when founder-CEOs do really well, that also increases the chances that they’re going to be replaced

HBS's web magazine Working Knowledge has another useful piece today that addresses the reasons why founding CEO's are so often replaced by their boards of directors. It also reveals a frustrating paradox: "when founder-CEOs do really well, that also increases the chances that they're going to be replaced."

The Founding CEO's Dilemma: Stay or Go? is based on a new work co-authored by Noam Wasserman, a professor of entrepreneurial management at Harvard, and Henry McCance, Chairman of VC firm Greylock Partners. We've highlighted a few important points, including the authors' Rich or King Test, which they borrowed from Onset Ventures. Take it to see if you're replaceable or irreplaceable founder.
Says Wasserman to Working Knowledge:

Typically, early in the life of a company—when it is developing its first product or service—the founder who conceived of the idea and began developing it is the perfect person to lead the company … However, when that milestone is reached … The challenges within the company change so dramatically…

Now, the product has to be sold: You have to create a sales organization, manage multiple functions, deal with customers, handle more complex financial issues, and deal with a very different set of challenges for which many founder-CEOs are not equipped. … it is precisely their success that has increased the need to replace them at this point.
Of course this pattern is exacerbated when a founder-CEO brings in outside investors. VC's, says Wasserman, "often make the assumption that the person who started the company is going to have to be replaced along the way, and may therefore have a quicker 'trigger finger.'"

Then Wasserman shares one way to tell if you are more, or less, likely to be replaced:
The Rich vs. King Test

We teach a case in our first-year entrepreneurship course on a Silicon Valley VC firm called Onset Ventures … called the "Rich versus King" test. It gets to this essential trade-off around what drives an entrepreneur: Is it the need to control the company (that is, to be King), or is it the drive for success, particularly financial success (Rich), which may require that the entrepreneur step aside once certain business milestones have been reached? Onset does not like to invest in founders who "want to be King" out of concern that they will not want to be replaced if such a step is required in order for the company to be successful.

The only founders who can assure their ability to continue as CEOs are those who don't raise outside money from Onset and its peers.
Of course, that outside money is often necessary to build a valuable company, so King-motivated founders usually have to give up a lot of potential growth to remain King. In the entrepreneurship class, I push students to think hard about why they are choosing to be founders to begin with, and then to make conscious choices that are consistent with those motivations. The founders who get into trouble are often the ones who make decisions without regard for "Rich versus King," and who therefore decrease the chances that they will achieve their goals because they haven't made choices consistent with their motivations.

 

via Found+Read