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Why we picked it This is the cleanest map of the three ways co-founders actually decide things: consensus, functional expertise (your domain, your call), and CEO tie-break. Batista's sharp point is that early co-founders sit at near-zero hierarchical distance, so nobody wants to pull rank, and that awkwardness is exactly why fights fester. It gives you the language to agree up front which mode applies where, so overlap stops being a turf war.
On Co-Founder Decision-Making
From edbatista.com by Ed Batista 12 min read
- Name the three decision modes explicitly (consensus, domain expertise, CEO authority) and agree which one governs which call before you need it
- Consensus is the trap: leaning on it for everything produces circular arguments and paralysis, not harmony
- The CEO must learn to influence rather than command, and the other founder must genuinely disagree and commit, not silently resent