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'Cancer' is a broad church. It could mean anything from 'he'll be dead in a year' to 'after a couple of ops and some chemo and he'll be back in the game'. There

'Cancer' is a broad church. It could mean anything from 'he'll be dead in a year' to 'after a couple of ops and some chemo and he'll be back in the game'. There's nothing anyone can advise you on around that without knowing more (but don't post it. It's none of HN readers business.) Also, it's fair to assume you're giving him as much support as you can, so saying that isn't very useful either. Hopefully you got some decent key person insurance set up at the start. If not, whoops. The next thing to do is to talk it out. Does he want out? If so, can you buy him out? If not, is it realistic that he can stick around? Is there anyone in your network you can bring in to replace him (temporarily, if he's got a good outlook)? If he can't work in the business any more I suspect you should approach this in a fairly similar way to how you would if he just wanted to leave for any other reason, or wanted to take a large block of time away from the business. Being dispassionate about it, you have to accept that the fact it's cancer is actually largely irrelevant; that's just the catalyst for action. As far as the business is concerned it's the action itself that's important.

urig 3y ago
Most of what you wrote sounds fair and almost compassionate to me but hard disagree on "the fact it's cancer is actually largely irrelevant". That person has just received some of the worst news of their lives, for no fault of their own. This is very relevant for approaching them with patience, kindness and care. OP will need to reconcile their ambition and past expectations with being a decent human being and, possibly, a friend.
- onion2k 3y ago
  I don't mean it's something to ignore entirely. I mean it's a separate to the question about about the business. The OP needs an answer to "How can this startup move on without one co-founder?" rather than "How can this startup move on without one co-founder, because they have cancer?"
- gus_massa 3y ago
  > That person has just received some of the worst news of their lives, Cancer is bad, but without more details is imposible to know how bad it is. I've seen case in my family when they got a cancer, it was operated and got a minimal post treatment and lived happy ever after a few decades and counting, and other cases where it was too late and died like one year after the diagnosis. I had similar experiences with coworkers. For example, in some prostate cancers the recomendation is to "do nothing", or to be more precice to wait and check them frecuently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_surveillance_of_prostate_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_surveillance_of_prostat... But in other cancers waiting is stupid and shoud be removed asap and get chemo and more.

urig 3y ago

Most of what you wrote sounds fair and almost compassionate to me but hard disagree on "the fact it's cancer is actually largely irrelevant". That person has just received some of the worst news of their lives, for no fault of their own. This is very relevant for approaching them with patience, kindness and care. OP will need to reconcile their ambition and past expectations with being a decent human being and, possibly, a friend.

onion2k 3y ago
I don't mean it's something to ignore entirely. I mean it's a separate to the question about about the business. The OP needs an answer to "How can this startup move on without one co-founder?" rather than "How can this startup move on without one co-founder, because they have cancer?"
gus_massa 3y ago
> That person has just received some of the worst news of their lives, Cancer is bad, but without more details is imposible to know how bad it is. I've seen case in my family when they got a cancer, it was operated and got a minimal post treatment and lived happy ever after a few decades and counting, and other cases where it was too late and died like one year after the diagnosis. I had similar experiences with coworkers. For example, in some prostate cancers the recomendation is to "do nothing", or to be more precice to wait and check them frecuently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_surveillance_of_prostate_cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_surveillance_of_prostat... But in other cancers waiting is stupid and shoud be removed asap and get chemo and more.