[via Knowledge@Wharton]

But tech companies often pose unique succession issues, in part because of their unusually fast growth and young founders, according to Wharton faculty and technology experts. “If you look at the dominant companies in the technology industry, most of them are still led, or until recently were led, by a charismatic founder. […]

Going forward, it remains to be seen what will happen at Oracle, which is still run by founder Lawrence J. Ellison after nearly 30 years, and at Apple, where founder Steve Jobs left the company once, but is now enjoying a second honeymoon with the success of the iPod and iTunes. […]

Only a handful of the largest firms have had founders with the ability to manage both the technology and business sides of their rapidly growing companies, Hosanagar says. “For the more successful companies, there was not a reason for the investors to make the intervention earlier. That’s why you have some of the biggest companies — Microsoft, Sun, Apple — run by the same people for 10, 20 or 30 years.” […]

The rate of innovation in the technology industry also allows entrepreneurial founders to remain in charge longer than their management skills might warrant because fast growth at the firms can mask management weaknesses, Hosanagar says. As the companies mature, those problems are not so easy to hide, making succession more urgent. […]

It has been difficult, Cappelli adds, for fast-growing technology firms to develop top managers internally. “The companies generally have not had a lot of systems in place, particularly for developing people, so that often makes it hard to find qualified people inside.” […]

While technology company founders are among the most well-known business executives, they are often less ego-driven than CEOs in other industries, where elaborate hierarchies link power to position. “The tech industry is unique in many ways and it has to do with the strong meritocracy,” says Hosanagar, who points out that technology executives work closely with employees at all levels to foster a sense of collaboration, which in turn leads to innovation.

And an interesting point of view about Ray Ozzie ;-)

Yet according to Kendall Whitehouse, Wharton’s senior IT director, one possible successor to Gates is Ray Ozzie, the principal creator of Lotus Notes, who joined Microsoft when the company acquired Groove Networks in 2005, a company which Ozzie founded in 1997. “Ozzie is clearly a tech visionary,” states Whitehouse. “He may be just what Microsoft needs to lead it into the next generation of Internet-enabled software applications.”