The straw man is not the generalist being replaced; it is the "emeritus" advisor to the ceo job that is created out of thin air. Many young companies have execs

The straw man is not the generalist being replaced; it is the "emeritus" advisor to the ceo job that is created out of thin air. Many young companies have execs that just don't scale as quickly as the company (for whatever reason...)[1]. Sometimes its just not teneble politically or practically for them to exert further influence, especially at the C-level. Co-founders and ex CEOs are often different, in that regards. Compare the trajectory of Jack Dorsey at Twitter to the engineer that did the original code, but was never promoted to CTO. (1) ie, You still can be a very effective "early employee" without being C-level material in your current compan. That doesn't imply lack fo competence in the work you did do; and frankly thats a reason many do change jobs.