[davidivadavid]

Sure, so it means you should be "dating" for a longer time before you start a company with someone. I'm just not sure I understand the point that's being made here, because it sounds like it's impossible to meet your future cofounder unless you've already done something with them, which is a pretty obvious catch 22.

[TuringNYC]

I cant speak to the GP comment, and I understand the catch 22, however IMHO your history need not be long with them, but I think it is very important that the history is on where you've seen their honesty+integrity+ethic under strained conditions, ideally where they dont know they are being directly evaluated.

Imagine your founder and you are sitting on a train and a lady gets off the train leaving behind a huge gold pendant. If you are both together, perhaps he may virtual signal by calling out to the lady. Wow, what a fine gentlemen and citizen.

Now imagine he is alone, you're far off in the corner of the train watching him, it is dark, and he doesn't realize he's being watched -- do you think he might keep the pendant or would he still act the same way?

Then realize that gold pendants arent found every day, so really you're waiting to see how the person performs when they have hard unselfish decisions to make -- the longer you observe people under independent circumstances that more such events you find and then hopefully you can gauge the person's honesty+integrity+ethic.

[cameronbrown]

Of course it's catch-22. There's a reason that being the right person (or people) at the right time/place is hugely beneficial. We can mitigate somewhat but at the end of the day, luck is a big part.

[em-bee]

when getting a client, i always like to start off with a smaller project before jumping into something big. same would goes for a co-founder. lets start a loose cooperation, without long-term commitment. let's see how it goes. make that commitment after the initial project(s) have gone well.