Overworked startup employee gets ghosted by boss for weeks and then suddenly fired and blamed for the business's failures: 'They're using you as a scapegoat'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jul 18, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Startup culture isn't exactly for the faint of heart. Most folks who have started out in that world know all too well that when you make the commitment to work at a startup, you're already taking a risk. You are agreeing to spend far too many hours a week working and potentially taking on responsibilities that should, in theory, be shared by an entire team of people. What you are also agreeing to is the strong possibility that the business is going to run out of funding and that it will fail to get off the ground. 

It's a common reality that everyone who works in that small universe is likely to experience the effects of, at least tangentially, at some point in their professional careers. Unfortunately for this author, who joined his startup toward the very beginning of the business's gestation period as the company's third employee, he was also dealing with a flaky and manipulative CEO on top of all those other risks. 

Essentially, once the business started to be in jeopardy, the employee's boss disappeared and ghosted him for weeks on end. Clearly, that's not the type of leadership strategy that boosts morale or inspires confidence. When he resurfaced, the inevitable happened, although the CEO tried to frame the business's failures as a result of the author's actions. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10530843648
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • The way in which the CEO handled the downfall of his own startup just goes to show that a lot of people think they want to start a business but completely lack the leadership skills to be able to sustain one. If this dude wants to lead a company again in his career, he needs to take away some key lessons from this experience. One of these significant takeaways should be about the importance of assuming responsibility. After all, wouldn't you want your employees to do the same?

  • 02

    "I got FIRED - They asked me to give my 100% at the end"

    I got hired by a startup in the US as a founding engineer. I have 3 years of experience building powered applications and have built more than 10 applications so far.
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  • 03
    They reached out to me on upwork for a task. I did it for them. They were happy. Offered me a full time contract. I joined.
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  • 04
    Now, we were just 3 people at the company. Me + the other 2 founders. They both had their own full time jobs as well.
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  • 05
    They had 1 client which was pretty active in the first 3 months. Then, things slowed down.
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  • 06
    The founder that was in contact with me daily (we had a scheduled meeting every day of the week) disappeared. He literally ghosted me out. I still
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  • 07
    joined the scheduled meeting everyday hoping he would join. Reached out to him on DMs and in the server but no response.
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  • 08
    I was still being paid though (which made me even more guilty)
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  • 09
    1 month later he appeared again and seemed to be a completely different person.
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  • 10
    He was super demotivated. Didn't want to talk to me about anything. Not interested to listed to anything I said.
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  • 11
    The 2nd founder now started having conversations with me. He asked me to worked on a couple of things. I did and provided updated.
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  • 12
    Now after 6 whole months, the 1st founder comes in a meeting with me and says that this isn't working. We don't know where we are going. I don't think we should continue and just ends it all.
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  • 13
    1 week ago, he asked me to remove the other company I was a part of (I have stocks in that company) from my linkedin. profile. And now he is ending it all? And on top of that he told me
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  • 14
    that I didn't do enough and the trust he had on me in the trust has disappeared. He also told me that he can't refer me to any other company that he knows because the bar is too high and I won't be able to survive..
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  • 15
    PROOF To Db IN P Done -MVP-C today Backlig
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 16
    The contract ends on 15th, and we had this meeting on 2nd. He said we will continue until 15th and we expect you to give your 100% (I have no idea to what? and I am not sure how I was supposed to give my 100% alone?)
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  • 17
    Well, I did my best in the last 2 weeks and created them a complete web app using which they can scrape companies and create a database
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    of it. Research each company and get the information they want for each company. This was an idea of the 2nd founder though.
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  • 19
    I still don't get how I was the bad person here? I really had no bad intentions to anything.
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  • 20
    nocturnald3sign · Sounds like you're having this guys failures projected on to you. You know the old saying "misery loves company"?
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  • 21
    He isn't going to give you a referral/reference, so why give anything else? What is he going to do, fire you?
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  • 22
    tremegorn . Fundamentally, jobs are just business transactions; it's good to care about the work, but not to your own detriment. You still have bills to pay. I wouldn't lose too much sleep over this. And definitely keep your past jobs on linkedin.
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  • 23
    Accomplished_Em.... Nah 100% if they let me know i was getting fired in two weeks they would have gotten 10% if they lucky.
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  • 24
    tfresca ⚫ Fulfill your contract and move on maybe reach out to the other founder. Seems like a sh show to me. Most start ups fail for a reason.
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  • 25
    Ok-Standard6345. They're using you as a scapegoat. Their business failed and they blamed you for it, even though it was their company.
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workplace-stories startup employee fired work stories toxic-workplace job work ghosted overworked-employees Horrible Bosses company toxic-work-environment
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