Put simply: Lead Developer != CEO. Unless it is super early stage (pre-employees, pre-revenue, pre-everything), the CEO should not be hands-on-keyboard. If the

Put simply: Lead Developer != CEO. Unless it is super early stage (pre-employees, pre-revenue, pre-everything), the CEO should not be hands-on-keyboard. If they are, there are several problems: 1) Delegation. They are demonstrating a management failure to delegate. 2) Even in a technology-oriented business, the job of the CEO is not to cut code. The function of the CEO is to manage and lead all the things related to the growth and success of the business (think: sale, marketing, hiring and recruiting, raising capital, interacting with investors, and a whole lot more). If they want to undertake the technical functions of the business, they should become CTO / VP of Engineering / etc and turn the reigns over to a CEO who can execute on the business. 3) Even if there are other team members engaged in sales and marketing, see point #2 - the CEO is fundamentally responsible for the growth and financial success of the business and it is highly unlikely that technical tasks should be their priority.