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Comment by vietthan | Hacker News Reader

Has there been other situations like this before? Successful CEO gives up the helm to essentially retire but then brought back because his hand-picked successor underperformed?

Ps: this is just like that Thanos meme

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Well, look up Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. TR favored Taft as his successor, but then became disenchanted with him and tried to overthrow him in 1912. When he didn't get the nomination, he ran as a third party candidate ("the Bull Mouse Party"), which drew enough votes to win Woodrow Wilson the Presidency.

More directly, Grover Cleveland. President, defeated in re-election bid by Harrison, then came back and defeated Harrison’s re-election bid and became president again.

You're right. Cleveland didn't actually choose Harrison, though.

Ah, true. Though, tangentially, I had trouble seeing how Chapek could have truly been zinger’s choice from the start. Especially given Iger’s sudden resignation.

Happened to P&G back in the early 2010s with AG Laffley. I know because my parents were both executives who lived through it, and quite a few colorful thoughts about AG's replacement before the board dumped him and brought AG back.

Didn't Microsoft and Apple both do this in the early-Mid 2000's? I believe Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both 'retired' but were both brought back upon poor performance?

No.

Steve Jobs didn’t “retire”—the board fired him. And he was only reinstated as CEO because Apple bought his new company, NeXT.

Bill Gates never came back once he left.

Ahh, you're right, I remembered wrong. Gates stayed on as a board member.

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