<story><title>Working alone sucks</title><url>http://fleetadmiral.tumblr.com/post/37907736486/working-alone-sucks</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>paulsutter</author><text>This is a pretty clear take on the cofounder debate. Key quote:&lt;p&gt;&quot;I don’t have a CFO, COO or other peers with the same overall picture of the company and incentive structure that I have&quot;&lt;p&gt;In the early days of Quantcast, Konrad (the other cofounder) and I wondered why the employees didn&apos;t generally have the same sense of urgency that we did. My friend Bryan asked &quot;so, what do you do when you read an article about a competitive threat?&quot; and we both answered &quot;we share it with each other&quot;. &quot;and not the employees?&quot;, and we looked at each other and said &quot;we don&apos;t want to be discouraging&quot;. Bryan said &quot;no wonder they don&apos;t feel urgency&quot;.&lt;p&gt;And that&apos;s at the core of having a cofounder. Or more importantly, perhaps that&apos;s one of the real reasons you want the initial team of a company to all be cofounders (YC style). You want everyone in the same boat, with a big bet on the line, sharing information openly.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d love to hear any other thoughts about the real underlying reasons that the success rates are higher with companies that have cofounders. Most of the discussion on HN is about the observation, and examples either way. But I&apos;d love to hear insight into the reasons.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gsharma</author><text>I am curious to know how you cultivated sense of urgency among employees after this conversation? Did you start sharing more about competition and/or other information? Did you share it directly or massaged the message so the employees don&apos;t get discouraged? Or was &quot;we don&apos;t want to be discouraging&quot; an assumption?</text></comment>
<story><title>Working alone sucks</title><url>http://fleetadmiral.tumblr.com/post/37907736486/working-alone-sucks</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>paulsutter</author><text>This is a pretty clear take on the cofounder debate. Key quote:&lt;p&gt;&quot;I don’t have a CFO, COO or other peers with the same overall picture of the company and incentive structure that I have&quot;&lt;p&gt;In the early days of Quantcast, Konrad (the other cofounder) and I wondered why the employees didn&apos;t generally have the same sense of urgency that we did. My friend Bryan asked &quot;so, what do you do when you read an article about a competitive threat?&quot; and we both answered &quot;we share it with each other&quot;. &quot;and not the employees?&quot;, and we looked at each other and said &quot;we don&apos;t want to be discouraging&quot;. Bryan said &quot;no wonder they don&apos;t feel urgency&quot;.&lt;p&gt;And that&apos;s at the core of having a cofounder. Or more importantly, perhaps that&apos;s one of the real reasons you want the initial team of a company to all be cofounders (YC style). You want everyone in the same boat, with a big bet on the line, sharing information openly.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d love to hear any other thoughts about the real underlying reasons that the success rates are higher with companies that have cofounders. Most of the discussion on HN is about the observation, and examples either way. But I&apos;d love to hear insight into the reasons.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>labaraka</author><text>You&apos;ve nailed it!&lt;p&gt;I should have been clearer in my post and maybe titled the post &quot;Not having co-founders sucks&quot;.</text></comment>