Anecdote from 1000s of miles biking: I bike a lot in the Bay, for fun, exercise, commute, all of the above (I'm a friendly one, I promise!) and the comfort I feel when I see a Waymo alongside me or at a stop sign is immediately apparent. I have been hit 5-10x riding in NYC and SF (nothing serious, gratefully, mostly just people turning right not knowing/caring I was there), and the Waymo's awareness that I exist is immediately obvious and so different from a large percentage of human drivers. I hope the meaningful improvement in safety continues to convince people this should be a part of the future.

+1. I bike in the Bay and have been hit 3 times (1 broken bike and 1 broken helmet, but thankfully okay otherwise). I can’t wait for the day when I can be confident that all vehicles see me and I don’t have to worry about being the victim of a moment’s lapse in attention.

I stopped biking on Seattle streets after being hit a third time - in a bike lane. I want human drivers off the roads.

There is likely overlap in the target markets and even in the goals/desired outcomes, but the business models are different.

Yes this is correct - apologize if I wasn't clear with this. From what I understand and my previous experiences at startups it was a standard vesting structure where ownership vests over 4-years with a 1-year cliff (or at an acquisition event). On day-1 neither I nor my co-founder had any shares vested.

Amazing what you only learn by doing. I read so much on this and heard so many stories, but going through it really taught me so much on what to look for, what to think about, and how to structure these things.

Yeah I think you nailed it with "licensing something you're going to have to replace anyway." It doesn't make sense to fight/pay for something that may not have any value.

Yeah, probably not worth wasting your time. Most code, outside of larger orgs with tons of documentation and structure, is worthless without the people who can operate and understand it.

I had thought of this. Unfortunately I think his price will be exorbitantly high based on the time he put in. I also am not convinced that there is really much value in the code itself, it just puts me slightly ahead of square one in a new venture. Based on some comments it sounds like the code without the developer is actually quite worthless, so I'm coming around to it being OK that I don't have any rights to it should I leave.

Thanks for this. I think he plans to leverage little pieces of the code in his new project, but it's essentially value-less at this stage. I also think as he wrote the code and has put so much time into it there is likely a strong sense of ownership and high level of value assigned (regardless of its true value).

The 12-18 months to PMF is really why I'd love to push it a little further and see what comes out of it. I think doing so without a product is possible, and based on a lot of the comments that seems to be my best path.

Have you really put the same amount of time in it?

I've been thinking a lot about running this using no-code and/or simple Google tools...thanks for mentioning that, and the avoidance of the co-founder conflict is probably the most echoed advice in this chain, so I will keep that in mind as I handle this.

Thank you both...I can't explain how much I've learned in this time, completely agree, even with it seemingly going to 0, I am far ahead of where I would have been had I not chose to take this risk.

The only constant in life is change. Wish you the best on your venture as long as its not a crypto scam.

This is a great point. I had thought a little about this but wasn't sure to what extent this code would have value with a different technical partner. Thank you!!

Agree on the lack of traction - I'm not convinced it's dead yet, but I recognize there will soon come a time when it is time to put this behind me, I'd just like to try a little harder before doing so.