My brother insists he gets a 51% share and I get a 10% share, both of which are voting shares, and the other 39% go to investors with non-voting shares. I don't think this is fair, but I don't know what fair is. I know my labor isn't cheap though and he doesn't seem to understand that. I'm trying to figure out how to explain it to him as a business-person instead of as an engineer because I'm not getting through at the moment. I'm posting it here because you fine folks are ostensibly also tech people and know what our labor looks like.

e.g. if you're committing 1000 hours of work @ $100/hr that's $100,000 contributed by you. If your brother contributes $100,000 then you're both even. If your brother is going to have a role beyond just financial backing, his time should be estimated and calculated to $$ and added to his direct capital investment. There are many more complex approaches as well.

But hurry, because AI will soon either make your 1000 hours only take 100, or it may just replace you for pennies on the dollar. 🙂

My wife had a similar idea last night. My brother wants to give me 10% ownership, so give him 10% work, and start my own company in a different market and get 100% ownership. ;)