>If you gain your worth from being a CEO and the fact that you wield a degree of power in the context of a business, rather than, say, from intrinsic values, then you will eventually find yourself in a position of conflict.
As with so many writings with the themes of minimalism / zen / detachment / spiritual enlightenment / etc, the authors have a childish view of CEOs. Yes, there are lumbering corporations with middle managers climbing to CEO to satisfy "vanity". However, for HN audience, I don't think that's the type of CEO that's interesting to us.
>The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can focus on the things we can change. And there’s a lot we can change.
And sometimes to execute those changes, we have to be the CEO instead of being a cog in a wheel (aka "nobody") in somebody else's company. You sometimes have to be the owner/CEO of 10-person startup to be an agent of change.
I don't think the author necessarily means being a CEO is an unworthy line of work. What he wants us to understand from this is that it's futile deriving one's worth from the fact that he's the CEO and that he has the ability to boss other people around, but instead he must seek worthiness from the fact that he has the potential to bring about significant change in this world; more than most people could, because like you said, he is not just some "cog in the wheel", but someone who is in charge of many like-minded people who belive in him.
As with so many writings with the themes of minimalism / zen / detachment / spiritual enlightenment / etc, the authors have a childish view of CEOs. Yes, there are lumbering corporations with middle managers climbing to CEO to satisfy "vanity". However, for HN audience, I don't think that's the type of CEO that's interesting to us.
>The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can focus on the things we can change. And there’s a lot we can change.
And sometimes to execute those changes, we have to be the CEO instead of being a cog in a wheel (aka "nobody") in somebody else's company. You sometimes have to be the owner/CEO of 10-person startup to be an agent of change.