[bbulkow]

You are not a co founder, you are an employee. hint. founders get shares, employees get options.

you are now in the situation of whatever you can bargain for, you can get, whatever you can't bargain for, you don't get. Dealing with what you call a highly risk adverse person makes it hard to negotiate, because the most risk adverse action is bury the code and say goodbye (what they have proposed). It is likely you can change the action only by suggesting a less risky course of action.

I have been in a similar situation before, and tried to use Greed when only Fear was going to work. Many situations are like this. I now know more about sales now. I didn't get the source code (which I wrote and was useless to them) and it was probably for the best. If I didn't have the motivation to rewrite, i didn't have the motivation to start a company. Likewise, if you don't have the motivation to get new, fresh code written, you don't succeed either. There are many many ways to get code made, if you believe in this, find one. it will be the first of many trials.

[carlgreene]

Where does it say the OP has options and the co-founder has shares? I think he explicitly said his _shares_ haven't vested yet...

[d3ckard]

If it needs to vest, it’s not a share.

[kanwisher]

YC and every other Vc recommends founders to vest

[Phlarp]

Based on the OP it seems like one founder had shares and the other 'founder' had options still waiting to vest.

That's a pretty clear cut power dynamic no matter what the VCs recommend.