
What Happens to a Startup When a Cofounder Dies - pyduan
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2015/06/25/what-happens-to-a-startup-when-a-cofounder-dies-kitchit/
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quaunaut
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?

~~~
kornish
At my company, each of our API responses sends a randomly selected compliment
in an HTTP header. When we're onboarding new engineers, everybody's first
commit to the codebase is adding a compliment to the list.

Nobody's noticed yet because the API is currently consumed only by us, but
maybe they will someday. :)

~~~
quaunaut
I like that approach. Might I ask what the header is? HTTP-COMPLIMENT or
somesuch?

It could be a fun 'standard'.

~~~
kornish
We prefix all our custom headers with `X-Ark-` (for auth tokens, request IDs
for logging and such), so in this case it's `X-Ark-Compliment`.

Also, another thing we do to propagate joy in engineering culture is make
heavy use of Phabricator macros in the code review process. It adds a lot of
humor to the situation to have somebody draw attention to a bug in your code
by pointing it out with an epic skateboard accident:
[http://giphy.com/gifs/fail-SMwheKIMDwA00](http://giphy.com/gifs/fail-
SMwheKIMDwA00)

------
jriley
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](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_person_insurance)

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

~~~
meelooo
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.

~~~
mooreds
All good points. Thanks.

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Rainymood
>who took intense joy in little things like drinking Diet Coke through a straw
to avoid cavities

I'm not the only one!

~~~
warpzero
... 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?

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

~~~
__z
It's not the phosphoric acid, its the carbonation. Plain old carbonated water
is acidic as well which can erode the teeth. That being said your saliva can
repair the teeth. The current wisdom is don't drink solely acidic drinks and
wait between acidic food/drink and teeth brushing.

~~~
tmikaeld
Or chew gum with xylitol (It's actually natural birch sugar) that will
heighten the PH level and kill germs.

------
yellowapple
> This is a haiku / To ask you, please turn off your / ad blocker. Love,
> Forbes

Here's a better one: / I use ad blockers because / your ads annoy me.

------
rokhayakebe
What of his equity?

~~~
fnbr
Presumably it's now owned by his estate, like the rest of his assets.

~~~
benatkin
He probably had a vesting schedule. So it may not be all that large of a chunk
of equity.

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sneak
It's really unprofessional of Forbes to misquote their main source of content
for the article (he did not say "mindf dash dash k".)

~~~
nolepointer
He did not say "mindf dash dash k." He said "mindf em dash k."

