, take your hurt pride and prove them wrong.

[cantlookaway]

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

> The rest of my advice assumes the CEO (your co-founder) has quite a bit of confidence in the CTO.

This is the case, it is in my interest however to remain in the company because my equity is vested, the sooner I leave the less I will get in return, apart from my time, and opportunity cost I invested all my personal wealth.

[hoodoof]

You seem to think it matters what the CTO thinks of the co-founder.

[anigbrowl]

He's trying to fuck you over. Remind him that he works for you, not the other way around. Start looking for his replacement. Check with a lawyer about the security of your own stake and make sure you are good with the business guy, because the CTO has probably been whispering poison in his ear about you.

[rubyfan]

+1 he works for you. He's got you ready leave because you doubt your abilities. It's one thing if your company needs all rock star engineers to make a product push but if it was that I'm sure you'd see it that way. That's an opportunity for you to shift focus to something else but it just doesn't sound like that. It sounds like he's trying to get rid of a technical founder. Don't let him.

[karuneshkaushal]

> .. the CTO has probably been whispering poison in his ear about you.

This just has to be true.

[bradhe]

> He's trying to fuck you over.

Do you always assume people are full of malice based on one side of the story or...

[carbocation]

You have phrased this as an almost apologetic post, focusing on your ability to write code. An analogy to medicine might be worrying about your ability to take a good history and physical exam, but in the meanwhile the patient is bleeding in front of you.

The problem is not your ability to write code - the CTO even admits as much when he says he needs you now but wants to replace you later. Your code is desperately needed. But I don't really care about this.

Assuming a normal situation, the company is yours and your co-founder's (by ownership), and the CTO likely has a small amount of equity (relative to yours). In an early stage company that hasn't yet raised money, your company is basically an extension of yourself. You don't have responsibilities to shareholders or employees because you don't have either yet. You have a responsibility to yourself and your vision. The CTO did not found the company and that alone tells you that you have some amount of vision, ability, or ability to take advantage of chance that he did not have.

If you want to remain involved in the company, and it seems that you do and should, then you need to clarify for the CTO where the boundaries of his responsibilities lie. His job is not to ask you to quit, and he may be beyond the point where you can continue working with him (or not - I don't know enough detail). But if he is to continue working for you (and do recall that he works for you at your pleasure), he needs to focus on solutions that don't involve him trying to fire you.

Most founders don't end up coding very much after their companies grow, and the CTO may be hopeful to get more experienced programmers working for the company. But there are about 10,000 miles in between "we should hire people with deep experience in X" and "I want you to leave the company." The latter is a political gambit that needs to be dealt with after careful consideration in a way that shows teeth.

[gaoshan]

>You have phrased this as an almost apologetic post

And I bet this is why the CTO has taken the path that they have. They sense the same thing that we sense from the tone of this comment so they are going after that perceived weakness.

[jonsterling]

I don't know anything about business or founding a startup: but as an engineer in one, if you have hired a CTO who is better at engineering than you (kudos!) and he/she has asked you to stop writing production code, you should listen. Coding "for old times sake" is pretty damaging when a team of actually trained engineers has just got your old broken code-base under control and instituted better engineering practices. This is part of the typical startup lifecycle: the code that got you here isn't going to get you to the next place, and it's your job to find, hire and enable better engineers to get you to the next level.

But if he actually is asking you to leave the company? He can fuck himself. But seriously, if it is clear that you are hurting more than helping by writing code, please stop. Keep learning, and ease into contributing again slowly.

[cantlookaway]

> if you have hired a CTO who is better at engineering than you

He doesn't do development himself(he does review everything before it goes into the production branch), simply that he knows better developers than I.

I have re-written much of our original code to a point where it is of good quality, both in it's intended role and in readability.

I did have a habit of cutting corners which later came back to bite us but that is not the case anymore.

