Ask HN: Co-founder running company to the ground. What can I do?
Background: I am the CTO, co-founder and sole inventor of a very promising technology company (&lt;25 people) and have $1b opportunity, seriously!) . I now have a minority stake (25%) in this company, after my original co-founder was bought out by an angel investor who put in almost $1M and is now the CEO.<p>The problem is he is a big jerk (one customers&#x27; words not mine) and is running the company into the ground, because of his ego and imperious&#x2F;dictatorial personality. This is narcissistic personality disorder to the nth degree. Customers - who are super eager to work with us - offline mention to me that how &quot;difficult&quot; he is to work with, I am very concerned we are headed for complete disaster.<p>I have tried talking to him to step away, mildly and couple of times confrontational. It has only led to yelling matches and strained our relationship and I am at a loss what to do.
I have even tried to ask him to sell his stakes to me so he gets his $ back - no avail.<p>I know since the CEO invested and technically owns the &quot;IP&quot; (which is a nebulous term), is essentially algorithms which we developed over last few years. Can I quit, legally &quot;hand over&quot; the code-base, repositories, computers etc. i.e. fulfil my legal obligations. Following that rewrite the algorithms from scratch as separate entity? Would that be violating the law?<p>p.s. I am talking to an attorney and seeking legal advice. But would like to hear similar experiences<p>p.p.s. We have filed for patents, but those won&#x27;t be examined until 2018 or so...As with many complex systems, can be challenged in court as being public domain vs proprietary - some components use public domain algorithms.<p>Thanks so much in advance!