Nobody should ever find themselves in a situation like this. Unfortunately, it's altogether too common even when everybody involved is acting in good faith. I c

Nobody should ever find themselves in a situation like this. Unfortunately, it's altogether too common even when everybody involved is acting in good faith. I can say from experience that if things ever get to the point they did with Cruise, everybody involved has made a series of blunders. I've been on the other side (sort of; the situations aren't analogous) as someone pushed out by two other non-technical founders after they'd discovered a cheaper option in a startup-in-a-box (best description I can come up with). I wrote about this on here a year or two ago, but there's nothing like discovering that on the day your grandmother dies, and having to deal with their bullshit while focused on her funeral. I didn't pursue the matter for a number of reasons (one of the two was a lawyer with sufficient resources to draw out any dispute, etc.), but as angry as I was at them for their actions, I realize that had I been more proactive, the entire situation could have been avoided. Instead of accepting repeated excuses and prevarications like "we'll deal with the legal documents soon, just after X" because the one was a good friend, I should have pushed to get everything out of the way first. I knew better, and I ignored my better judgment for what was largely emotional reasons. In hindsight when I look at how things went down in the end, and I look at the events leading up to it, I'm of the opinion that I was going to be be screwed no matter what. But I suppose that I got the last laugh, as they didn't get a line of code I wrote and they've more or less stagnated since a launch that few noticed and fewer cared about. They might not be dead, figuratively speaking, but they're certainly on life support. Good contracts that are highly specific might seem insulting to some people (they're not), or they might seem like an unnecessary delay, but they're incredibly important even when everything goes right. They spell out duties and roles, and make absolutely certain that everyone is on the same page with no confusion or misunderstandings so that you can focus on building things without any uncertainty. Basically, pay the lawyers and get things done right from the beginning. You don't have to go to a large firm and pay out $500/hr for this sort of work. There are plenty of small, solo practitioners who focus on business formation. When circumstances change, or you learn more about the business's nature and the risks you need to mitigate, you can always amend or replace your agreements at a later date. We usually don't think in these terms, but getting involved in a startup without contracts in place is akin to writing complex code without tests. You can do it, but you're making a huge mistake that'll bite you in all sorts of unexpected ways.