9 ms·

My co-founder took my company and my girlfriend

140 points by jot 16y ago

mnml_ 16y ago
http://blog.cubeofm.com/cofounders http://blog.cubeofm.com/cofounders
nroach 16y ago
Strange article. Totally unsolicited feedback: It's kind of hard to convey teachable points when the bulk of the article is opinion related to a story about another person but none of the details are shared. I understand wanting to keep it vague to avoid a dustup with the people involved, but it just felt a bit devoid of specifics. If you're going to use an anecdote, either give us the details or just make fictional and do some character development.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  This is how Max writes. A short intro followed by a personal anecdote. Which segues into the point(s) he is making and then finished with a conclusion to the anecdote. I personally quite like it :)
  - keefe 16y ago
    That certainly makes one of us. I find these trollish posts annoying. I wish he'd cut 60% of the article and just make solid points, after the 15th extremely unlikely personal anecdote I figure they're all spun out of whole cloth.
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      I think calling it trollish is disingenuous. Certainly the post and title are written to attract an audience; but it has value and is a fun read. Better than some of the crap that gets posted ;)
- paraschopra 16y ago
  I think it makes a great title and a fantastic link bait. Nothing wrong with that and a great strategy.
- starkfist 16y ago
  I'll have to agree with this. These always read like they are totally made up but he doesn't want to put effort into making it a good story, so he tries to pass it off as a real story without the details. Sort of like thedailywtf but without being as over-the-top phony. This one was barely readable.
  - maxklein 16y ago
    Give me an idea what to do. If I have to prove all my stories, it limits the types of stories I can write. This story, for example, I could not have written, because the person may not want this information linked to him. I have the choice between writing stories about people vaguely, and getting to select the interesting stories that fit, or writing stories I can source, which limits me to only a very few stories. If I don't use any stories at all, then the posts are less interesting. Your comment puts me in a bind - I'm not sure what the way out is.
    - TheSOB88 16y ago
      Ignore it, I guess. People should know that some people don't like their life stories being posted for everyone to see.
    - btmorex 16y ago
      Honestly, I felt like I was reading the cliff notes version of a personal anecdote. I didn't read the rest of the article. I might have if I didn't think that headline and "anecdote" were just there to make me click through.
    - cubes 16y ago
      Write the stories you can source. Sure you'd write less, but it would have more impact. As is your writing is frequently vague and anecdotal, and easy to dismiss. I might be more inclined to believe the anecdotal stories if you had other posts with more meat to them. NB, I find it interesting that you refer to your posts as stories as your usage connotes that they are fiction.
    - kareemm 16y ago
- jsrfded 16y ago
  Agree...the unrelated photo (stock?) doesn't help the credibility here. That plus the vague story made me think this was content from an article farm. Doesn't seem to be though.
st3fan 16y ago
yeah such is life. it happens.
LoneCoder 16y ago
Is it just me or has HN gotten really cynical today?
steveklabnik 16y ago
Ugh. If there's anything that makes a fight between friends worse, it's women. Having lost a (basically) fiance to a close friend once, I can only imagine how devastating it must be to have business involved as well. The startup crowd is generally okay with instability in life, as it comes with the territory. But kudos to him for being able to get over it, move on, and succeed. Great story.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
philk 16y ago
I did a lot of follow up work and watched as he basically out competed his old company to pieces. I can't help but wonder if the pain of losing so much to his co-founder gave him the motivation to beat his old company and become a success.
pohl 16y ago
Let the startup go. If it was meant to be yours, it will come back to you. Or, for Neil Strauss fans: You have startup one-itis. The best therapy for you is to go start up a new company every weekend.
jonpaul 16y ago
I don't agree with the inequality of shares when each party is the founder of the startup. I think that everyone should have equal shares. In my experience not having equal shares causes people to gripe over stupid things such as the amount of work to do based upon percentage. It can also breed resentment. Paradoxically to my previous statement, I do agree that a business is like being in a marriage. That means that at times, one party is working harder than the other party. The real key to success with partners is conflict resolution, communication, candor, and empathy.
jayliew 16y ago
