Ask HN: How do you prevent or resolve cofounder conflict?

This supposes good faith from the people at hand. There are scenarios where one of the founders has decided from the start to screw over the other person, and the fallout is bound to happen when the person figures it out or tries to mediate the situation: it's not like the one who set up to screw you over will change their mind.

This is a modus operandi of some people built on finding "idealistic", "optimistic", "naïve", "gullible" people, especially technical people, of which there is no shortage in founders, to consume. These characteristics being almost a requirement for the job doesn't help.

An unbalanced equity distribution, waxing poetic about ethics, honesty, and morals... something more urgent always coming up when the equity issue is raised, etc...

Contract theory upstream.

Your work is useful when the people genuinely want to make it work but are just having trouble communicating.