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Re:Ask HN: What do I tell my co-founder when he asks access ... by dudeofjude on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @06:52AM (#5818649)
What if he tells me the next week - "my dear friend, I have some other priorities in life, I won't be able to focus on building the startup anymore??"

And 3 months down the line I later realize, some friend of his, is running a similar startup??

Re:Ask HN: What do I tell my co-founder when he asks access ... by gyardley on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @07:59AM (#5818844)
What if you were tell him the same thing?

Why on earth is he to trust you, but not vice versa?

You two are now equals and peers and it's time for you to start acting like it. If that's unacceptable to you then you never should have put yourself into this situation - a cofounder is not an employee.

Re:Ask HN: What do I tell my co-founder when he asks access ... by ProblemFactory on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @07:06AM (#5818684)
Such things do happen, but rarely. The only way to really "protect" yourself is to be the most useful possible co-founder yourself.

In any case, having access to your source code will not be an advantage in competing. Building new products is hard because you are at the time also figuring out and changing what to build.

If your idea is any good and has proven moderately successful, there will be competitors. Competitors who are not your co-founder and have never spoken to either of you, but just see your product and decide that it would be cool to have it in their city, country or business niche. And they will spend only 1/10 of your efforts on development and end up with a more maintainable codebase, because they have an example of what to build right from the start.

Re:Ask HN: What do I tell my co-founder when he asks access ... by jlengrand on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @08:36AM (#5819004)
And what if he decides to keep going, to realize a few weeks later that you reused the very same source code to help building a company's friend? I mean, everything goes both ways. Don't expect to be trusted if you can't trust
Re:Ask HN: What do I tell my co-founder when he asks access ... by iends on Tuesday June 04, 2013 @10:38AM (#5819630)
This is why you have contracts and lawyers.