I know HN is largely male and single, so here's my hindsight advice that I'd give myself if I had to do it again (I'm married and went through some #@$%): The girl that ran off with the other co-founder? Just by reading that blog post and not knowing any of them, I am willing to bet there's something in her past that has not been resolved with professional help (i.e. therapist/psychiatrist), and that I am also willing to bet that the co-founder that she ran off with - they probably did not sail of into the sunset and lived happily ever after. If anyone knows for sure that I am wrong - I would be very curious to know, but I'm pretty sure about it. At the surface, humans make their own choices, but there's usually a pattern - as much as we won't like admitting that we can be predictable - being shaped by our parents and upbringing. Some advice that I wish I was told, that I had to learn the hard way: * (Very) Red flag: F'd up parents or f'd up childhood upbringing. You'd think that you're marrying her for what she is today and what she will be tomorrow - but no - all that stuff in the past needs to be dealt with first - and I mean, professionally (therapist/psychiatrist). Maybe obvious, but it's easy to be blinded when you're love. If you meet a woman in a bar for the first time and she casually mentions about this fact in her past: RUN. Move on to the next girl while you have not invested anything in the relationship, before you've now sunk in time, energy, money and emotion. * Go for the outspoken / confident ones. Or at least, do not be fooled: the quiet / shy / low self-esteem types .. could mean that they're just hiding a lot more than you know. The ones who blabber and talk to much? Well, at least you know there's less that they are possibly hiding (generalization of course). * Anyone who's had this happen to them before? NOBODY saw it coming. If this happens, you will always be blind-sided. So therefore, pay serious attention to your due diligence.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- niallsmart 16y ago
  Don't let the complete lack of detail in the original article hold you back from making some giant extrapolations there.
  - jayliew 16y ago
    My comment was not scientific, but it served to counter-balance the lack of hypothesis from the other comments at the time, where basically nobody read more into it and the consensus was "oh well, shit happens". Sure, it's from my personal bias / experience - but all I was saying is that nobody pointed out that there's a strong likelihood / probability that <hypothesis> the girl had some issues </hypothesis> - which could <hypothesis> be independent of the whole startup drama </hypothesis> to begin with. So "girl ran of with my co-founder" without any analysis on the girl herself, only serves to sensationalize the startup drama more, as opposed to asking "did the drama have anything to do with girl running off with co-founder, or vice versa" And my tangential point to the post about the startup drama is, aside from watching out for the co-founder dynamics gotchas / pot holes, watch out for girls with issues. Hypothetically, what I'm also saying is, if you were the other co-founder (the one that "got the girl"), don't be too quick to think you've won everything (meaning, you may not want that girl). The statement that you just read is also a hypothesis, just in case. http://blog.daryn.net/post/32264049/paul-buchheit-limited-life-experience http://blog.daryn.net/post/32264049/paul-buchheit-limited-li... I can't edit the comment I originally posted - by I now wish I started it with, "anybody who's been burned like this before knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, feel free to pooh pooh my comment and disregard - I apologize for wasting your time." p.s. the remark I made about this being a pattern can be argued that it's not just a personal bias - if there's anyone who's familiar with family therapy / psychiatry here - you'll know what I'm talking about.
cjoh 16y ago
Kind of unfortunate that the maligned co-founder didn't end up making it big in Country Music. That would have made for a better story.
- sgoraya 16y ago
  Totally offtopic I suppose, but relevant to the parent comment.. Per David Allan Coe, this would have made it perfect Country Music story (from the song: You never even call me by my name): I wrote him back a letter and told him it was NOT the perfect country-western song because he hadn't said anything at all about mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin' drunk. Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and he sent it to me And after reading it, I realized that my friend had written the perfect country-western song. And I felt obliged to include it on this album. The last verse goes like this here: Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison. And I went to pick her up in the rain. But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got runned over by a damned old train.
ww520 16y ago
So it's better to go it alone, as Eric succeeded the second alone but failed with a cofounder.
jamesbressi 16y ago
"If you don't have any co-founders, when you hit that dip, that speed bump along the road, you will be unable to continue." I disagree. It depends how much grit you have. In fact, looking back, I would have been much better off without a co-founder.
maxharris 16y ago
