You are confusing 2 different things: 1) The choices that need to be made for the company to succeed 2) How much equity you have or should get. “The vesting

You are confusing 2 different things: 1) The choices that need to be made for the company to succeed 2) How much equity you have or should get. “The vesting schedule means the massive contributions will only help me if I see it through” ...errm, yes, that’s the point of a vesting schedule. As noted by others, the way to succeed is to make the whole pie bigger (and therefore your slice also becomes more valuable, even though it’s the same percentage). You should assume that your equity slice will never get bigger in percentage terms, the investors want you busting a gut to make the pie bigger, not fighting over percentages. Now, if you really think the CEO is destroying value I.e. making the pie smaller, and you can’t resolve it between you, then both of you need to talk to your board investors. The likely result is that one of you will be leaving the firm, and that person’s equity will return to the company since neither of you has hit your 12 month anniversary, assuming you have a standard vesting schedule. I feel like some of this is due to cultural differences between academia where it sounds like you were clearly successful, and vc-backed startup world.