He Fired Me After Getting Funded—Too Bad I Was the Money

"Natalie Parker, hand over your admin access." Ethan Cole slid a separation agreement across the conference table. It coasted to a stop right by my hand. I glanced at the title Voluntary Project Withdrawal Agreement. I had to hand it to whoever wrote that. "Voluntary?" I looked up at him. "And you decided that for me?" Seven or eight people sat around the conference table, from engineering, operations, and finance. Vanessa Reed was there too, the new Marketing Director who had joined less than 1 month ago. She wore a white suit, and the watch on her wrist caught the light. When she noticed me looking, she smiled. "Miss Parker, we're all adults. Let's not make this uglier than it has to be." I smiled back. "And you are?" Vanessa's expression stiffened. Ethan frowned. "Watch your tone, Natalie. That's Mr. Reed's daughter. She's the key to our next round." "Oh." I nodded. "So you're kicking me out to secure the funding?" His face darkened. "Don't make it sound so ugly. This company got where it is because of the product and the business model, not because you ordered lunches, kept track of the rent, and processed expense reports every day." I almost laughed. "Ethan. You forget who built the first version of the product?" His expression shifted. Amy Foster from finance said, quietly, "Natalie really did—" Ethan shot her a look, and Amy immediately fell silent. He held a pen out to me. "No point digging up the past. The company needs to get more professional now, and investors don't want a messy cap table. You've got no formal training and no connections. Keeping you on the founding team doesn't do anything for our valuation." I stared at him. He had quit his job at a Big Tech company 3 years earlier to build something of his own. He couldn't afford an office, so I cleared out the small apartment my grandmother had left me and let him use it as a workspace. He couldn't recruit anyone, so I messaged developers one by one on online forums. When the server bill came due, I put it on my credit card. When the first version of the algorithm wouldn't run, he couldn't stay awake any longer and went to bed. I sat on the floor eating a cold bagel and kept working on the code until 4 a.m. And now he was telling me I had only ordered lunches. 'Well, that's a new one.' I took the pen from him. Ethan visibly relaxed. Vanessa smiled too. "Miss Parker, it's good that you know what's best for you," she said. "Don't worry. Ethan isn't ungrateful. We'll give you 3 months' salary as severance." I looked at her. "You mean 3 months' salary?" "Yes." She said it like she was doing me a kindness. "Someone in a role like yours shouldn't have any trouble landing something else." I turned to the last page. Compensation: 24,000 dollars. I held up the page. "For 3 years, I was on call 24 hours a day. I fronted 196,000 dollars of my own money for this company, not counting the credit card interest. Then there are the servers under my name, the email account used for trademark registration, the test data, and the early user pool. You think 24,000 dollars buys all of that?" Ethan lost his patience. "Natalie, don't get greedy. You spent that money voluntarily. I never forced you." 'That line sounds familiar. People who take advantage of others always love saying that.' I set the pen down. "Fine. I'm not signing." His face went completely cold. "Your choice. Just don't regret it. Evermont Capital is coming at 3 p.m. to close the round. If you make trouble and derail the funding, I promise you won't be able to work in this industry again." I stood and pulled my laptop against my chest. "I'm not going to make trouble." He thought I was backing down and opened his mouth to speak. I looked straight at him. "I just want to ask one thing. Are you sure you want me to give up all my access?" He scoffed. "Natalie, don't try to scare me with your admin access. You're not calling the shots at this company anymore." I nodded. "All right." I closed my laptop. "Then let's see if you can close the round this afternoon without me."