Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL, stripped the founder of responsibilities over productivity concerns. The founder then sabotaged the company. Mickos stayed despite the stress because of the mission and employees, with board backing throughout.
We did have a complete fallout with the CTO and founder of MySQL in later years. This could have derailed the whole company. I was running the business and I was realizing or concluding or thinking or erroneously thinking, I'll leave that to you to assess, that the founder wasn't being productive anymore. Didn't produce what he was supposed to do, didn't lead the way he was supposed to do, didn't let others lead the way they were supposed to lead. So I removed him from all important roles. We left all kinds of nice job titles so it looked good, but we essentially stripped him of all responsibility because it didn't work. And he responded by starting to sabotage my work as a CEO. And managing this Conflict between a hired gun, a CEO who came on board, and the founder is a huge stress for anybody. And I can tell you it happens in nearly every startup. It's amazing how— or not amazing, it's sad how common it is that you get conflicts between founders themselves or between founders and the new guys. And you have to manage it somehow. And you have to figure out a way out of it. But it's very common and it can happen to any one of us that the one who is the biggest asset can the next day be the biggest liability. And as human beings, we don't like to acknowledge it, but it does happen. And it happens all over in life where you see people have done something amazing, built something amazing, and then comes a time where you realize that they shouldn't be doing it anymore. So these are very difficult things for a CEO to handle. But again, I believed in the mission of the company, make superior database technology available and affordable for all. So it was okay to build a business, it was okay to give it out to everybody, we kept doing that. And the board supported me in all of this and kept me going, although I was ready to say, hey, Founders, I came on board to build this for you and you're not letting me build it. I mean, you can have it. I'm done. I was ready to— many times I was ready to just walk out. But then of course, you look around and see we have 300 people in the company. I've hired half of these. I promised them a great future. I can't walk out, no matter how much I'm personally feeling that I'm suffering.
O processo de reconhecer limites, mesmo quando a vida parece exigir sempre mais.
Depois de tantas histórias, aprendizados e pausas necessárias, o @interior_iza está de volta
