CTO, VP of Engineering and CEO (again)
I found the discussion very interesting. My situation is slightly different - I'm the Founder and CTO of a six-year old company, with no CEO initially. We then brought on a CEO, who then brought on a VP of Eng. & VP of Marketing. These hires were with my active participation and involvement. For the first two years, I worked with the VP of Eng., and along the way, discovered many gaps in day-to-day execution, the result of which I was also "half" VP of Eng. It was very awkward, because the VP of Eng. was essentially the CEO's pick, and the VP of Eng. had a free ride with me doing the work and him taking the credit. However, it turned out that the key folks reporting to the VP of Eng. saw through this, the CEO could not keep propping up the VP of Eng. and the VP of Eng. was forced out. Of course, I am pretty sure that the CEO, to this day, keeps thinking that I caused the VP of Eng. to be dysfunctional and forced him out, even though the board and the rest of the company knows fully well that that was not the case, and that it was more important for me, as a founder and a large shareholder, I had a stake in the VP of Eng. success. In any case, we went through another VP of Eng., and after two more years, he was also out, this time he could not work with the CEO. Eventually, the third VP of Eng was brought on, but for him to be successful, myself and the rest of the exec team have to walk extremely carefully, and back off any questioning of his work, and the engineering team is increasingly isolated from the rest of the organization. Moreover, given the prior history, my relationship with the CEO is very delicate, with me having to play a much less reduced role. He tends to brush off any suggestion from the CTO as not sound business sense, and any suggestion, even when constructive, becomes a negative comment on the work of others. Given my position in the company, the stake in its success, I cannot quit. Naturally, working in this environment can be difficult, since there is really no one who is there to offer support for me. Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to proceed?