What about moving to a board position, like Bill Gates or Alexis Ohanian? You're still part of the company, but don't have to worry about day-to-day...
You can do that, and with a large company it will probably work. For a smaller company (especially one that is held privately or that only ever received small bits of funding) it likely is not going to work. One of the companies I've invested in went through this whole cycle and now has the original founder back as the CEO after several years of being absent.
The opportunity cost for the founder in that particular case is something I really don't want to think about even if for me as an investor his return to the CEO position is good news.
