Realistically, no one is irreplaceable — Just look at Journey.
As the CEO, you should sit back and look at the problem analytically.
What is the value that each employee brings to the business?
If you were to remove employees at this time, would you be able to replace them financially, and if not, do you currently have the skills on the team to make up for the loss?
What are the values you have set forth for your company and its culture?
Which employees are living the values, and which aren’t?
Is it simply a personality clash, or something else?
Who does better work?
Get down to the heart of the issue. In many cases, especially with CTOs and other departments, it comes down to people wanting to put too much control over tech decisions when generally the tech leader should be the one driving the company’s tech vision. (As a CTO, this is one of my personal pet peeves, so I get it.)
If the employees that are clashing with the CTO are constantly questioning his suggestions to scale the company, that is definitely fixable. If it is something else, you can look into that as well.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/Should-the-CEO-of-a-startup-fire-two-founding-team-members-because-the-most-valuable-team-member-is-threatening-to-leave-if-they-stay
Originally Posted On: 2015-02-08