Long story short, I launched a tech startup with someone I knew from university, but as of right now, it’s dead in the water. Since he spent tens of thousands and even took out a HELOC to finance it, at one point he was actually contemplating on lying to VCs/angel investors by lying about the user growth in order to get enough capital to start getting paid.
When I tried calling him out on it, he basically made excuses by saying “all businesses are shady- look at Facebook selling our data”- as if that’s a legit excuse to lie to investors. And now it seems that he’s completely lost interest in the startup. In fact, I remember one instance when I remind him to pick up the slack, he said something along the lines of “I’m only motivated when we get subscribers- it’s hard to be motivated”. So I’m thinking on jumping ship and leaving completely because I am so tired of his abrasive and shady personality.
There’s more shady or toxic behavior (this Imgur link is another good example), but I think this covers most of it. What are your thoughts? What are some other red flags that you’ve noticed in people who are not good leaders at all?
