Strong Suit Podcast

You only turn 400 once. So for this special 400th episode of Recruit Rockstars Podcast, I knew you were counting on me to land a very special guest. I think I bagged the elephant. David Cohen is Co-Founder (and now Chief Instigator) of the legendary Techstars venture accelerator. It’s birthed over 2,300 startups. (You know their names: SendGrid, Outreach, SalesLoft…) And for 20-minutes, we discussed a very delicate, sensitive, personal subject: Stepping Aside. What if the Founder isn’t the right person with the right skills to scale the business? (Odds are, they’re not) How do we get the Founder into their “zone of genius”? When & how should a Founder be “promoted” to Chairman, and a new CEO appointed? If it doesn’t happen, when & how should a VC & Board member make this very difficult decision? How do you separate the Founder (and their identity) from the business, which needs to have its own life & legs. While Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk went from Founder