Our CTO is classic big-fish-small-pond smartest-guy-in-the-room material. Half out tech team have better resumes than him and at least a few of them have the same level of “soft” skills. I tried to like him, but have really started hating him.
7 answers from the community
Been there exactly. Waited too long to fire the CTO and it became a disaster. Took us nearly a year to recover. Fire fast. #noassholerule
Was your CTO a founder or a founder-like ?
Did he take risks just like you (no or small wage) ?
Has he got equities ?
Is the CTO a founder or a hire? Completely different worlds.
If they're a founder then get out now, if founders are bad they kill the startup.
My father once told me that people start businesses because they think that they are smarter than their bosses. Most of us think we're smarter than our bosses or coworkers but that doesn't make it so.
We don't have to like everyone with whom we work, nor respect them, what is he doing that is leading to the companies failure? Really. Objectively, is he destroying the company or just not doing what you would do.
If he's destroying the company, then go to your boss, or the CEO or the right person and indirectly ask questions about why things aren't working.
Not satisfied.... find another opportunity.
OP here. It's not clear to me that our CTO is "destroying" the company, but he has been problematic to the point that development and engineering has largely started reporting to our COO. He's very smart and confident, but he's not particularly capable. Sadly, we'd have a rough time finding a replacement because we're not well-connected to any technical hubs and we're based in flyover country.
I'm actively looking to get out of the company (and for that matter, fucking relocating). It's a wreck.
OP again. Forgot to mention that he isn't going anywhere--he's actively cultivated a relationship with the two people who could unseat him (more or less by wowing them with tech world buzzwords). It's unclear to me why he wants to stick around our small potatoes shop, but motivations can be complicated I suppose.