Every generation tends to regard its era as historically unique. The dominance of founder-led companies built by figures such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Jensen Huang and Elon Musk can make founder advantage seem like a byproduct of software, the internet or AI. They appear singular because the technologies they command are new, the scale of their companies is immense, and the systems around them feel unprecedented. Yet this is not new.
The Same Pattern
The clearest way to understand this is to look at past products and focus on the few key people that drove them. In the 18th century, Richard Arkwright helped industrialise production through mechanised textiles. A century later, during The Gilded Age, Andrew Carnegie supplied the material backbone of America through steel, Thomas Edison helped commercialise electrification at system scale, John D. Rockefeller organised the oil base of the industrial age. Whilst not too long ago, Gordon Moore stood at the centre of the semiconductor revolution.
These were not marginal developments, in fact, steam and textiles accounted for roughly 28% of GDP growth in their era, railways 17%, steel and electrification 14%, oil 16%, and semiconductors 14%.
It is not simply that these were important industries. It is that, across radically different periods, economic growth repeatedly concentrated around a small number of foundational themes, and the leading founders around those themes captured disproportionately extraordinary value.
Few Who Shape the Many
As Peter Thiel observes:
“Never forget that a small group of highly competent but slightly absurd folks can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Of the 50 US-listed companies that have generated the most shareholder wealth since 1926, 31 were founder-led at some point during their public lives. Ranked by annualised returns, 17 of the top 20 were founder-led.
It includes familiar names such as Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), and Larry Ellison (Oracle), but also founders from much earlier eras and very different sectors, including Sam Walton (Walmart), Walt Disney (Disney), and Bernie Marcus (Home Depot).
Why This Still Matters Today
Seen this way, the defining founders of the present are not without precedent. The enduring point is that founder-led outperformance has accompanied every major period and is why the strongest founders continue to matter so much.
In an era of unseen pace of change and new questions, this principle becomes even more powerful. As Jim Collins argues in his book Good to Great,
“The more uncertain the world, the more you want to bet on the who, not the what, because the what’s are going to change.”