Ask HN: Does your co-founder have to be the same age as you?

Age isn't the problem here, understanding the problem domain is.

"... This year makes me 18 years old...An ideal co-founder for me would have to be no more than 2-3 years older than me, because most older people may not be very comfortable working with side-to-side with someone of my age. ..."

I think the idea of a co-founder and age being incompatible has less to do with age than perceived and actual competence and power. Competence because it's difficult to work with idiots. Power, because an in-balance of power regardless of age turns working with anyone into a master/serf relationship.

Don't let age/race/gender/ determine who you partner with, look for commitment, passion and energy - those are the things that are important.

This is usually easier to find in your own age-group, but it doesn't have to be.

Suppose you have a guy that 40, two kids, one in high school and a guy in his early 20's working together, you'll potentially get friction because both will have a completely different attitude towards the work (not saying in all case, but likely).

Whereas both would be in a roughly similar situation that would make it easier to understand the others point of view and such friction would be less likely to occur.

I've worked with people in a 20-50 age bracket and I found that it was sometimes very hard to explain to the older people that the younger ones were pulling their weight even though they weren't in the office at 9am, and to the younger ones that the older ones were pulling their weight even though they left at 5 pm... And that doesn't go in to issues like pulling rank because of age and so on.

It depends very much on the people involved. It is certainly possible to have a large 'age-gap' but it is not going to make things easier for the most part, especially not if the younger person is actually senior in the business over the older one.

Note: I'm not currently seeking a co-founder.

The biggest problem is money. I can live on 1500 a month but one of my co-founders has a mortgage, the other a kid, etc.

This means we have different timelines and requirements for success.

Before my last company, I had been the youngest employee at every company I received a W2 from. Now I'm an old man at the age of 30 realizing that none of the engineers I've sat down with for dnsworks would have any recollection of the Challenger Explosion or the wall falling. Merely a sobering side note.