The Essential and Paradoxical Role of Singular Founders in Business and Society

Key Insight

Extreme founder figures are deeply rooted in human history, visible in classical mythology through characters like Oedipus, the 'paradigmatic insider/outsider' abandoned as an infant yet a brilliant king, and Romulus, who, born of royal blood, killed his brother Remus for crossing a boundary, acting as both 'law-maker and law-breaker.' Archaic cultures prioritized remembering such extraordinary individuals. Primitive societies defused conflicts, like plagues or disasters, by blaming a single scapegoat—a figure necessarily weak yet powerful enough to take the blame, often worshipped as a deity before execution. This practice forms the 'roots of monarchy,' where 'every king was a living god, and every god a murdered king.'

Modern 'American royalty'—celebrities like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears—are similarly worshipped and despised, often undergoing dramatic public downfalls, from self-destruction to highly publicized trials. Death can bring resurrection for some, as with the '27 Club' of musicians like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, who died at age 27, suggesting early death as a path to immortality. Technology founders also experience this paradox: Howard Hughes, an engineering prodigy who built Houston’s first radio transmitter at 11 and set world records in aviation, suffered his worst plane crash in 1946, surviving to become obsessive-compulsive and addicted to painkillers, withdrawing for 30 years. Bill Gates, both an 'awkward and nerdy college-dropout outsider' and the 'world’s wealthiest insider,' led Microsoft to a 90% share of the operating system market by 2000. However, in June 2000, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Microsoft, leading to a court order to break up the company (later overturned), effectively sidelining its founder from technological development.

The irreplaceable value of a founder is evident in Steve Jobs’s return to Apple in 1997. After professional CEOs nearly drove the company to bankruptcy, Jobs, an 'artist' and 'insider of his own personality cult' despite his eccentricities like an 'apple-only diet,' introduced the iPod (2001), iPhone (2007), and iPad (2010). By 2012, Apple became the world’s most valuable company, demonstrating that new value creation often requires the singular vision of a particular person. This suggests that new technology companies sometimes resemble 'feudal monarchies' led by unique founders making authoritative, long-term decisions, rather than impersonal bureaucracies. Businesses need founders, and tolerance for their 'strange or extreme' nature is crucial to move beyond incrementalism. Founders are cautioned that individual prominence can instantly transform into 'notoriety and demonization,' and the greatest danger is to become overconfident in one's own myth, while for businesses, the danger is losing all sense of 'myth' and mistaking disenchantment for wisdom.