The Failure Wasn't His

A candidate did everything right for two years and still lost the job. Here's what that says about the founder who let him go — and what to do if it happens to you.

A candidate I placed two years ago got a call last Friday. By the time we talked on Monday, he was already looking for what’s next.

He didn’t do anything wrong. The job did.

Here’s the backstory. The company was an early-stage, Series A-backed fintech — the kind of place where the F

ounder/CEO is still in the weeds on everything. He delivered real results for over two years, reporting straight to that Founder, who’s smart but tough to work for. Add a long commute on top of that, and honestly, it’s a small miracle the role lasted as long as it did.

All good things end. This one ended on a Friday, which might be the worst possible day to lose a job — you get the news, and then you sit with it all weekend before anyone can even take your call.

I’m glad we talked Monday morning. He sounded lonely, unsure how to start a week that didn’t have a job attached to it. But he wasn’t sitting still, and that’s the part worth calling out: taking a weekend to process is fine. Letting that weekend turn into a month of doom-scrolling LinkedIn is not. Use the feed to actually message people — not just watch everyone else’s updates roll by while you spiral.

When a founder can’t delegate, hires don’t stick

Too often, a candidate walks into a role that looks exciting on paper and turns out to be un-winnable, because a founder or long-tenured leader can’t actually let go of the work. I think that’s what happened here. Maybe there’s some fault on the candidate’s side too. But the founder himself would probably admit that delegating and trusting his team isn’t his strength.

What to ask before you take a role like this

Before you take a role like this, ask why it’s actually open. Ask what didn’t work for the last person. Then be honest with yourself about whether that’s something you can manage — or something you’ll just inherit. Sometimes it’s a feature of the company, not a bug. You either learn to work around it or you don’t take the job.

The real failure isn’t getting let go. It’s refusing to take anything from it.

I still think about my time at Energizer’s headquarters, back when it was a $3B company. I spent months building presentations that never got shown to anyone — buried under bureaucratic meetings and internal politics before they ever saw daylight. Nobody ever reviewed the work. But I learned more about myself, and about business, in those months than I did in plenty of jobs where everything went smoothly.

So if someone in your life just lost a job and wants to talk, take the ten minutes. You don’t need to have advice ready. You just need to listen. That alone might help them open a door they were about to close.

If you’re a candidate figuring out what’s next, or a hiring manager wondering why your last few hires didn’t stick — that’s the conversation we have every single day. Reach out.