So, given the recent OpenAI shinanigans, I thought it might be a good opportunity to pass on some knowledge. You need to have a plan for managing your board of directors.
I believe that my board should absolutely be able to fire my ass if I go batshit insane and start collecting my urine in jars and making antisemitic comments on twitter. But, I want it to be a unanimous decision, not a one man coup.
To enable this legally as the chairman/ceo of a Delaware-C, you are able to alter your voting bylaws. I was advised to plan for a board of 5 members, me and my co-founder and 3 external members. This is solid advice. The trick is to assign, via bylaws, extra votes to specific board roles. I, as chairman get 3 votes, cofounder gets 2, and the other 3 get one vote each.
So, I can be convinced by the board using facts and logic to do something and when I’m obviously wrong, i can be unanimously overruled.
This openai rediculous ouster is exactly the type of situation I was concerned about when I proposed the idea. I’m 100% transparent about this and it seems to act as a great filter. Our lead outside board director is absolutely outstanding.
Zuckerberg had built in something similar since the start. of Facebook on the guidance of shawn parker who’d been fired by his board. The problem as noted is that VCs investing will flag this as it differs from the standard arrangement. In that case, you can 1) find capital friendly to you that doesn’t mind (difficult fund raising environment currently) and/or be oversubscribed with your rounds bc your product/growth is so big the investors don’t make it an issue.