skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In the beginning of a startup, especially one that has multiple co-Founders of equal stature, the command structure is exactly that of a hunting party. That is, members of the party do not have rigid roles although they each have distinct skills. Their lives center around well-defined hunting events, the success of each is important for their subsequent survival.

The decision making process tends to be ad hoc and each person can take on multiple and often overlapping roles which can change from event to event, depending on the need of the team and also their ability to perform that same role in a previous event. In other words, the command structure is very flat and communication between each member is direct and unambiguous. Most importantly, consensus is a requirement since everyone is equal and while there might be a leader, there cannot be a dictator. It is a democracy as well as a meritocracy.

An operating company is like a village which is led by a single leader who is not popularly elected but appointed by a group of elders, and has dictatorial power over the villagers. There is usually unspoken but well understood rules on what is proper conduct for each member of the village include the leader, the elders who are the ones that bestow the authority, the captains, the foot solders and all the other supporting personnel including the children that make the village livable and sustainable.

The command structure of the village is no longer flat. Decisions that are made at the top need to be propagated as well as diffused into the individuals. Consensus is less important and is replaced by consultation. Decisions are made by mandates and not through bartering among equals. In order to function, there has to be both punishment and rewards. Punishment of the non-performers is actually an important form of rewards for the performers. Most importantly, unlike a hunting party, the roles are much more well-defined and much more rigid.

It is very difficult for a hunting party to naturally evolve into a village. The requirement is for some of original hunters to give up their executive power to become non-executive elders and to elect a single leader to become an authoritative figure who can make unpopular decision for everyone to follow.

It is almost impossible for a startup with multiple equal co-Founders to grow beyond the original flat command structure because it is unnatural for anyone to give up power (or influence), especially if they were the ones who made the company successfully in the first place.

The hunters are individual contributors who at best can evolve into middle managers. But middle managers who are also major shareholders would have a hard time separating their ownership interest from their fiduciary responsibility.

It is a very interesting problem to solve.

--Denny--

Denny K Miu

http://www.startupforless.com
Right... somewhere "get a cofounder" became a blocking requirement for starting a company, and that's a mistake. Go forward, and make it happen, and don't worry if you don't have a cofounder.
Well, I think it depends on what those 2-3 bad moves are... I don't think its that tenuous-- when you're self funded. ( When you take outside investment, at least in the US, its a situation where you take a lot more risk...)

I'm glad you and your co-founder have a good relationship. Nothing wrong with that at all!
I guess I'm trying to say that there are plenty of Facebook apps (free gifts, HTML walls) that are "viral" and easy to build, but how many of these have any chance at making money? I'm implying that any Facebook application that is useful enough to become a "founded company" will involve an external site of some sort, one that involves the same types of inherent complications that are present in any other startup.

What do you have in mind that can be built almost entirely in Facebook and expanded later on? I suppose if I think hard enough I can come up with some long shot ideas that may or may not work out (product-rating apps which could be expanded to include other social networks, for one), but even something like this is going to require some kind of heavy backend analysis to be especially useful. Keep in mind that we're also ignoring the (very real) possibility of Facebook sweeping in and mirroring any successful application or approach to generating revenue.

On another note, what makes Facebook any easier for experimentation than Apache? Writing scripts that print pages to a browser is as easy as writing to standard output.
because a consulting company doing outsourced work at hourly rates is not what most people here mean by "startup". If that were so Bangalore has thousands of "startups".

Having said that, I think we should still focus on the point he makes.

But yeah a -3 sounds about right. :-)
If you've known someone for awhile and you know they would be a great person to start a company with (and you have the emotional maturity to be abel to tell that- I mean, how many people think they are going to get married to the person they are dating, 5, 8, 12 times before they meet the person they know they are going to marry and with whome it works out?) ... if you already have a cofounder, even if you don't have an idea for a company yet... then start a company with them. Nothing wrong with that.

My point is just that if you don't have this person... don't hesitate for a second. Just go forward and get employees or go without them.

If it means you don't get YC funding because of PG's bias, then you didn't want it anyway.

Just don't hesitate to start a company without a cofounder... most successful businesses are founded by individuals.
My title gave a little bit the wrong impression-- it sounds like I'm saying that cofounders are bad. I'm not.

What I mean is, if you don't already have a cofounder, don't get one. You don't need one.

If you find someone, then maybe that's great... but understand the risks.

But you should never go get one because you think you need one... that's a recipe for failure.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2000/0211homeless.html
Thank you for the very thorough explanation. It does bring up some more questions in my mind, however:

Even in hunting parties, aren't there leaders who need to resolve disputes or ultimately take on the responsibility to make tough decisions? Isn't the most experienced or best hunter the one in this role? I'm not sure how this maps exactly to a cofounder situation (unless, of course, there happens to be a parallel in the startup in question), but wouldn't it make sense for this hunting leader to become the elder?

