The Hardest Move a Founder Makes Isn’t the Exit. It’s What Comes After.

Terrence O’Dwyer on resisting the wrong next act and choosing the work that actually fits how he builds.

There is a peculiar quiet that follows a successful exit, a kind of silence that feels, at first, like a reward and then, not long after, like something closer to exposure. The machinery that once structured every day falls away, the calendar empties, and the external signals that once confirmed progress are replaced by something far less reliable. The …