[gyardley]

Titles are like clothes, and context is important.

The sole proprietor of a one-person company should call himself CEO without hesitation if it helps him get what he wants. The person in charge of a thousand-person company should reject the CEO title when it gets in the way of his goals.

At the last small (~5 employee) startup I ran, I used the CEO title when dealing with media companies and large organizations and the co-founder title when doing marketing to developers. Worked out fine.

If someone's used the CEO title in front of you and you've thought they were foolish, they've either misunderstood the context or you've come across something you're just not the primary audience for.