[82lsju]

my observation is that it is usually better to be the person after the successor to a "legend" than to be the successor....

Usually, but the successor to Steve Jobs did pretty well for himself.  Maybe the exception that proves the rule, but when I looked it up, some 35% of CEOs are promoted internally, and typically that happens when the previous guy (or gal) did well, because if the previous person did poorly there usually clamoring for fresh blood.

Interestingly I decided to look it up and found this link:

https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/c...sel-study/

I’m having trouble opening the original link (bad gateway) but the AI summary (so caveat emptor) says the following:

College Football (FBS): Data shows roughly 16% (or roughly 1 in 6) coaching hires are internal promotions.
Men’s Basketball: Research indicates 17.9% of Division-I head coaching hires since 2014 were internal promotions.
Success Rate: Internal hires are sometimes perceived as a safer choice, and they have historically shown, on average, a 4.02% improvement in winning percentage over their predecessors, though results vary widely.
The "Pipeline": While internal promotions for the top job are low, the pipeline often feeds from lower-level positions to coordinator roles rather than directly to head coach.

Again, considering that internal hires usually follow a successful coaching run, the fact that they are able to improve on their predecessor is surprising.

BC

I think of Jobs first successor at Apple as John Sculley, even though Jobs was not Apple's CEO then but was apparently the one to make the call to hire Sculley, and Sculley, and the next several CEOs, did not work out all that well at Apple

[82lsju]

my observation is that it is usually better to be the person after the successor to a "legend" than to be the successor....

Usually, but the successor to Steve Jobs did pretty well for himself.  Maybe the exception that proves the rule, but when I looked it up, some 35% of CEOs are promoted internally, and typically that happens when the previous guy (or gal) did well, because if the previous person did poorly there usually clamoring for fresh blood.

Interestingly I decided to look it up and found this link:

https://athleticdirectoru.com/articles/c...sel-study/

I’m having trouble opening the original link (bad gateway) but the AI summary (so caveat emptor) says the following:

College Football (FBS): Data shows roughly 16% (or roughly 1 in 6) coaching hires are internal promotions.
Men’s Basketball: Research indicates 17.9% of Division-I head coaching hires since 2014 were internal promotions.
Success Rate: Internal hires are sometimes perceived as a safer choice, and they have historically shown, on average, a 4.02% improvement in winning percentage over their predecessors, though results vary widely.
The "Pipeline": While internal promotions for the top job are low, the pipeline often feeds from lower-level positions to coordinator roles rather than directly to head coach.

Again, considering that internal hires usually follow a successful coaching run, the fact that they are able to improve on their predecessor is surprising.

BC

I think of Jobs first successor at Apple as John Sculley, even though Jobs was not Apple's CEO then but was apparently the one to make the call to hire Sculley, and Sculley, and the next several CEOs, did not work out all that well at Apple