I founded a software company about 10 years ago, and moved on from my CEO position 6 months ago. A lot of what Rand says really resonated with me. I too had sta

I founded a software company about 10 years ago, and moved on from my CEO position 6 months ago. A lot of what Rand says really resonated with me. I too had started to make mistakes, mis-managing the company by making decisions that were far too emotional and not strategic enough. The high pressure, make quick decisions, life or death mindset that is necessary for a startup is not compatible with a company that has matured. In fact, in my experience CEOs/founders of companies that are growing successfully will throw bombs in to the building. I'm sure many of you have read about VCs removing founders from growing businesses. Founders simply aren't compatible anymore. I'll leave the psychology of why they do this to somebody else, but in my personal experience I decided to move on from the CEO position because I found myself having to do work, make decisions and partake in meetings that were no longer a reflection of the business I wanted to create 10 years ago. In fact, I can recall the exact moment when I realised it was my time to get out of the way. I was sat in a disciplinary meeting with a member of staff who was under performing. At the end of the meeting I said to the woman running the meeting with me who is now the CEO "This isn't why I started a business, what am I doing here?". A few long chats later and I had made the decision to handover to her and the business is already performing better under her command. Like people, businesses evolve and mature as they grow, and good founders need to know when to get out of the way. Rand clearly feels he did unnecessary damage to Moz; I wonder if he could go back in time if he would have given up his CEO position a few years earlier?