Why Founders Should (Mostly) Stay CEOs

Amazon. Apple. Google. Facebook. Microsoft. Oracle. What all these companies have in common is one of the founders was / is the CEO that presided over the company for much of its existence, especially as it went from Startup Inc to Big Tech. There are many arguments for founders to be CEO and also unsurprisingly enough skepticism and outright criticism, from Harvard Business Review in 2008 discussing “The Founder’s Dilemma” to Entrepreneur titling “Why Some Founders Fail as CEOs.” Some have posited also selection bias i.e., that founder CEOs don’t succeed more than non-founder CEOs, it’s just that they are…...