I work for a small electronics engineering firm, we have about 14 full-time people.
The owner of the company lives hours away and isn't involved with much except handling payroll and facilities and some other HR things part-time. My boss (VP) and the CTO are the other two co-founders of our company. The owner has mostly handed off running everything else like BD and engineering to a president he brought in a couple years after starting the company. The president brought with him an old co-worker (let's call him Doug, fake name), and they were working for a long time at another company that partnered with my company on previous projects, so these guys all go way back.
This old co-worker Doug is terrible to work with. Condescending, always complaining, hijacks every meeting, self-contradicts regularly and blames others for it. I almost quit on the spot multiple times when working closely with him briefly on past projects, the dark/depressing thoughts were overwhelming.
For a long time, I was worried it was just me. Not any more.
4 current employees have now told me they don't like Doug (including my boss), 2 young guys that reported to Doug that have left the company for unspecified reasons (one right after the other, they each lasted less than a year), a great IT guy left the company largely because of Doug he told me specifically, and the CTO has just left the company despite not even having another job lined up. I was just informed by my boss that it was partly because of Doug, and the guy being allowed by the president to just do whatever he wants and not really see any projects through to the finish line. Another critical senior guy that goes way back with everyone went from full-time to being a contractor, and I've heard him call Doug an idiot in anger (I wonder if Doug is why he left).
I like all my co-workers except Doug. The CTO especially is a HUGE loss. This Doug guy is a cancer. And the president is a bloody moron for keeping him around and seemingly protecting him. Cancers can destroy companies. We're still around because the president is good at winning business and our CTO and VP are brilliant, we have some great people and been pretty successful despite all this. And we'll continue to, likely (although losing the CTO is a big blow that will set us back).
But basically I see it as the president made the wrong choice picking his buddy Doug over the CTO, a completely indefensible choice in my mind despite Doug's really impressive academic credentials. But Doug would probably be fine as a contractor or something with very limited contact with most of the employees, he's a terrible manager.
Has anyone dealt with anything like this before? Should I say something to the company owner? Obviously saying anything to the president would be useless. Love my boss, but he's not the type to stand up really to anyone on this and goes with the flow. Not for himself much, let alone for me. How should I talk about this topic with my co-workers? So far, I haven't told anyone how much I can't stand the guy, I've tried to handle it all very diplomatically. But it's costing us good people and greater success.