|
"would they have been able to without the support of the other half?" The evidence overwhelmingly, yes they would have been successful. You are correct that Gates, Jobs, and Buffett are not perfect examples of successful sole founders, but the question is, can a sole founder be successful? The 'rub' in this question is, can just one guy, alone, making all the decisions alone, do well? Then the examples of Gates, Jobs, and Buffett are quite relevant because each did great things essentially alone. For Jobs, whatever might say about Woz and Jobs's first period at Apple, later Jobs did very well alone at Next, Pixar, and back at Apple. For those last three gigs, Woz was somewhere in the nickel seats. Yes, the success with Woz gave Jobs a lot of cash that was no doubt important for him in his last three gigs. So, then we say that Jobs is an example of a three time successful sole founder with cash. So, with cash a sole founder can work. After the success of MS/DOS and Allen leaving Microsoft, Gates really had to reinvent, 'refound' the company. It is fair to say that he was a founder again. Yes, he was a founder with cash, but he was still acting essentially alone. Again, the issue is, can a sole founder do it alone, and that is what we are addressing. With the cash from MS/DOS, Gates did it alone. It's amazing what he did because he crushed IBM, Sun, Lotus, Netscape, DB2, and more. For Buffett, no way should we count Ben Graham! He wrote a book and was a prof of Buffett at Columbia and possibly a friend. Graham had likely hundreds of students and millions of readers, but there was just one Berkshire. So, for Berkshire I don't credit Graham. For Munger's role, that's just a judgment call, but my reading is that Buffett didn't much need him. Partly I draw that conclusion because it appears in recent years Buffett has been making his decisions essentially just alone. Again, the main issue is, can a sole founder really get the work done or will he go off the deep end, for fast women, slow horses, cheap booze, wacko ideas, etc.? Well, Gates, Jobs, and Buffett didn't do any of these bad things. There's another great example: Fred Smith at FedEx. I absolutely, positively guarantee you that there I know in fine detail just what the heck I'm talking about: FedEx was due almost entirely just to Smith, not Art Bass, Roger Frock, Mike Basch, ..., or me. Yes, it's true that Smith had a fortune from Southern Greyhound. But with a fortune, it's easy, right? Tell that to Carly Fiorina, John Akers, Gil Amelio, Pat Dunn, etc. |