"took ... my girlfriend" This implies that your girlfriend was something less than a rational, value-seeking adult human being; that you own her, in some respect, as property. This is so completely wrong that I don't think you really meant it, but that's what those words mean. In all realms, including romance, your girlfriend is a free agent, and so are you. And if your former girlfriend just wants whoever has the most money/status, without being valuable in her own right, why do you want her anyway? Contrary to popular conception, love is something you can reason about.
- cynicalkane 16y ago
  All it means is that women are usually passive when it comes to relationship-seeking behavior. This is a fine strategy and it doesn't make their choices any less valid, rational, value-seeking, or adult.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    I disagree completely. Drifting along and dealing with life in a passive way is sure to get you something that doesn't make you happy, or something that won't suit you, and won't be good for your long-term rational self-interest. The world is a big place, and wrong possibilities are endless. Adults are able, by and large, make correct choices - not all of them do it, mind you, but they are capable nonetheless.
    - cynicalkane 16y ago
      All I meant is that one is usually asking the other out on dates, not the other way around. I have no idea why this precludes living an active life. Incidentally, the pick-up artist method is all about enticing girls to go out and get you instead. And we know what all winners those guys are.
- commieneko 16y ago
  The headline, and the story itself, is what we call a narrative hook. Their purpose is not really to inform the moral of the story, although they should not be totally unrelated, but to grab your attention and give you some kind of emotional attachment to the "lesson" and cause you to pay attention; and keep reading. Whether the story is true or not, and whether the details actually warrant the conclusions are largely irrelevant to their actual purpose within the piece. The actual message of the piece can be boiled down to "Pick your business partners like you pick your wife/husband/significant whatever." The anecdote _does_ have a resonance with the message, so works quite well in that regard. Also note the "resolution" paragraph at the end that wraps up the narrative and gives you that warm, all's right with the world, happy ending buzz. And it did cause you to read a bunch more verbiage that you might have otherwise. A little hint of sex and betrayal can really spice up an otherwise trite and shallow piece (sometimes you need to file some copy even when the muse isn't stopping by today...)
wallflower 16y ago
"You do not truly know someone until you fight them" -Seraph, The Matrix Reloaded
- quickpost 16y ago
  Agreed 100%. You never know what someone is willing to do until you are in a heated argument with them.
- PostOnce 16y ago
  In the interest of not quoting films: "For a friend is not to be had without trial and is not a matter of a single day, but time is needed; hence the peck of salt' has come to be proverbial." -Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics) "A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him." is the alluded-to proverb, and that particular wording is from Don Quixote (Cervantes).
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - gwern 16y ago
    > "A true friend is discerned during an uncertain matter" --Cicero
  - eagleal 16y ago
    Isn't this something you discover by yourself in the early teenage years, in terms of lesson learned, and don't do it again (trial-error)? At least it was for me. PS: Thanks for the quotes. However I failed to explain this lesson to my little sister.
armandososa 16y ago
I gotta confess that after reading the title I laughed out loud and now I feel bad for my utter lack of empathy.
billswift 16y ago
Anybody else immediately think of "The Door into Summer" when they saw the title?
adityakothadiya 16y ago
The title is so incorrect. Knowing maxklein is author of this blog, I thought it's his story when he has "My" in the title. He should say - "Someone's co-founder took his company and his girlfriend." Why people skew the titles so much, keep it vague, and sometimes even incorrect to just get the eyeballs?
lsc 16y ago
eh, he says "Co-founders are both the most important thing that your company needs and the most likely reason your company will fail." I'm not entirely convinced of #1; a good employee can do nearly all the things a co-founder would, but when they do leave for a real job, (and they will, just like a co-founder will) you have the option of continuing rather than laying down your arms. Really, I think it comes down to the quality of people you can get. If you /can/ get someone better as a co-founder than as an employee, then yeah, having a co-founder might help your survival chances a lot. The quality of people you can get as a co-founder depends largely on your sales skills, though. so if you are as bad at selling as I am, you might actually be able to get /better/ people as employees than as co-founders. Of course, if I was better at selling, and worse at hiring, this would be reversed.
ecq 16y ago
if you took care of "business", your co-founder would be out of business. :)

