People who are in charge of companies often think that they know everything and nobody else is as good as them.

What would you do if your CEO told you that you had to agree with him or you could leave the company?

That is what happened to the executive in this story, so he left the company immediately, resulting in the company losing money and reaching out to him for help.

“If you don’t agree with me, leave right now!”

In June of 2021, I joined a tech startup (last-mile grocery and food delivery app) as financial controller.

This is a pretty big task.

I was told my task is to bring the gross profits into black within a year and before next round of investment / fund-raising.

The senior team comprised of me, Group CFO, COO and head of grocery. The CEO was stationed outside in another country.

I’m sure the CEO was very busy.

The CEO comes to the country within a month of my joining but does not bother to meet me. I say ok no problem, keep your head down and do what you are tasked with.

Within 2 months, I have the grips on operations and financials and I have laid down my plan with Group CFO and he agrees to it. I make some changes in my team and I get to working on fixing things.

Competition can be tough.

During October, one of our competitor raises $85 million in investment and our CEO is irked. He comes again and starts an impromptu investment round.

The conditions are better than before, so we get an offer of $50 million (because our overall plan was a lot smaller and realistic than our competitor).

That is a lot of money.

The CEO rejects the offer he needs an offer of at least $100 million to beat the competitor. Luckily, we get offered $200 million but the CEO refuses citing this is greater than what I need and goes back without accepting anything.

Come February, Group CFO suddenly quits (But I knew he quit since our funds were depleting rapidly and the economic conditions in the country and globally were getting worse).

Clearly this guy knows what he is doing.

I have an emergency meeting with COO and Grocery Head and tell them that we need to rationalize our expenses further and this is the plan; according to which, we will be profitable by June 2022. They agree to it and I get to work with my team.

The CEO again does not talk to me and the CFO post remains vacant despite me being next in line and eligible for it.

Wow, he seems to be doing an amazing job.

Come March 2022, My plan is on track and we are expecting profitability a month earlier in May 2022. I plan to take a week-long vacation and travel abroad with my spouse.

In the 3rd day of vacations, I get a text from COO that I need to come back as something has happened. I tell him I’ll come back as planned and not to worry.

That is a very expensive mistake.

I come back and find out that the supply-chain team made an error and bought inventory $30 million more than planned for the festive season coming up in May. In my absence, the grocery head gave the go ahead without consulting me and the error was only identified once the vendors started fulfilling the order.

This has shook our overall plan and our cash funds are at bottom.

I bet the CEO was very upset.

Mr. CEO comes to know about this (I was the one to inform him) and he immediately comes down and started literally abusing me and other members of the team verbally.

This is his first ever face-to-face meeting with me. I was quite taken aback by his rudeness and hurt as he put all blame on me saying I am the CFO (when I was never appointed as such so no payments / purchases were approved by me. They were being approved by COO / Head of Grocery).

This seems very excessive.

This verbal abuse goes on for about a week during which I had broken down twice in front of my wife as I had never faced such horseshit before in my career and I had worked really hard to bring the company where it was at that point.

The CEO warns us that whoever is found guilty of negligence will be fired on the spot. This is where the malicious compliance begins.

He made it clear that this was not his fault.

I prepare detailed documents pointing out my plan and who approved the extra purchase and how I was consulted only after the error has occurred.

I even prepared a plan to sell of the excess inventory and bring the money back in the fold. I try to reach him to explain but he brushes me off every time saying you cannot be right.

The CEO seems to be driving people away.

After 7 days, the CEO calls us in office on a weekend. I arrive and head of grocery is there. They are arguing and it is getting heated up. It gets so heated up that the head of grocery, shouts back and leaves citing that he quits.

As soon as leaves, the CEO pounded his fist on the table and shouted “If you don’t agree with me, leave right now! Only I know how to run this company and if you think I cannot work without you, think again!”

Hey, it is only what the CEO asked for.

The moment I heard these words spewing out of his mouth, I switch to auto-pilot, I type in my resignation, e-mail him right there, get up and say to him: “please check your e-mail, my notice starts now.”

I leave the building before he could respond. Immediately, I call up my one of my ex-boss / mentor and tell him I need to meet him.

Wow, they are quite the success.

We meet, within a week, we planned to start our own consultancy firm and six months from then, our firm has started to grow. We are working on our startup, setting up another business and managing top-tier clients.

Then I get a message from that CEO through the COO after a few months of my leaving: “Hey. We need your help managing the books and finances. Our position is really bad.”

I hope the CEO got word of what he said.

I simply say “The CEO won’t agree with what I have to do to fix the company, and I don’t work with clients who don’t agree with me”.

It sounds like this CEO just drove the whole company into the ground by forcing good people to leave.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

CEOs often fail upward.

Yeah, he worked hard and it was ruined by the CEO.

This would be a great move.

I feel bad for his employees.

Yes, it can be very profitable.

The CEO got just what he deserved.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.