Unless the founder of the company builds a culture that is designed to survive without them at the center, the company will eventually fail without them there.

Unless the founder of the company builds a culture that is designed to survive without them at the center, the company will eventually fail without them there. One of my former employers was like this - the founder was a brilliant engineer, who installed good financial controls, and was himself decent at the business end. But, he was a micromanger, and he never sought to create replacements for himself inside the company, he tended to penalize people who stepped out of line too. So once he was out of the picture (he sold out), we didnt really have the right person to run the company, or the right culture to just install a generic manager with industry expertise, it instead was a company that had been formed for the founders personal needs. That company was purchased by a multinational, and is now being systemically dismantled.