HN Explorer

Ask HN: Have you ever had a founder quit or had to fire one?

2 points by pwnstigator ↗ HN
What advice would you have for someone who's in this position?

News delivered Tuesday. Haven't heard from him since then.

He wrote a critical piece of code that is difficult to understand. Losing him is a major setback.

There were 5 of us; now 4.

3 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 13.6 ms ] thread
Saavedro
Unless the code is difficult to understand because of what it actually -does-, rewrite it and move on. You'll be better for it in the long run with people who write understandable code.

At least you didn't have one founder quit, then wind up having to fire the other (woo, Apple).

pwnstigator
It's a mixture of both. The code is complicated, and written in an incomprehensible way (not documented).

He's great at producing code fast, but he's poor at architecture/design and that slows us all down in the long run. However, since we're looking to launch soon, technical debt is not a high-order concern compared to the success of the imminent launch.

johnl
Ask the others if you can contact him to document the code.