Inside Hampton Creek’s Empty Boardroom

Last week, employees at Hampton Creek Inc. received some startling news. Four of the food startup’s five board members had quit, leaving only Hampton Creek’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Joshua Tetrick.

The group departure happened in June and was the culmination of over a year’s worth of infighting during which many of Hampton Creek’s executives, investors and board members lost faith in the aggressive founder they’d previously hailed as a visionary. They came to question whether Tetrick was the right leader for the struggling startup, which was losing money, missing product deadlines and trying to manage a litany of food safety problems, according to interviews with more than a dozen Hampton Creek insiders, former employees and investors, who asked to remain anonymous because they have signed non-disclosure agreements with the company.