Every year on my birthday, messages arrive from a company that no longer exists.<\/p>\n
This photo is from that dinner two months ago. The cake was cut. And like every year, the calls came.<\/p>\n
Dukanline. My 4th startup. We wound it down in 2019.<\/p>\n
The day I made the decision, I had two options.<\/p>\n
Option one: the standard playbook. Final salary, a thank-you email, everyone finds out through LinkedIn updates.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
No investor required it.<\/p>\n
No law required it.<\/p>\n
The company was closing.<\/p>\n
My duty to the people was not.<\/p>\n
I chose option two.
\n7 years later, Dukanline is a line on my resume.<\/p>\n
But every birthday, the calls come. Same team.<\/p>\n
Some are founders now.
\nSome lead teams at large companies.<\/p>\n
They are not calling the CEO of a startup that failed.<\/p>\n
They are calling the person who looked them in the eye when it ended.<\/p>\n
Startups die. How you close one is remembered longer than how you ran it.
\nYour company’s last day is your character’s loudest day.<\/p>\n
Founders obsess over how they start. Almost nobody plans how they will end.<\/p>\n
So answer this honestly: if your startup shut down tomorrow, would your team call you next year?<\/p>\n
| \ud835\uddde\ud835\uddff\ud835\uddf6\ud835\ude00\ud835\uddf5\ud835\uddfb\ud835\uddee \ud835\udddf\ud835\uddee\ud835\uddf8\ud835\uddee\ud835\uddfa\ud835\ude00\ud835\uddee\ud835\uddfb\ud835\uddf6 | \ud835\udde6\ud835\uddf2\ud835\uddff\ud835\uddf6\ud835\uddee\ud835\uddf9 \ud835\uddd8\ud835\uddfb\ud835\ude01\ud835\uddff\ud835\uddf2\ud835\uddfd\ud835\uddff\ud835\uddf2\ud835\uddfb\ud835\uddf2\ud835\ude02\ud835\uddff | \ud835\udddc\ud835\uddfb\ud835\ude03\ud835\uddf2\ud835\ude00\ud835\ude01\ud835\uddfc\ud835\uddff |
\n| \ud835\uddd5\ud835\ude02\ud835\uddf6\ud835\uddf9\ud835\uddf1\ud835\uddf6\ud835\uddfb\ud835\uddf4 \ud835\uddfd\ud835\uddff\ud835\uddfc\ud835\uddf3\ud835\uddf6\ud835\ude01-\ud835\uddf9\ud835\uddf2\ud835\uddf1 \ud835\ude00\ud835\ude01\ud835\uddee\ud835\uddff\ud835\ude01\ud835\ude02\ud835\uddfd \ud835\uddf3\ud835\uddee\ud835\uddf0\ud835\ude01\ud835\uddfc\ud835\uddff\ud835\ude06 “\ud835\uddd4 \ud835\uddd9\ud835\udde2\ud835\udde8\ud835\udde1\ud835\uddd7\ud835\uddd8\ud835\udde5\ud835\ude06” | 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every year on my birthday, messages arrive from a company that no longer exists. This photo is from that dinner…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linkedin-posts","wpcat-18-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakamsani.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}