company purchased--founder-designer leaves--establishes new smaller company

Ok, so, does this typically happen in all industries, or is it more frequent in audio?

Some of the Wadia guys.

Mike Moffat founded Theta Digital and later co-founded Schiit Audio.

Dave Reich founded Classe and later (after working for Steve McCormack for a few years) became chief engineer at Theta Digital.

A few years after selling his legendary company in the 1960s Saul Marantz partnered with Jon Dahlquist in founding the Dahlquist speaker company, and served as its president for several years in the 1970s.

Regarding the mention of Tom Colangelo in Marty’s (Viridian’s) post, Tom stayed with Mark Levinson (the person) after Mark and the company he founded and named after himself parted ways, ca. 1984, and Mark founded Cello Ltd. I’m not sure if Tom stayed with Mark at his subsequent company (Red Rose Music). And sadly, Tom Colangelo died in a one-car crash in Connecticut about 11 years ago, around the time Mark founded his next company (Daniel Hertz).

Regards,
-- Al

Bruce Moore, Scott Frankland. MFA (Moore, Frankland Associates) is long gone. Bruce Moore started Bruce Moore Audio. Scott Frankland is now with Frankland Associates. I still have an MFA preamp, works perfectly.

I believe Franco Serblin passed away a few years ago. I still have my Sonus Faber Electa Amators that I bought new in the early 90’s. Thanks, Franco!

"Sneaky" Joe Johnson

Bill Thalmann

Steve McCormack...

Mark Levinson??

MartinLogan- Ron Logan Sutherland (now Sutherland Engineering) and Gayle Martin Sanders (new startup Eikon Audio).

ML has clearly succeeded without those two at the helm.  Sutherland Engineering has a great reputation, and it remains to be seen how Eikon fares.