[BHSPitMonkey]

What if all the great ideas in a company are coming from the non-CEOs? If these ideas are instrumental in the company's success, then wouldn't the CEO be receiving wildly disproportionate credit for said success? (Regardless of the fact that the CEO is the one who allows the ideas to come to pass, the fact remains that the people with the ideas/talent are the ones providing the real value.)

[knewter]

I think that your point is legitimate but that you overvalue the value of it. Yes, in that hypothetical situation, the CEO would be receiving disproportionate credit for the success. I even think this might happen quite a bit. But things don't happen in a vacuum. I think that Meego was a fantastic product, the N9 a brilliant piece of hardware, and I think that no matter how much that's true Stephen Elop truly and royally ruined any value Nokia had a chance of creating by pulling a helluvan "Osborne Computer." The ideas and talent were all there in spades, and the execution by the guy responsible for handling the organization's execution COMPLETELY trumped all of that.

Ergo, CEOs actually do have quite a bit of value.