[donw]

This isn't a counter-example if the FriendFeed guys all worked part-time on the startup.

The point isn't that only full-timers can be founders, but rather that all founders should share a roughly equal level of commitment. If some of the founders are full-time, and some are part-time, then you've got a really severe imbalance in terms of contributions to the company, not to mention risk.

This will cause huge bitterness later on, so it's totally reasonable to say "We're all going in full-time, so if you want to be a founder, you are too. If not, that's fine, and we'll make you hire number one when we can afford to pay you a salary, plus back-pay for hours worked as an IOU."

[dhimes]

I think the counter-example was to the idea that you have to "burn the ships" in order to motivate people to succeed.

[donw]

Ah, that is certainly true -- some people are motivated by the threat of total failure, others work better if they've got a sensible fallback.