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The key quote I see in a lot of these stories is "change the culture" and it seems the decision to change the culture from what got you there to something else

• ninjagoo 4y ago
  > The key quote I see in a lot of these stories is "change the culture" and it seems the decision to change the culture from what got you there to something else is done entirely without understanding what the current culture actually is. That's a great point. Might be splitting hairs a little bit here - but the question must be asked - if the ethos of the Successors are fundamentally different from those of the Founders, maybe the "change the culture" is deliberate, to align with the ethos of the Successors? There's an additional factor at play here: age. The Founders of the two companies - HP and Google - were in their 20s at the time of founding. The Successors were likely much older (40s? 50s?) when they took over - it takes time to climb to the Executive positions. How much of an impact that simple number (Age at Founding/Succession) would have had on what culture would be fostered. It would be really interesting to see a macro study on cultures at companies 1-5 years from Founding/Succession, grouped by age decade (20s, 30s, 40s) at founding/succession. Dell and Apple could be case studies onto themselves because their founders left and then came back at a different age.