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Businesses Technology

A Prenup Is the Latest Must-Have For Tech Startup Founders In Love (bloomberg.com) 160

Posted by BeauHD from the it's-complicated dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: In Silicon Valley, where penniless programmers fervently believe their ideas are worth billions, getting rich can take priority over getting married. California law assumes that any wealth created during a marriage is community property, which should be split equally in a divorce. That's alarming not just for young entrepreneurs but also their investors. Fortunately, a well-written prenup is a safeguard against post-divorce havoc, which is why more and more young couples are insisting on the agreements, according to more than half-a-dozen lawyers in the Bay Area and elsewhere. Long popular with older wealthy couples who re-marry, prenups are also being demanded by entrepreneurs who want to keep future windfalls to themselves. In a 2016 survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 3 in 5 divorce attorneys said more clients were seeking prenups in the past three years. "People's concepts and notions of fairness when it comes to privately held businesses are changing," said Sideman Bancroft partner Monica Mazzei, adding she's seen "a tremendous increase" in prenups in the past eight years. "They feel that even if they're married, this is their passion. The agreement should be reflective of that."

Still, the report cautions, "a prenup hardly guarantees a smooth divorce. Judges can and do throw out the agreements, especially if they're drafted poorly." "If you don't put in the right language, a lot of prenups don't do the job," said Lowell Sucherman, a divorce attorney at Sucherman Insalaco in San Francisco.
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A Prenup Is the Latest Must-Have For Tech Startup Founders In Love More

A Prenup Is the Latest Must-Have For Tech Startup Founders In Love

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  • Makes me sad. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by memory_register ( 6248354 ) on Monday October 14, 2019 @11:39PM (#59308074)
    I know this is useful from a stability standpoint for founders, and the odds for stressed-out, high performing individuals married to their work aren't great. Even so, I'm saddened that this is a thing. If your work - even a passionate company you founded - is more important than family, maybe your priorities aren't leading you to happiness.

    • the other way around (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @12:12AM (#59308110)
      If you're a wife in an average marriage - man works late every day - and you'd make $50 million by divorcing him, wouldn't you do it? Not having a prenup incentivizes terrible behavior. And the guy already owns the company - if it was shares in a S&P 500 mutual fund there would be no question it was his own. But in a founder situation divorces are very messy - the prenup just clarifies what the ownership situation is.

      • Most investors would require the founder to have a prenup or at least some form of asset protection for the business. They are paying for the founder’s magic in no small part, and splitting the founder’s ownership stake 50-50 with a “random” third party would be stupid.

        This is nothing new. Even my small S-Corp needed to resolve the issues of a potential divorce on the corporate structure even though the probability was extremely remote.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Makes me sad. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Squiddie ( 1942230 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @01:09AM (#59308192)
      My family is more important than my work, but a woman you marry is never going to be part of it. I know, because I made that mistake already. I'm saddened by it too, but you can blame the women, who file 90% of all divorces. I might get married again, but I've gone from trust to "trust but verify". A woman that truly loves you shouldn't give a shit about a prenup.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        So you either sucked at choosing a partner or you sucked at the relationship itself.

        If you have never given your wife enough beyond money so that she would find splitting up to be a loss no matter how much cash she'd get, they you just failed as a man.

        You can mod me a troll or call me backwards or whatever you want but having each others backs is the key. If you don't feel you have that, you're doing something wrong. And you should know this before getting married and especially before having kids.

        I will al

        • Come on. People can be very good at hiding their true intentions or someone who at the beggining has good intentions can change over the course of a marriage for many reasons, not all of them having necessarily to do with the other person being a lousy spouse.
          You can't just blindly blame the man the a marriage ends up in a divorce.
          I'd say always get a prenup. If the other person really loves you and doesn't want your money they won't care, if they're after your money the prenup should hopefully save you f

          • Almost no one can keep that up year after year.

            If you get married to someone you haven't been with for years, then maybe you make bad life choices and your money would be more productive with her.

      • A woman that truly loves you shouldn't give a shit about a prenup.

        A man that truly loves a woman shouldn't either.

    • It’s “hope for the best, plan for the worst”, not a matter of priorities. People today know all too well that not all marriages work out, so they work out a fair split just in case the unthinkable happens, rather than leave it up to the judge when it does.

    • Re:Makes me sad. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @01:31AM (#59308222)

      EVERYBODY has a prenup. You get one of two options:

      1. Write your own.
      2. Use the default

      Option 2 is a great choice if the state legislature knows more about your relationship than you do.

      Otherwise, you should consider option 1.

      My future wife and I wrote our own. It not only specifies how assets will be divided (evenly) and which state's law will apply (California), but also how our marriage will work: child discipline policy, house cleaning, decision making. We even have a paragraph on sex. I have a contractual guarantee of three times per week (MWF).