[Bluestrike2]

You need to hire an attorney, one who works in business litigation (if you can find someone specializing in minority shareholder disputes, that much the better). Right now. If you're delaying on this point out of some idea of wanting to "try to fix things first" or "not wanting to be the bad guy," you're just shooting yourself in the foot and downing blood thinners to keep the wound from clotting. Working with an attorney is not the same as filing suit, and you will never be worse off in this sort of situation for having sought outside counsel. You also need to find your own attorney; the company's counsel works for the company itself, not for any of its investors, executives, or employees.

Judging from your story, your situation is pretty clear: you're being squeezed-out. Sadly, it's not uncommon. Though he might not be asking you to leave right now, framing it as in a few months is just an effort to (i) get some additional benefit out of you, and (ii) give them the time they need to break you.

There are two possibilities right off the bat: (i) the CEO is involved, which is likely given the difficulty involved in squeezing-out a shareholder + 50% co-founder; (ii) the CTO is working alone, hoping to push you out the door and benefit in some way from the resulting vacuum. In either case, you can't move forward without speaking to an attorney. And don't you dare think for one second that you can "just talk to the CEO first."

Already, you're talking about things as an employee rather than an owner. That's your first mistake. An employee might be able to be kicked to the curb, but you're not just an employee. You've already made a significant investment into the company, and from their perspective, an ideal/successful squeeze-out is one that deprives you of that ownership interest entirely. Most of these efforts are successful because they manage to position the person being targeted in a position where they just roll over. Ideally, they force the person being squeezed out to choose to quit rather than actually be fired. It seems like that's the CTO's goal in your situation.

That said, there are few programmers, in my opinion, whose work is so bad that there is zero potential for future improvement. Considering the costs of pushing you out, you'd have to be doing a hell of a lot more than just writing shit code to justify termination. Given that they want to wait until after additional fundraising rounds are completed, I doubt that your involvement with the company is nearly so problematic. Besides, you already stated that there's been a clear improvement in your code.

I was in a similar situation, once. I was foolish, stupid, and trusted a friend I've known for years. I did the development work, partner A brought his business skills and industry contacts to the table along with his money (and a third partner, B, as well). Did the work, but during that time, there was no sight of their money. One of the earliest clues I was going to be screwed was, when discussing fundraising, A mentioned his own deferred pay. Something I thought slightly peculiar given that he was supposed to be investing his own, significant funds along with B. Plus, I don't believe that he actually did any measurable work during the time period that would justify it based on what I knew at the time. Investors are rightly finicky about deferred salaries, and the bar is pretty high to justify them.

When we were at the end, I found myself being squeezed-out: in the end, they apparently figured that it'd be cheaper to outsource to some ridiculous "startup in the box" type of company rather than deal with my deferred pay and the long-term consequences of a third founder's ownership interests) even though doing so would delay things by a couple of months. They even managed to time things well: the weekend of my grandmother's funeral, after A had been told about it, they dropped their little bomb on me. The only good thing was that they walked away without getting a single line of code that I'd written.

My parting was anything but on good terms. Eventually, I wound up not pursuing the matter in court--talking it over with my attorney, it became quite clear that the legal fees of fighting them would be ruinous. That partner C was a shyster of an attorney, and all evidence suggested that they'd just try to wait out the expensive clock rather than consider settling. After all, the cost of doing so would be pretty minimal. Litigation is uncertain and expensive. Painful though it may be, you never ever litigate on principle. Not if you have any brains at all.

Even though I would have likely prevailed given the facts, I would have come up horribly in the red when it was done. A pyrrhic victory and no more. Choosing not to go down that route was one of the harder decisions of my life, made all the more difficult by the knowledge that they had, quite literally, taken even my grandmother's funeral away from me.

Oddly enough, I'm probably better off for it now that I have some distance and perspective to look back. When they launched, it was unobserved and uneventful. Even now, they're unknown with almost no traffic and engagement. They've also made a number of bad mistakes that I had identified--often through trial and error--that I had told them about. It was a submarine rigged for silent running, deep and quiet, that's never bothered to surface for air. All of partner A's vaunted experience and extensive media contacts in the industry proved for naught in the end. Eventually, they'll simply wither and die on the vine. Had they not squeezed me out, no doubt I'd still be hanging on trying to turn things around. After all, who abandons a friend? It was quite the learning experience, albeit an incredibly expensive one.

