How I destroyed my startup

Unfortunately, the story focuses only on the girl. I would have liked to read about the actual experiences of doing business in China. He just glosses over the fact that their programmer was fired. Also, is his co-founder Chinese? I think that would have been relevant to mention.

Small offices are no places for dramas. A bit different in large organisations where you are in different departments/buildings. Still a very tight rope to walk though.

This quote struck me because it's a surefire sign that a project is probably going to fail. Every time I've seen people holding a project hostage by threatening to withhold their skills, those projects have either ended in failure, or even when successful, the people on the projects had very low morale.

In my experience, it's very important to create a culture where people do not use unique skills to hold a company hostage. For instance, a designer should be willing to implement a design that is (to her) sub-optimal from a design perspective, e.g. when A/B tests indicate that this design generates more money.

[edit]: hey why the downvote? go read the story and you'll see why.