> But hiring and firing is a purely business decision. ... Its a job at the end of the day and he was let go.I have a serious beef with this mode of thinking. Nothing that you do to another human being is a "purely business decision." And from a practical perspective it's better, in the long run, for you too to be remembered as having owned your mistakes and done right by the people you wronged.
Of course, there is the line of thinking that, hey, this guy won't ever help me later, so I can screw him and skate. And that is entirely too common in startupland. But that speaks to the poor humanity of its thinker more than anything else.