Thinking of going into business with a friend? Your relationship could cost you, according to research.
Researchers at Harvard University, in a study looking at friendship among venture capitalists, found that those who paired together based on how much they liked each other - as opposed to basing the decision on ability - were likely to see less success on their investments.
'The Cost of Friendship' report by three authors - whether they are friends or not is not known - studied more than 3,500 venture capitalists from 1975 to 2003.
The study showed that if business partners of the same minority group worked together, their chances of a successful return dropped by 25 percent.
By the same token, those partners who went to the same college saw their chance of success drop by 22 percent, and by 18 percent if they started a business together before.
The report said: 'Collaborations based on characteristics unrelated to ability might suffer from a 'cost of friendship' and induce a negative relationship between affinity based similarities and performance.'
If you want to see a real-world example, just look at Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin. While the pair have both reaped millions - in Zuckerberg's case, many billions - the pair had an hugefalling-out in the early days of the social network, as was portrayed in the film The Social Network.
The researchers said that the flip-side of working with friends included working with too many similarly-minded people, all sharing certain strengths and weaknesses, and potentially having poor decision-making as decisions would be made on a group basis.
However, it is unlikely that this report will stop friends starting businesses together - it is one of the most popular ways to set up a business.
But, as the authors, warn: 'To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, you cannot afford to be stupid with old friends when you are venture capitalists co-investing together.'
在考慮和朋友合夥做生意嗎？研究表明，你的友情會讓你遭受損失。
哈佛大學的研究人員發現，那些選擇交情好的人做合作夥伴的人，相比那些根據對方能力來選合作夥伴的人，在投資上更容易失敗。這些研究人員對風險資本家之間的友情進行了研究。
這一研究報告名為《友情的代價》，由三個人共同撰寫完成，至於他們是不是朋友就不得而知了。該研究在1975年到2003年間調查了3500名風險資本家。
研究顯示，如果選擇朋友作為自己的生意合夥人，他們的投資成功率將減少25%。
同樣，那些上同一所大學的合夥人投資成功的幾率會減少22%，如果過去曾合夥創業，那麼成功幾率將減少18%。
報告稱：“根據與能力無關的性格來確立合作關係，將可能‘因友情而付出代價’，而且關係親密的人相似點較多，這種相似性會對工作業績產生消極影響。”
如果你想了解現實世界的例子，只需看看馬克·扎克伯格和愛德華多·薩維林就知道。儘管這兩人都獲益數百萬美金以上（扎克伯格是上百億），但是正如電影《社交網路》中所描述的，他們卻在社交網站創立初期大吵一架。
研究人員稱，與朋友合夥的弊端在於，和太多想法相似的人一起工作，這些人擁有同樣的長處和弱點，在集體做決定時，可能會做出糟糕的決定。
不過，這一報告也不大可能會阻止朋友們一起創業，畢竟這是最普遍的創業方式之一。
但是，正如作者們警告的那樣：“改寫一下愛默生的話：和老朋友一起做傻事沒什麼，但如果你是要和老朋友一起做風險投資，那你可輸不起。”