      It was much better to discuss these issues before our wedding than argue about them afterwards. Overall, it has worked well and we have a happy marriage of more than 20 years.

      • Re:Makes me sad. (Score:5, Funny)

        by m.alessandrini ( 1587467 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @02:03AM (#59308256)
        Sheldon, is it you?

      • Inquiring minds want to know (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rastos1 ( 601318 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @02:30AM (#59308278)

        We even have a paragraph on sex. I have a contractual guarantee of three times per week (MWF).

        Does it have to be your wife?
        Does your wife have the same clause?
        What is the sanction for violating that clause?

        • Does it have to be your wife?

          Technically, it doesn't specify that, but it is implied.

          Does your wife have the same clause?

          No. She didn't ask for it. She was much more interested in the clause that guarantees I will help with the housework (limited to 30 minutes per day).

          What is the sanction for violating that clause?

          For each violation, 5% of my monthly salary can be transferred to a non-community property bank account. Or, if we mutually agree, she can give me a coupon that can be redeemed later on-demand. I usually go for the coupon.

          • Re:Inquiring minds want to know (Score:4, Funny)

            by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @06:27AM (#59308550)

            Can anyone else feel the love?

            • Exactly. What a psycho.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrKaos ( 858439 )

              Can anyone else feel the love?

              No. The relationship Bill describes is called transactional sex because the contract can't stipulate that she has to desire that sex. Consequently what Bill misses out on is the type of validational sex that comes from genuine desire. Bill's sexual relationship is based on obligation, not desire.

              A woman's fickle desire is best navigated by understanding her ovulation cycle and knowing what her psychological needs are at a particular part of the cycle. Bill's sex comes as a reward for cleaning up or ge

              • Consequently what Bill misses out on is the type of validational sex that comes from genuine desire.

                Not true. There are 7 days in a week. The contract specifies a minimum of 3 times. That still leaves 4 days for "validational sex".

                A woman's fickle desire is best navigated by understanding her ovulation cycle and knowing what her psychological needs are at a particular part of the cycle.

                That sounds like a lot of work. From my discussions with other guys, most men aren't very good at it. They complain about their relationships a lot more than I complain about mine.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by poity ( 465672 )

            We're all driving our favorite cars, but Bill's the only one who bought insurance.

      • Re:Makes me sad. (Score:4, Funny)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:55AM (#59308434) Homepage Journal

        I have a contractual guarantee of three times per week (MWF).

        That sounds horrible. For a start who wants their love making to be contractually obligated? Does she have to pretend to be turned on? Do you have scheduled times when you both have to be feeling horny?

        And what if she really doesn't want to? Are you going to threaten her with breech of contract if she doesn't lie down and apply the KY lube? Maybe get your lawyer to send her notice of an impending lawsuit?

        In fact this kind of thing, demanding sex on a schedule, is grounds for divorce in many places. In some legal jurisdictions it can even be sexual assault as creating such a legal obligation prevents consent being freely given given 20 years later.

        And on top of all that you once claimed to have a sex doll too. In fact you said your wife bought it for you, which in light of this contract is even more creepy. Maybe you should ask your doctor about sex addiction or an over-active libido.

        • Why would it matter..? She doesn't care whether you smile or not as you hand her the monthly paycheck. You don't have to pretend to enjoy it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          To be fair he didn't say the contract obliged his wife to fulfil that clause.

          Perhaps that's why she bought him the doll.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I'd like to let Bill respond but that is what he said. I don't have the link right now but as I recall he said she bought the doll for times when she was travelling.

        • In fact this kind of thing, demanding sex on a schedule, is grounds for divorce in many places

          Is that a different phrasing of "sexual incompatibility"? Which do I know to be grounds for divorce in many places... Since clearly demanding something that is being given is trivially not a problem.

        • That sounds horrible. For a start who wants their love making to be contractually obligated?

          It actually works quite well. We usually make a romantic evening out of it. Sometimes we eat out, but usually I make a nice dinner at home, make her a bubble bath, etc. I am willing to make the effort, because I am guaranteed a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

          And what if she really doesn't want to?

          The sanctions are specified in the agreement.

          And on top of all that you once claimed to have a sex doll too. In fact you said your wife bought it for you, which in light of this contract is even more creepy.

          She bought it because she was going to be out of the country for several months. I didn't ask her to buy it, and I thought it was silly.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I am willing to make the effort, because I am guaranteed a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

            I do nice stuff for my wife because I like making her happy, not because I expect sexual favours in returns.

            My advice: dig up.

            The sanctions are specified in the agreement.

            But you don't want to share them?

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by MrKaos ( 858439 )

              The sanctions are specified in the agreement.

              But you don't want to share them?