140 points by jot 16y ago

mnml_ 16y ago

http://blog.cubeofm.com/cofounders http://blog.cubeofm.com/cofounders

Strange article. Totally unsolicited feedback: It's kind of hard to convey teachable points when the bulk of the article is opinion related to a story about another person but none of the details are shared. I understand wanting to keep it vague to avoid a dustup with the people involved, but it just felt a bit devoid of specifics. If you're going to use an anecdote, either give us the details or just make fictional and do some character development.

ErrantX 16y ago
This is how Max writes. A short intro followed by a personal anecdote. Which segues into the point(s) he is making and then finished with a conclusion to the anecdote. I personally quite like it :)
- keefe 16y ago
  That certainly makes one of us. I find these trollish posts annoying. I wish he'd cut 60% of the article and just make solid points, after the 15th extremely unlikely personal anecdote I figure they're all spun out of whole cloth.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    I think calling it trollish is disingenuous. Certainly the post and title are written to attract an audience; but it has value and is a fun read. Better than some of the crap that gets posted ;)
paraschopra 16y ago
I think it makes a great title and a fantastic link bait. Nothing wrong with that and a great strategy.
starkfist 16y ago
I'll have to agree with this. These always read like they are totally made up but he doesn't want to put effort into making it a good story, so he tries to pass it off as a real story without the details. Sort of like thedailywtf but without being as over-the-top phony. This one was barely readable.
- maxklein 16y ago
  Give me an idea what to do. If I have to prove all my stories, it limits the types of stories I can write. This story, for example, I could not have written, because the person may not want this information linked to him. I have the choice between writing stories about people vaguely, and getting to select the interesting stories that fit, or writing stories I can source, which limits me to only a very few stories. If I don't use any stories at all, then the posts are less interesting. Your comment puts me in a bind - I'm not sure what the way out is.
  - TheSOB88 16y ago
    Ignore it, I guess. People should know that some people don't like their life stories being posted for everyone to see.
  - btmorex 16y ago
    Honestly, I felt like I was reading the cliff notes version of a personal anecdote. I didn't read the rest of the article. I might have if I didn't think that headline and "anecdote" were just there to make me click through.
  - cubes 16y ago
    Write the stories you can source. Sure you'd write less, but it would have more impact. As is your writing is frequently vague and anecdotal, and easy to dismiss. I might be more inclined to believe the anecdotal stories if you had other posts with more meat to them. NB, I find it interesting that you refer to your posts as stories as your usage connotes that they are fiction.
  - kareemm 16y ago
jsrfded 16y ago
Agree...the unrelated photo (stock?) doesn't help the credibility here. That plus the vague story made me think this was content from an article farm. Doesn't seem to be though.

st3fan 16y ago

yeah such is life. it happens.

LoneCoder 16y ago

Is it just me or has HN gotten really cynical today?

steveklabnik 16y ago

Ugh. If there's anything that makes a fight between friends worse, it's women. Having lost a (basically) fiance to a close friend once, I can only imagine how devastating it must be to have business involved as well. The startup crowd is generally okay with instability in life, as it comes with the territory. But kudos to him for being able to get over it, move on, and succeed. Great story.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

philk 16y ago

I did a lot of follow up work and watched as he basically out competed his old company to pieces. I can't help but wonder if the pain of losing so much to his co-founder gave him the motivation to beat his old company and become a success.

pohl 16y ago

Let the startup go. If it was meant to be yours, it will come back to you. Or, for Neil Strauss fans: You have startup one-itis. The best therapy for you is to go start up a new company every weekend.

jonpaul 16y ago

I don't agree with the inequality of shares when each party is the founder of the startup. I think that everyone should have equal shares. In my experience not having equal shares causes people to gripe over stupid things such as the amount of work to do based upon percentage. It can also breed resentment. Paradoxically to my previous statement, I do agree that a business is like being in a marriage. That means that at times, one party is working harder than the other party. The real key to success with partners is conflict resolution, communication, candor, and empathy.

