Compiling a couple of ways people can understand a toxic founder from a distance, before they start working with them actively I've now met with a lot of them over the last couple of years, here are the ones that stand out the most to me:
Narcissism: They'll love to have fame through random things. Stuff like Forbes 30u30 or some random award. Even if it means nothing. They'll show how great business is doing on social media, even when it may be nosediving. You'll never know things are messed up on the inside.
Masochism: They're super likely to enjoy pain: be it messed up working hours, or bad health, or just really hard times. This almost allows them to thrive during adversity. This is usually coupled with sadism, they'll typically love that they can take pain well, but you cannot.
Overemphasize on the carrot: In your first couple of meetings with them, once they like you, they will over emphasize on the benefits you will have if you work with them. They'll keep repeating how your career could skyrocket, or how you could be a star in other ways. This is also a typical red flag.
These are just 3 of the ones that I feel summarize what I have seen in known toxic founders. Happy to debate/know more if somebody else has had the lovely experience too :D
When they normalize abuse/bullying/harrassment by saying - 'We are family'.
This thread should blow up.
Haven't experienced 1 but man I can second you on 2 and 3.
So if a founder asked me to do unpaid overtime to complete a task which was extremely urgent and needed to go out that day itself and they just thought about it an hour before the end of working hours and I sit and complete it only to find out it never got out, they just discarded it. Then after the weekend on a day I took a leave(applied and informed 1 month in advance because I had to travel) I get calls and texts from them in the morning that the same thing needs to be done again because they just decided to change everything and the unpaid overtime I did on a saturday was worth nothing.
They were very adamant about me having to do it today only, on my day off. But when I asked them to assign it to someone else, immediately it wasn't so important and can be done tomorrow as well because it needs to go out tomorrow anyways.
Would you consider this toxic or am I the problem?
Remove people from Townhall meet because there camera is not switched on.
Do an app revamp because he gets cognitive overload, and not users.
Forces decisions without an objective measurement for outcome.
Guess, who!
Something as a founder I have decided over the years. Everywhere around you, you hear stories of founders who worked 16-18 hours a day, made their team work as hard, were assholes, shouted at people, made people cry.
You start to thi...
Your true test will come when investor pressure arrives at your doorstep.
Startup founders who are trying to turn influencers are always trying to paint themselves as champions and superbeings while the real truth about being a Founder is that one always feels vulnerable. Is this behaviour by startup founders ...