              She has to have sex with him four times a week.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by melted ( 227442 )

        Three times per week? After 10 years of marriage you'll profoundly regret this clause. After 20 years it's more like 3 times per year. :-)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        We even have a paragraph on sex. I have a contractual guarantee of three times per week (MWF).

        It was much better to discuss these issues before our wedding than argue about them afterwards. Overall, it has worked well and we have a happy marriage of more than 20 years.

        I know what the obvious joke is here, however, serious question, what happens if she violates the contract for sex?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Paxtez ( 948813 )

          He answered elsewhere, one of 2 things:
          1. 5% of his monthly income goes into a non-joint / non-community property bank account
          2. Get gets an IOU coupon

          He said he normally ops for the coupon.

      • LOL we're old fashioned.

        We fell in love, married young. So everything we have, we share. No separate accounts. Joint ownership of house and major assets. She's more than half my life, and has given me 4 wonderful children, which as a stay-at-home mom for at least a dozen years, cost her not only physically but economically. If we split, she can have everything. I'd start over.

        Glad your agreement works for you but from my POV it's ridiculous.

      • But how often do you have sex 10 times a week under that arrangement?

        Personally, I like women who like sex.

      • You left out option zero - don't get married. More women are looking at the crappy dating pool and saying "I'm not giving up my freedom for THAT".

        If you want a laugh, just head over to gnu.org and see rms personal add - hasn't been updated in 11 years since he was 55. Ask yourself - why? Many here think he's next to god, but why would any woman want to get married to a 66 year old toe jam eating guy who doesn't have his own place to live but begs for a room every few months?

        His salary at FSF was zero, s

  • Nothing new here... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sarten-X ( 1102295 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @12:18AM (#59308120) Homepage

    A pre-nup is necessary for every marriage, IMHO...

    Even if you and your partner have perfectly-balanced assets, having a pre-nup makes a divorce much smoother, because it establishes what belongs to whom before the court gets involved. You know those horror stories about the ex-wife taking the guy's loyal dog? They didn't have a pre-nup.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bosef1 ( 208943 )

      Concur. I'm surprised this isn't a more common part of marriage. Maybe this is a new frontier for automated lawyer-ing. Like that program for helping people fight parking tickets; or all those automated last will generators. Or heck, taking account of all your income and assets is like tax preparation. You could spend $50-100 for some software to help you put together a basic pre-nup, including properties, children (existing and future), and so on. Once the contract was drafted, I think it just needs

      • Re:Nothing new here... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt.nerdflat@com> on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @01:35AM (#59308228) Journal
        It isn't a more common part of marriage because some people actually still get married because they actually *love* eachother.... where the very thought of living without the person is so antithetical to them that they cannot conceive of any kind of existence beyond it, let alone try and plan for some kind of contingency for it. They might as well be planning to have some measure of ongoing input in matters after they are dead and gone. I would suggest that if one truly loves someone, being concerned about which party is entitled to what mere material property is going to have roughly the same priority as worrying about how the earth is going to eventually be consumed by the sun someday.... and heck, at least the latter is something that will actually definitely happen.
        • Have you never had a relationship end up badly even though things looked great at the beginning?
          I don't think having a prenup means you love your fiancée any less that if you don't have it. It's just planning for the case things might go wrong.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )

            Let me ask you, what kind of difference is money going to make when you've already lost everything that ever would have had any value to you in the first place?

            Honestly, it's like trying to plan who is going to bring the beer to your pool party after the first nuke goes off in your town in world war 3.

            • For starters you keep something that your earned. So you get justice. OTOH your life will go on and having more money is better than having less.
          • The person you marry today is the one that you divorce down the road. Since 100% of divorces are caused by marriage, simply don't get married, and you'll never get divorced.

    • Re:Nothing new here... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt.nerdflat@com> on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @01:25AM (#59308212) Journal
      If a marriage falls apart, who gets what should be the *LAST* of your concerns. Why would you ever marry someone in the first place if you cared more about getting your due if things don't happen to work out than sharing everything that you have with this person for the rest of your life?

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @05:13AM (#59308454)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • It'd be even worse than a will to maintain, though... from when we got married, the house was sold long ago, the dog is long passed and there are children and a different dog now. Our hobbies have changed, so gross physical possessions are largely different. You'd have to tweak it every year.

        • Repeat after me: a spouse is not a company. Psychopaths.

      • Why? Because I'm not naive

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )

          When you really love someone, being concerned with who gets what if or when things go sour is going to matter about as much as being concerned about not forgetting to say "please" if you ask a mugger not to kill you.

          It's not going to matter in the slightest. To suggest it's naive to not worry about it is to have absolutely no sense of perspective.