Is it not possible for the single leader situation to be replaced by a ruling group? As long as these members continue to do some of the other work involved in the village/startup, it does not seem like it would become a situation where there are too many leaders and not enough workers. Of course, this assumes that the group can continue to reach decisions in a reasonable manner.

I'm not saying these situations could occur easily or frequently, but they seemed to fall outside the realm of your explanation while remaining hypothetically reasonable and workable.
> Using them to power your electronics helps conserve valuable metals used in making batteries

Rant time: Except there's no shortage of metals used in batteries. And if there was a shortage the scarcity would cause the price to increase which would cause a search for more of the metal and/or substitutes. Hence the reason we've run out of no resources to date. Ironically using a resource actually makes more of it available. Think how much gasoline was available before anyone had a use for it.
A toy application on a proprietary platform is definitely not a startup (it's just cheap, outsourced market research for Facebook).
secgeeks.com needed co-founder
its a security portal like security focus etc.i planned to add various sections to this site.i am also having other sites like newskicks.com and tubeley.com all are powered using open source software.if you think this ideas interest you please contact me at:secgeek@secgeeks.com
i thanks for your time and looking forward to hearing from you soon.
The dollar has plummeted in value, more so in Bush's term than during any period of U.S. history.
The problem is not one of skills and affinity but one of command structure.

A startup with multiple equal co-Founders is a partnership. No one in a partnership bears fiduciary responsibility. Each partner is responsible for their own interest and that of their family and no one else. So for partners to make decision, they barter. They each decide what they want from each other and out of necessity, they come to a common ground.

At the beginning of a startup, this is not a problem because like a hunting party, they are consumed by their own survival and their common ground is the only ground. The hunters are both owners and executives but there is no conflict.

But as the startup grows and becomes successful, the partners (i.e., co-Founders with more or less equal stature) will have a problem finding common ground.

On the other hand, a company is not a partnership. Company is owned by shareholders, whose interests are represented by the Board of Directors. The Board members (i.e., village elders) are not the executives but instead they appoint an executive (village chief) to run the company (village) on their behalf. The chief executive is given a mandate by the elders and he/she surrounds himself/herself with fellow executives, who together share the fiduciary responsibility.

So for a hunting party to evolve into a village (or a startup to evolve into an operating company), the original co-Founders will have to evolve from a co-owner to co-executive, replacing their ownership interest by fiduciary responsibility, and learn to change their decision making process from one of bartering to one based on mandate.

This sounds easy but almost never done properly.

--Denny--

Denny K Miu

http://www.startupforless.com
I was very thrown off by the YC interview during Summer 07. The unfortunate side effect of the 10 minutes is you end up answering YC questions the whole time and not only delivering your vision for the application. So the whole interview either becomes a test of how well you can perform interview acrobatics or how close YC's questions and first impressions are to what you want to tell them.
Bonuses Likely to Shrink for Many on Wall Street
A Trillionaire in India is building a Billion dollar house. I need a new career.
I haven't seen statistics on single founder vs multiple founder startups. I'm not sure if there are any, or the massive biases they would exhibit because most startups die without ever leaving a trace.

Most of the companies you've worked for had multiple founders - to be get big enough to hire someone is a measure of success. I think history likes to write stories about single men of vision - especially in the established business fields. I'd take such a look with a healthy skepticism.
I was pretty disappointed with both the content of the article and the fact that it was just a plug for Powerex. If the idea is that battery companies purposefully create lower grade rechargeable batteries in order to maintain sales of alkaline batteries one would need to do more to prove it rather than simply showing one particular D battery.

In case the author doesn't get it, a bigger battery doesn't necessarily mean more capacity. One of the reasons to use plastic filling in the D battery is to make it fit inside of devices that require a battery of that size. And the reason they're a lot more expensive is that D size batteries are not nearly as used as AA and since they are being produced and sold in smaller quantities the company needs a higher profit margin.
I don't know if anyone asked for it but I started a thread a little while ago about how news.YC was damaging my productivity and several other folks seemed to agree so I'm wondering if this is in any way related. I think it was done more to help the folks accepted into YC procrastinate less and work more.
>how close YC's questions and first impressions are to what you want to tell them.

This really upset me at the time... We spent a lot of time answering the question "We're going to compare you to yahoo.com" and were rejected because they didn't see how we solved the essential design problem of our product.
This is another good opportunity to plug PG's submarine regarding PR. 53 percent of companies block employee surfing? Really? That would mean that more than half of the companies I have worked for so far should have been blocking employee surfing and I've yet to see one. 2/3 of companies will block employee web access by next year? Sounds like one of those PR gimmicks where they manage to publish bogus numbers and then use those numbers to sign on new customers.

