Washington handed back his commission at the height of his power, and that exit is why what he built lasted. Founder exit planning is an operating decision made years before the legal one.
Andrew Carnegie sold his steel company in 1901 and then spent eighteen years trying to get rid of the proceeds on purpose. He funded 2,509 libraries. He was not being sentimental.
Alexander took everything from Greece to the Indus before he was thirty-three. Undefeated in the field. Then he died, left no succession plan, and his generals tore the empire apart inside a generation.
Ask most founders what they built and they’ll name the business. Ask what actually survives them and the honest answer is usually: nothing, because they never built anything above the business.
