When a company outgrows its founder-CEO, the fashionably euphemistic thing to do is to allow him to "step up" and take a job as chairman, or chief product visionary, or Beloved Leader — something that looks good on a business card. No such luck for Michael Baum, the boisterous cofounder of Splunk, who has simply been replaced as the enterprise-search startup's CEO. Godfrey Sullivan, who ran Hyperion, a business-software company acquired by Oracle last year, is displacing him.

Baum, a self-described "serial entrepreneur," will continue, awkwardly, as the company's head of strategy and corporate development. Funny, don't those sound like the CEO's job? This should prove entertaining to watch — especially if Baum reverts to loudly drunk form. But if Splunk follows the rest of the script — hire experienced CEO, sell or go public, make founders rich — Baum will have all the more reason to shout.

(Full disclosure: Valleywag very special correspondent Paul Boutin is married to Splunk executive Christina Noren, and you're not.)

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