Co Founder

“The seven co-founders of, this is my understanding, it's been documented I think in a bunch of press reports, but they never talk about it. They donated 80% of their shares. So like 10% of Anthropics in some sort of trust”

“The other co-founders most often not there in three years.”

“Five is, in almost every case, too many founders.”

“And this is why I was saying like two is the worst number of co-founders is because you have no tie break, right? You basically are like, well, I disagree on this thing and I disagree on this thing, right? I was like, well, how do you resolve that, right?”

“And frankly, they shouldn't be called a co-founder two years in. They're not They're not founding anything anymore. They are a business partner that is being added, and you can call them a founding engineer if they're coming on as an engineer or founding whate…”

“I think the biggest thing with founders is you need someone you trust. And the thing you have with family, good or bad, is usually that trust. The flip side is a lot of your relationships start skewing into work. Everything becomes like a work component.”

“I would not want to be in a mastermind with my co-founder because I think it's a waste of time to have two high functioning co-founders getting the same information and spending that same time in a group. You want a myriad of opinions. You want different input…”

“And now, a decade later, I'm like, of course, there is only one co-founder that goes the distance, because ultimately, as you scale the org, it only makes sense to have one person on top.”

“I feel like the power of being a co-founder is actually just in moral authority”

“As a VC, you should be fired if you write a hundred million dollar plus check and you don't meet the co-founders, period.”

“We're, you know, seven co-founders still.”

“Usually founders, usually only one of the co-founders contributes long-term.”

“I think it really helps to think the other person is just far better than you are at pretty much everything, because you're both stretching to try to be as good as the other person, if that makes any sense, right?”

“I think people should talk about it more. I think people should talk about things, they should talk about, like, co, like, when co-founders, like, stop working together, they should talk about, like, what it's like to fire your first employee, because this hon…”

“I really believe the co-founder thing is, is, is first and foremost, and that there's really no way to, I think there's, It's very difficult to compress that into like a two month or one month thing. You need that over many years where you see this person evol…”

“And in my experience for people who are your age, who have like already graduated college or working at some company, that's the biggest limiting factor in practice for them actually doing a company is like they and their co-founder both need to be willing to …”

“The advice here for every single, every founder is to try to build stuff with a bunch of different teams and a bunch of different people, you know, and kind of go through this iteration. Because then when you get someone that's like a fit for you, like it just…”

“So we always gravitate towards having co-founders in the company because Building a startup and all of us have been on the operating side in our firm. And we all know how lonely it can be if you're just by yourself. It, it's, it takes a village to build an ent…”

“As opposed to both the founders thinking that everything is a co-jointed decision. That's always a recipe for a disaster.”

“When you do start a company with a co-founder though, this has to be something that you align on. So not only being Mindful of it, but then who you're going to start a company with you need to be aligned that this is something that we're, we have to have. Ther…”

“If you don't know these factors and you don't work them into your working relationship on literally a daily basis, then you can actually have what I call is the Trojan horse that comes into your business. You're not even thinking about it. And it actually ends…”

“What I really learned was that expectations not communicated end up creating resentment, mistrust all the things that lead to a failed partnership.”

“That's the biggest mistake that people make, is they actually don't address any sort of red flags that they might feel early on, because of course, who wants to start off a relationship and a partnership already thinking about The bad things that are going to …”

“There's some that say they don't invest in solopreneurs, and then there's none that say they don't invest in co-founders. So there's definitely an advantage to that.”

“That's one piece of advice that I really check in on co-founders with is to say, Hey, like, What life stage are you guys in? You know, is one of you fresh out of university and the other one to seasoned entrepreneur who's like semi-retired or, you know, whatno…”

“If you have picked partners that don't have the same ambition levels of you and you try to do new things, like all the things I just listed, you're actually also going to be criticized by insiders, which are people inside your company, your co-founders. I mean…”

“If you want to move extremely fast as a company, one of the hard parts about having co-founders is that there's like, you have to do the co-founder alignment and then the company alignment. And then there's people on the team that probably tell things to one c…”

“Having a short memory is probably one of the biggest things that I think is important in building that trust to go to work together every day.”

“If I was a series A investor, if we just move it down one funding stage, and I was considering an investment in the company, and all three co-founders were fully vested, that would worry me a bit. That would be something that I would definitely talk to them ab…”

“So unless you absolutely feel that you need this person by your side, and that they really have something for the business that an incredible first employee can't bring you. Don't have the co-founder.”

