A professor told us at the start of grad school that the secret to success was to be "humble, gracious, and hard-working". I see only one of those three qualities in the author.

Here we have a CEO that refuses to step down to keep the company together, that gets two votes in group decisions while his partners gets one, and that places all the blame for failure on his cofounders when things go south. The arrogance approaches the comical, it becomes more and more outrageous as one reads along.

What is the first lesson he learned? "Getting the team right". You see, he had a bad TEAM. That explains the company failure. Yep. Not him. Nothing to do with the guy that chased away perfectly competent people that wanted to work with him. Nothing to do with the guy IN CHARGE.

Leadership is a two way street. You can't have control without responsibility! I don't think there is any team that wants to work with that kind of leader. You will never "get the team right" if you see your position that way!

His second "lesson learned" is to connect with people, and by "people" he means networking with potential investors, advisors, other businessmen, etc. Yet he never connected with his own teammates!

Next, he finally finds fault in his own leadership. You see, he is too much of a consensus seeker so he can't get things done quick enough! Obviously, he places too much trust in his cofounders. THAT is what he believes his problem is.

Then there's this little gem: "Then I decided not to take Paul Graham’s advice to make the other partner our CEO for the sake of civility (a decision I stand by fully), which effectively ended the company." You would rather your company fail than not be in charge? What kind of leader is that? You still stand by the decision that killed the company? What does that say about you?

Good leaders are famous for taking credit for failure, even when it is not entirely their fault. They also DON'T take credit for success. They let others give the credit to them unbidden. That's what causes their subordinates to at first respect them, and eventually love them.

Dear author: does that sound like you?

I'm sorry if I'm a little harsh; as I read this it is blowing my mind a little more with every paragraph.