

Ask HN: Do I let my brother take over as CTO? - Jarred

So I'm going to start by explaining my experience with coding and/or computers in general before I go on to my question. I've been a Computer Technician for a few years and I've had a computer my entire life, and I've been tinkering with computers in general for as long as I've had any (Kindergarten). I started programming early last year, and I audited a course at UCDavis over the summer (ECS30). I'm currently 15. I learn fairly fast with these things and I've put an enormous amount of time into this idea.<p>Last night, I finished designing the UI of the idea, and this morning I called my brother because I had a question relating to the class diagram. My brother didn't answer that question, and instead told me he had watched the Social Network last night, and it made him want to work on this with me. I had asked him awhile ago to work on it, and he said no because of school. He had about two weeks off because he had just graduated from UCDavis (with a bachelors in Computer Science and BioTech) and he agreed to work on it with me. At the end of those two weeks he decided not to work on it with me because he had just gotten a job at Autonomy.  He knows Java, C, C++, and Python. He now wants to work on it, but under a  condition. That condition being he takes care of the technology side of things, mostly because I don't know any other languages than .NET/Mono/Silverlight. This means that I'm going to have to learn Java and PHP, and as he's doing the coding for the project I'm going to be spending the time playing catch-up and as a result end up making considerably less contributions. I personally think that I have more to contribute to this project in the idea itself than he does, but he knows how to code well. I can learn to code well, it will just take more time. My question is should I let him take over as CTO?
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mgkimsal
On the tech side, if you've got a silverlight-based app that you'd think might
be better as a pure javascript-based offering (the 50% issue you mentioned
elsewhere) bringing someone in who is not a js guru isn't going to get you any
further along. So... someone coming in and wanting to change tech mostly just
to suit them (although I think there _can_ be some financial advantages to
java/php over a .net approach) doesn't sound like a good move.

Putting on my "old guy" hat... you're 15. He's not much older. You're both
young and he's wanting to horn in on your baby because he saw a movie. This
just doesn't good to me, but the ages - and family angle - make it worse. I'd
steer clear of this one as politely as possible.

If your current project doesn't pan out, perhaps you can start something new
together later, but approach that with a clean slate.

~~~
Jarred
I do kind of feel like he's taking advantage of me, I get that feeling a lot
actually. I do think he could be a great asset in the future, mostly when the
work becomes too much for me but I really do get the feeling that he wants to
take over and do it all.

I want this to work out, I don't like high school. I am willing to accept
failure but there is more than one idea I've thought of that I like, only this
is the one that I think I can do the best on right at this moment, and in the
far future I want to work on those. (Those have high starting costs whereas
this has almost no costs in the beginning and I see personal gain from this
because K-12 Education is awful)

~~~
mgkimsal
Old man speaking here again. It's fashionable the past few years to drop out
of college and head to Silicon Valley to strike it rich. I get that. I would
_not_ recommend dropping out of high school. You've got perhaps 2 years left
of it. If you want to slack there and hone your skills on something else -
fine. But unless people are already paying you a crapload of money for stuff
you've done, stick it out. That probably sounds very 'stick in the mud', and
it possibly is. Just... stick it out. Out of the probably 70-80 years you've
got left on this planet, another 2 spent getting the most rudimentary
education and exposure to a variety of ideas (even if it sucks) isn't going to
kill you, or indeed kill your startup baby.

If there's one thing I've learned over the years is that good ideas and good
opportunities constantly present themselves - it's like a river. You need to
be able to grab on to one when you're ready, and at 15 I'm just not sure
you're ready.

Yes, we see stories of 9 year old CEOs making fortunes on the web (one started
a furniture company or something like that) but they also have close-knit
supportive parents and families. You've not mentioned parents, but you're
already not on the same wavelength as your brother, which is a big red flag.

I did a 'startup' (services consultancy, really) with my brother for several
years - it didn't end well, but we've stayed friendly and in touch, which (to
me) is ultimately more important.

~~~
Jarred
Well I never said I'd drop out, even if it came off that I implied that. The
idea I'm working on involves K-12 education. It's essentially a file-sharing
network for academia and hobbyists. But the file-sharing part is mashed in
with your courses, so when a teacher posts the homework any other teacher can
use that homework as well or if a student doesn't understand how to do the
night's homework they can just search for the concept (i.e Quadratic
Equations) and it will come up with a list of videos made by teachers for that
concept. That's a very informal and not a very elaborate description but
that's essentially it.

------
breakupsarehard
> My question is should I let him take over as CTO?

I say remove the word "CTO" or any other 3-letter acronym that starts with C
from your lexicon for now. Can he be your _partner_ \-- that is, can you
depend on him and be open and honest with him?

> told me he had watched the Social Network last night, and it made him want
> to work on this with me

Yikes.

