Every year on my birthday, messages arrive from a company that no longer exists.

This photo is from that dinner two months ago. The cake was cut. And like every year, the calls came.

Dukanline. My 4th startup. We wound it down in 2019.

The day I made the decision, I had two options.

Option one: the standard playbook. Final salary, a thank-you email, everyone finds out through LinkedIn updates.

Option two: sit with every team member, face to face, and hand them three months of salary from my own pocket before they walked out.

No investor required it.

No law required it.

The company was closing.

My duty to the people was not.

I chose option two.
7 years later, Dukanline is a line on my resume.

But every birthday, the calls come. Same team.

Some are founders now.
Some lead teams at large companies.

They are not calling the CEO of a startup that failed.

They are calling the person who looked them in the eye when it ended.

Startups die. How you close one is remembered longer than how you ran it.
Your company's last day is your character's loudest day.

Founders obsess over how they start. Almost nobody plans how they will end.

So answer this honestly: if your startup shut down tomorrow, would your team call you next year?

| 𝗞𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝗮 𝗟𝗮𝗸𝗮𝗺𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗶 | 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿 | 𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿 |
| 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁-𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗽 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 "𝗔 𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥𝘆" | I write at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of the human job market - sharing my life lessons, reflections, and honest takes from the founder-investor's seat.