What is up everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and CEO of Morning Brew. As always,

thank you for joining Founders Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you the business

builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a

business, a team, or a new product. And today, we are discussing an age-old business question.

It's one of my favorite business questions. Should you work with family members or friends in

business? I told you it's a fun one. I'm going to walk you through my personal experience,

hiring friends and family, and how best to navigate a friendship and working relationship

if you choose to indulge. Let's hop into it. Don't do business with friends or family. Period.

End of story. That is the first thing I wrote down when prepping for this episode.

It's such a visceral reaction at this point. Maybe it's because my family has always given

this advice to me, and I trust my family a lot. They have always said, do not go into business with

family or friends. Or maybe I've just watched and experienced too many personal relationships

impacted as a result of hiring a friend or family member. And I'm just jaded around this

question. But it's not the case that every personal turned work relationship is doomed.

There are success stories to prove it. You have Stripe. The nearly $100 billion payments company

was started by the Carlson Brothers, John and Patrick. You have Eventbrite, publicly traded event

management, and ticketing platform was started by Julia and Kevin Hartz, who were fiances when

founding the business. The list goes on. But in my experience, this has not been the case.

What I will say is, if you are going to work with friends or family, be careful, period

end of story. I'm not going to tell you not to do it, but just be cautious and be thoughtful.

And if you do indulge, make sure you understand how to set yourself up for success from day one.

Let's start with my own experience at Morning Brew. Since I've been leading with success stories

...