When Zomato co-founder Deepinder Goyal announced that he would step aside as chief executive of Eternal, there were many speculation if he was pushed out or if something had gone wrong. There were worries about whether this was the beginning of the end.
Anupam Mittal, founder of Shaadi.com and startup investor, offered a very different reading of the moment. In a LinkedIn post that quickly gained traction, Mittal argued that founders resigning from CEO roles should be seen not as a crisis, but as a sign of organisational maturity.
“This is not failure, this is maturity,” Mittal wrote, pushing back against the narrative that a founder stepping aside is inherently negative. “For years, Indian founders believed CEO = Founder = CEO. That idea is outdated.”
‘What works at 10 breaks at 100’
Mittal’s argument hinges on a simple but often uncomfortable truth: startups scale faster than founders can evolve as managers. “Startups today are growing faster than founders can grow as managers,” he said. “What works at 10 people breaks at 100 & what works at 100 breaks at 1000.”
Founders, he noted, are typically strongest in the earliest phases of a company’s life, what he described as the “0 to 1 and 1 to 10” stages, when vision, hustle and product-market fit matter more than formal systems. But as companies move into larger, more complex phases, a different skill set becomes critical. “Beyond a certain growth curve, companies need a different skill set,” Mittal wrote.
‘In global markets this is encouraged’
“In global markets, this is encouraged,” he said. “Founders step aside, and professional CEOs step in. The company wins, the founder still owns the upside & most times, shareholders are better off.” In India, however, similar moves are often framed as dramatic failures. “We dramatise this as ‘fired’, ‘failure’ & even ‘fraud’,” Mittal wrote, adding pointedly: “Most of the time it is none of that.”
“I think making oneself replaceable should be one of the key goals of every founder,” he wrote, arguing that enduring companies are built when leadership transitions are planned rather than resisted.
Mittal also pointed to some of the world’s most valuable technology companies. “That is how companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft became enduring giants,” he said.
In his view, stepping aside is often not about loss of control, but about choosing what is best for the organisation. “Often, it is simply the founder choosing what is best for the company,” Mittal wrote.
A cultural reset for Indian startups?
Mittal’s comments land at a sensitive moment for India’s startup ecosystem, which is still negotiating the transition from founder-led growth to institution-led governance. As more venture-backed firms mature into large, complex businesses, and, in some cases, publicly listed entities, the pressure to professionalise leadership is only likely to grow.
If Mittal’s framing gains wider acceptance, the next generation of founder exits from corner offices may be met with fewer conspiracy theories and more recognition that sometimes, stepping aside is the most strategic decision a founder can make.