Heck news.YC is more of a distraction to me at work than any social network (not anymore thanks to the nonprocrast features).

The truth is employees don't like to be treated like highschool students.
just what i've been looking for. thanks.
Google Adwords Changes Provide More Rounded Package
I'm guessing someone didn't like my post very much. If you want to better understand what I mean about lack of tactile feedback try using a touch screen remote control. Heck, try using one of those keyboards that project onto your desk and tap on a wooden board for a bit instead of a regular keyboard.

Tactile feedback tells your brain that you actually DID something without you having to look and observe the actual result. Even though the iPhone doesn't have real tactile feedback I found it very odd to use the on-screen keyboard when the phone is on vibrate. Even the little clicky sound it makes helps in making it easier to use.
Frickin' awesome.
There was nothing angry about it. The culture around here borders on a personality cult around Paul Graham, which explains all the "how to get a co-founder" threads.

Thanks for the great essay.
Encrypted E-Mail Company Hushmail Gives Feds Copies Of Messages
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
- Ben Franklin
It's a feature request:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27783
I used YUI compressor with langpop, which has a big chunk of javascript:

http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2007/11/07/yui-compresso...
there is no logic in what you are saying.
It is quite simple. People buy D batteries because they are bigger. Electronics that use D batteries is because they have higher capacity and run longer. The reason they are expensive is because you get more, bigger and longer lasting battery. Not just because they are not nearly popular as AA.

The author might be throwing a plug for Powerex, but he has a good point. Even if he owns Powerex, its unethical for Energizer to put a smaller battery inside a big one and sell it at a higher cost. Energizer could sell the batter for cheaper if they just want to put a lower capacity battery inside a D sell.
InnerCircle, a simple way to email groups
Screenshots of first Googlephone app
I am not in favor of huge downvotes. I think a 0 or a -1 is enough for someone to get the idea that people don't approve. Heaping on the votes is sort of pointless.
He may just be astroturfing for Powerex. But the visual of the D battery cracked open is still pretty ridiculous. Besides, I think it could feasibly make sense for Energizer to pull this trick. First off, you don't know how good a battery is until you buy it; some consumers may never find out for sure if they were ripped off. So it's an experience/credence good. As such people may depend on the brand and price to find out if it's a smart buy.

Some products have planned obsolescence. They can be more disposable than advertised. But if the consumer is loyal to the brand, he may keep buying the product.
I know it's common to recase rechargable C batteries as D batteries but I haven't seen it done with an AA. The lesson here is buy your batteries from a cheap online store and not from anywhere retail.
Tim Wu, Freedom Fighter (and inspiration to Google's mobile strategy)
Frankly, I grin every time I hear someone say that Facebook apps don't make money, because that's just more left for me. Consider these stats from a not spectacularly successful app: http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/smincomebig.png

How many web 2.0 companies do you know that are pulling those numbers?

Facebook is the most viral platform in the history of man - making it easy to get a lot of users quickly makes it deal for experimentation.
Red Hat on EC2
"... Sounds like one of those PR gimmicks where they manage to publish bogus numbers and then use those numbers to sign on new customers. ..."

Could be right. Have you followed this thread where I posted an NYT article that turned out to be just such a sub. [0]

I would have thought the blogging section as an editorial of sorts (not cash for comment) was immune from this. Maybe not? Certainly if you want to push the Journalist on this point they might cough up the real motivation for the story.

The articles cited source is here ~ http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/news_and_events/index.ph... and like you point out, hardly an unbiased view. I'm beginning to think the viewpoint of a lot of "New York TImes" articles are compromised and not worth posting.

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=70836 and here ~ http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/1685662827/
Getting along with a co-founder
is nothing like getting
along with a partner in a class project.

I have friends that I worked great with in
college. They all remain my dear friends,
but...

after years of hacking together, and literally
hundreds of thousands of lines of code, sometimes
you just don't see eye to eye..

I agree a co-founder is beneficial, but it is very
different then just hacking a project out
with a buddy.
The user really doesn't care if you have to maintain your code on both client and server. Besides, even if you want to avoid that, you could always use JavaScript for both client and server.
>Getting along with a co-founder is nothing like getting along with a partner in a class project.

The OP compares a good cofounder to a really good relationship... it is probably not a coincidence that "partner" applies both in the sexual/societal union sense and in the business sense.
Scaling Down: Downwardly scalable systems
"However, installing Java and loading and running the Java applet can be annoying"

Any reason that they can't use Flash?
First, what dual engine and single engine planes have to do with PG's comparison? He was referring to the fact that if a component of a thing statically represents the number one problem (for example the car's engine breaking down), it doesn't mean you should remove that component (the engine).

