I’ve worked closely with the CEOs of a few big companies. People see a few moments of glamor and think that is the job but the vast majority of what they do is an astonishingly shitty and thankless job. You have to be a certain kind of masochist to do what is required in that role day after day. You are also never off the clock, so they never really get a proper break to recharge and prevent burnout. No one with any sense would do that job for a normal paycheck and perks, it isn’t worth it.
The reality is that few people have the mental and psychological constitution required to do the job of CEO at any decent sized company. You don’t need to look further than startups to empirically know that most people, even when self-selecting, can’t do the job of CEO even when playing the easy mode of a small company.
I did a period of two years as the CEO of a smallish tech-company (~ 100 employees, turnover of 15M€) and it was stressful as hell even if we were doing OK financially. The big thing is that you're the last defender, everything difficult or uncomfortable task ends with you having to pick it up, for everyone it's a choice to pass it on to the next level but for you it isn't. This combined with the monthly "grades" in terms of commercial result which was new to me coming from a tech background was tough. In the end I chose to go back to tech but it's not something that I want undone, it was a learning experience and these days I'm a lot more careful to let things slip through to the next layer.
Yep, a lot of black and white takes. And I'm not a CEO.
A big portion of the job is just being able to not crumble apart, over a long period of time. Another metric: How prone are you to making a horrible decision when under extreme stress, instead of an average one?
The depths at which the worst case scenarios can bottom out are deep. However, when the downside does not materialize, all that is left is an average decision. And average decisions are easy to critique in hindsight, for the CEOs themselves, as well as for most other people.
In that sense, programming is similar: When you steer clear of horrible code, consinstently and over a long period of time, the plain looking stuff that comes out the other end can look like a given to somebody who hasn't been through enough code filled with bad decisions to appreciate their absence.
The reality is that few people have the mental and psychological constitution required to do the job of CEO at any decent sized company. You don’t need to look further than startups to empirically know that most people, even when self-selecting, can’t do the job of CEO even when playing the easy mode of a small company.