[asdasf]

>usually the CEO is personally self-effacing and does not have that kind of personal arrogance.

I haven't seen that. Usually I see the whole "my tech team are all the best awesomest rock ninjas" tripe from the CEO, and entirely because it is an extension of their personal arrogance and massive ego. You talk to the CEO and they have the best tech team in the world solving impossible problems nobody else can do, and you talk to that tech team and they are like "We're making a website, there's nothing special about it". The CEO believes the quality of their tech team reflects their ability as a CEO, thus they must have the best team since they are the greatest CEO.

A sidenote you can ignore but I just need to vent: these massive ego CEOs then insist on making their tech team do this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell because they "know people", so they know what people want.

[joeemison]

In my experience, those who have made it to Series A have had enough humbling experiences to have learned how to hide obvious arrogance. I would agree with your assessment of brand-new CEOs, though.

[walshemj]

Until you get a new hr director (who has their own agenda to reduce the pay qantum) and suddenly your stack ranking and magically a load of "B" and "c" players arrive.