> And if you only waited until you have a firm financial backing behind you and you alone with nobody to split risk with, we wouldn't have very many start ups.

A programmer doesn't have to wait.

Try to take it from a programmer's perspective:

We already have ideas. There's a huge supply of programmers. One's that'd be happy to write an MVP for that inventor/artist/etc in exchange for 20k. But I guarantee you there's zero programmers waiting around, saying to themselves, "If only I had a visionary come along to give me an idea"

Programmer's get used to it. But at least once per year many of us hear something like, "I have a vision", "I got this idea, psst", because you can guarantee 99% of the time, they're not willing to put any cash into it themselves. What I get is a person bossing me around, while I don't get paid, and I absorb all the risk of their idea.

> This applies equally to every start up entrepreneur, from artists to inventor.

If I take on a co-founder, co-hacker, inventor, what do I get?

What role do they play? The "ideas guy". My above post was based on the assumption they have a 50% split. But since they view themselves as the unique, creative force behind everything, they want 51%. Maybe more.

Now, this co-founder thing would make sense if we laid transparent ground rules up front: while all this comes into formation, am I getting paid while I'm crafting this "vision"?

Programmers are in a unique position when it comes to tech startups. They can bootstrap by themselves. The burden lies on the prospective co-founder to balance that contribution through something more than dictating and having ideas. That usually is them going out and raising a seed or self-funding.