CEO revokes new employees' job contract, costs himself millions: 'He had a "bad feeling" about me'

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    CEO offered and then retracted a job offer, ended up costing him several million dollars in deals
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    Several months ago I found myself looking for a job. I brushed up my resume and began sending out like crazy, to companies as well as recruiters. By the end of the first week I had already scored my first interview, with Financial Startup.
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    The first interview with Financial Startup went well, and I got a callback asking to schedule a meeting with the CEO for the end of the week. At the end of the second interview the CEO made me an offer. Being entirely honest with him, I told him that while I was really interested in the position, a) the offer was less than I was expecting, as I had been told by
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    headhunters that I could be making more, and b) I had been to and had scheduled several other interviews and would like to at least play all my cards out before deciding. I was entirely upfront with him, didn't string him along, and it's important that you remember this fact.
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    At about 8:30 that night, the CEO called me and said they really wanted me, and that if I signed with them, I'd receive a raise as soon as they finished a funding round, nearly doubling my old salary. I agreed to this offer and asked him to send me the contract.
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    The contract was sent over on Monday, at which point the CEO told me he'd be flying overseas for some meetings and would be unavailable, we'd discuss any questions I had and sign when he got back. I had one or two questions about the contract, but nothing serious, and as soon as he got back to the country, he sent me the latest version of the
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    contract and I signed it. The next day I went to an office store to get it scanned and emailed to him, as my printer/scanner had died not long before. Not 30 minutes later, I got a call from the CEO, he told me that even though I had already sent him in the signed contract, he was choosing not to sign it, and he didn't want to hire me.
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    He had a "bad feeling" about me, he thought I wasn't being serious about the position, and that was that. I'm not ashamed to say that I almost begged him to reconsider. I spent 15 minutes or so trying to convince him that he was wrong, and that I was most definitely interested in the position, but he ended up sticking to his decision.
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    What really me off was that he and I were already discussing contracts, so I had stopped looking elsewhere, as I was sure I had something lined up. I spent the next 3-4 days just bummed out on the couch, I was seriously depressed. Eventually I got back into the groove, and ended up signing at my current position, which was
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    not only an improvement over my old place and Financial Startup, the salary blew them both out of the water. Just being able to bounce back and find something decent after the way he treated me could be considered "feel good revenge", but things inadvertently got so much better.
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    The company I work for now is a cross-industry provider. Basically, if you use computers or servers at your company, you can use our product. Because of this, we have contacts at most of Fortune 500 companies. Two weeks ago, I bought my sales and the customer success teams lunch, something I do every other week, because I want to
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    keep my boys happy. I told them my story and said that I'd love to stick it to the CEO somehow, but I didn't really have any way to. They saw me as a big step up from the previous manager (who was a *), so when they asked me for Financial Startup's name, I gave it to them. What I just found out at lunch today blew me out of the water. They approached
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    every single financial customer we had and mentioned that we'd had a "bad experience" with Financial Startup and were extremely unsatisfied with their behavior. Since we've had some of these customers for years, the relations were strong, and they took the sales/customer success guys at their word.
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    In the past two weeks, Financial Startup lost three major multi-year deals with large Fortune 500 companies, each in the seven-figure range. Next time, I'm taking them out to dinner instead of lunch, and dinner is going to include an open bar tab. I may not have planned this revenge, but they carried it out for me, and I owe them.
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    tl;dr - Applied for a position, CEO decided not to sign the contract he offered me. Told my teams at my new job, they screwed up several multi-million dollar deals for CEO (so far). Also, I know this sounds very conveniently r/thathappened, I have proof if the mods ask for it.
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    SkyFaller32. This is why you never ; off people in the corporate world. It's dog eat dog out there and he decided to throw his padding in the trash.
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    for2fly I know guys like CEO. He purposely played you because you had the audacity to not think his original offer was stellar. That's why he extended you a contract he had no intention of signing.
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    In his mind, you needed to be punished for your offense. Frankly, I doubt he was even out of the office. He just wanted to extend his mind- game a few days.
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    That "bad feeling" was a test to see if you could be manipulated further. If you had ended up working for him, he would have made your life . He would have been playing mind- games with you
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    for his own enjoyment. He would have constantly set you up for no-win situations.
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    [deleted] I don't know who said it, but it still stands true. "Be careful whose toes you step on today, they may be connected to the you have to kiss tomorrow."

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