I love and hate how Eugen starts this whole project, leads it into being something truly unique and wonderful that directly challenges some of the most evil and wealthy people on the planet, sets up institutional guardrails to make sure it will not be corrupted by any one individual gone mad with power, gives away his position after 10 years once he's sure the organization is in good hands, and then concludes in reflection that he does not "have the right personality" for running a project like this.

I hope it has not been to hard for him, and that he'll look back at it all as a positive experience in spite of the negative interactions. I don't think any sane person has a personality that is "right" for the kind of abuse public figures receive on the internet. But from the perspective of Mastodon and the Fediverse, it seems pretty clear that he was exactly the right type of personality for the job—including by stepping down when the time felt right.

[–] rozodru@pie.andmc.ca 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I get it and don't hate it. If one of my projects took off like that and gained traction the absolute LAST thing I'd want to be is CEO of the whole damn thing. That's just not who I am. I'd hope I'd be able to find and hand it off to someone more qualified for that position. So I totally get where Eugen is coming from as I would have done the exact same thing.

[–] cabbage@piefed.social 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What I hate about it is that this unwillingness to be in a position of power is so correlated with actually being suited for it.

[–] verdi@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

100% this.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day ago

I was on a non profit board where the founder realized he wasn't the right person for the job after 20 years of growing the org. It finally got to a point that he felt like the growth was beyond what he ever imagined or wanted.

He was, on every metric, very successful. He grew the org from nothing, got millions of dollars in donations, amassed a huge base, and no one would have thought different if he just kept going.

I remember sitting down with him one-on-one and asked him why. He thought about it for a minute and said, "It's time for someone to make it even better."

Looking back, I think I see the exhaustion. To constantly innovate, to push people forward, to push the org, the mission....it was all one person at a time. He reached a point in both age and in life that it just wasn't something he could keep doing.