Huh, likely leaving the rest of the co in a lurch. Nice.

There are multiple ways to transition out as CEO other than just saying “peace, I’m out”

As a counterpart, if you have to layoff that many people, is it really the right time to also put the stress of a leadership shift into the company?

I can see the argument for this triggering an eventual change, but having _both_ the chock of a CEO change _and_ 28% of the company being layed off at the same time seems unwise.

Indeed, laying off the CEO too screws over the entire company, not just the portion of people who got laid off.

Most CEOs are quite disposable.

That’s a bold claim, and is more than anything a reflection of the sorts of orgs you tend to interact with.

Most executives fail when achieving a new C-level rank: https://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-executives-fail-2015...

The only people who even notice a change of CEO are the other execs.

Not really. CEOs can make or break a business if they start enacting bad policies in the company. So the employees will notice too, not just other CEOs.

Where did I say that I, in this hypothetical, would leave immediately? If the whole point is that I’ve realized I’m damaging the firm with my actions, why uncharitably assume I would choose an exit path that exacerbated the damage I already caused?

The point is to make some sort of communication that you’re taking on board the consequences of your action, consequences that go well beyond trite platitudes of how difficult the process has been and how next time will be different.

yes it's pretty bad, but this is not Google sitting on billions of cash and dedicated groups analyzing macroeconomic conditions, this is a small startup with a complicated product and a complicated unpredictable b2b sales process.