Don't Bet on the Horse, Bet on the Jockey
This is where the founder-controlled model really shows its stripes. Think about it. Would a committee-led board have ever backed Mark Zuckerberg’s mad pivot to the metaverse? Absolutely not. They’d have laughed him out of the room. Yet, with his controlling shares, he could force through a strategy that, whilst initially terrifying investors, now looks rather clever as AI and virtual reality start to properly merge. The same goes for Alphabet’s founders, who ensured they could continue funding moonshot projects without pesky shareholders demanding they stick to online advertising.
These setups allow leaders to think in decades, not quarters. They can pour money into research that might not pay off for years, secure in the knowledge that they can’t be ousted by a hedge fund manager who wants a quick dividend bump. It’s a risk, of course. A visionary can easily become a liability if their vision goes sour. But when it works, it creates empires.