It wasn't a very important comment, but I would say that there are some people who get a "high" from collaborating with many people on problems (working really hard with a small team), and some people who get a "high" from learning things on their own and applying them, with the help of experts.
One person you could take as an example is the Pinboard founder. If you read all his blog posts, I wouldn't call him a "collaborative" person. Is he a highly intelligent, productive, and respected member of society? Yes. Collaborative? No.
My impression is that cperciva is like this, but I could be wrong. I'm more like this too, as mentioned. But you still need community if you're in this camp.
I think there is potential for higher overall growth when you have the right team, simply because there are too many things for one person to do, requiring many different types of expertise. Though there is not necessarily higher "per capita" return.
But growth compounds, so that explains why YC prefers co-founders over solo founders. But YC also acknowledges that there is a big downside to working with teams: co-founder disputes are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reason for startups failing!
I will reply anyway! I don't know the details about Tarsnap but in my case I work with a co-founder and several employees. We work collaboratively.
In this context we don't have the potential for higher overall growth because the specific niches where we do business are not growing enough. In the past we tried some new areas with great expectations but they never took off. This doesn't mean that we would not prefer a more favorable market sector if we "discover" it in the future.
One person you could take as an example is the Pinboard founder. If you read all his blog posts, I wouldn't call him a "collaborative" person. Is he a highly intelligent, productive, and respected member of society? Yes. Collaborative? No.
My impression is that cperciva is like this, but I could be wrong. I'm more like this too, as mentioned. But you still need community if you're in this camp.
I think there is potential for higher overall growth when you have the right team, simply because there are too many things for one person to do, requiring many different types of expertise. Though there is not necessarily higher "per capita" return.
But growth compounds, so that explains why YC prefers co-founders over solo founders. But YC also acknowledges that there is a big downside to working with teams: co-founder disputes are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reason for startups failing!