Secondly, while I agree with you that if you planned everything by yourself and are willing to do it alone, you shouldn't just look for co-founder when you can start implementing by yourself with some employees. But I got to warn you that's pretty extreme and may get you looking like a 70 year old when you are 25 very fast, because of the exhaustion it causes to run a big venture by yourself.

I don't know statistics either and I would like to put [citation needed] everywhere I look on the internet but a two men team has more potential on the long run then an one man army because the two founders motivate each other, share problems and have a larger knowledge base to solve them, make it more fun and pleasing to work on a startup.
I like your post because you raze awareness regarding the importance of having good cofounders. Anyway some people like to work alone one and they do it better that way, but I think most men might fall apart on such high pressure, especially if they don't have previous experience in making startups.

One more thing is that it's very hard to find good employees that are willing to work at a startup, even harder to pay them while you don't have any revenues in site.
Innovative startup from NYC to publish the Blogosphere
In the past, &#42; was a star, obtained by entering `&amp;#42;'.
This sounds like good advice to me. This YC requirement has led to something akin to "cargo cult cofounders" - getting someone else involved because it's "better that way". While I tend to think it is better to have one, it has to be the right person, not some random dude who you barely know. It's sort of a catch 22 in that it's got to be someone you've already known for a while when you start looking or discussing the idea of doing a company.
Omniture Not Purchasing WebTrends, Yet
Ugh, can we leave the politics and bad economics on reddit, please?
Sorry I came off harsh.

I was not questioning whether a "really good relationship"
was a good foundation for selecting a co-founder.

I was questioning whether a one night project signifies
a "really good relationship".

It may or may not.

I think the OP had many great insights and I
enjoyed reading his post.

Also, W3STS1D3 4 L1F3!!
Idea for Facebook App: "Lobby"
This idea grew out of my frustration with a company who refuses to repair my mobile phone. Obviously I will end my contract with that company, and so will my girl-friend. Perhaps some of my friends will, too? What if I could post my grudges against some companies on my Facebook profiles, and contacts who trust me enough would also commit to actions (ie cancel their contracts, avoid products from that company). The application could sum the expected damages for the evil company.

What do you think? I fear some legal problems, and maybe it is too negative. On the other hand being powerless against the big corporations is also a very negative feeling. I admit that I am motivated by anger here...

Another question is how often do such frustrations occur? Maybe I was just extremely unlucky, and in general the corporations don't abuse their power?
Interestingly there is a saying amongst pilots that is: "The second engine flies you to the scene of the accident". I'm not sure if this works as a metaphor in this case.
What is your E.Q.?
You Mean Wall Street Just Realized The Recording Industry Was In Trouble?
Dick Costolo: Have a Company Voice (from Ask the Wizard)
Its too bad he didn't have a better architect with all that money to spend on the house. But of course, the value of art is in the eye of the beholder.
CS or Software Engineering at Ontario's newest and most high tech university is, in my opinion, beyond what Waterloo can deliver. Check out UOIT
http://uoit.ca/
James Gosling explains why fsin/fcos is often wrong on x86 and how Java deals with it
My guess is that Flash doesn't have all of the encryption libraries. They'd have to rewrite all of them in AS...
UOIT has a great CS and Software Engineering program. They are also the only school in Canada to offer a masters in information technology security. UOIT is also Ontario's newest, and most wired university. http://uoit.ca
The two opinions aren't mutually exclusive. I simply read you to say that co-founders are a trait of successful "startups". While here the opinion is that's a fine trait, but it isn't always necessary. To me, it's just an disagreement about necessary and sufficient conditions.

Paul, would you agree that a co-founder makes many things easier, but the right single founder can find that support structure through other means (e.g., spouse and a few core employees with significant stock)?
Bitstream Vera Sans Mono and Panic Sans: Excellent fonts for your Terminal
"Successful single-founder startups are so rare that they're famous on that account."

Doesn't the same argument apply to successful_ startups founded by 20-somethings? I.e. they are famous because they are so rare.

_My definition of successful is taking the company public.
'Internet Van' played key role in evolution of the Web
Senators want Justice Department to sue P2P pirates
I'd probably never use it, but I like it :) It is like Facebook ads in reverse - make sure to connect via the guilty company's Facebook profile ;)
if you looked at my first reply you can see that I didn't disagree with your main idea(s) in the first post. I just didn't like the way you said it.

"I think its kinda arrogant to say that founders are superior..."

intentional or not given the semi-bitter tone of your main post, that's the impression that I thought you were trying to make