| Great question, that I am going to answer badly, based on my environment. AV (Austin Ventures) was always known as the big fish in the little pond, ever since I moved here from Japan - and I guess that isn't wrong, but they seemed to have moved onto their version of PE. But one thing that always irritated me and my "executive" friends was how much they liked to put somebody on their back-bench into your job. If it's the right choice - nice. If it happens once-or-twice - nice. But If they do it 9 months after every Series A every time, it starts to make a (n aware) founder wary). I generally don't think founders should be CEOs. Certainly as a founder I should not have been But that doesn't mean youo bring out the brick-bat. It means that you sit down and say something: "Don't you think we should hire the new CEO together and figure our your ongoing role in the company (esp. since you still own 60%)?). I don't know - I just found them heavy handed. I don't know that I ever hit at them hard or that they hit at me hard, but I do know that they came in hard and triggered a hard response. At this point, I don't think they like me much (which is sad, because I was just getting to like them), but there are a lot of personal relationships (apparently) in this business |