I sense a slight tinge of guilt in your post where you mention being selfish. Choosing what is right for you is always acceptable. If any of your co-founders

I sense a slight tinge of guilt in your post where you mention being selfish. Choosing what is right for you is always acceptable. If any of your co-founders cannot release you with love, then it is they who are being selfish. I'm going through the opposite right now, losing one of my best employees to a better opportunity. She has to choose what's right for her. I would not rule out other, perhaps funded startups, during your job search. You won't get as big a piece of the action as a founder, but that may be irrelevant, depending on where you land. On the other hand, being an entrepreneur is not for everyone. You seem to deeply desire autonomy. The are two truths about autonomy. First, one is never fully autonomous, there are always customers that will hold you accountable. Second, autonomy has it's price. The most successful entrepreneurs usually have a long stream of failures in their wake. It's about taking and applying the lessons from the failures, redoubling efforts, sometimes living an austere lifestyle while figuring out how to keep the bills paid, and trying again. Like I said, it's not for everyone. I have many times considered leaving my venture for the stability of a steady paycheck at a "regular" job. I would be much less concerned about the future for my family and children. But I know that choice would be a choice to accept a mediocre vision for my children, cutting off access to the best toys/learning tools, schools, etc. and I want better than that for them. I believe the same mediocrity would ripple through my career path as well. That pressure has caused me to apply the past lessons, and take risks, some of which are paying off. The bottom line, reward comes with risk. At a corporate job, the big wigs and shareholders are taking most of the risk, so they get most of the reward. Your CEO, from the limited information you have presented, sounds perhaps like he is more charismatic than he is in possession of the skills necessary to steer your venture toward profitability. If he has time to check in on all the guys 2-4 times a day, it sounds to me like he has run out of ideas or has no real sense of direction for doing what is needed, securing customers or funding, or just choosing a vision for a product and keeping the lid on the feature set until v1.0 is achieved. I am also wondering what kind of legal agreements you have in writing for your startup. He sounds like he is setting himself up to be the lone founder, claim the lion's share of the spoils, and screw you and the other co-founders.