There was a thread about "Founder Mode" (whatever that is) earlier on. One distinction between a Founder CEO and a Big Company CEO is (simply due to the size of the team) can be explained through a hockey analogy. The founder of a small company needs to act like a captain, and the CEO of a big company acts like a coach. The difference is that the captain puts his skates on every night, hops the boards, and is expected to eat the most minutes on the ice, block shots, take the hit to make the play, get pucks deep, back-check, play defense, and score. The CEO of a big company helps explain to the team how to do that, but the CEO doesn't write code, make design docs decisions, etc...they hire/fire, set culture, set strategy, etc. Since LittleHorse is very much early stage, I am definitely still putting my skates on every night. I would argue that some founders end up delegating the "coach" role so that they can remain as the "captain," such as Larry Ellison hiring Safra Katz, and Mark Zuckerberg hiring Sheryl Sandberg.