Diana Chu, a licensed therapist and executive coach who works with founders.
Available for comment on founders after a liquidity event, founder couples and co-founders, founders becoming parents, and executive burnout. Licensed in California and Florida. San Francisco, Pacific time.
What I Will Comment On
1. Liquidity without an ending
Secondaries and tender offers mean founders get rich while the company keeps running. They still turn up on Monday. The hunger that made them good quietly leaves, and nobody around them can see it. After a two-year build, the bank account runs years ahead of the self. Was it me, or was it the wave.
2. Founder couples and co-founders
Married co-founders, and founders whose partner is outside the company. What a company does to a marriage, and why most founders experience family during a deal as one more thing to manage rather than as support. And co-founder conflict, which behaves more like a marriage problem than a strategy disagreement.
3. Founders becoming parents
A liquidity event or a scale-up colliding with new parenthood or trying to conceive, especially for women founders. It gets far less coverage than it should.
4. Executive burnout, sleep and hypervigilance
Why senior operators cannot switch off, what it does to decisions, and what works clinically. I am EMDR-trained and will tell you what does not work.
5. The line between therapy and coaching
I do both, as a licensed clinician and as an executive coach for founders. I will say where the line belongs, and what a founder misses when they only ever hear from one side of it.
How I Work With Reporters
I reply the same business day, Pacific time. Give me 24 hours on a deadline and you get something you can print.
Patterns, never cases. I do not discuss who I work with, and I will not comment on a named founder's mental state.
Email, phone or video. On the record by default.
Quote me as: Diana Chu, a licensed therapist and executive coach who works with founders. If you need it shorter: Diana Chu, LMFT, a therapist who works with founders.
Recent Writing on These Topics
Contact
- dianachutherapy@gmail.com
- (415) 890-3040
- Download headshot (JPG)
- Response time: same business day, Pacific time
Licences, roles, and where to verify them.
| Licence, California | Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, LMFT #105546 |
|---|---|
| Licence, Florida | LMFT, TPMF785 |
| Credential | Registered Drama Therapist, RDT #659 |
| Education | MA Counseling Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies |
| Stanford | Executive coach and Interpersonal Dynamics Facilitator, Stanford Graduate School of Business |
| Therapy practice | Diana Chu Therapy, telehealth only, California and Florida |
| Coaching practice | Refactor=EQ, refactoreq.com, founders and founder couples |
| Based in | San Francisco |
| Languages | English, Cantonese |
California licences can be checked at the Board of Behavioral Sciences, Florida licences at the Florida Department of Health, and the RDT credential with the North American Drama Therapy Association.