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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

I would just quit, life is too short, and there are endless startups that could use someone as driven and productive as you say you are.

If you still want to stay, negotiate far more equity, like 4x what you have. If you have a 1 or 2% I’m sure they could go up to 5% once they realize you are serious about leaving. Then you can feel better about carrying dead weight.

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Seconded. The founder has said he can't lose any more people...

Use that to your advantage and negotiate a higher stake in the company (unless you think the company is doomed with this other guy, then maybe negotiate a higher salary and just cash the checks until the ship sinks).

Either way, if the founder can't possibly lose any more developers, then have him make it worth your while to stay.

I would walk away too. I'm in a similar situation, however not quite as bad, as there's 1 out of 10 engineers that is seriously underperforming, and a few others that are just average. The biggest problem though is that management won't do anything about it, even though they keep saying they are/will. It's been over a year now, and I've lost faith in mgmt and their ability to make the right decisions for the business in general. Not sure extra compensation will help you, I know it wouldn't make things better for me.

Totally agree about trying to get a better deal if you're going to stay. I would be pissed if I found out the other engineer had more equity than me and I was basically doing all the work. If you get more equity, then you can feel you're getting fairly compensated for your part in building the startup and who care what the other engineer does or what happens.

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