jayliew 16y ago

I know HN is largely male and single, so here's my hindsight advice that I'd give myself if I had to do it again (I'm married and went through some #@$%): The girl that ran off with the other co-founder? Just by reading that blog post and not knowing any of them, I am willing to bet there's something in her past that has not been resolved with professional help (i.e. therapist/psychiatrist), and that I am also willing to bet that the co-founder that she ran off with - they probably did not sail of into the sunset and lived happily ever after. If anyone knows for sure that I am wrong - I would be very curious to know, but I'm pretty sure about it. At the surface, humans make their own choices, but there's usually a pattern - as much as we won't like admitting that we can be predictable - being shaped by our parents and upbringing. Some advice that I wish I was told, that I had to learn the hard way: * (Very) Red flag: F'd up parents or f'd up childhood upbringing. You'd think that you're marrying her for what she is today and what she will be tomorrow - but no - all that stuff in the past needs to be dealt with first - and I mean, professionally (therapist/psychiatrist). Maybe obvious, but it's easy to be blinded when you're love. If you meet a woman in a bar for the first time and she casually mentions about this fact in her past: RUN. Move on to the next girl while you have not invested anything in the relationship, before you've now sunk in time, energy, money and emotion. * Go for the outspoken / confident ones. Or at least, do not be fooled: the quiet / shy / low self-esteem types .. could mean that they're just hiding a lot more than you know. The ones who blabber and talk to much? Well, at least you know there's less that they are possibly hiding (generalization of course). * Anyone who's had this happen to them before? NOBODY saw it coming. If this happens, you will always be blind-sided. So therefore, pay serious attention to your due diligence.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
niallsmart 16y ago
Don't let the complete lack of detail in the original article hold you back from making some giant extrapolations there.
- jayliew 16y ago
  My comment was not scientific, but it served to counter-balance the lack of hypothesis from the other comments at the time, where basically nobody read more into it and the consensus was "oh well, shit happens". Sure, it's from my personal bias / experience - but all I was saying is that nobody pointed out that there's a strong likelihood / probability that <hypothesis> the girl had some issues </hypothesis> - which could <hypothesis> be independent of the whole startup drama </hypothesis> to begin with. So "girl ran of with my co-founder" without any analysis on the girl herself, only serves to sensationalize the startup drama more, as opposed to asking "did the drama have anything to do with girl running off with co-founder, or vice versa" And my tangential point to the post about the startup drama is, aside from watching out for the co-founder dynamics gotchas / pot holes, watch out for girls with issues. Hypothetically, what I'm also saying is, if you were the other co-founder (the one that "got the girl"), don't be too quick to think you've won everything (meaning, you may not want that girl). The statement that you just read is also a hypothesis, just in case. http://blog.daryn.net/post/32264049/paul-buchheit-limited-life-experience http://blog.daryn.net/post/32264049/paul-buchheit-limited-li... I can't edit the comment I originally posted - by I now wish I started it with, "anybody who's been burned like this before knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, feel free to pooh pooh my comment and disregard - I apologize for wasting your time." p.s. the remark I made about this being a pattern can be argued that it's not just a personal bias - if there's anyone who's familiar with family therapy / psychiatry here - you'll know what I'm talking about.

cjoh 16y ago

Kind of unfortunate that the maligned co-founder didn't end up making it big in Country Music. That would have made for a better story.

sgoraya 16y ago
Totally offtopic I suppose, but relevant to the parent comment.. Per David Allan Coe, this would have made it perfect Country Music story (from the song: You never even call me by my name): I wrote him back a letter and told him it was NOT the perfect country-western song because he hadn't said anything at all about mama, or trains, or trucks, or prison, or gettin' drunk. Well, he sat down and wrote another verse to the song and he sent it to me And after reading it, I realized that my friend had written the perfect country-western song. And I felt obliged to include it on this album. The last verse goes like this here: Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison. And I went to pick her up in the rain. But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck She got runned over by a damned old train.

ww520 16y ago

So it's better to go it alone, as Eric succeeded the second alone but failed with a cofounder.

jamesbressi 16y ago

"If you don't have any co-founders, when you hit that dip, that speed bump along the road, you will be unable to continue." I disagree. It depends how much grit you have. In fact, looking back, I would have been much better off without a co-founder.

