1) it is my CTO who has asked me to reach out because the whole idea was for him to come here when we raise new funding. if he can't, he does not want to be in

1) it is my CTO who has asked me to reach out because the whole idea was for him to come here when we raise new funding. if he can't, he does not want to be in the way of progression and would need to think about what is the best possible solution for the startup (99% equity of 0 is still 0). 2) it's not as simple math as you make it out to be. i'm raising money based on my credentials and years of connections in the industry and consequently, it'll be my head on the line if the business doesn't succeed. the cto can always say, well vision from ceo didn't make sense. the ceo has no excuse. now, how idiotic will i look if i took their money, didn't take their advice and then the startup fails bc of development issues i.e "i told you so" scenario. my cto doesn't have to worry about that now does he? he can just join another startup or go work for another firm. for me, how am i going to raise subsequent funding? for me, i can't go back to the industry i left that paid multiple times more than most engineers in the valley. that is the risk i took to start this business. so don't tell me about who's getting shafted and who's not. no one is selling anyone down the river. in fact, you being from bangalore should be the first to know how difficult the situation must be to get visas in a hurry and to work on multiple platforms concurrently. and you definitely know communication/cultural dialogue is spotty to say the least. 3) also have you considered other employees besides just taking sides from the engineers' perspective? CTO/engineers are one component of my business to keep happy. If the sales/marketing guys can't get my full attention and get pissed off because i'm busy communicating overseas with a CTO all the time and they say "hey didn't investors and bunch of our advisors tell you not to do EXACTLY this b/c it's going to be a huge headache?" then i have another problem on my hands now don't i that you didn't think about- attrition of the supply side of my business as well as critical employees leaving because i'm not making them happy. it's not just what does my cto think... it's what is best for the business and for every team member of this business so that we all succeed or we all fail. it's about the team. not about the cto. not about me. it's the entire unit as a whole and navigating the waters before it actually becomes a problem.