Half agree. Successful founders get to remain CEO (or CTO, or whatever). Unsuccessful ones don't: their investors push them out, or the company tanks. Along t

Half agree. Successful founders get to remain CEO (or CTO, or whatever). Unsuccessful ones don't: their investors push them out, or the company tanks. Along the way to obtaining any position, there's a lot of partially correlated signals you have to send, and they're different between different paths. To become CEO at an established company, you might have to show prior experience, know how to wear a suit and tie, etc. To become CEO of your own startup, you have to show investors or customers something else, but I'm not sure those signals are less bullshit: you might find that wearing shorts or playing League of Legends during investor calls somehow convinces people you're a super genius. Basically, there's always an element of bullshit, because we're humans, and our judgment is tempered with all sorts of irrational biases. I don't think that means that an essay on "what it takes to do $job" is inherently bad, though.