5 ms·

Playing devil's advocate here, there's another reason: Rule #1 of startups is: don't die. In reliability planning, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. A single founder is

by jdunck 14y ago

Playing devil's advocate here, there's another reason: Rule #1 of startups is: don't die. In reliability planning, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. A single founder is a SPoF. They get cancer, get an unsupportive SO, get a needy family member, lose a rich uncle, etc., they kill the company. Having 2+ founders guards against these likelihoods (over the course of the company).

erichocean 14y ago
Founders aren't fungible. It's not like you have one "founder", and then to increase the odds of success, you add a few more for redundancy. In any "high growth" business, which is the topic of discussion, if the founder is worth anything, then the likelihood of finding another founder who is a drop-in replacement in the event they "get cancer, get an unsupportive SO, get a needy family member, lose a rich uncle, etc." is effectively zero. The entire reason the company has high growth potential is because of that specific founder. Replace them, and everything changes. ----- The real problem is that we are confusing a "founder" with an early employee, possibly including an employee present at the very beginning (i.e. incorporation), and granted equity via some mechanism (options, grants, etc.). A founder and an early employee couldn't be more different. It's rare that two founders (a) happen to be near each other, (b) are working on the same thing, and (c) agree with how to tackle said thing. Founders can't really be "hired" in the conventional sense, and they don't sign on to other people's visions like early employees do. When the miraculous situation described above does occur, yes, you can get two founders in the same company, like what happened at Google. But...it's very rare. Single founder + small teams are the overwhelming norm, not the exception. All of these other "multiple founder" situations that pg likes to boast are so successful are, in fact, single founders + early team, which the single founder recruited. Not the same thing at all, and they don't have any of the SPoF redundancy you conjectured helped them to succeed. The major alternative to single- and the (rare) multi-founder companies are actually teams without any founders -- instead, they have a bunch of coders who like to work together and have developed some interesting tech that has some potential commercial value. That can work too, especially in software/technology, but those kinds of companies only succeed, if they succeed at all, with massive outside help from something like a YC. They are more likely to be found in tech incubators, and are highly over-represented on HN and in discussions like this. I'd argue that tech incubators exist precisely because these founder-less teams exist, and need funding and direction. That's a good area for YC to operate in, but it necessarily skews pg's view of the world.
- macspoofing 14y ago
  >In fact, single founders + early team, which the single founder recruited. You're redefining terms. A founder is a founder. For example, you may try to call Wozniak an 'early employee' of Apple Computers and Steve Jobs the founder, but then you'd be playing with words. Both of them are universally acknowledged as founders.
  - erichocean 14y ago
    The simple approach is to look at equity allotments. If a single individual has 90% of the equity, it doesn't matter if there are 50 other people also with equity present and working at the inception of the business. That business has, exactly, one founder along with 50 early stage employees with equity stakes. AFAIK Steve and Woz had equal equity in Apple, and both were present at the founding of Apple (along with a third guy, who sold his stake back after a week). So, both are founders -- no word play necessary. There's nothing wrong with being an early stage employee, and we don't need to artificially inflate their worth by acting like they are founders, when the actual ownership facts indicate otherwise.
    - macspoofing 14y ago
      You're still playing with words. You're redefining what a founder is by saying that unless you have x% equity state, you're not. You're a founder if you're 'given' (or you take) the title of a founder, usually, but not always, at the inception (incorporation) of company. Yes this is a bit of a grey area, however if an individual uses that title in dealing with the press, investors and business, how do you go and say he's not?
  - clarky07 14y ago
    I don't think he's talking about Apple. He's talking about places like Dropbox, where it was a lot more like a single founder + team than multiple founders, but PG and YC don't consider Dropbox to be single founder.
chollida1 14y ago
> In reliability planning, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. A single founder is a SPoF. They get cancer, get an unsupportive SO, get a needy family member, lose a rich uncle, etc., they kill the company. Having 2+ founders guards against these likelihoods (over the course of the company). Not really true at all, as has been pointed out by other posters. In the book "masters of doom" they relate that even though Id software had 4 founders when it came time for them to get key man insurance the only person they got it on was John Carmack. I'd think that most companies are like this. There may be multiple co-founders but there is usually one signifcant one, who if they quit, would sink the company very quickly.

