A startup therapist says most founder blowups can be solved in three ways

• Cofounder relationships can get tense, especially when fundraising or keeping pace with the AI industry.
• Therapist Yariv Ganor advises founders on managing identity, stress, and mental health.
• Many founders say their "always on" mentality is key to their success.

The most intimate relationship of an entrepreneur's life may not be with a spouse or a best friend, but with their cofounder. When it works, a thunderbolt idea can become a unicorn. When it doesn't, conflict can sink the ship just as quickly as it took off.

Though confounder conflict isn't particularly new to Silicon Valley, the pressure to launch a successful AI startup, especially among young founders in San Francisco, is only mounting. The pace of dealmaking and technological advancements makes it all the more important to address internal fractures.

And it's a new year, and that's always cause for some well-meaning reflection — and perhaps an influx of founders interested in couples, err, cofounder therapy.

Yariv Ganor, a therapist based in Israel, has been counseling startup founders for the past six years. Ganor, who is trained as both a clinical and industrial psychologist, knows a thing or two about startup life. He used to work in marketing at various Israeli startups.

Some research suggests that Ganor is onto something. Nearly seven in ten founders in a 2025 study said that their "always on" mentality was foundational to their success, while over 70% of participants in a 2018 study on psychiatric conditions among entrepreneurs reported experiencing higher rates of depression, ADHD, and other mental health conditions compared to non-entrepreneurs.

Ganor sees the consequences of that strain play out in real time, especially as startups scale, funding multiples, expectations mount, and stress compounds. After years of working with founders, Ganor told Business Insider his three pieces of advice he repeatedly gives cofounders:

Your startup isn't your identity, even if it feels like one

For many founders, the line between who they are and what they do blurs fast, Ganor said. "Being a founder is a question of identity: It's a personal identity, not just a job," he added. "Sometimes they get so wrapped up in their titles that they forget parts of themselves."

When work life crowds out everything else — personal relationships, hobbies, and more — Ganor said it becomes difficult for founders to maintain a sense of self outside the company.

Founders are, Ganor thinks, trained to problem solve, execute, and optimize, often at the expense of reflection, which may have downstream effects on leadership, decision-making, and cofounder relationships.

That's why a core part of Ganor's work is helping founders create diffusion between work and play. Ganor requires that founders take their meetings with him outside of the office and offers them tools for compartmentalizing their career and personal stressors.

'Mental runway' is as real as financial runway

Founders ride or die by their runway, or how much cash they have left in the bank. What they don't track nearly as closely as they should, Ganor said, is their own capacity to keep going.

In his experience, many founders believe they have unlimited mental stamina and can always push through those "996" work weeks, a demanding schedule — and an ascendant trend in Silicon Valley — that encourages founders and employees to work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week.

Instead, Ganor wants founders to think about their mental health in the same way they think about their financial stakes in their companies: "Don't dilute your mental equity," he said. "You need to be very knowledgeable of your mental runway — once the startup starts, your runway gets shorter and shorter."

Preserving that runway, Ganor thinks, starts with recognizing your responsibilities — to team members, clients, investors, and others — and how quickly they might multiply as the startup scales.

The old adage, rejection is redirection

It's no secret that few founder stories end in rollicking success. Ganor implores his clients to never frame the pivots or even closures as failures.

Sometimes, he said, success can even look like preventing an unideal ending from becoming worse, adding that he once helped cofounders who were unwinding their startup finalize their business dealings with minimal conflict.

Ganor is currently studying the relationship between founders and investors, especially how they both think about company pivots. One of his findings: Most rejection isn't personal.