“It's incredibly lonely. And your family very quickly tire of hearing about your woes and your friends. Follow pretty shortly thereafter. They don't want to hear about it. So you definitely need, you know, some people in the trenches with you.”

“At the same time, 48 hours later, the other guy in the case, his co-founder, who was also acquitted on the same day of all the charges, is going for a run and gets hit by a car and also dies.”

“And you really can't do that alone. Like you need someone else there who at a basic level can just get more work done with you, right? Two people is more working hours per day than one, but also having a good co-founder improves the quality of your work. So if…”

“I think again, in 90% of the cases, you should really spend all of your efforts on trying to find a great co-founder to start a company with.”

“In particular, if you're building a software or technology company, there really should be at least one co-founder who's technical and can program.”

“The number one blocker I see to why people Say they're having a hard time finding a co-founder is that they already assume that everybody they know is not available.”

“Here's one tactic I also give people, which is once you made the ask, if that person really says that they're not available, is ask them who would they pick to be their co-founder if they were starting a company, and ask for an introduction to that person.”

“You will have to decide on what the equity split will be, and my default advice here would be you should split the equity equally between yourselves, and the reason is if this startup is successful, you will end up working on it for the next 10 years or more, …”

“And so my tactical advice on this would be set up regular one-on-ones with your co-founder, and that may sound a little formal, but something I did with my startups is I would just put time on the calendar at the end of every month where we would just go for a…”

“It's, ah, it has to be an organic process. It's very, very hard to create real connection that would last for, you know, a decade plus if you're thinking about, ah, ah, a long-term, ah, business. And, It simply works better when it's organic.”

“And the relationship didn't fracture, but actually got stronger in those lowest moments. And that is the best proof that you have something to build upon.”

“Bad fit investors in particular, like they're not necessarily bad investors. And so the bad fit can be just as a, as destructive for a company as a, the bad fit co-founder.”

“Cause you really, it's easier to get rid of your co-founder than your VC and on, on the board.”

“There's a higher likelihood that that partner from that VC will be on your board than your co-founder will, just statistically.”

“I tell entrepreneurs, why don't you go identify your idea? Why don't you go figure out what you want to go build and then go find the best person in the world to go help you solve that problem. It probably is not going to be your cousin. It probably isn't goin…”

“As a rule, I would say, no, it's not required. I think it depends a lot on subject matter expertise. It depends a lot on also how you view the definition of what a co-founder is.”

“Number of co-founders you have actually is probably the largest lever of what your equity is worth at the end of the day.”

“It's hard to monetize matchmaking for co-founders because if you do it well, it happens once.”

“If this guy can't do a thing that you need that you can't do, you have no business working with him and you don't have the time and the energy to train him and give him the opportunity to thrive.”

“And, you know, the probably most important thing that you do in your life is pick who your partner is in, in, in, in, you know, whether it's marriage or whatever, whatever you believe in. And I think then the private second most important thing, if you're a fo…”

“So it's like a Venn diagram where you want circles that have a tiny bit of overlap so that there's some ability for the people involved to relate to one another. But ideally each of those circles has a ton of space covering the problem area to do that.”

“I mean, the worst, and people make this work, so there's an exception to every rule, but the worst is being married to your co-founder.”

“So I think you inevitably, if you do it right, become friends. But I think what you want to start out as is colleagues.”

“The biggest mistake that no, the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make is picking bad co-founders. The second biggest mistake that they make is not setting their sights on an ambitious enough target”

“Give your co-founder a lot of equity. And third, don't split your equity, 50, 50.”

“What I found is that it seems like it either goes really well. Or it goes really badly, and there's kind of no in-between.”

“The ability to be really truth seeking and kind of take the most respectful interpretation when you're giving feedback to focus on trying to get to a smart, good outcome that benefits the business. I think that's actually one of the most crucial things that yo…”

“Actually, surprisingly often, founders have not talked about why they're doing this. And just knowing why someone is here really helps with conflict resolution, for example, really helps with sort of like understanding why someone is there on a certain day or …”

“This is why we like teams who known each other for at least a little bit and have some kind of work or personal relationship. Because I always say that like, when you have some kind of non, you know, if you have some kind of base relationship that you might wa…”

“You have to learn how to fight and maybe fights the wrong word, how to disagree. It's like You have to learn how to pull your punches and have a disagreement that's a real disagreement and actually release the pressure of the disagreement in a way that doesn't…”