Company founders can get the boot

Q: Besides Steve Jobs at Apple, can you name any other founders who have been booted out of their own companies? How about Ford — was a Ford ever fired as president or CEO at the car company?

A: It may not seem terribly altruistic, but even charities are not immune to the venomous infighting that can lead to leadership upheavals at companies and organizations large and small.

Take, for example, the Wounded Warrior Project, which has taken intense fire the past few weeks after a CBS News investigation reported that, in 2014, it spent less than 60 percent of its $300 million in donations on needy vets. (Reputable charities commonly spend 85, 90 percent or more on services.)

Wounded Warriors was started by John Melia, a Marine veteran who had been injured in a helicopter crash in 1992 in Somalia. Ten years later, he began visiting military hospitals to distribute backpacks stuffed with everything from socks and toothpaste to CD players.

Finding his efforts greatly appreciated, he hired several employees — including Steve Nardizzi, a lawyer who had worked for the United Spinal Association, which serves disabled vets. Melia soon began raising millions of dollars and expanded services to include sports, benefits help and PTSD workshops.

By 2009, with revenues topping $21 million, Nardizzi and Melia reportedly were battling over the charity’s future, with Nardizzi seeking more aggressive growth. Melia resigned. Nardizzi said Melia stepped down to pursue other ventures, but Julie Melia said her ex-husband, who accepted a nearly quarter-million-dollar severance package, felt his organization had been “stolen from him.”

Soon after stories of the group’s lavish spending on salaries and parties exploded recently, CEO Nardizzi and COO Al Giordano were fired. Now, Melia wants to regain control and is calling for the resignation of board chairman Anthony Odierno.

“This is about restoring an organization that I love — that my family loves,” Melia told CBS News on Thursday. It won’t be easy for the founder. In a press release last week, the Wounded Warriors board says the Melias’ conduct is “not in keeping with how we wish to do business.”

It turns out this rancor leading to corporate coups is more frequent than I would have thought. In just the past few years, I can give you stories of at least a dozen company founders either quitting or being booted — and even women have shattered the glass ceiling on their way down.

After earning her master’s in computer science, Sandy Lerner and her future husband, Len Bosack, founded Cisco Systems in December 1984. It quickly became a giant in the development of internet routers and computer software. But six months after the company went public in February 1990, Lerner was fired and Bosack quit in protest. Now 60 and divorced, Lerner owns an organic farm and Hunter’s Head Tavern in Upperville, Va. She founded Urban Decay Cosmetics, whose first ad asked, “Does pink make you puke?” She also has written a sequel to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” entitled “Second Impressions” under the pen name of Ava Farmer.

Even personalities who have become living-room fixtures through the media have had to avoid letting the door hit their backsides on the way out of the corner office.

In 1973, 25-year-old George Zimmer opened his first Men’s Wearhouse in Houston. By the late 1980s, he became a familiar face on TV as he narrated his chain’s ads, closing with the now-familiar soothing tag line, “You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.”

He couldn’t, however, guarantee his future at his own company. In 2011, Zimmer, who also founded Generation Tux and zTailors, stepped down as CEO and, in 2013, was ousted as executive chairman. Still, in the year after he left, company shares shot up 50 percent, keeping Zimmer, who reportedly still owns 1.8 million shares, a wealthy man ($32 million as of Friday).

And the hits, as they say, just keep on coming:

Severing ties: Coupons weren’t the only thing Groupon was cutting in 2013. In February, the global e-commerce site fired CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason a day after it reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. Frustrated by his inability to cancel a cell phone contract, Mason launched Groupon in November 2008, hoping to leverage consumers’ collective bargaining power against corporate behemoths. By 2010, the company was worth an estimated $1.3 billion, but disappointing revenue numbers soon irked investors. After an IPO price of $28, it stands at $4 today. After leaving, Mason recorded an album of motivational business songs for young workers.

The not-so-friendly skies: On May 10, 2007, JetBlue Airways grounded CEO David Neeleman nine years after he founded the discount airline. It was three months after a snowstorm had forced JetBlue to cancel 1,700 flights and strand 130,000 passengers, costing the company $32 million. Two years of losses were enough for the board, so Neeleman went off to found Azul (Spanish for “blue”) Brazilian Airlines in 2008.

Brief fame: Noah Glass may have helped lay the foundation for Twitter, but his stay at the company was as short as the site’s tweets. Although he was later credited for coming up with the original name of “twttr” (inspired by Flickr), Glass was ousted even before Twitter became its own company in April 2007. Since then, Glass, who once worked at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, has kept a low profile. His Twitter account merely says, “I started this.”

Boo-hoo: Founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994, Yahoo! forced Yang to agree to resign on Nov. 17, 2008, after Yang had spurned a $45 billion buyout offer from Microsoft. It didn’t help his fortunes when Google walked away from an ad-revenue-sharing plan. Yang isn’t hurting, though. After leaving Yahoo! he became a mentor to high-tech start-ups and an investor through his firm, AME Cloud Ventures.

Bumpy ride: Martin Eberhard had helped start Tesla Motors in 2003 but was ousted as CEO four years later as Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, gained power. Since then Eberhard and Musk have been tangling in court with each accusing the other for taking too much credit for the company’s success. Eberhard also said he was unfairly blamed for the delay in the launch of the Tesla Roadster.

Without going into detail, I could also mention Dov Charney at American Apparel, Richard Thalheimer at The Sharper Image (when a hedge fund took over) and Rob Kalin at Etsy (not once, but twice!). The list also includes Aubrey McClendon at Chesapeake Energy, who may have committed suicide last month the day after being indicted for violating antitrust laws at Chesapeake. However, if your name is Ford, you’re apparently safe at the 112-year-old car company. Even after showing signs of mental instability due to a series of strokes, Henry Ford was returned to the presidency after his son, Edsel, died of cancer in 1943. Henry would serve until the war was over.

Today’s trivia

What king of cartoon character voices is the only man to get an onscreen credit during a TV commercial? Why?

Answer to Saturday’s trivia: On March 16, 1949, New Mexico designated the greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) as its official state bird. Although it can fly, it’s much happier running along at up to 15 mph to chase down its prey. Early settlers swore you’d never get lost following it while Native Americans ascribed supernatural powers to it. Since 1969, Dusty Roadrunner has been the state’s litter-control mascot.

This story was originally published April 2, 2016 at 6:05 AM with the headline "Company founders can get the boot."