How do you fire a startup employee?
philwelch: "Your programming skills are OK, but when it comes to delivering, you scored a blank. Apparently you've never shipped software before and seem to be more of a "software processes" zealot than a hacker. You'll probably do alright at a larger firm where you have a better chance to develop but you don't really fit what we need. We wish you the best of luck finding another job."I don't see any reason to be less honest with him than you're being with us. Save the hand-wringing over how to "nicely" fire someone for when you're big and rich enough to hire an HR department and get back to real work.