On the inevitability of co-founder conflict.. …and how to survive it

Last updated 14-05-2025

6 min

I meet dozens of founders every week and each one wants to be the next Gates, Jobs, Zuck, or Altman. We romanticize them for building companies that changed the world but we rarely talk about how rocky their early co-founder relationships were.

Jobs and Wozniak fought. Zuck went to court with nearly every co-founder. Altman is now fighting Musk in court; most of his senior team has walked away. Even Gates saw his partner, Paul Allen, leave after a battle with cancer.

These world-famous co-founders clashed over vision, power, equity, control - or simply life happening in ways they didn't plan for. And this is not a rare risk. Harvard’s The Founder’s Dilemmas found that 65% of startups collapse because of co-founder issues. And yet, most founders spend more time choosing a logo than the person they’ll be in the trenches with.

Over the last 12 years working with hundreds of founders across multiple ecosystems and programs, from Techstars Startup Weekend, to Seedstars, and Startup Grind - I’ve seen the same mistakes play out again and again.

This article is not about how to avoid conflict with your co-founder. It's virtually impossible. It’s a breakdown of common mistakes and how to deal with them:

Don’t start a business with your best friend. Sure, you trust your best friend, and you know your cousin well. But have you ever actually worked together? Starting a business together will put serious pressure on your relationship. And let’s be honest, can you really fire your husband if he’s doing a poor job? Also, these relationships are deeply important to your life. Don’t risk damaging them because you chose a cofounder out of comfort, without taking the time to find the right fit.

Don’t start a business if you don’t have a technical background. If you must, do find a technical co-founder before working on even a pitch deck. On the other hand, if you have a technical background that is good enough to build a product that People need and are willing to pay for, having a business co-founder is nice but not a must; it can be sometimes distracting and destructive, and might be hard to land if you are trying to convince someone good or someone who will have to leave their job; it can wait. Also, co-founders have to be essential team members in terms of roles and not everyone; you can have ESOPs for the employees later.

Avoid specialists, you need co-founders who are generalists. Founding a company requires a lot of going between being the CEO, the office boy, and everything in between, all day long. Adaptability and willingness to learn matter more than specific technical expertise.

Avoid having co-founders who are not financially stable. When you are making decisions you don’t want these decisions driven by their need for money too soon, that can force you into bad investment deals, rushing revenues by selling cheaper than you should or before you are already and that can have destructive impact on you especially if you take money from bad investors and they are now ruining your life and messing up your cap-table.

Don’t be an immature communicator. Let’s assume you are lucky enough to find the right person/group to start a business with, you still can ruin it if you are too nice to speak your mind, address conflict, or negotiate effectively. Fights rarely show up as explosions, they show up as silence. Passive-aggressive slights. Avoided conversations. The pressure of a startup exposes everything, your decision-making style, your risk appetite, your 2 a.m. breakdowns. And when the cracks show, they spread fast.

Alright, I’ve covered all the don’ts, now let’s talk about what to do. Here are a few things to keep in mind to make your life a whole lot easier.

Be generous with equity. You need to keep them motivated, make sure you don’t own so much more than them and get them discouraged or resent you, just make sure to avoid a 50-50 deadlock, make sure the shares are vested with a cliff; without vesting you can sign your startup death certificate, if one of the co-founder leaves with 25% of it or their signature is required.

Be clear about time commitment. One of the main reasons for founders disliking each other, make sure to agree on who is full time and who’s not, and who’s doing what? Startups are tough and consuming, avoid part-timers and less committed individuals, if you can’t have everything clearly agreed on.

Agree on financing and KPIs. This is a must For an example if you will be financing the company by selling shares to venture capitalists you need your co-founder to know that they will dilute with every funding round and their 25% today might become 2% by the time you take your company public or sell to a larger entity; venture capitalists make their money by maximizing the value of these shares and that will result in many things including firing them as some point or bringing more senior individuals be become their bosses (the same goes for you), according to data, most co-founders leave by year five and most companies goes public without their founder being the CEO.

Put it all down on paper agreements. No handshake agreements at any stage, they will bite you in the future, sit, negotiate, write everything down, and even better, have a lawyer.

Have a final decision maker. Co-founders can disagree all day, but someone will have to make a decision, and the others have to fall in line, this person who take decisions must be agreed on from day zero. Also, make sure you have the sole right to hire and fire co-founders and make sure to fire them once you lose alignment; the more they stay the more you rotten the company to levels sometimes that are not repairable.

Align on work ethics or ethics in general. We all have preferences and values that govern our lifes, you can’t build a company with people who you are not feel they right by your values, if you are vegan, I will find it very hard to for you be happy sitting with someone who hunt and kill animal every weekend for fun. Same for business, if you believe you can’t lie to clients or investors, you will not be able to work with someone who believes that is completely fine.

Seek help when you feel stuck. Founding a company is full of unknown, it’s going be so hard to work with people who are not vulnerable and have self awareness to acknowledge their shortcomings and seek help from business mentors, coaches, and therapists.