[fireandfury]

The way I see it now, it's a harder to stay focused and committed to one vision if you are by yourself. Having a co-founder forces you to choose one thing, define it so that both of you understand it, and then show up every-day to implement it. By yourself, you can always just stop working on an idea and move to something else. You don't have anyone to make commitments to.

I used to get annoyed about working with other people because I would lose some control and would be "bound" to one idea. Now I see that as a potential good thing, assuming the initial plans are solid and the team is solid.

[cperciva]

Do you need someone breathing down your neck all the time? If you do, maybe you shouldn't be doing a startup.

Graduate students write theses single-handedly all the time; nobody tells a PhD student that they need to find a co-author to help them write their thesis. Yes, graduate students have supervisors, but the amount of supervision varies wildly; in my (admittedly extreme) case, I only talked to my supervisor twice between "here's some research I've done, do you think it's enough for a thesis" and "here's my final draft, please look it over before I submit it next week".

If you need a co-founder to do something which you can't do (business, coding in an area you're not familiar with, etc.) or don't have time to do, you should absolutely go out and get one. But I don't think "I'm too lazy to get anything done unless I have a co-founder" to be a very good reason, and I certainly don't think "'cause pg says so" is a good reason.

[davidw]

I used to race bicycles, and that involved a lot of training. Of course, you have to go out on your own a lot, but it was always easier with friends: when you agree to meet to go for a ride, it makes it easier for everyone to go, even if the weather sucks. Furthermore, having more people always made it a little bit more competitive. Sure, you could do repetitions up a hill or something on your own, but having your friend just a wheel length ahead of you, and trying to pass him makes you take out that much more energy (which is actually why racing was the best training).

Point being, that, as a guy working on my own, I recognize that there are advantages to having someone else around. It's got to be the right person, though, otherwise it's just a cargo-cult-cofounder put in place because someone said "you should have more than one person".

Since at the moment I do not have a person in place, I decided to forge ahead in any case, but I'm conscious of the downsides to that, so I keep my eyes open for potential candidates.

It's not just PG who says so. A lot of people say so, including Paul Hawken in the 80ies, in this book, which is quite a good read:

http://tinyurl.com/2dxnoc

But, like most of these other silly threads, I think the process should be like this:

Think about the fact/opinion. Think about how it applies to your situation (in this case, "can I get someone else?"). Deal with it and then move on. It's useless dwelling on it.

[iamyoohoo]

couldn't have said it better than this ...