[rubicon33]

Ultimately the vision for the company and the product have to come from SOMEWHERE.

Small companies often have the CEO in a product position in my experience.

Still isn’t ideal though and more to your point, how they actually do the product role is really what matters. I.e. chasing shiny objects.

[FireBeyond]

Depending on the company's product (and this is a wide range), somewhere between employee 10 and employee 100, the founder needs to decide "Am I CEO of the company? Or CEO of the product?" (As in, that "and" needs to become an "or").