I Don't Want to Be a Founder and I Don't Think You Do Either

The marriage comparison. Hmm. Not sure. Marriage has higher emotional risks and consequences (children) if strictly lower financial (if you believe your ventures bluesky dreams) but it also has emotional intensity and exposure of self which is not inherent in a co founder. Do you think Larry and Sergei knew each other that intimately, fears and doubts?

I don't really mean you don't have sects (hah) (although there's that too, you never know what quirks lie in the mind, maybe your Amish hangups are the rock it founders on in both cases..) -marriage is (or should be) a personal commitment through thick and thin. Irrespective of the physical intimacy, comes a vulnerability which if you shared with a co founder, you could expect massive asymmetry to emerge. There's no "for better or worse" in founding.

Many co founders don't expect to go down with the ship. Many marriages break on the rocks (Amish or not) but many survive, even the arranged ones. I suspect more marriages are successful than co founded startups in fact. Divorce is at about 30%. What's founder success rate?

I see stronger parallels to the Beatles and the Stones frankly.