Luckily, you can avoid that sort of experience by acting now to protect yourself. Document everything, save all of your emails, chat logs, download and archive all Github comments on everything that you've worked on, as well as everything else you can. Make sure that you're also grabbing copies of emails off any servers/accounts they might have access to. Even though it will create problems if there's any litigation, there's a high likelihood that they'll do something foolish such as delete them.

You have a lot going for you right now that'll help you. First, you're obviously still needed to help their raise funds. Second, investors are scared to death of founder disputes. If any potential investors even sniff the possibility, they'll run and never look back while your current investors will raise holy hell, even if the CEO+CTO were able to find some fig leaf of justification. It also implies a deviousness that will scare investors; if they're willing to screw a friend and risk such a serious dispute, then it's also possible that they'll wander into similar situations in the future. Particularly in the early stages, investors and VC firms don't have to put up with that sort of bullshit.

This gives you an absurd amount of leverage: you have the ability to single-handedly kill their fundraising efforts now and in the future. You need to call your attorney and start using it. At the very minimum, it'll put the breaks on any plans they're currently working on. At best, it'll help you move forward as a company without having these sorts of problems lurking about in the shadows.

[balls187]

This is your company. Not the CTO's.

It's time to have a frank discussion with your co-founder and decide what is best for you and for the company.

It may ultimately be best for you to step down, but it shouldn't ever be because of your technical abilities, and it shouldn't be because the CTO believes you should.

There are lots of things you can be doing, and the fact that you CAN code (even if it's not high level) is huge.

There is testing, blogging, social networking posts, Google Analytics, SEO/SEM, recruiting, buying office supplies, soda runs, customer outreach, marketing, more testing, design, investor outreach, product management, program management.

You have so much that you can do, that unless you are a liability (past convictions by the SEC), or so caustic that you are the direct cause for the companies failures, that you still have an important role at your company for many years to come.

And if you do stay, it's time to put the CTO on notice, the CTO works for you.

[nashequilibrium]

I really don't understand this story, most tech entrepreneurs with successful companies have to hire people better than them, mark zuckerberg, jack dorsey(especially the twitter guys), snapchat etc. You 2 guys are the founders and hired a CTO and the CTO is telling you to leave, imagine the CTO of snapchat telling Evan Spiegal who cannot code to leave, it just doesn't add up.

If i had to guess, your cofounder who is the business guy realizes that the CTO is a better coder than you and is trying to push you out and offer the CTO a better share of the company. You really need to stand up for yourself, do not limit yourself or feel inferior, i mean even Larry and Sergey had to get better programmers than them.

[thejosh]

"EDIT: He's not asking me to leave now, since I'm still desperately needed, but in 3-6 months time after we have raised more funding."

Means they do actually need you, the CTO is waiting for a payday before kicking you out for a higher stake. Tell the CTO to go stick it if they need you before funding but not after.

[Paddywack]

I had something like this happen to me (on a larger scale) - I folded, and regretted it for years.

Firstly - go straight to see a lawyer. Do not consider anything else before you have done this. Play hard, don't blink!

Secondly. If things don't go your way, play the long game and take your time. Make sure that they know that this will not be resolved quickly, and that having this hanging over them will frustrate their attempts to raise capital.

Behind the scenes this is what I think is going on:

1) The CTO is more experienced, and thinks he is entitled to more than you as a result (you seem to agree that you are relatively inexperienced). He cares little about loyalty and honour as he was not there to see you slogging it out in the early days.

2) What you have set up must be worthwhile and be starting to get valuable, otherwise you would not have attracted a "good" CTO.

3) My thoughts are this is part of the play to attract equity:

- They probably don't want to dilute too much, so would love to grab your shares back before the deal so that they can neaten things out for the new investor

- They probably want the new deal to include shares for the CTO. He is probably niggling for this, and the CEO would prefer to take yours than dilute his.

