Surely the lesson for start-up CEOs is even simpler: you are responsible for everything in your organisation.
Like most here, I wouldn't have let myself get into the position of this freelance designer or chosen to air my dirty laundry in public. On the other hand, if I had sent a legitimate invoice and a CEO tried to fob me off with the kind of attitude claimed here (he says, noting that we haven't heard the other side of the story yet) then I would be extremely unsympathetic to flippant comments and requests to mess around with underlings. I imagine my response would be to send the final claim letter by registered post with a note that legal action would follow if the invoice remained unpaid after a reasonable period.
Of course, in this case, it doesn't matter: the Internet hype machine has been started, and if the reported claims are accurate, it is presumably a matter of time before everyone who has anything to do with this start-up starts forgetting to return their calls. Who wants to be associated with someone who thinks it's funny not to pay their bills, particularly when it's a small business working with another small business?
Like most here, I wouldn't have let myself get into the position of this freelance designer or chosen to air my dirty laundry in public. On the other hand, if I had sent a legitimate invoice and a CEO tried to fob me off with the kind of attitude claimed here (he says, noting that we haven't heard the other side of the story yet) then I would be extremely unsympathetic to flippant comments and requests to mess around with underlings. I imagine my response would be to send the final claim letter by registered post with a note that legal action would follow if the invoice remained unpaid after a reasonable period.
Of course, in this case, it doesn't matter: the Internet hype machine has been started, and if the reported claims are accurate, it is presumably a matter of time before everyone who has anything to do with this start-up starts forgetting to return their calls. Who wants to be associated with someone who thinks it's funny not to pay their bills, particularly when it's a small business working with another small business?