[gms]

At least amongst Bay Area startups at your stage, a 50/50 split is common. It has its advocates (YC amongst them) and detractors.

Given how common this is, it's peculiar that this VC is bringing this up so early in the lifetime of the company. CEOs often get different refresher packages as the company grows and assembles a board, but you're not at that stage yet.

If your co-founder is happy with the current arrangement then he can just tell the VC no thanks and everyone can move on. It's your company, not your VC's.

More generally, the most troublesome part of all this is that, at your early stage, every minute spent talking about this is a minute not spent on your product and customers.

[sultanofswing]

Wholeheartedly agree. I really don't see any rational basis for this, and it feels like a huge waste of emotional energy.

I guess it would be good to know: What is the good faith argument for detractors in this case? (assuming that in the 50/50 split there is a tiebreaking vote like in our case)

[gms]

Some arguments here from a bygone era (none are convincing to me): https://hbr.org/2016/02/the-very-first-mistake-most-startup-....

We have the same model as you at the company I co-founded. The only valid worry that comes to my mind is a 50-50 split with no person designated as the boss. But you already have that part sorted.

[sultanofswing]

Yeah and this is where I honestly don't understand (and am suspicious of) the VC firm's take on this.

My cofounder is happy with this, I'm happy with this. We have tiebreaking and vesting built into the equation so there's no gridlock and no one can leave the company high and dry. And neither one of has complaints about each others' commitment (nights weekends, etc you name it we are "all in" and that is our expectation).

Furthermore we worked nights and weekends on this as a "project" for months before even incorporating so did not go into the equity split just on a whim.

It seems like in the cited examples all of these things were missing on some level. TLDR if someone isn't performing and there is cause to fire them that already exists and shifts the power balance significantly towards the CEO.

[gms]

At the end of the day it's just a VC's view. This doesn't count for much.

You two can easily tell him no thanks and move on.