- They want to put forward a team that has the most value for fund raising. They want solid credentials, and probably feel that yours don't fit the bill.

Good luck hey!

[hoodoof]

What happened to you?

[geuis]

This is your company, not the CTO's. It's time to fire him.

The ability to code really doesn't have much to do in the long run to the company success. Of the two founders at the company I work for, both could code but one hasn't in a long time and the other only does on occasion. As the team has grown, their responsibilities have shifted. Yours will too.

[invalidOrTaken]

Fire him, or something. Unless you're some weird 1% founder and the CTO has a 10% stake, this is simply not his call to make. Even suggesting it is out of line.

Programmers get fucked all the time because they lack power in companies, even over things that aren't particularly their fault. You may fancy yourself as someone who is enlightened and listens to his employees. All well and good, but you are not obligated to participate in your own ousting.

You took a bunch of risk, did a ton of work, etc. This is the time to harvest that, not be obsessed with justice. He can start his own damn company if he's so smart.

[hansy]

Provided you're not writing anything that detrimentally impacts the product, there's no reason for you to leave. It's your company.

Now I say this not so you can sit back and let others do the hard work, but for you to figure out how else you can contribute. Every startup, hell every mature company, has issues to deal with on a daily basis. I would be very surprised if there wasn't something else you could be doing for the company.

Worst comes to worst, your job from here on out is to do the tasks nobody else wants to do. From a technical perspective that could mean things like sanitizing the database (if it needs it) or going back and writing some good tests for already-implemented code. From a business perspective, this could mean researching, scraping, generating leads to customers, users, etc. Hell, you can even be the glorified secretary by helping others manage their day-to-day tasks, schedules, appointments. Be the office janitor. Be the guy they send to campus events to talk to students.

If you can no longer contribute to the code for your product, that's OK. There's a million and one things you can do outside that realm to support the product as well as your teammates.

Of course you can always buckle down on your coding game and get better at it. Take online courses. If you (and your company) can afford the time and money, go to one of those schools that teach you to be a better programmer. Tell your CTO that you want to get better and want to learn from him/her.

Be the glue that holds everyone together. Be the swing man that can bounce from activity to activity and ensure everything is running smoothly. Be the founder who's relentlessly resourceful and continues to move the company forward in any shape or form.

[mefistofele]

This "enterprise grade" terminology is suspicious. Did this CTO come up with that as a way to sell his value?

Too often in our industry the word "enterprise" is a smokescreen. Did he bring some real value to the table in terms of what the customer is seeing, or just some basic good development practices sprinkled with magic "enterprise" fairy dust?

Regardless, I have to agree with the other commenters. This guy is not your friend, he is not being straight with you, and he is not looking out for your interests. He could be a massive sociopath asshole, or maybe just an aggressive alpha nerd who doesn't know how to deal with personal problems.

Make sure you're protected. Your equity and your relationship with your cofounder are the two most important things to get covered against this guy, in that order.

[tpae]

If you are a founder:

- Are you needed?

   - yes: then stay.

   - no: Do founders hate me?

     - yes: get the legal stuff ready, leave with compensation.

     - no: Do you have future plans for contribution?

       - yes: then get to work!

       - no: Do you like your job?

         - yes: then get back to work, make contributions.

         - no: then why are you asking this question?

I also think that having a CTO does not mean there can't be a technical founder. You can find other things to do, such as build product roadmaps, and with basic technical understanding, you could make positive contributions, not through lines of code, but through the bigger picture.

Reading your post sounds like you don't have self confidence, but you got to find your edge! It doesn't have to be coding. There's more to a startup than lines of code, and if you were there since Day 1, you've already done much more for the company than the CTO. Feel better about yourself, and take a pivot on your perspectives.

[marknutter]

Uh, you are a founder. Nobody asks you to leave. You took part of the risk to start the company, the new CTO did not. He does not get to tell you to leave. Ever. Period. I'm actually shocked that you're even considering it.

