What can tech startups teach family businesses about exits?

The Mitsubishi model of a company built to last the ages still exists, but with the advent of the tech industry and the accompanying startup culture, many old-school concepts of a generational business lineage, past and future, are harder and harder to find.

Along with startup billionaires came startup billionaires who made their billions and dumped the company. They got in, they got out—and the getting out was planned for from the inception. This is fine when that’s the strategy, but what if your business founders intended that no one get out, ever? (We’ll always need buggy whips!) Maybe you are a second or third-generation owner of a family business and, for whatever reason, the big exit sign is the only one lighting up your path.