PMAI Fight Right: A Co-Founder’s Guide to Disagreement
When Co-Founders Disagree: Preventing & Navigating Founder Disputes
Your co-founder may be one of the most important relationships you have as a founder, and one of the hardest to navigate when things go wrong.
Pioneering Minds AI is pleased to host this interactive workshop with Christopher Edwards (Partner, Reitler) on how founders can prevent, manage, and resolve co-founder disputes before they become company-threatening problems.
Rather than a traditional legal presentation, this session will center around real-world situations, practical frameworks, and candid discussion about the disagreements founders actually encounter while building a company.
What We’ll Cover
Why co-founder relationships break down, from misaligned expectations and uneven contributions to disagreements over strategy, fundraising, compensation, and control
What founders should agree on early, roles, responsibilities, equity, decision-making authority, vesting, and expectations around commitment
How to build a disagreement mechanism before you actually need one
What happens when founders reach a deadlock, and how governance and legal documents can help
Founder departures and breakups, what happens to equity, IP, board seats, and control when someone leaves
Real-world lessons from founder disputes and situations that could have been handled differently
How to have difficult conversations without turning a business disagreement into a personal conflict
Interactive Workshop
We want the conversation to be candid and useful. Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss scenarios, ask questions, and work through how they might handle difficult co-founder situations themselves.
Who Should Attend
This workshop is designed for:
Founders currently building with one or more co-founders
Early-stage teams thinking about equity, roles, and governance
Founders considering bringing on a co-founder
Anyone who has experienced, or wants to avoid, a difficult founder breakup
The best time to figure out how you’ll handle a co-founder dispute is before you have one.
Agenda:
6:00 p.m. - Doors open
6:15 p.m. - Session begins
7:05 p.m. - Q&A
7:45 p.m. - End of session
About Reitler:
Reitler is a top-ranked venture capital law firm with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Princeton. The firm represents emerging companies, venture investors and limited partners across all stages of investment, in seed financings, growth rounds, mergers and acquisitions and exit transactions. Reitler is consistently ranked as a Top 10 venture capital law firm by Pitchbook and has been recognized by Chambers as a global leader in its Startups & Emerging Companies category. With thousands of venture financings completed since our founding, we bring deep experience and practical insight to help our clients achieve their goals efficiently.
About Pioneering Minds AI:
At pioneeringminds.ai, we grow AI native pioneers who build, deploy, and govern AI responsibly and put humans at the front seat. We help YOU - our AI pioneers - to truly understand AI and create real value out of AI.
Our mission is straightforward:
Accelerate Innovation: Equip participants with cutting-edge AI tools to deliver rapid prototypes.
Foster Collaboration: Unite diverse teams—students, engineers, and civic leaders—to tackle urban challenges head-on.
Create Lasting Impact: Offer continued mentorship and post-event partnerships so promising concepts can scale beyond the weekend.