[the_cat_kittles]

It is REALLY stupid to tell someone you want them to leave in 3 months. Why not wait until three months have gone by? My totally uninformed guess is there is some kind of long game / ego thing at play besides just actually ability to contribute. Don't feel ashamed that you aren't the alpha tech. If you are trying your hardest, and especially as a cofounder, you would be more than welcome at any company I have ever worked at.

[jw2013]

> My question is, does he have a point?

No. He is making the wrong assumption here "that he wouldn't hire me if I wasn't already a founder and not what the company needs". First you ARE a founder- I genuinely do not believe you can't learn the knowledge you needed given how motivated you are. And you are learning. Second, he already admit you are what the company needs (at least during this 3-6 months), so why is he BS you to leave? He's mindset is so wrong for the startup world, just assuming things will take-off and by-then you are not needed anymore. You are desperately needed now; that makes you valuable. Your company probably can't make it to the next milestone in 3-6 months without you, at least it will take longer to hit milestones longer without you. You are valuable, and you feel for the company, just tell him that.

> Is this something that is common?

Yes, but not quite often at this early stage of a startup. I smell some politics of him. Do you two get along well besides tech issues in the company? Since he knows you are still desperately needed now, and he is still making BS about advising you to leave, I can only conclude he probably does not like you (not just in tech realms), and he clearly does not care about the success of the company as much as I do (the company still needs you to be successful at least at this stage of growth).

> Has he overstepped the boundaries?

First thing first, just learn things you need to know fast. You will know when you are making great contributions to the company, and you want that. Don't let your CTO stops you from that. At least when you are working, don't think about the issue with him and grow fast as a coder. I suggest a conversation with him off the work time. If I were you, I would like to know if he had issues with me beyond his doubt in my tech ability.

> It is in my interest however to remain in the company because my equity is vested, the sooner I leave the less I will get in return, apart from my time, and opportunity cost I invested all my personal wealth.

Did you have cliff in your equity vesting? If so have you past the cliff period? I really don't recommend you to leave before all your cliff equity are vested, otherwise you will get next to nothing. Manage to stay with your company at least in the cliff period. Your company wouldn't make this far without you, your company owes you that, and you know through what it should pay you off? Equity. So just manage to get the credit where credit is due.

---

May the best luck be with you.

[asabjorn]

I agree that it is a red flag that the CTO on one hand admits that the co-founder is valuable in the 3-6 months it takes to raise a round, and on the other hand asks him to leave after fundraising. At the very least this seems to indicate that the co-founder is essential for fundraising.

I want to stress that you as a co-founder should never let anyone talk you into staying with the company through fundraising and then leave. Telling an investor that a co-founder is leaving just after fundraising does not instill confidence, and planning to leave without telling prospective investors violates their trust. If you do this then you'll get a bad reputation with investors and it quite honestly makes you look like a bad person, so don't ever do that. If the cap-table needs to be redistributed and fixed up do the cleanup before the prospective in-laws come over (investors), as this kind of mess benefits no-one.

[nashequilibrium]

Is this not like you build a house, hire someone to live with you since they can build/extend this house even bigger, then they tell you to get out of your own house? I still don't understand how someone he hired can throw him out of his company?

[muyuu]

He's worried that the company may grow and he'd then have rights to a big chunk of equity as the cofounder.

I'd establish that first. What kind of obligations has the company with him? just a salary/contract? part of the ownership?

So yeah, the vesting is key.

It simply doesn't resound logical to me that they are talking about firing him while at the same time he's needed for some months. Sounds ridiculous that they wouldn't have any role for him in that case, even if not as lead dev.

Reeks like backstabbing politics, so par for the course in the startup world.

[headhuntermdk]

It's your company.. If your CTO is approaching you like that, send him packing with a pink slip. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

There is a hell of lot more to building a company than just code and if he can talk to you any way he wants to without any consequences, then you have truly lost.

As others have said, you are supposed to hire people better than you, but that doesn't mean you have to take shit from them either.

Bottom line is don't be a doormat and be prepared to put "boot to ass" if necessary.

Good luck