Fired Founders

How does this happen? I was recently reading on Laughing Squid how the founders of JPG Magazine left 8020 Publishing, the company they founded, due to being pushed out by corporate management.

I had a weary chuckle because I feel exactly the same way that Aaron Schwartz does about corporate culture - how do they get any good work done there. Well, they usually don't. The exact same thing happened to Aaron Schwartz, as he got pushed out by Conde Nast, the company that bought reddit. And of course Steve Jobs was famously pushed out of Apple for not being in line with corporate management at the time. My chuckle was weary because I've long since tired of corporate culture killing the craft and fun of developing good software. I've been chastened many times by some corporate robot chanting the mantra of efficiency, "focus on work", etc. Those same people have usually never written any good, interesting or important software.

I'd be very interested in hearing stories of founders who got pushed out of their creations and went on to create something better. What did they do differently to promote a group culture that ensured success and the same creative drive that made their creations tick in the first place.

Posted by Timothy Washington on 2007.05.20| Original post

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