Mishneh Torah, Divorce 1-3 · Startup voice, On-ramp

Hook

Founders often treat "formalizing a relationship" as a secondary administrative hurdle—something to be "handled" by legal counsel once the deal is already done. We live in a move-fast-and-break-things culture where an email, a Slack message, or a verbal handshake is often treated as equivalent to a binding contract. But look at your cap table, your vesting schedules, or your co-founder agreements. When the "breakup" happens—and in startups, it is a matter of when, not if—the informality you relied on becomes the source of your litigation.

The Rambam, in Mishneh Torah, Divorce 1:1, makes a radical claim: informality is a bug, not a feature. He argues that a divorce cannot happen through speech alone because speech is ephemeral, subjective, and prone to revisionist history. By mandating a get (a formal, written document) and specific, ritualized conditions for its transfer, the Torah isn't just creating a religious hurdle; it is creating a high-fidelity audit trail.