In recent weeks, Ben Silbermann, a co-founder of the digital pinboard service Pinterest, resigned as chief executive; Joe Gebbia

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问题     In recent weeks, Ben Silbermann, a co-founder of the digital pinboard service Pinterest, resigned as chief executive; Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of the home rental company Airbnb, announced his departure from the company’s leadership; and Apoorva Mehta, the founder of the grocery delivery app Instacart, said he would end his run as executive chairman when the company went public, as soon as this year.
    The resignations signify the end of an era at these companies, which are among the most valuable and well-known to emerge from Silicon Valley in the past decade, and of the era they represent. In recent years, investors have dumped increasingly large sums of money into a group of highly valued start-ups known as unicorns, worth $1 billion or more, and their founders have been treated as visionary heroes. Those founders fought for special ownership rights that kept them in control of their companies—a change from the past, when entrepreneurs were often replaced by more experienced executives or pressured to sell.
    But when the stock market fell dramatically this year, hitting money-losing tech companies especially hard, this approach began to change. Venture capitalists pulled back on their deal-making and urged Silicon Valley’s prized young companies to cut costs and proceed cautiously. The industry began to talk of "wartime C.E.O.s" who can do more with less, while bragging about lessons learned from previous downturns.
    Patience for visionaries wore thin. Founder-led companies started to seem like liabilities, not assets. "All of that changed in the last 90 days, and it’s not coming back anytime soon," said Wil Schroter, the founder of Startups.com, an accelerator program for young companies. The "we’ll figure it out later" story is no longer attractive to investors, he added.
    They’re not leaving on a high note. Shares of Pinterest are down 60 percent from a year ago. Elliott Management, an activist shareholder known for pressuring companies to make big changes, recently took a stake in the company. Airbnb shares are down 25 percent from a year ago. And Instacart lowered its internal valuation almost 40 percent in March, as it prepares to go public in a hostile market.
    "It’s surely less fun being a C.E.O. when markets are down, the economy is trending negative and regulation is increasing," said Kevin Werbach, a professor of business at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "If you’re as already rich, famous and successful as these guys, there usually comes a point where staying in the saddle is less appealing than riding off into the sunset."
It can be learned in Paragraph 1 that co-founders are________.

选项 A、faced with financial difficulties
B、leaving their jobs in succession
C、reluctant to give up their leadership
D、keen to perform their own duties

答案B

解析 细节题。根据题干可定位至第一段。B项对应该段第一个分句中的resigned as chief executive(辞去了首席执行官职务),第二个分句中的announced his departure from the company’s leadership(宣布退出公司领导层),第三个分句中的end his run as executive chairman(不再担任执行总裁一职),该项属于正确概括,故正确。A项属于无中生有,在第一段中并未被提及,故排除。C项属于过度推理,文中未说明联合创始人们是否愿意放弃,故排除。D项与第三个分句said he would end his run as executive chairman when the company went public,as soon as this year(公司最快于今年上市,之后他将不再担任执行总裁一职)相悖,该项属于是非混淆,故排除。故本题答案为B。
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