The Founder Who Is Still the System

The situation

Every strategic decision still passes through you, and clients still call you directly. A buyer offers a 30% premium on condition that you stay for three years. Your deputy, loyal and capable, tells you privately that nothing important happens without you and that two strong partners left last year for that reason. You are 61 and want to step back within two years.

Your decision

What do you do in the next twelve months, and do you accept the buyer's condition?

Make your decision & compare with TRU

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Source context

Its verdict was "Classic founder trap: Excellence becomes bottleneck", and the founder's own note in the same plan accepts it: "I missed building a self-sustaining tribal network". The trap is not weakness.

Vanguard Leadership, Volume 2 · vl2-042, The Problem: Doctrine That Lives in One Person (vl2-042.c002)

How would you make your case?

1. State your decision.
2. Explain your rationale in up to 250 words.
3. Identify the evidence and sources you would use.
4. Say what would change your mind within 90 days.
5. Explain what you would not do, and why.

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