this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
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When you go public its not really your company anymore, its shareholders company.
OpenAI is not publicly traded company, but they have of course sold shares to other parties.
It's a little more complicated than that. OpenAI's core business is a non-profit, and nobody has shares in it that generate any kind of returns. Any extra money they make is either reinvested, donated to another non-profit, or just sits in a bank account until they do one of the first two things.
There is a for-profit arm of it, though, and some people do have shares in that.
The board in question runs the non-profit part.
Original comment talked about going public, what they have yet not done.
Let the enshittening begin!
It's traded enough that a board could fire the other founder.
Sure, Microsoft owns 49% so they just need extra 1% support from other stakeholders to run the show.
They are invariably, actually, not very valuable at all beyond the fruition. Take a look at any Forbes or FT top 100 list and see how many of those companies are being run by founders.
Companies go through a lifecycle of change before they reach anything resembling stability or a pace of business that isn't completely volatile the people in it. During that time the types of people that the business need to achieve the goals of that lifecycle stage are very different.
Steve Jobs types, on the other hand, are actually extremely rare and the exception rather than the rule.
Because it requires a completely different skill set to run a startup with only yourself and 50 employees to worry about vs a multi-billion dollar, publicly traded company. People that are good at one of those often aren't good at the other, so when their company changes from the former to the latter, they get the boot for someone better at running the new version of the company.
Apple is now the most valuable company on earth, so I think you're not making the point you think you're making. Publicly traded companies act only based on what increases the value of their shares the most. If the current CEO isn't seen as the most profitable CEO for the shareholders, they will eventually be replaced, even if they founded the company. That is a risk you knowingly take when taking your company public. Most founders choose the money that comes with an IPO, knowing they'll eventually get the boot.
Steve Jobs is the exception. I'm just trying to answer the original question about why this happens so often. I'm not trying to argue about the best way to run a company. But if you're equating every founder with Steve Jobs then we're having a completely different conversation.
It unfortunately often does. It’s hard for the original founders to “let go” and some of the things that were idiosyncrasies at the scale of 10 are actively detrimental to people’s careers and the business’ wider growth when you’re 1000. Experienced founders often recognise when it’s time to hire the “VP Eng” that’ll replace them, but if it’s their first big go at it, they often cling on a bit longer that they should.
It was this bit
Founders are big thinkers and risk takers. When a company has found success, the owners prefer to focus on scaling that value rather than doubling or tripling down on the next big thing but the founders often want to keep betting it all.
Put another way, if you bet 100 and have turned it into 1,000,000 would you want to get your money out or play roulette?
It's not a matter of reward or punishment. It's a matter of the skills required for continued success.
Early startups require big risk-taking, progressing at an absurd speed, charisma to get investor capital, and really just being a little crazy.
Once the concept is proven to be viable and potentially profitable, the focus needs to shift from proving it can work to making it sustainable. This involves less risk, process improvements to avoid issues like getting sued, better money management, more careful time management to avoid burnout of non-founder employees, and generally just being more rational about things.
It's rare that a person can exhibit both of these sets of behaviors, so companies will often swap out the former for the latter as a company matures. If they didn't, the founders might unintentionally drive the company into the ground by taking unnecessary risks after finding something that already works.
Does that answer your question, or did I miss the mark, still?