~~~
Jarred
I honestly don't know if I can depend on him or not, if it's any indicator of
dependability, he had around a 2.8 GPA in College and he wasn't really doing
any side-projects. His main ordeal would probably be his job, as he has a
full-time job as a System Admin. If I judge his dependability based on that
then it's shit. I think I'll ask him why he wants to do this and if he's
honest about that his response will tell me whether he's dependable.

Him watching the Social Network and being motivated from that is slightly
worrisome to me as well, but it was a movie that even with it being mostly
fictitious, it still showed the possibility of success in Silicon Valley.

~~~
damncabbage
Everything you've said on this post leads to a big, flashing, neon sign saying
"DON'T DO IT, MAN".

It's your own choice, but if you can't depend on him, doesn't have the skills
in the areas he'd need to have, and seemingly wants to muscle in because he's
watched a movie, then I think it's probably better if you find a way to
decline without being too rude about it.

Maybe help brainstorm his own idea he can run with, if only to be supportive?

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maxbrown
It seems just from your tone in the post and your comment below that you
already think he's not dependable and not someone you want to work with.

If you think he brings VITAL skills to the table that your venture won't get
launched without, I would consider using reverse vesting to make sure he gets
out what he puts in.

For an explanation of reverse vesting:
<http://www.venturechoice.com/glossary/reverse-vesting.htm>

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Tyrant505
I think you should take this project on your own. You are 15 and have a lot to
learn. Even if this idea fails you will learn from it's execution more than if
your brother takes over. Also, you are in my eyes more passionate about it
compared to someone who gets a bit of fire in his belly due to watching Brave
Heart, oh i mean socialnetwork. Learn you some python!

~~~
Jarred
I don't want this to be just something I learn from. I want this to be
something useful to many different people and allow people to both learn and
enjoy their own hobbies better. I might explain later what the idea is if it's
relevant to what someone comments.

~~~
Wilduck
Good, do it. Forget your brother and get something working that people can
use. I can guarantee you, however, that by doing so, you will learn something.
Don't be averse to that.

~~~
Jarred
I'm fully expecting this to be a learning process, only I don't want that to
be the goal. I'm still deciding whether or not to tell him no, I sort of like
the idea of working with him, mostly because he knows a whole lot more than I
do for development but I also feel like I'll do a lot better job than he
would, and I don't like the idea of founding a company based upon cronyism.
Maybe I'll need him in the future but right now I don't think I do

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brk
This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

No way I would let someone who wasn't interested in this sort of thing until
he saw a movie take over as anything beyond coffee-maker and maybe QA monkey
at first.

~~~
Jarred
His exact words were something along the lines of "The Social Network made me
realize I don't just want to be an employee of a big company"

I might have over-exaggerated or I might not have, but I interpreted that as
"I want to work with you because I saw the Social Network."

~~~
brk
Back to the Future made realize I want to travel through time, and eventually
ride a levitating skateboard.

However, reality never quite mirrors the movies.

It's great that your brother, after watching a movie that encapsulated about
.000000001% of his total lifetime, realized he might want to pursue a
different path in life. But, IMO, the best approach to this is not to think he
is suddenly capable of taking over the technology operation of ANY startup.
Maybe what wasn't clear in the movie is that most of the people involved in
the early iteration of facebook had been performing their roles for some prior
amount of time. Zuckerberg had been hacking for a while, the finance guy had
been involved in finance for some time (he was the president of the investment
club or something like that). You don't just watch a film and say "I'm CTO,
bitch"

~~~
Jarred
Yeah, this is true.

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johnny22
i don't see any problems with "I don't know any other languages than
.NET/Mono/Silverlight" if it gets the job done.

Execution matters more than what programming language it is. Don't switch
programming languages to suit somebody else.

That doesn't actually answer your question, but it is something you should
think about.

~~~
Jarred
I completely agree but I haven't done any real underlying code yet. I've
completely designed all of the UI in Silverlight, and there are somethings I
don't like about that, i.e all users have to have Silverlight installed, and
even with a roughly 50% install base that still leaves the other 50% to
install it, which some people won't want to do and overall just reduces the
maximum number of users. But I didn't want to go ahead and jump on the
bandwagon to learn PHP or ASP.NET because I think Silverlight is better than
all of those. It has almost everything this needs out of the box and I can
develop for it for free with DreamSpark. My real main issue with my brother
working with me on this is that we completely disagree on what to use to code
it. I do agree that a normal website would be nice but to get the same level
of power and clean user-interface would be a huge amount of work and time.

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djb_hackernews
I'd be weary of any new college grad that lists Java and C and C++ and Python
on his resume, all while having no side projects to show work in such
languages.

If anything, he may have taken courses where those languages were used to
complete assignments, but that leaves you far from a software developer.

