My recommendation (as someone who has worked and managed in both small start-ups and large companies):<p>-- Follow your boss&#x27; lead. It&#x27;s his company. He has a sense for how he wants to stage-manage it, and you should let him do that, as long as he is still your boss and especially if you respect him and care about his opinion.<p>-- For anyone whom you care about, make sure that you have their contact info (if it&#x27;s a small team, I presume you already know everyone&#x27;s phone numbers, FB logins, Twitter handles, etc). Reach out to them next week after you know he&#x27;s made the announcement and suggest getting together for a beer. If there&#x27;s any mis-information, you can set the story straight. If they&#x27;re like, &quot;dude, wtf, why u just skip out?&quot; then you can tell them that the boss asked you not to disclose it.<p>-- if the founder is going to bad-mouth you, there&#x27;s nothing to stop him from doing it the day after you leave anyway -- or he would have called the meeting today, not invited you, and sent you home at lunchtime. So stop worrying about something you can&#x27;t control and roll with it.