Any word on if either were married?
"I’m 42, essentially married with a kid. I don’t give a shit about this. I’m not sexting with random strangers."
This brings up a question: Is it even possible to make a prenup that covers future windfills? E.g., a prenup that protects your wealth in a company that hasn't yet been founded.
Editorializing: Why would a spouse be no less entitled to reap the rewards generated by the other spouse's start-up? A relationship, especially a marriage, is inherently two people acting as a unit, so just because one spouse didn't sling PHP and research lambdas all night doesn't mean that either spouse's contribution is more or less valuable. If my spouse accomplished something like this, I'd be thrilled at the success and genuinely looking forward to our life together with much less time and stress investment from both of us, since that means that I was also picking up a lot more of the "home life."
OK, I'll bite. What if one of these situations:
1) What if the spouse was dead set against the start-up, and did everything possible to dissuade you, but you succeeded anyway.
2) What if you used your own money and assets from before the marriage to finance it? And what if those monies and assets were covered by the prenup; the company financed by those investments would or wouldn't be covered?
3) What if you founded the company when the marriage was in obvious decline and you both knew you'd eventually get divorced? What if you founded it when you were already separated?
4) Many companies with 2 founders don't have a 50:50 split. Why does the split with the spouse need to be 50:50 in the case of a company? Why shouldn't it be 60:40 or 90:10 assuming we accept the notion that the spouse must have been contributing something and is entitled.
Because just sitting around giving emotional support to someone doesn't entitle you to half of everything they get. It doesn't work that way with any other relationship (parent, friend, etc), so why should a marriage? This is especially true if both partners are working.
To answer your point more directly, one difference is that a marriage tends to produce children in a way that platonic friendships tend not do. My sense is that equal division of significant income and equity post-marriage will help, not hurt, children.
To answer your point a different way, the default marital property settings tend to work well for most people. Of course you can change those defaults to some extent with prenups, postnups, trusts, and so on. If you're still dissatisfied with your ability to alter those defaults, well, nobody's forcing you at gunpoint to marry someone you like to live with, have sex with, and even raise kids with.
>If the concept of sharing your life with another person sounds weird - just don't do it.
Sharing your life with another person doesn't imply sharing property.
Yes. It's a contract; you can do what you like within the normal legal boundaries (although certain provisions, e.g. child custody are likely to be thrown out if ever challenged).