How hard is it for a founder to get a new job if their startup fails? Hard as in working a 9-5 job as compared to leading a popular company previously. Do you think the interviews judge them or their ego lets them work?

Think of it as not a failure, but as a learning opportunity. The founder (in most cases) does not drive the startup to crash. And it's not that the startup failure that makes people judge the founder. It's all about the mindset and how the founder owns the narrative.

Very very hard.. unless you have contacts or your startup life is less than 1 year.

It would be challenging. Besides ego, they might not feel the passion and connection they most likely had with their own startup, loss of control in ownership and decision making can be hurtful.

But, it all comes down to mindset and willpower. If the person wants to rejoin 9-5 workforce with a mindset that he/she is accepting defeat, anything and everything around would feel offensive (even if others didn’t intend it that way) and mundane.

If taken in a positive spirit, one can learn from experience and either take a break temporarily and bounce back or to share one’s expertise with another awesome company and being valuable part of it.

Interviewers in this case are likely to judge the candidate based on his/her past achievements, social image and professional network all put together. (Eg: Say the person has an elite educational background like IIT, IIM etc, they won’t be quick to judge because there is a presumption of excellence. On the other hand, if it’s a grad student with a normal college degree who founded his company and it crashed shortly, in this case he/she might be judged massively.)

Regardless, all that matters is how one introduces oneself, skill set that he/she offers to the new company and makes the best but honest narrative of unfortunate experiences.

So it’s happened to me ; I work in the hospitality space , hotels and about 1.5 years back started an asset management company as a founder ; however due to the investors not keeping their part of the bargain ended up looking out for the same rank and pay (GM) of a hotel in the multinational , branded space ; no go …. See hotels in India have a tough class system ; Five Star Deluxe, Five Star , upmarket four star , three star and down the line to the time share space and anytime you move you should not move down the chain …. Anyway, Crux of the matter was that I did not get anything , however due to networking and having a great equation with my last multi national branded hotels owner , have got the position of heading his hotel vertical head of ops …. So there it is …. Raw and bleeding …. Though frankly speaking this role has more meat than what I would be doing as a GM of one property ……

Not hard. Much easier to get hired for leadership roles actually. Plenty of real world examples on linkedin. Look at the profiles of younger folks at leadership roles at startups - you will find a failed startup (1-3 years) there. Beyond 3 years startups don’t really ‘fail’ - some form of buyout or acquisition happens (eg even nestaway sold for 10mn after raising 90mn)

I’ve worked with plenty of folks with a failed startup. At junior levels they become PMs or EM/architects, founders office, At higher levels - heads of a vertical. Much higher levels- Exit to a VC firm role