I'm NOT an advocate of even (50/50 or 33/33/33) equity splits precisely because of point #2 (Commitment) in the original article.
Almost every startup I've ever seen or been involved with, there have been different levels of commitment early on, which is OK. If/when things go wrong (which they inevitably do), having a clear leader/decision instead of deadlock, can be the difference between death vs. survival of the company, which is much bigger than the individual founders. These are inherently emotional moments. Even for the departing founder, the survival of the company is almost always a better outcome both in financial and personal impact terms.
That being said, unequal equity positions have historically been misused by business/MBAs against tech founders, esp true 5-10 years ago. This is probably why YC has a strong bias towards equal equity positions.
Edit: For comments talking about the "CEO vs. employee" mindset, if you make your co-founders feel like employees in 2-3 person company, you're a shitty CEO, period. In fact, a good CEO should make early employees feel like true team members (not just the co-founders).
My first startup/business was 33/33/34. The business guy (the closest we had to the CEO) was the 34% and would be the tie breaker if the other cofounder and I disagreed on anything.
Even if you want to do 50/50 split of ownership, can't you structure voting power 51/49 or some other way such that you won't end up in a deadlock?
Almost every startup I've ever seen or been involved with, there have been different levels of commitment early on, which is OK. If/when things go wrong (which they inevitably do), having a clear leader/decision instead of deadlock, can be the difference between death vs. survival of the company, which is much bigger than the individual founders. These are inherently emotional moments. Even for the departing founder, the survival of the company is almost always a better outcome both in financial and personal impact terms.
That being said, unequal equity positions have historically been misused by business/MBAs against tech founders, esp true 5-10 years ago. This is probably why YC has a strong bias towards equal equity positions.
Edit: For comments talking about the "CEO vs. employee" mindset, if you make your co-founders feel like employees in 2-3 person company, you're a shitty CEO, period. In fact, a good CEO should make early employees feel like true team members (not just the co-founders).