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What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies

forbes.com

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Re: What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies

#5
post #4

I know a small partnership added "key man insurance" recently. Don't know rate but exams were required. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_person_insurance

Seems like a great idea. However, not sure how much money would help in this situation.

Re: What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies

#6
post #5
post #4

I know a small partnership added "key man insurance" recently. Don't know rate but exams were required. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_person_insurance

Seems like a great idea. However, not sure how much money would help in this situation.

Money can help get through the time you need to get back on your knees. I've had the misfortune of having my cofounder die after 18 month and two investments rounds and some money would have really help. Also you have to prepare for this kind of problems in advance because all of a sudden a substantial part of the shares of the company will be in limbo until the legalities are handled (and it can really stink if the family of the deceased is not helping...) which means: you can't raise money anymore, you can't really hire someone good as most people are very afraid of this kind of situation.

Re: What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies

#8

>who took intense joy in little things like drinking Diet Coke through a straw to avoid cavities I'm not the only one!

... but Diet Coke doesn't have sugar in it, so it shouldn't cause cavities, right? Did a joke just go over my head or am I missing something?

Re: What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies

#9
post #8

>who took intense joy in little things like drinking Diet Coke through a straw to avoid cavities I'm not the only one!

... but Diet Coke doesn't have sugar in it, so it shouldn't cause cavities, right? Did a joke just go over my head or am I missing something?

Diet coke has phosphoric acid which causes erosion of the enamel.

Re: What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies

#10
This is a remarkably well-written article. Made me really feel for the company, both in terms of sympathy and wanting to see them succeed.

One thing it did left me wondering, was covered in the final paragraph:

"...Engineers can spot his name and edits throughout the code repository. And occasionally, back-end commands will pop up messages, little surprises that Tang built into the system years ago. One reads, “You’re doing a good job today.”

How would your company react to messages like that? Do any of you take a strategy for injecting joy into your code?

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