This is probably a long story but here I go... anonymous for... reasons as you will see.

I was one of the founding engineers at a bay area startup (employee #2). Besides me, there were two other engineers, a CTO and the CEO.

Each engineer on the team (CTO included) had a specific product they controlled/owned. My wife became pregnant and there came a point when I felt the need to let the rest of the team know (so I can prepare some time off during the birth, etc).

Things were fine at first. I was always the first person in the office (had my own keys) and one day when the CEO arrived he kind of went off, ranting about a demo he gave and some problems that occurred. The product and issues were in the CTO's domain and I assured him we would look into it and let him know. He didn't like that answer and apparently felt it was my responsibility. I assume he was pissed at the CTO but wasn't able to yell at him so he chose to take it out on me. I let it slide even though he was being insulting.

Within a few days I had a one on one with the CTO. He asked me what was going on and why I wasn't as productive as I usually was. This was odd because my productivity has always been quite consistent. This is when the CTO asked me why I work in a separate branch and he asked me to push directly to master. I tried to explain how that's not a good idea and I merge when the product/feature is ready to go live.

In the same 1:1, the CTO threatened me, with the following lines (paraphrased), "the bay area is small, everyone knows everyone, the work you do here will follow you".

A few days later I notice a new job posting for an engineering role at our company, even though we ere not hiring. The role seems similar to my role, especially since it involved frontend work and I was one of two engineers engineers that had a product used by actual users. I shrugged it off.

Later in the week, Thursday at 7PM. I get a phone call from the CTO about a bug. I look into it and determined it has been around for a while and isn't product breaking. I let him know I will get it fixed first thing in the morning. The CTO demands I fix it tonight and finish all of the sprint work I have for the week (it's Thursday, past 7PM). I replied, "No, not happening. It's past 7. I will wrap it all up tomorrow."

The next morning I was the first person in the office as usual, and fixed the bug from the night before as I said I would. The CEO stormed in, in full rant mode. We went into his office for a 1:1. He asked why I refused to do the work (which is a sick way of twisting the events from the night before). Things got pretty heated, and we argued for quite a while.

The CEO said something along the lines of "you will do as I say when I say it" and I said he can shove it up his ass. He didn't appreciate it. He demanded I leave the office and leave the work laptop in the office. At this point the rest of the office was in (sales, design, engineering) and everyone was confused and probably freaked out. I went home.

I knew he was going to try an justify the termination. I was at the 11th month of the first year, and my sign on bonus only stuck if I hit 12 months. It was a sizable sign on bonus and I felt he was going to try an keep it and justify the termination.

He sent me a simple email with very HR-friendly wording about meeting at a cafe to discuss the events of the day before and for me to bring the office keys and any other company belongings.

At the meeting with him, he looked quite smug and slid an envelope to me and inside it was the terms for our separation. In it, he demanded the return of the sign on bonus, no severance pay and my stock options wouldn't be vested since I didn't hit the one year mark.

I told him that wouldn't cut it, I wanted severance and the sign on bonus. He then threatened me and slid some papers to me with "proof" for the termination, which was basically him skewing the conversations, the 1:1s, etc.

I slid him a paper with my own proof, indicating their behavior changed after finding out my wife was pregnant and I would require some paternity leave. I also sent proof of Slack chat logs that clearly showed the CEO and CTO were aware of the data the company was built on was acquired illegally and they complicit with it.

The next day I got fedex'd a separation agreement where I kept the sign on bonus and got a few months of severance pay along with an NDA.

What happened to the company? They recently raised a very large amount of money making them a bay area unicorn. What did I do? I cloned the product I built for them and turned it into my own product which generates far more money than any engineering job. I haven't worked for anyone since.