There’s even a name for it, “post-founder syndrome,” in which executives who built highly successful companies criticize successors’ perceived stumbles with an “only I can do this properly” attitude. (See: the founders of Starbucks, Papa John’s Pizza, and Nike.) In his Wall Street Journal ad last autumn, Wilson delivered a rather self-aggrandizing disquisition on why Lululemon had drifted: “A company bereft of a visionary loses its singular voice for product and long term strategy,” he intoned.

Wilson’s latest volley was to launch a proxy war, followed by open letters (many of them) to make his case and convince other shareholders to replace three directors at the next annual meeting. He hopes to reshape Lululemon’s board which he blames for letting the company’s culture of innovation disintegrate. 

Things between Wilson and the company went south after he left the board in 2015 (he stepped down as chairman in 2013 in the wake of comments about women’s bodies construed as fat-shaming, creating one of the biggest crises in the company’s history). However in the first nine years following his departure, Lululemon’s revenue proceeded to triple. (It is expected to report $11 billion a year in revenue for 2025.)

Today, though, he does have a lot of company in feeling Lululemon is adrift: shares have fallen 68% from their all-time high in 2023 as its U.S. sales have slid, raising fears that it hasn’t introduced enough new merchandise or uphold the technical leadership in its activewear, and has lost brand cache to brands like Alo Yoga. And in my reporting I found that like many founders, Wilson still wields enormous influence inside the company, especially with long-time employees who saw first hand how he stoked a culture of excellence and pioneering. 

Last week, Wilson went as far to warn any prospective CEO to beware of a board “that it is not equipped to support a visionary leader and the necessary transformation of the Company.” 

Needless to say the CEO who takes on this job won’t just be dealing with a turnaround and a demanding board, they’ll have to manage a post-founder too. You can read the full story here. 

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

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The markets

S&P 500 futures are down 0.4%, following a 1.0% gain on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 is down 0.1%, South Korea’s KOSPI is up 1.6%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is up 0.1%. Vietnam’s VN-Index is up 1.0%, Taiwan’s TAIEX is up 1.5%. India’s NIFTY 50 is up 0.6%; the STOXX Europe 600 is up 0.1% in early trading. Bitcoin is just above $74,000.

Around the watercooler

Elon Musk admits xAI ‘wasn’t built right’ as only 2 co-founders remain and its biggest AI bet stalls out by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez

The energy crisis isn’t recessionary yet, but there’s a scenario where oil prices could bring the US economy to a ‘standstill,’ Oxford Economics says by Tristan Bove

U.S. debt is competing with a record supply of corporate bonds, pushing up the cost of federal borrowing just as war spending piles up by Jason Ma

Peter Thiel is actively convincing billionaires to abandon The Giving Pledge — and it may be working by Jake Angelo

Trump suggests postponing his key meeting with Xi Jinping by ‘a month or so,’ as Iran overtakes China on the U.S.’s agenda by Angelica Ang

Today's edition of CEO Daily was compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Nicholas Gordon and Lee Clifford.