The way I see it, your typical VC-backed startup needs 3 different teams from birth, to growth, to exit:

1. startup team: visionary founders, mad hackers getting little sleep to push the envelope on the product, great bizdev, amazing product people that understand their market.

2. growth team: operations people (ceo/mgmt team), larger engineering team to stabilize product and continue pushing features, more of everything.

3. exit team: people with relationships in key positions that can then make the connection for acquisition/exit.

(This is all anecdotal and I'd love to be corrected)

I wish I could find more places in the first phase.

I was part of a startup that got acquired a while back and I can honestly say I miss the earlier days. :(

Are you a developer who lives in the bay area?

Yes. Although I don't get out much. :)

I'm also bound by golden handcuffs for a few years but I'm not sure I'm going to hang around that long anyways (options weren't worth much).

The curse of the entrepreneur: The more successful you are the less satisfied you get.

should founders be going to investors saying "we're ready and willing to change gear" or "we're ready and willing to step out when we're ready to change to a growth team"?