by jdunck 14y ago

erichocean 14y ago

Founders aren't fungible. It's not like you have one "founder", and then to increase the odds of success, you add a few more for redundancy. In any "high growth" business, which is the topic of discussion, if the founder is worth anything, then the likelihood of finding another founder who is a drop-in replacement in the event they "get cancer, get an unsupportive SO, get a needy family member, lose a rich uncle, etc." is effectively zero. The entire reason the company has high growth potential is because of that specific founder. Replace them, and everything changes. ----- The real problem is that we are confusing a "founder" with an early employee, possibly including an employee present at the very beginning (i.e. incorporation), and granted equity via some mechanism (options, grants, etc.). A founder and an early employee couldn't be more different. It's rare that two founders (a) happen to be near each other, (b) are working on the same thing, and (c) agree with how to tackle said thing. Founders can't really be "hired" in the conventional sense, and they don't sign on to other people's visions like early employees do. When the miraculous situation described above does occur, yes, you can get two founders in the same company, like what happened at Google. But...it's very rare. Single founder + small teams are the overwhelming norm, not the exception. All of these other "multiple founder" situations that pg likes to boast are so successful are, in fact, single founders + early team, which the single founder recruited. Not the same thing at all, and they don't have any of the SPoF redundancy you conjectured helped them to succeed. The major alternative to single- and the (rare) multi-founder companies are actually teams without any founders -- instead, they have a bunch of coders who like to work together and have developed some interesting tech that has some potential commercial value. That can work too, especially in software/technology, but those kinds of companies only succeed, if they succeed at all, with massive outside help from something like a YC. They are more likely to be found in tech incubators, and are highly over-represented on HN and in discussions like this. I'd argue that tech incubators exist precisely because these founder-less teams exist, and need funding and direction. That's a good area for YC to operate in, but it necessarily skews pg's view of the world.

macspoofing 14y ago
>In fact, single founders + early team, which the single founder recruited. You're redefining terms. A founder is a founder. For example, you may try to call Wozniak an 'early employee' of Apple Computers and Steve Jobs the founder, but then you'd be playing with words. Both of them are universally acknowledged as founders.
- erichocean 14y ago
  The simple approach is to look at equity allotments. If a single individual has 90% of the equity, it doesn't matter if there are 50 other people also with equity present and working at the inception of the business. That business has, exactly, one founder along with 50 early stage employees with equity stakes. AFAIK Steve and Woz had equal equity in Apple, and both were present at the founding of Apple (along with a third guy, who sold his stake back after a week). So, both are founders -- no word play necessary. There's nothing wrong with being an early stage employee, and we don't need to artificially inflate their worth by acting like they are founders, when the actual ownership facts indicate otherwise.
  - macspoofing 14y ago
    You're still playing with words. You're redefining what a founder is by saying that unless you have x% equity state, you're not. You're a founder if you're 'given' (or you take) the title of a founder, usually, but not always, at the inception (incorporation) of company. Yes this is a bit of a grey area, however if an individual uses that title in dealing with the press, investors and business, how do you go and say he's not?
- clarky07 14y ago
  I don't think he's talking about Apple. He's talking about places like Dropbox, where it was a lot more like a single founder + team than multiple founders, but PG and YC don't consider Dropbox to be single founder.

chollida1 14y ago

> In reliability planning, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. A single founder is a SPoF. They get cancer, get an unsupportive SO, get a needy family member, lose a rich uncle, etc., they kill the company. Having 2+ founders guards against these likelihoods (over the course of the company). Not really true at all, as has been pointed out by other posters. In the book "masters of doom" they relate that even though Id software had 4 founders when it came time for them to get key man insurance the only person they got it on was John Carmack. I'd think that most companies are like this. There may be multiple co-founders but there is usually one signifcant one, who if they quit, would sink the company very quickly.