<story><title>Co-founder breakups</title><url>http://harj.posthaven.com/co-founder-breakups</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>robotjosh</author><text>I cofounded a startup that had all of these issues!  I was the technical founder along with 2 non-technical founders, they offered me 10% equity to develop a hardware product.  Seemed like a good deal, nearly finished my work over 6 months.  Then we get into techstars and I have to shut down my independent contractor practice and come on full time with a shitty salary to keep my equity.  Also, I had to redesign the product in a way that added several magnitudes more work.  Another problem was that one of the non-technical cofounders started calling himself the CTO and started ordering me around on technical issues that I have an education in and over a decade of experience on.  After demanding to be an equal partner and CTO, I was kicked out with no equity and no nothing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Co-founder breakups</title><url>http://harj.posthaven.com/co-founder-breakups</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jordn</author><text>I&apos;m actually a little surprised that an equal equity split is apparently the default and preferred option in the valley. It&apos;s quite an unspeakable topic in my experience so I&apos;d appreciate if someone could confirm this.&lt;p&gt;I remember being told explicitly in one startup focused class at MIT that it was highly advisable to decide one way or another who would have the majority of shares. We even played a role playing game where an equal split was the only &lt;i&gt;wrong&lt;/i&gt; answer. The idea was that not everyone will be sacrificing and committing equally and that it was better to figure that out upfront than have it play out down the line.</text></comment>