AFAIK absolutely false. It is also a gross generalization about a diverse group of people with differing sociopolitical structures.
I would suggest reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" for an example of a famous and incredibly egalitarian American construct, or just read about Iroquois political structures via Googling, for two examples.
http://www.cokesbury.com/forms/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=939760...
Not related in any way to actual organizations of any actual tribes.
Most people know that there are more than one chef in the kitchen, yet we still figuratively say there are too many.
This is silly and trivial. Two reasons:
[1] The phrase is the analog of an idiom. It is shorthand for "hierarchy" and used as such. The parent is explaining its use.
[2] There are many tribal organizations. This cuts both ways. Provided there is a single one that was historically rank-hierachical, the data is not even a counterfactual.
[3] Provided [2] is ok, so is [1]. We know [2] is ok. Hence, the comment is logically ~gratuitous.
See, for example:
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/too+many+chiefs...
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I don't think the correct response when called out the use of a racist stereotype is to claim it's silly and trivial.
silent weeping
The "fantasy" life of a startup founder is that they see things others don't (vision) and lead people who make those visions real (workers). Except you can't really lead someone with a vision if you don't know yourself how to make that vision real.
The challenges of startups are that you have to be able to "do it all" in order to know what "doing it" actually entails, then you can bring people in who can do a part of it (that you were previously doing) and know if they are doing it well or not. Folks who are visionary in their thinking but can't break that down into actionable steps toward that vision, and then break those steps into problem assignments, aren't really going to be an asset for your startup until you already have a product and a revenue stream.
Even then, there is nothing more irritating to folks than a clueless visionary. Someone who says something like "The underlying problem is energy dependence, so our goal should be to provide an unlimited energy source to break that dependence, let's get some smart people working on that!" Accurate vision, but ultimately clueless, they just slow people down who have to explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics to them (if they are patient enough).