I've been trying to articulate a moral theory of executive power for founders kinda like John Yoo post 9/11 sans a Cheney. I'll try to actually be faithful to the text.
A CEO (chief executive officer) and a president—an individual who holds the "*executive* Power" of the United States—are both executives. Should that power be distributed or concentrated?
Open source projects connect people all over the world to create value, distributing power among contributors. But the most successful open source projects, like Linux or Ethereum, have been led by pseudo-executive contributors (Linus Torvalds and Vitalik Buterin, respectively) with disproportionate influence. Conversely, for-profit companies (over hundreds of years of natural selection) have developed organizational structures with a sole executive, a cabinet of C-suites (CFO, COO, CTO, etc.), and a board to check the CEO's executive power. There are a few successful exceptions .
As a company goes from two co-founders in a dorm room to a forty person org with a small c-suite to a large 2,000-person publicly traded company, executive power is slowly minimized. As investors come in, they request board seats, and a managerial class is set in, reducing the connection of the executive to the employees. The board's power of the purse limits executive power; as the (founding) executive's power is diluted, the vision of the organization quickly and quietly escapes in favor of profit-oriented measures that inflate investors' IRR over ten-year hold periods. After the IPO, institutional shareholders (Blackstone, etc.) and year-end bonus-thirsting analysts coerce executive power in order to inflate share price in the secondary market.
Non-founding executives and founding executives have contrasting dynamics. After John Sculley took over from Steve Jobs, the company vision tanked. Imported MBAs are notorious for ruining companies (Satya Nadella is an exception). I think it's just for some founder-led companies to concentrate power. Depends what type of founder the founder is.
Many founders start companies to get rich, others start it to solve an interesting problem, while a few set out to materialize their grand internal vision on the world map. A few understand something others don't. They understand long-term sacrifices with minimal profits (Amazon), tackling problems no one who understands conventional risk would tackle (SpaceX, Tesla). They command their boards to secure the life of their vision (Meta) and don't give a fuck how their employees feel about them (NVIDIA). They're willing to totally rearrange their companies and ditch their work-life balance for it (Airbnb). Most founders are not like that.
The most transformative orgs can't afford to distribute power but every single one does. All the executive energy is destroyed, violating the second law of founding thermodynamics. As founders retire and die off, their crystal clear vision will get diluted to their successor, C-suite, board, and employees. As generations go on, the vision entropy compounds like a game of telephone. Out of the 500 founding companies of the S&P 500, started in 1957 (not that long ago), only 94 companies survive. Just look at Apple's transition of Steve Jobs to Tim Cook. Revenue stayed strong but the innovation and risk-taking that Apple was known for has disappeared. Microsoft almost died out—only half a generation in—when Steve Ballmer took over. How many companies over 100 years old are still innovating? Coca-Cola? Boeing?
The ideal succession scenario is: a strong-willed mission-driven executive passes the torch to someone else just like that. If that goes on for even one or two generations, the company can become one of the most influential companies on Earth. But if a founder designs their organizational structure to maximize their power and is succeeded by an MBA type, the company may do well for the first generation, but the next generation will quickly erase any gains made to the vision. (Assuming permanent executive concentration. Something like a founder holding onto voting rights and equity would be temporary since the next executive would not receive that).
The Founding Fathers separated power pretty well—with various degrees of concentration between the branches—and the U.S. is still alive because of it. They definitely would not have endorsed a George III type executive. The Supreme Court has recently crept close to the limit of concentrating power within the Executive branch, allowing for a president to go full founder-mode if their action is "official". But the president can even steal some legislative and ignore judicial power when necessary, like during Wartime.
If a company is at Wartime—high burn rate and dwindling reserves—I think it is just for the executive to go full Lincoln. (And you could keep that power for a while if you make the case that Wartime is all time but that may not be just 😂) Laying off 80% off the staff of a company may seem like a shitty move but what if it's necessary to keep the company afloat to keep adding value and hire more people later on? If all companies are good for the world in some way (because they only make money if they add value—debatable with consulting) and do much more good than individuals, then any action taken within the law to keep it afloat is just.
The obvious rule derived from these obvious observations is concentrating power in a founding CEO would lead to good things (hopefully) and concentrating power in CEOs after the founder leaves is much more risky but sometimes warranted depending on the person. If I were a founder, the takeaway would be simple: embrace full-founder mode to realize the vision—like the O.G. Founders—and push forward unapologetically, regardless of external or internal opinions.