> To me and others, it seemed like the CEO was tired of the startup grind and simply giving up. Ever since his fellow co-founder quit, he’d been running both the technical and go-to-market sides of the company, and it was clearly very draining. We felt that he wanted a less stressful position with a lower risk payday, and this kind of deal was the best way to achieve that.
Where was the board? Why not hire in a new CEO from the outside?
I appreciate that the author can't actually get inside the founders' heads, but something still smells fishy here.
If you need to bring in an external CEO to do a large pivot at an early stage company then you may as well just invest the money in a new company. If the original team was there then there's an advantage of having everything in place for that pivot but if it's all brand new then why bother?
The fact that both founders with the company were done with it points to the business not going well/not being in a position to go well.
Clearly all the investor interests were very important in making this deal happen, but the root of it is that the individuals with the most investment, knowledge and leverage decided they did not want to pursue the opportunity any more, and the best deal they could scrounge together was an acqui-hire.
If the company had been cash flow positive, or on a path to that soon enough, they probably would have found a new CEO, but if they're just burning down investor cash, it makes sense to wind it down if nobody with power believes in it any more.
Airtable and Airplane shared a lead investor. After the CEO of ’plane left, the remaining team soon got rolled into ’table and investors got tens of millions back.
Where was the board? Why not hire in a new CEO from the outside?
I appreciate that the author can't actually get inside the founders' heads, but something still smells fishy here.