Thanks for your response.
It's not that he's proven capable in the past or not. It's the future (with a new set of investors and new set of obstacles).
Everyone wants to win at whatever cost. If I knew that I was not the best CEO for this job and someone else could do it better, I would step down.
What we're dealing with is that the inefficiencies that we faced in the past were overcome with harder work but everyone is working hard (and i'm not the one to complain about hard work - i can confidently say that i've worked ridiculous hours in investment banking and private equity and never complained once).
what i don't want is a scenario where he and someone else can do it better together or worst case scenario he knows that someone else can do it better here if he was to play a supporting role; it's not at all about the concept of loyalty, but rather the concept of putting the team in the best possible position to succeed. (i'd be willing to give up my equity share to make that happen - wouldn't dilute him at all). that's how much i work for the team because at the end of the day, i have no startup if i don't have my team with me even though my background alone could probably raise the money.
he's been proven capable on a limited basis thus far. website for my business is one thing. complex mobile and managing both parts is something we have to go through together because we've never done it together before. one thing i know is that just because people are very skilled at what they do doesn't mean that they are skilled at managing multiple projects, people, expectations at the same time.
do I want to run a startup from 9am - midnight and then from midnight get on a skype chat with him for 3 hours a night 7 days a week for the next 2 years when i know that if i had another tech cofounder or a cto here next to me that would not be the case? what is the reduction in probability of the team's success due to my lack of sleep, my stress, leading to my inability to properly navigate all facets of the business? this isn't a one feature SaaS business. this is a complex platform from a business/concept level.
he knows that it's less efficient and less than ideal scenario to be overseas. that's why he wants to come here in the first place.
investors are also not telling me to replace a critical member who 100% knows the codebase and how to scale this thing. they're simply saying is he in the best position to lead or at the minimum, asking me, do i think he needs someone else to fortify the tech development team so that development is not the bottle neck when marketing is the name of this game.