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I’ve worked at 3–4 companies in my life with headcounts around 175–300 — so not massive companies, but decent-sized, having to make semi-big payrolls — and in each of those cases, the place had a larger-than-life founder, oftentimes very establishes or revered in a specific industry. In one case, the founder’s name was actually on the door. Typically in these types of organizations, the founder is the golden goose. When revenue drops, usually the founder goes from whatever they were doing to pounding the pavement and hitting the airports to make sure the deals are getting done at their name-value level. Usually, but sometimes the founder is comfortable with where they’re at monetarily and has some side ventures they’re currently more interested in — one place I worked, the founder had a rock climbing gym and a thin crust pizza place on top of his agency — and they don’t do jack shit, and then morale and revenue drops more, and layoffs commence.
These can be outright dangerous places to work, because they’re so deeply embedded in the context and personality of one person, who is often at this point a middle-aged white guy, that every aspect of the culture has to run through that person. It’s nearly impossible to get anything done, from the smallest task to the biggest new initiative, without roping that person’s attention away from the other…
