How I picked my cofounder

Date: Sep 28, 2025

I met Miles in my first university class, an advanced version of intro to programming. Although it didn’t sound like it, it was probably one of the hardest classes I’ve taken despite being coding for a few years. Miles was coding for the first time, though he took CS50 online and is quite good at math and physics. Number 1: look for intelligence. People who have raw intelligence (or “talent”) in things like math and science, will tend to have the underlying qualities of problem-solving and a high tolerance for solving those problems. These qualities help with picking up new hard skills like coding. I consider Miles a much better coder than I am even though starting earlier than him. Miles was also offered an internship at Google, an indicator that he was capable as a coder. Startups will require solving hard problems for long periods of time. Number 2: look for people who you work well with. Miles and I had worked on a few university projects and participated in a hackathon together (though we didn’t win). I brought him on as a developer for my software agency where we were able to take on bigger projects. Think if you respect the skillset this person brings. Indispensability matters, if not, you shouldn’t pick them as a cofounder. Number 3: look for drive. I was and am still motivated by money, though I know that once I reach a certain cushy number, I’ll get diminishing returns on my happiness. What I do feel like I care about is working on something meaningful, something I hope can call my life’s work one day. Elon talks about this about his hiring process: ask people what is the hardest thing they’ve worked on and what is their life story. We felt we were both motivated by money but intrinsicly wanted to work on something worth pursuing (though vague, it helped us filter out ventures that didn’t seem to align with what we wanted though potentially could create some success in the short term).

[1] I spent a week with Edexia (YC W24) in June of 2025, Daniel, their CEO, talked about drive and intelligence being the two crucial things for choosing his cofounder and then searching for candidates for his founding team. I credit my approach to what I learned from him. Artificial filters like Olympiad, prestigious company, notable ex company, are things you can set to narrow down the search for these rare individuals.

[2] At the time of this writing, we have not yet achieved massive success with a product, although our agency was doing 5 figures per month.