[ivey]

I wouldn't start a company with someone where the relationship wasn't based on fairness. If I don't trust my potential co-founders enough to share the company equally, they shouldn't be my co-founders.

EDIT: s/your/my/, s/you/I/ ... my personal position may not be best for you.

[wccrawford]

Your apparently definition of 'fair' is '50/50'. I have a different one: You share it according to what you bring to the table.

If you really are bringing the same value to the company, then 50/50 is correct. In reality, that's not likely to be the case.

The CEO needs to be the guy that holds it all together. That's a lot of responsibility, and requires some serious knowledge/education/experience/talent/etc. As much as I like to think the developer is the lynchpin in the company, it's actually the CEO. A bad CEO will destroy a company faster than a bad developer. And a bad developer is easier to replace.

As the article says, the split will depend on the people involved. There's no magic formula for figuring it out.

[ivey]

I'm saying that the article is correct, and also that I personally only want to do companies that fall into what he calls the fairness category.

The article does not say that 50/50 makes sense if and only if you bring equal things to the table. That's an unequal split argument in disguise.

Out of curiosity, do you want a larger stake because you want more money, more control, both, or for some other reason?

[robryan]

I think fairness and motivation is another reason, if your bringing a lot more to the table you want to feel that your efforts are being rewarded proportionately. It's not really about money as most of the time companies aren't going to hit it big, and I don't think it's really control either because the person with the minority stake is going to get demotivated pretty fast to if they are overruled on everything.

[wccrawford]

Actually, I would be the developer end of the deal and would get less share under a 'fair' split. So I'm not asking for a larger share at all. I said the CEO should get a larger share, under most circumstances.

To be fair, that smaller share sees me shouldering less responsibility, too, though. While I'd still be critical for the company to succeed, there's a lot of problems that just wouldn't be mine to shoulder.