    • maybe in the US. Here in the Australia and most other countries prenups aint worth shit. Easily challenged and thrown out unless drafted and witnessed by teams of lawyers for both parties, they are easily voided and replaced by what the court considers fair (which it almost never is). The core problem is often you need to have both parties having equal power in the negotiation and this is almost never the case and then on divorce you have to have both parties willing to act reasonably.
    • While getting a prenup is almost common sense, people generally don't get married with intention to ever separate (you know, the whole "til death do us part"-thing) so it's completely understandable for people to think it's plain unnecessary. Then there's also the fact that a lot of people consider just the suggestion of having one as a statement of distrust towards the other party, meaning that when it's just one of the partners being sensible in wanting one it's inevitably going to put a strain on the rel

    • If your ex-wife hates you enough to take your dog, then maybe you were the reason you're getting divorced. Like, if you plan to cheat or ignore your wife, a pre-nup maybe a good idea, but normal divorces where people drift apart are not like that.

  • Irrelevant (Score:3)

    by aglider ( 2435074 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @12:24AM (#59308128) Homepage

    > according to more than half-a-dozen lawyers in the Bay Area

    It'd be relevant only is the whole Bay Area had between 6 and 12 lawyers.

  • I'm living in Europe and I'm seeing a lot of people just living together instead of marrying. Maybe after their first or second kid, they figure it's worth it. Kids are very well protected regardless; marriage doesn't influence child support.

    What I also notice, is that alimony is not very long lasting anymore. Depending on the marriage, it's either 5 years, or maximum of 12 years. Lots of people, including women (who get 95% of all alimony), think it's unfair.

    We don't recognize common-law marriage, but I un

  • Like most Family and Sex Law Today (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @02:04AM (#59308260)
    Marriage and Divorce are just tools for the scorned woman in cahoots with society and ultrafeminist judges to take out their hatred of men on the next random schmuck who bumbles into their cross hairs. Maybe think twice about getting married in the first place. Especially if you're very rich. These days there's very little real legal benefit for enormous risk for most men. You might not even get any sex out of it. Society will still hate you and demographically your resources will still be transfered to the groups you have blood guilt of oppressing but you won't be as large a target. On a higher level one of the quickest ways to reform problem areas of family law is to make sure a few women get to feel the pain. Nobody cared about alimony except the men who had to pay it but a few women started getting burned and even some feminists changed their tune really quick and noticed how "unfair it was to men"

  • "If you don't put in the right language, a lot of prenups don't do the job,"

    You just have to check the poor language of all those prenups that got rejected and not use that.
    It's not rocket science.

  • oudated (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sad_ ( 7868 )

    just don't marry, it is an outdated concept anyway, somewhere in history forced upon us, probably for some religious reason.
    what is the point anyway with divorces being so common & easy?

    realisticly it's only a very few couples that spend their life happily together forever.

  • After all what is marriage if not a very strict contract? And for good reasons too. If you're having children, they should be your first concern. However, this marriage contract thing we have is thousands off years old, overly simplified and grossly unfair towards women. And unfair to men if the marriages breaks up.

    I'd install a default heterosexual Prenup that goes into effect as soon as a child was conceived, with maybe a little leeway for three lady to decide on her own if she wants to abort. That Prenup

  • Spoken as someone who didn't.

  • I have a family member who is a gold digger (she'd never admit to it). A long time ago she met a well-off guy and they got engaged. He let that ring soak in to her finger for a couple months, then he approached her about a prenup. She wigged out, broke the whole thing off, pulled the "if you really loved me" card on him. He had been divorced before and I don't know if he had a prenup prior or if he learned his lesson. Best part was, he had to get a lawyer involved to get the ring back, because she's a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by MrKaos ( 858439 )

      I have a family member who is a gold digger (she'd never admit to it).

      I do also. Watching the sheer level of entitlement a woman I was related to display as she chewed up a decent guy who agreed to look after one of her children from a previous father made me feel sorry I was related to her. She wanted everything and destroyed her own children's future trying to get it. Men are royally screwed in western society and men who don't understand why this is so are locked into social conditioning that manipulates the gynocentric tendencies of men to protect women that they will

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        I would bet that if the man's business in this article was successful and the woman's was a failure he still would have had to transfer that wealth to his wife.

        Maybe. But with a prenup, the man can control which chunk of wealth gets transferred to his ex-wife. He might have to hand her a greater portion of the house, bank accounts and other shared assets but hang onto his interest in a business partnership. And that might be of greater value to him. Not having to sit on a board of directors with a hostile ex.

  • Getting married without a prenup is like dying without a Will. You are assuming that the default law correctly represents how you run your life.

    I would argue how people run their marriages has changed more over 50-100 years than who they wish to inherit their property.

  • A slave with two masters is a free man.

  • Jesus had something to say on the matter:

    Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?" He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate

  • Prenup is needed when you cannot trust the person you marry.

    If you cannot trust a person then how can you marry them?

    Maybe marriage is something different for these folks.

    If some VC tries to CYA with a prenup...that's different.

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