Noam Wasserman's founder's dilemmas on equity and control

Noam Wasserman's Founder's Dilemmas is an overview of key decisions entrepreneurs face, including whether to have co-founders, how to split equity, and whether to raise money. The lessons answer how founders can think through choices about equity and control, and understand the personal tradeoffs involved. They connect early decisions with the longer course of building a company.

1 article, 1 book · about 6 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   

   Review: The Founder's Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman · Yevgeniy Brikman · 6 min read

   Wasserman's The Founder's Dilemmas contains some compelling evidence that founders who optimize for wealth over control make, on average, 50% more than those who optimize for control. However, these founders rarely end up in control of their companies, the companies evolve differently than those founders may have wanted, and those founders often find themselves ousted entirely. For startup founders deciding equity splits, most teams divide equity after days or weeks of working together, though building a company can take many years, even decades. A founder who has worked for 3 months before another joins may deserve a bit more equity, but those months are a tiny part of a successful company's ~10-year journey.

2. Book
   

   The Founder's Dilemmas · Bookshop.org

   The Founder's Dilemmas is a book by Noam Wasserman. It finds that founders who optimize for wealth over control make, on average, 50% more than those who optimize for control, but rarely end up in control of their companies.

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