maxharris 16y ago

"took ... my girlfriend" This implies that your girlfriend was something less than a rational, value-seeking adult human being; that you own her, in some respect, as property. This is so completely wrong that I don't think you really meant it, but that's what those words mean. In all realms, including romance, your girlfriend is a free agent, and so are you. And if your former girlfriend just wants whoever has the most money/status, without being valuable in her own right, why do you want her anyway? Contrary to popular conception, love is something you can reason about.

cynicalkane 16y ago
All it means is that women are usually passive when it comes to relationship-seeking behavior. This is a fine strategy and it doesn't make their choices any less valid, rational, value-seeking, or adult.
- maxharris 16y ago
  I disagree completely. Drifting along and dealing with life in a passive way is sure to get you something that doesn't make you happy, or something that won't suit you, and won't be good for your long-term rational self-interest. The world is a big place, and wrong possibilities are endless. Adults are able, by and large, make correct choices - not all of them do it, mind you, but they are capable nonetheless.
  - cynicalkane 16y ago
    All I meant is that one is usually asking the other out on dates, not the other way around. I have no idea why this precludes living an active life. Incidentally, the pick-up artist method is all about enticing girls to go out and get you instead. And we know what all winners those guys are.
commieneko 16y ago
The headline, and the story itself, is what we call a narrative hook. Their purpose is not really to inform the moral of the story, although they should not be totally unrelated, but to grab your attention and give you some kind of emotional attachment to the "lesson" and cause you to pay attention; and keep reading. Whether the story is true or not, and whether the details actually warrant the conclusions are largely irrelevant to their actual purpose within the piece. The actual message of the piece can be boiled down to "Pick your business partners like you pick your wife/husband/significant whatever." The anecdote _does_ have a resonance with the message, so works quite well in that regard. Also note the "resolution" paragraph at the end that wraps up the narrative and gives you that warm, all's right with the world, happy ending buzz. And it did cause you to read a bunch more verbiage that you might have otherwise. A little hint of sex and betrayal can really spice up an otherwise trite and shallow piece (sometimes you need to file some copy even when the muse isn't stopping by today...)

wallflower 16y ago

"You do not truly know someone until you fight them" -Seraph, The Matrix Reloaded

quickpost 16y ago
Agreed 100%. You never know what someone is willing to do until you are in a heated argument with them.
PostOnce 16y ago
In the interest of not quoting films: "For a friend is not to be had without trial and is not a matter of a single day, but time is needed; hence the peck of salt' has come to be proverbial." -Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics) "A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him." is the alluded-to proverb, and that particular wording is from Don Quixote (Cervantes).
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- gwern 16y ago
  > "A true friend is discerned during an uncertain matter" --Cicero
- eagleal 16y ago
  Isn't this something you discover by yourself in the early teenage years, in terms of lesson learned, and don't do it again (trial-error)? At least it was for me. PS: Thanks for the quotes. However I failed to explain this lesson to my little sister.

armandososa 16y ago

I gotta confess that after reading the title I laughed out loud and now I feel bad for my utter lack of empathy.

billswift 16y ago

Anybody else immediately think of "The Door into Summer" when they saw the title?

adityakothadiya 16y ago

The title is so incorrect. Knowing maxklein is author of this blog, I thought it's his story when he has "My" in the title. He should say - "Someone's co-founder took his company and his girlfriend." Why people skew the titles so much, keep it vague, and sometimes even incorrect to just get the eyeballs?

lsc 16y ago

eh, he says "Co-founders are both the most important thing that your company needs and the most likely reason your company will fail." I'm not entirely convinced of #1; a good employee can do nearly all the things a co-founder would, but when they do leave for a real job, (and they will, just like a co-founder will) you have the option of continuing rather than laying down your arms. Really, I think it comes down to the quality of people you can get. If you /can/ get someone better as a co-founder than as an employee, then yeah, having a co-founder might help your survival chances a lot. The quality of people you can get as a co-founder depends largely on your sales skills, though. so if you are as bad at selling as I am, you might actually be able to get /better/ people as employees than as co-founders. Of course, if I was better at selling, and worse at hiring, this would be reversed.

ecq 16y ago

if you took care of "business", your co-founder would be out of business. :)