Since the obvious stance here is the employer being the “victim”, I’d like to look on the other side of this. To me, this seems like extremely poor management. Letting a single employee build an entire product is destructive for the team, but also for the employee’s mental health. Working 12/7 for 3 years is not a way to sustain talent.

Not only was “the weight of the world” on his shoulders, I’m sure this article tells only a tiny portion of the story (or the end of the line, in this case). Perhaps Rick started as a genuinely nice guy but felt his company slaved him and then hanged him out to dry when things got hairy.

I definitely feel like this story is incomplete. People don’t just “turn douchebags”, and a company shouldn’t tolerate that behavior for years of years. This seems like a transformation of an employee that lost faith in his management and his company, and the fact the company laid him off after all the work he put in seems to indicate just that.

A disgruntled employee feeling unappreciated due to incompetent management.

A shame for all sides.