Founders is a profile section about the people who started something and then had to run it. Pieces track the shift from building a product to managing an organization, the point at which a founder hires their first executive, disputes between cofounders, and the exits that follow. Reported, not as told to.
Research on entrepreneurial mental health finds founders running elevated depression and anxiety rates. The structural fixes are known, unfashionable, and rarely funded.
Tanya Brooks · July 27, 2026
The side-project-to-startup path built some of the era's biggest companies — and ended others' equity and careers at the exit. The difference is documented in paragraphs 14 through 19.
Tanya Brooks · July 5, 2026
The four-year vesting schedule seems like paperwork until a co-founder leaves in year two. The cap table remembers what the friendship forgot.
Tanya Brooks · June 12, 2026
When a startup sells for its team instead of its product, every stakeholder gets a different deal — and the employees usually get the thinnest one.
Tanya Brooks · May 20, 2026
The founders who learn to sell discover it's an engineering discipline with discovery calls instead of unit tests.
Amara Okonkwo · April 27, 2026