Ask HN: How to deal with a low competence co-founder that you're stuck with

Oh boy.

Given she has graduated with a PhD, she likely isn't totally unmotivated, but possibly given her last year she is depressed and having a hard time putting everything into her work. When you point out what she could do better, she likely already knows it and is not so pissed at you but venting frustration. Hence, your a douche.

Sometimes people also feel the work isn't worthy of their abilities, which sadly I have found of a lot of highly educated but less experienced people. They sometimes don't respect that experience still is more about learning than a lecture is. Maybe she places value there, maybe not.

I'd honestly say regardless of any endowment etc. If you really want to be with her, then talk to her and find out how she is feeling outside of the work stuff. You mentioned you aren't the most sensitive, but if you open the communication you might find out she is frustrated and struggling internally more than you realize/understand. Then ask her if she feels this is something she wants to do or not, that you can understand if she wants to take a step back and find something else because maybe she isn't 100% into what you are doing. You are allowing her to take control here of her destiny without you being a douche. If she says she really wants to stay in and be apart of it, then you ask her, how can you better approach her when your vision is different than hers on writing or whatever. Again, you are putting her in a position to help you which will let her feel valued and bring out some of her natural instincts.

Years of marriage I guess does come in handy here. Good luck!

I had a reply written but after reading yours just deleted it! Great suggestion, A+ in diplomacy and persuasion. Hat tip to your years of marriage. ;D

I sincerely hope that this post is an awful joke, because the way in which you're talking about your girlfriend is appalling. If this isn't a troll, then it sounds to me like your girlfriend agreed to be a part of your project because she loves you, not because she has some burning desire to [do whatever your startup does]. If that's the case, then no management technique is going to inspire her - she's doing it for you, not for the startup.

To further this point, it might not be the end of your relationship if you encourage her to seek meaningful employment in whatever expertise she has from her PHD. It doesn't sound like she's as interested as you think she is in your start-up.

She's your girlfriend, not your employee. If you want to treat her like an employee, you better start paying her. Otherwise she's doing you a huge favor helping you (not the other way around) and you should treat her with respect and gratitude. And oh boy, when she finds this on HN you can say goodbye to your big endowment.

I can see where you go with that 'not the most sensitive guy in the world'. I raise you with 'possibly the least sensitive guy in the world', and here's why:

1. You say she has a PhD but has not been able to find meaningful work. In other words, she's unemployed and highly educated, which can be humiliating, depressing, downright increasing one's feeling of worthlessness. Judging by your attitude, you don't get this. You really don't get how hard it might be for her right now. And you should.

2. You could use things for your up-and-coming venture, so you have talked her into being those things? Did you ask her if those things are what she really wants to do or are you just putting pressure on her to 'do her share' or, Deity forbid, 'at least do something' for you? Talk to her. Find out what she's good at. And if it's not 100% what you are wishing to pull out of that top hat... suck it up. Life's unpredictable and your viewpoint should flex with it.

3. Only a douche would stay with a significant other just for an endowment that could possibly benefit them. Read it and weep. Get real with your relationship or set her free. She deserves to be with someone who values her for who she is and what she does rather than as an emergency money bag. The latter is just pure offensive.

4. You're not supporting her. You're bringing her down. Wake up call incoming, one would genuinely hope...

>Cutting her off would basically mean the end of the relationship, and I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.

>she has a respectable endowment

>So HN, how would you deal with someone that has a bad attitude, lacks pride of ownership and quickly gets defensive? What management strategies would you use to reach this person, get them more invested, and help bring out their passion?

It sounds to me like your little startup is more important to you than her. Also: getting real life relationship advice from strangers over the internet is either a huge miss or hit.

This is why you (try to) keep business/personal separate. Money changes (some) people.

"What management strategies would you use to reach this person, get them more invested, and help bring out their passion?"

Consider for a moment that your startup (or any startup) is genuinely not her passion. Otherwise, she would have been working at a startup already.

This situation is obviously a strain on your relationship & I would strongly advise that you stop trying to force it continuing. Be honest with each other, perhaps this isn't what is best for her career, for your business and for your relationship with each other.

Some things can't be fixed and harm has been done, this seems to be one of them. If this ends your relationship, you might wonder how good it already was.

Wow, just, wow. She's completely correct to call you a douchebag. How anyone could read what you've just written and not come to that conclusion?

She's basically an investor in your startup at this point with the "endowment". Also, she has a PhD. Also, she's your girlfriend. Show a little respect. Douchebag.

For that matter, how is it you're supporting her? Sounds like she is supporting you.

> I feel like she might as well be productive, and since we co-habitate I'm basically already supporting her.

Does she feel that way? Or does she feel like she's unemployed and, however much she might like you, if she has an argument with you she's going to be homeless? Power disparities get people to do things they're not really into and tend to stifle their ability to speak freely about it.

> So HN, how would you deal with someone that has a bad attitude, lacks pride of ownership and quickly gets defensive?

Fire them. I like to talk to people to find out whether it's something that's external - maybe they've got a lot of stress going on at the moment, maybe there's some issue about the environment and we can move them to a different part of the building, maybe they started for one job and ended up doing another and we can find a place in the company where they can be productive, maybe they just hate meetings and would prefer to get a digest of the meeting by email... but if all that sort of thing fails? If there are serious problems with someone's attitude, that aren't being fixed by going 'when you say X I feel like Y,' or 'when you do X it has Y effect' ... that's something for them to address with a therapist. At the end of the day, I'm your boss, not your mother.

That needn't be a bad thing, it could just be you sitting down and going 'I don't feel like you're particularly invested in this, like you might rather be doing something else, and if we go ahead with it it's going to be a lot of stress. I want to share this with you but only if you feel like you're actually interested in learning this stuff. If you're not, then I'm okay with that - I want you to be happy. But we need to talk about it, because I'm quite serious about making this project work.'

If she still insists that she's interested and doesn't take kindly to hearing about the quality of her work after that, then you can be more blunt. 'You said you were interested in this sort of stuff and now you're saying it's not worth your bother. What's going on?'

I do think you're going to end up in a position where you're firing her if it really is a personality mismatch between the work and her. You can fix a lot of problems in someone's work, but I've never seen someone fix an attitude to get someone who's not invested in their work invested. I've seen them provide environments that better suit the person, tasks that better suit the person, even provide examples of good attitude and a guiding word here and there... never seen someone change someone just not being interested in something though.

In extremely blunt condensed form? My feeling is that you can have a girlfriend or you can have an employee, but you can't treat your employees like your girlfriends or your girlfriends like your employees without a significant trade-off being involved. Companies aren't counselling services for their workers.