3 ms·

I can't find the exact paper that cites it(Anyone who have heard of this plz chime in). But, I can cite you apollo syndrome which basically is putting the best

by chegra 16y ago

I can't find the exact paper that cites it(Anyone who have heard of this plz chime in). But, I can cite you apollo syndrome which basically is putting the best and the brightest on a team with the assumption they will do well. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research/hsri/emergencycare/research/sdo/csi2/education/education-delivery/handouts/apollo_syndrome.pdf http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/research/hsri/emergencycar... Also, other example of where if it ain't broken don't fix it is Founder CEO. Founder CEO tend to perform better than Professional CEO even though they have less experience and knowledge. http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/enabletech/2010/04/28/ugc-founding-vs-professional-ceo-performance-analysis/ http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/enabletech/2010/04/28/ugc-foun... Somethings are counter-intuitive. Although it is possible with some research to get to heart of things, doing so might be prohibitive in terms of cost and time.

timwiseman 16y ago
Founder CEO tend to perform better than Professional CEO even though they have less experience and knowledge. That is a very different situation. Founder/CEO's often have 2 major advantages over Professional CEOs. The first is that the Founder is more motivated. The second is that the Founder often knows their field very well, whereas professional CEOs are often leadership experts holding MBAs. Especially in the early stages, knowing the field and being able to do much of the work personally can be more valuable than the skills that an MBA business expert brings to bear.
- chegra 16y ago
  But still there is a need by some VC to optimize this. In Ben Horowitz blog he says: "When my partner Marc wrote his post describing our firm, the most controversial component of our investment strategy was our preference for founding CEOs. The conventional wisdom says a startup CEO should make way for a professional CEO once the company has achieved product-market fit. In this post, I describe why we prefer to fund companies whose founder will run the company as its CEO." http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/ http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/ Dated: 04/28/10 To you and me this is clear cut but for some VC the wisdom would say to get a Professional. The first thing that came to my mind when I read it was why change a good thing? I didn't have any data for backing keeping the founding CEO but without data I think the maxim serves as a good heuristic.

by chegra 16y ago

timwiseman 16y ago

Founder CEO tend to perform better than Professional CEO even though they have less experience and knowledge. That is a very different situation. Founder/CEO's often have 2 major advantages over Professional CEOs. The first is that the Founder is more motivated. The second is that the Founder often knows their field very well, whereas professional CEOs are often leadership experts holding MBAs. Especially in the early stages, knowing the field and being able to do much of the work personally can be more valuable than the skills that an MBA business expert brings to bear.

chegra 16y ago
But still there is a need by some VC to optimize this. In Ben Horowitz blog he says: "When my partner Marc wrote his post describing our firm, the most controversial component of our investment strategy was our preference for founding CEOs. The conventional wisdom says a startup CEO should make way for a professional CEO once the company has achieved product-market fit. In this post, I describe why we prefer to fund companies whose founder will run the company as its CEO." http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/ http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/ Dated: 04/28/10 To you and me this is clear cut but for some VC the wisdom would say to get a Professional. The first thing that came to my mind when I read it was why change a good thing? I didn't have any data for backing keeping the founding CEO but without data I think the maxim serves as a good heuristic.