Great piece. Thanks for sharing Mike! Check out what we're up to at CoFoundersLab, http://www.cofounderslab.com/, a free online matching platform to help entrepreneurs find the right co-founders and build lasting business relationships.

Also, for those in LA, check out this cool workshop on Feb. 12th at Cross Campus in Santa Monica: Building Strong Founding Teams: http://buildingstrongteams.eventbrite.com/

After writing this piece and before it went live yesterday, I discovered a really interesting interview between Leo Laporte and Alexis Ohanian where Alexis shared their own co-founder dispute system at early Reddit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjozYFToIM4&t=959s

tl;dr early Reddit used a technique mentioned: defaulting to the person with the most expertise.

Thanks this is a really good interview

I agree, the whole interview is really well done and worth watching.

O hai! Thanks. It was a fun interview for me.

At TechStars, they tell you on day one that not all the teams will make it through the program intact. I've actually seen a team member leave one team for another.

Same with YC. A few founders don't make it through the three months, some companies merge, others dissolve completely.

It's like starting a band. If you're not friends first, when friction begins, things usually get ugly. Having the mutual respect that friendship brings will give all parties better perspective on where everyone's interests lie.

I think there are two ways, or two types of band organisations that can be applied to startups. You're either a Bon Jovi or you're a U2.

In Bon Jovi, Jon Bon Jovi is the boss. He owns the company, the brand, everything. The other guys in the band are simply his employees.

U2 is the complete opposite. The band has 5 members, the 4 you see on stage and the manager (Paul McGuinness). These guys basically built their little empire based on mutual respect to each other. According to the band members it's not a democracy, it's just that the best idea is used regardless of who came up with it. In effect, their success is built around a lack of ego, or as Bono said it, the ego is the band not the individual members (ie. the result is greater than the sum of its parts).

I think both approaches will work fine, however, with the U2 approach being rare to find out in the real world but when it does occur magic happens.