We all die. It’s a truth I learned at four years old — first with fear, then with acceptance. And whether we like it or not, it becomes a constraint every founder must eventually design for.
If you’re building something larger than yourself, something the world might genuinely need, then death becomes a variable in the long-term architecture. You cannot ignore it.
So here is the question I ask myself often:
What happens to the company when I am gone?
History has already given us the pattern.
Henry Ford understood the mind.
He was an entrepreneur-genius who paid brilliant people to think for him.
(An approach I also use: hire brilliance, not just labor.)
After him came his son Edsel Ford — briefly — and then Henry Ford II.
Both were competent leaders. But let’s be honest:
Neither of them would have built Ford Motor Company from nothing.
They inherited a debt-free company with millions in cash. But inheritance is not vision. And in time the company transformed into exactly what Henry Ford himself despised:
a bureaucratic machine.
There is a moment from Ford v Ferrari that captures this perfectly:
When the Ford delegation visited Modena, Enzo Ferrari said:
“Your CEO is not Henry Ford. He is Henry Ford the Second.”
That line must have cut deep — because it was true.
The traditional succession model is flawed.
Founder builds → family inherits → decline begins.
Not because families lack intelligence or values, but because a founder’s internal compass is non-transferable.
When a company becomes merely a family asset, the edge disappears.
It takes decades, but decay is inevitable.
I am building for sustainability, not inheritance.
I would love to remain CEO forever — but reality doesn’t permit it.
So I designed a different endgame:
My for-profit company will eventually transition into a non-profit foundation.
Not now. Not soon. But after I retire — perhaps 30 years from today.
This gives me decades to build:
- a leadership pipeline,
- a culture that selects for competence,
- and a method of succession that does not rely on bloodlines, but on merit, vision, and alignment.
A foundation structure ensures:
- no ego-driven takeover,
- no inheritance-based decay,
- no selling-out for short-term gain,
- and no slow collapse due to misaligned successors.
It gives the company a chance — not a guarantee — but a chance to survive long after the founder dies.
Whether it lasts 50 years, a century, or more… future generations will know the answer.
I am simply designing for a world I will never see.
