A single founder is a vote of no confidence?

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

Paul Graham says:

Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.

What’s wrong with having one founder? To start with, it’s a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn’t talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That’s pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best.

But even if the founder’s friends were all wrong and the company is a good bet, he’s still at a disadvantage. Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.

Isn’t this mostly a matter of funding? It would be more fun to be a single founder since then you get to make the decisions and you do not get vetoed by your fellow co-founders, but most of the time, when you are starting out, you do not have the money to hire people, so you offer them equity instead, and they become your co-founders. Not ideal, but it saves money.