Founder-CEOs are an elevated class in America’s tech sector. They are lauded not only as preternaturally gifted innovators, but as business geniuses too. The tech boom was partly built on the intoxicating idea that some people can see the future and bend the rest of us to their will. Now those people are leaving. Netflix just presented its first set of earnings without co-founder Reed Hastings, the man who turned a DVD rental company into one of the most powerful forces in entertainment. He follows Jeff Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon chief executive in 2021, the same year that Jack Dorsey resigned from Twitter. Microsoft, Apple and Alphabet have been run by non-founders for years.
A few stragglers remain. Mark Zuckerberg is still chief executive of Meta, Brian Chesky heads Airbnb, Michael Dell is chief executive at computer maker Dell Technologies and Evan Spiegel runs social media company Snap. Marc Benioff may be trying to manage his succession at Salesforce by appointing co-CEOs, but they keep leaving, meaning his tenure continues.
Market performance suggests the departure of founder-CEOs is not always cause for despair. Still, the latest moves mark a cultural shift. The fear is that once founders leave, technocrats will step in and world-building creativity will be replaced with dull, rule-following management. This may be why Elon Musk is yet to appoint new CEOs at his companies, including SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter.