The Founder’s Edge: 19 Founder-Led Stocks That Outperformed the S&P 500 Over the Last 10 Years

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Tough markets are hard on everyone. They’re hardest on companies that have lost their founder.

What Happens to a Stock When the Founder Steps Down

A founder’s departure isn’t the only factor influencing a stock price. Sector headwinds, macroeconomic conditions, and company-specific challenges all play a role.

But among companies that were founder led at some point during the past 10 years, a consistent pattern emerges: The companies that lost their founders underperformed both the broader market and their founder-led peers. Only one of seven companies in that group beat the S&P over five years: Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB +0.11%).

FedEx (FDX +1.63%)

• 10-year CAGR: 9.7% vs. S&P 500’s 13.6%
• 5-year CAGR: 9.1% vs. S&P 500’s 13.1%
• Founder Fred Smith ran the company for 51 years before stepping down as CEO in 2022.

FedEx has faced margin pressure and a shift in logistics demand tied to e-commerce, structural changes that would challenge any CEO. Under Smith, however, the company consistently adapted to industry shifts for decades. Since his departure, FedEx has struggled to find its footing, and the stock has trailed the S&P 500 across recent time horizons.

Amazon (AMZN +0.87%)

• 10-year CAGR: 23.8% vs. S&P 500’s 13.6%
• 5-year CAGR: 7.8% vs. S&P 500’s 13.1%
• Founder Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO in July 2021. Andy Jassy took over.

Amazon’s 10-year return is exceptional, but Bezos was CEO for most of that period. The five-year return, which captures the leadership transition, tells a different story. Amazon’s slowdown in that period also reflects the broader growth-stock sell-off in 2022 and the difficulty of maintaining hypergrowth at Amazon’s scale. Still, the gap between Amazon’s pre- and postfounder trajectory is hard to ignore.

PDD Holdings (PDD +3.42%)

• 5-year CAGR: -9.9% vs. S&P 500’s 13.1%
• Stock lost 40.5% of its value over five years
• Founder Colin Huang stepped down as CEO in 2020 and left the board in 2021.

PDD’s relatively poor performance over the last five years is driven by factors beyond a founder departure. Chinese regulatory crackdowns, U.S.-China trade tensions, and increased competition from Alibaba (BABA +4.84%) and JD.com (JD +2.29%) weighed on results. But Huang’s exit also arguably removed the strategic force behind Pinduoduo and the launch of Temu, and it occurred during a period of heightened geopolitical volatility. Among the 26 companies in the analysis, PDD posted the worst return of any stock in any time period.

Berkshire Hathaway: A Real-Time Test Case

• 10-year CAGR: 14.2% vs. S&P 500’s 13.6%
• 2025 return: +10.9% vs. S&P 500’s +17.9%
• Warren Buffett announced his retirement in May 2025 and stepped down as CEO on Jan. 1, 2026.

Unlike the other companies in this group, Berkshire Hathaway has little postdeparture performance data. Warren Buffett wasn’t technically the founder, but his 60-year tenure made him functionally indistinguishable from one. How Berkshire performs under new CEO Greg Abel will be closely watched as a real-time test of the founder-led thesis.

Founder departures do not automatically cause underperformance, and founder presence alone does not explain returns. But the data show a clear pattern: Public companies that had a founder-CEO depart within the past decade underperformed both the S&P 500 and their founder-led peers over 5- and 10-year periods, with the performance gap widening during the more challenging 5-year window.

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Do founder-led stocks outperform the market?

Which founder-led stocks are in the S&P 500?

About the Author

Jack Caporal is the Research Director for The Motley Fool and Motley Fool Money. Jack leads efforts to identify and analyze trends shaping investing and personal financial decisions across the United States. His research has appeared in thousands of media outlets including Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and CNBC, and has been cited in congressional testimony. He previously covered business and economic trends as a reporter and policy analyst in Washington, D.C. He serves as Chair of the Trade Policy Committee at the World Trade Center in Denver, Colorado. He holds a B.A. degree in International Relations with a concentration in International Economics from Michigan State University.

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Jack Caporal has positions in Airbnb. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Airbnb, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Blackstone, CrowdStrike, DoorDash, Fortinet, KKR, MercadoLibre, Meta Platforms, Netflix, Nvidia, Palantir Technologies, Prologis, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Salesforce, Spotify Technology, Synopsys, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group, BlackRock, Capital One Financial, FedEx, Intercontinental Exchange, and JD.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.