Letters to the Editor
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Take the boss along with you...
Obvious solution: ask your friend if there is a place for your current boss at the new company. If he is so great and the new company is poised for growth, they should jump at the chance of bringing him on board!
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Charity begins at home.
LW, you're conscientious, kind and caring, but charity begins at home. Here is a lesson I learned from an emergency responder: your first obligation is to your own safety. If the building is on fire and toxic fumes are spewing out and tons of rubble are falling, then run away. IT IS NOT YOUR EMERGENCY.
Think about it. You can't help others if you yourself need help. Take care of yourself. If that means jumping ships, do it. When you are secure, you can help others. If you are drowning, don't pass up the lifeboat.
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Loyalty
As we like to say here in Silicon Valley...if you want loyalty buy a dog.
Don't make the mistake of assuming your work relationships are real. Corporations do not have hearts and feelings - they focus on the bottom line - as should you. Your boss may be a great guy - but he is a lousy business person if he can't figure out how to make a saleable product. Emotional intelligence does not equal business smarts. The fact that this flailing business is so dependable on you is also a sign of his poor business acumen. A VC once told me that given a choice between investing in a company with great technology and mediocre managers or a company with mediocre technology and great managers, they would always pick the great managers. You have neither. Run while you can.
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Cary, I love you, but...
...you gotta be clearer about what you're actually advising him to do. If the answer is to leave, trusting that the market will correctly assess whether the guy's company has something of value, then just say so. Don't make him feel so guilty about saving his own neck.
Every time you leave a job of your own accord you will necessarily create some havoc. As a general rule the havoc created increases with your importance of what you've been doing, and the importance of what you've been doing increases as the company goes further and further down the tubes. By my reckoning, the worse a job is, the harder it will be to leave it on pleasant terms.
Yet jobs sometimes have to be left. This company will manage, or perhaps it will fold and the principals will go on to other things, sadder but wiser. Either way, the author really has to leave.
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A cautionary tale
I did this. I was working for a very small company - there were 8 of us. The company was really cool, everyone was nice to me, the product was fascinating, I was doing interesting work and I was well paid, blah blah blah. Everything was hunky-dory.
Then, things started to go sour. The CEO, apologetically, announced to us that he would have to cut our salaries while he looked for other investors. First, the salaries were cut in half. Then, they were cut to minimum wage. A few people left at that point, but I hung on. Everyone was so nice to me, and I was a loyal person. I took on a side job to make ends meet - started a small business. Everyone patted me on the back for my loyalty, and told me how the business just couldn't function without me.
Then, they stopped paying us altogether. The CEO came by my cube and asked me to sign a paper that would mean that I would be paid in stock rather than money. He asked so nicely; he was so charming and pleasant; he spoke in glowing terms about the company's future; he praised me to the skies; I signed. I took on more clients in my small business and was essentially working two jobs, which still didn't pay enough for me to survive on. My mortgage was no longer affordable; I decided to sell my condo, but couldn't sell it. I went through my savings and started getting into credit-card debt; I was one month's mortgage away from foreclosure by the time it finally sold.
They laid me off while I was on vacation, visiting my parents. Called me at my parents' house and told me that I didn't need to come back to work. It was only later that I found out that all the time that I was accumulating credit-card debt, despairing, and living on rice and beans, the CEO was stealing from the company. I was told numerous stories about what was really going on, all of them fishy - one was that the CEO stole millions of dollars and fled to Thailand; the other was that they were all (except me) in cahoots and all stole the money. I no longer cared whether any of this was true. I was busy ramping up my burgeoning business and paying off my credit cards. I am still self-employed, and wouldn't work for anyone else for any kind of money.
The reason people work is because they get paid. If you are not getting paid, or if you think that the company is likely to not pay you at some point, run for your life. I was lucky. Things could have been much worse.
When you think about company loyalty, think about this: is the company going to have any loyalty to you?
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Run, Don't Walk
Look, I've been there and done that and let me tell you: You have got to look out for yourself. Loyalty does not meen diddly when you are out of work and missed a great opportunity.
If the company is on its last legs, your leaving will be a signal, might start the stampeed and you can save a few othres lives.
I've stayed around to the end, was the last person out the door turning off the lights, and know what it is like to miss out on something good due to misplaced loyality.
Run, Don't Walk.
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Ummm, how about telling your boss what you're thinking?
I have fallen into this trap so many times. We fuss and fume and wring our hands, make lists "pro" and "con," decide what's more important to us (friends, family, commute, loyalty, cool new technology, money, work hours)...and then decide and then and only then we tell those affected.
Why not tell your boss everything you've written to Cary about? You can explain the situation. Chances are that he knows the products aren't doing that well, that good talent is being recruiting by other folks, etc....
By discussing with him your situation and concerns, you just might find a third way, or discover some other truth about yourself, a truth which might remain hidden if you dwell and decide in solitude.
I know why you don't talk to the boss. For the same reason I haven't in the past.
Because we are afraid of having to share our decisions and losing our power. All is really means is that you have to defend your decisions and thinking in real-time, instead of after the fact.
Well, Bucko, one way or another, the ship you're on is going down and to paraphrase Preserved Killick, "It's time to get back to barky, because this one is sinking...."
Talk to him....