Thinking of going into business with a friend? Your relationship could cost you, according to research.

在考虑和朋友合伙做生意吗？研究表明，你的友情会让你遭受损失。

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 token¹, 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 induce² a negative relationship between affinity³（密切关系） 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 reaped⁴ millions - in Zuckerberg's case, many billions - the pair had an hugefalling-out in the early days of the social network, as was portrayed⁵ 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 paraphrase⁶ Ralph Waldo Emerson, you cannot afford to be stupid with old friends when you are venture capitalists co-investing together.'