Founders, Keepers: Why Founders Are Built to Fail and What It Takes to Succeed (Unabridged‪)‬

Based on decades of empirical research and data, Founders, Keepers gives founders a practical roadmap for navigating the inevitable challenges that come with startup growth.

It’s a brutal paradox—the same founder attributes required to put a startup in motion will invariably blow it up. The difference between success and failure lies in the personal journey that every founder must pursue to avoid their own worst impulses.

Steeped in nearly forty years of research in leadership psychology, Founders, Keepers begins with the same personality assessment Rich Hagberg, a psychologist and executive management coach, gives his clients. Hagberg and Tien Tzuo, founder and CEO of Zuora, help founders build a Swiss Army knife of practical tools that will give them a much better chance of making it to the next level of success.

A guide for founders, investors, and academics alike, the result of a decade-long collaboration between a successful CEO and Silicon Valley’s “CEO Whisperer” offers readers insights into:

The differentiators between successful and unsuccessful founders
The three pillars of leadership that every founder needs to be successful
The essential skills founders need to master to be successful over the long haul
An examination of the common personality traits that lead founders to make fatally flawed decisions
What makes founders tick, including the default tendencies and leadership styles that often undermine their success
How founders frustrate their investors, partners and employees


Founders may not be able to account for all the complexities of their companies, but they can account for themselves. It’s a difficult but unavoidable truth: to grow your startup, you have to grow as a person. And that’s where Founders, Keepers comes in.