"How do I keep from being the bottleneck?" Most founders think they're the bottleneck because of how much they do. They're actually the bottleneck because of what only they're allowed to decide. It's a subtle difference, and it's the one that keeps stalled companies stalled. You can hire more people, delegate more tasks, clear your calendar — and still be the single point of failure. Because the work moved, but the authority didn't. Every real decision still routes back to your desk for a yes. The team isn't waiting on capacity. They're waiting on permission. I've watched this for 25 years across four startups. A founder offloads the doing and keeps the deciding, then wonders why nothing moves when they're heads-down or out of the room. It looks like a delegation problem. It's a decision-rights problem. You gave away the tasks but kept the steering wheel, and a car with one driver can only go one place at a time. The builders I most respect design the opposite way — on purpose, early, before it's comfortable. They treat decision-rights as something you architect, not something that accumulates by default around whoever started the company. Two questions do most of the work: For any recurring decision, who owns it — not who advises, who decides? If the honest answer is "me, eventually," you've found a place the company can only move at your speed. And what does this person need to decide well without me — the context, the constraints, the definition of a good outcome? Authority without judgment is just a faster way to make bad calls. The transfer isn't handing over a decision. It's handing over the thinking behind it, so the call gets made the way you'd make it, whether you're there or not. Here's the reframe I've come to believe: a venture that can't make decisions without its founder isn't a company yet. It's a talented person with help. The moment it can decide well without you is the moment it becomes durable — something built to outlive your involvement instead of depending on it. That's not abandonment. It's the point. You're not designing yourself out because you're leaving. You're doing it because a company that needs you for every decision is fragile in exactly the place that looks like strength. So a question worth sitting with this week: What's one recurring decision that still routes through you by default — and what would the person closest to it need in order to own it outright?