Startup Leadership Dysfunction

There is a pattern and it has nothing to do with how hard the author worked or the CEO.> No one knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t explain why I was doing it when asked.> I had shut down. Even as we were meeting, I was obsessively thinking about the change> I literally paid zero attention. In my righteous anger I was unreachable.The common thread is communication; specifically the lack of it. These quotes are huge red flags.The CEO saw a problem and clearly communicate

All you need is HR... I'm a cynic. He got the funding so, which is a lot (as an achievement and in terms of mones raised). He just started to believe to be the genius not justbin raising money, but also is building product and organisation. He isn't and never was. What struck me so, even the adults hired to replace him, didn't have the courage to call him out. Hence his comeback in function if not title.Well, I'm happy to work with adults again, in a sane environmen

generally agree but the anecdotal evidence I heard from a former employee about the internal dysfunction has scared me away. apparently everyone in a leadership position has a rudimentary understanding of the products they build and is chasing off all the talent like Jim Keller who are forced to deliver the bad news that they’ve made a mess they cannot easily clean up without abandoning current initiatives and starting anew with more knowledgeable leadership

Basecamp made a questionable policy change, then the CEO started mass blocking everyone who said anything remotely critical of him no matter how kindly and politely they said it, then a third of the company took severance package offers. Paraphrasing one of the viral jokes: they hate when people take 30% from them, so it looks like they stepped back to rethink their actions.

Funny when you go on the mixpanel glassdoor, many of them talk quite negatively about this CEO (I believe he stepped down recently)Not to say the advice is bad

You're being downvoted because having a "product visionary" does not in any way protect your company from being owned. It happens. If your point is that previous leadership would have communicated the situation more clearly, then perhaps you have a point, but even then it's purely speculation and not particularly useful to the current discussion.

Talk about the organizational struggles at his previous company.

I couldn't disagree more.He worked for a company that was / is clearly floundering. He told them clearly that they needed to change things. And they ignored him. They labelled him a troublemaker.He tried to help the company, and they declined that help. He tried to push the company, and they ignored that as well. The way I see it, this is the demise of AOL in a nutshell.4 years old or not, this is a good story.

To add to comments. This story Is delusional for people knowing wolfram company. It is known that company has not performed well for a good while ... I guess this hackernews featured story is trying to reverse trends. If that was a strategy, people should start looking for new gigs. It is also notorious that his micromanaging style hasn’t appealed to many employees.

Get a grip on yourself!1) This could have been your experience at ANY startup and YC has nothing to do with this (you are just trolling their name).2) You said you steered the company in the right direction? That's just a matter of perspective.3) "The first person to go would be the business guy" - maybe they thought that a whiny child, that you are, was impacting their focus and productivity.