A couple of years ago I joined a startup as first technical contributor.
I have had privilege to see this venture growing from small "thing" to what it is now. During this time, my responsibilities grew as I took more of a leadership role.
Recently, due to the growth the owner hired a manager (against my advice due to the cost and fact that his duties would be limited).
They quickly became friends and the new manager. started building his own empire within the company.
He started having private conversations with people from the team I used to lead and started making comments based on those private conversations, despite having no real knowledge of what was going on.
I spoke with this person and also with the owner - from my perspective situations like this looked to be designed to take away my authority and hard won position of team leader.
My concerns were dismissed by the owner and the manager. I eventually stopped bringing these issues up, as it seemed the owner was growing annoyed.
I enjoy working on the product but I do not enjoy office politics and weird situations created by the manager. My morale is low, and I feel this is by design.
I don't know what else I can tell to the owner with whom I thought I have good relationship. The company is still very small so there is no HR, but even if there was HR would that be something that falls under HR situation?
WHAT OPTIONS DO I HAVE AT THIS POINT WHEN MY PREVIOUS CONCERNS HAVE BEEN IGNORED?