Executives chase founder-led returns, then find founders keeping the work they were hired to run
Executives drawn to founder-led companies by their returns often discover that the founder keeps hold of the very work they were recruited to run, an executive coach wrote in Entrepreneur in November 2026. Citing Bain, the coach says these companies have returned more than twice as much to shareholders as other companies for more than a decade, with a higher multiple in tech.
The return that opens the door can close around the executive who walks through it. One chief operating officer wanted something near sixty-hour weeks, then met a founder working eighty to one hundred, without vacations, who expected her devotion to match his without the equity that might have justified it. The pace proved permanent rather than a passing build phase, and she left for another company.
Source: Entrepreneur · November 6, 2026