Should startup executives be best friends forever?

BFF — Best Friends Forever. Do you have any, or perhaps I should ask, how many?

The idea of a best friend intrigues me, and writer Jaya Saxena, in her article for the Atlantic, has offered some thoughts for us to consider. First, the whole idea of a best friend didn’t really have any traction until the mid-1990s along with the growth of the feminist movement, which championed among many things, “female friendships.”

It used to be that “friendship was considered a largely male phenomenon,” she writes. Not as much today. I am not sure any of my male buddies could name even one

“best friend.” I am having some minor surgery in a month, and when you fill out the form, they ask who they should contact in the unlikely event that you drop dead during the procedure. I am not sure that person would qualify as a best friend. (A better option might be to name a good lawyer who could sue them for malpractice.)

Think about the co-founder in your current entrepreneurial adventure. Just the two of you changing the world, against all odds, in it together, through thick or thin, having each other’s back, no way he/she would screw me over. Hah. Gimme a break. The technology landscape is littered with FBB — Former Best Friends.

This might suggest that you should be wary of being best friends with your co-founder, precisely because you both need to honor the obligation to call out the other when he/she is doing stupid things. The classic best practice model for co-founding is two folks with different skills, filling different roles, as opposed to having compatible neuroses that lead both of you down the same rabbit hole.

Saxena thinks that BFF holds