"Competent CEO" and "making money" aren't the same thing. Hewlett Packard has had numerous CEOs that just slashed jobs en masse to make the bottom line look better. Nokia's CEO slashed jobs as well, took up with Microsoft, and now the company exists as a burned out shell of its former self, selling boring telecom and software IP like Blackberry and Ericsson. The then-CEO Stephen Elop is long gone with a nice golden parachute.

CEOs are supposed to be there for the long haul and drive real vision for the product. They're not supposed to be emergency stopgaps parachuted in to calm everyone's tempers because the last guy screwed up one too many times.

Yup. Plus, that's an easy prognostication for him to make because he's already on top.

If you aren't just about making money in the early days, you're not going to be CEO very long either. The key is figuring out when your company is big enough that you need to pay attention to things other than making money, or at least good enough as signaling/feigning that you care about things other than making money.

Says a man with billions in the bank...