No, I am not saying that the CEO doesn't work and he/she is in the beach all week. Also, it is impossible to generalize but if you build a good team you can focus in very specific issues, the major part are solved by your team.

I am not talking about startups, just about established and successful companies.

In this context you can read about Zuckerberg speaking Mandarin... http://fusion.net/story/23532/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-s...