# Merge Combinator Form Agreement

**Not yet published.** This file holds the place of the third document so the
set is visibly incomplete.

## Decided

1. **Money is not part of Form.** An investment of money in the company, by Merge
   or by anyone else, is agreed separately on its own terms. Form covers the
   people and the work: roles, positions, vesting, and intellectual property.
2. **One party is the lead.** The parties to a venture can stand in any number of
   relationships to each other. Form names one of them as the lead. No role,
   including the lead, has to be full time. The commitment follows the scope of
   the work.
3. **The company is formed to take institutional money.** Form sets the company
   up so that a pre-seed, seed, or priced round can close without restructuring
   it. The round itself is papered on the standard financing documents, not on
   terms Form writes.

## What this document will contain

- Default positions by role, published as a table.
- Standard vesting. Four years with a one-year cliff is the assumed default.
- What happens to intellectual property developed during Pursue, and on what
  terms it moves into the new company.
- The Studio position and what, if anything, converts it to passive.
- The succession check: Merge's fractional seat has a permanent holder before
  Gate 4 to 5 passes.
- Founder departure and repurchase terms.
- The room the company keeps for an option pool and later rounds, and the
  records an investor checks at diligence.

## Sequencing note

Publishing these terms in advance is what lets the Pursue Agreement avoid
promising to negotiate later, which is the failure mode that makes conventional
teaming agreements unenforceable. Until this document is published, Pursue
section 9 states intent only.