#founder-buyback

#founder-buyback

"When I'm irritated, tired, stressed, or anxious, a nap literally cures everything. It really changed my life."

According to Bloomberg Law's Workload & Hours Survey, a third of nonequity partners also say they're undervalued in their roles and more than half say they were burnt out in 2025.

The shift was apparent. People had a stake in the outcome, and they acted like it. Ideas flowed more freely, teams spotted and solved problems earlier, and employees took pride in identifying and implementing improvements.

I don't take founders here for exercise. I take them here because the controlled environment of a boardroom practically demands rehearsed answers. The trail does not. I don't prepare a script for these walks. In fact, that's the point. The pitch is already done; I know the metrics. Now I want to know the human.

Awards may be encouraging and occasionally useful for visibility, but they are weak indicators of validation and poor predictors of long-term success. In the longevity and healthspan industry, where timelines are long and claims are easy to overstate, venture capital ultimately follows alignment and evidence, not applause received at glitzy industry events.

Every search, purchase, loyalty swipe, location ping and scroll feeds systems that now shape pricing, product decisions, hiring and marketing strategies. Most founders understand this in theory, but few grasp the practical consequence: whether they intend to or not, they and their customers are already casting votes with their data. And those votes? They're usually cast passively, on someone else's terms.

It's great because honestly it fits perfectly into this relationship. It's obviously a three-co-founder relationship. He's also the one that brings sanity to the conversation and can draw the line sometimes. As Rivio has grown, they have two main takeaways: First, co-founders should have clearly defined lanes. Second, it's a good idea to bring in a third co-founder as a tie-breaker.

A leader who has ascended to the level of CEO contender is likely a high performer with broad institutional knowledge and deep relationships, both inside and outside the firm. Such a star walking out the door can scramble organizational operations, ruin team morale, and dent a company's bottom line. Top executive turnover typically costs many multiples of the person's annual salary.

Raising venture capital too early can cost you control, leverage and even your company. Early capital is often highly dilutive, selling off your future before your blueprint is complete. The difference between lighting a spark and burning your equity to ash is a lesson many founders learn too late.

As we kick off 2026, activist investor campaigns are no longer just prevalent; they are global, sophisticated, and have increasingly become an acute threat to corporate leadership. The escalating pressure is undeniable: Barclays data shows that activist investor campaigns hit a high last year - surpassing 2024 by 5% - with 32 CEOs resigning as a result (a record) - and showing no signs of slowing down.

Because startups typically don't have a track record of success to attract potential clients, they can offer a trial of their platform for free or at a lower cost to showcase what their platform can do and how reliable it is. The enterprise - a potential client - can test the newest technologies without the worry of committing to a complete and often costly rollout.

"You can have as much money as you want to pour into the algorithm and buy ads," Kaplan told Business Insider. "But if you don't have the right founder who's able to build a community and the attention that you need to build a real product that people want, all of that money ... is meaningless."

A colleague and I launched a new company after our previous employer closed. We divided responsibilities so she handled manufacturing and distribution while I managed digital content and marketing. My side of the business grew steadily. But within six months, her operational area began to falter. I began to step in to keep physical projects moving, and key infrastructure on her side wasn't maintained. Despite having access to shared digital project management tools, she frequently framed it as a communication problem.