This seems superficially attractive, and it's hard to imagine too many people making a spirited defense of the 'all chiefs, no indians' job title inflation.
But there's a bullshit aspect to it that bothers me - it seems to be ignoring something basic that's being communicated when people insist on CxO titles.
Specifically, people who insist on CxO titles at some stage in a startup where it seems a bit pretentious may have a very good reason. What these titles communicate internally and to the board is something like:
"I am joining this startup and doing a buttload of work under the assumption that I will be the effective leader (or, CTO = effective technology leader) of the the company, and if anyone wants to make me step down from this, it will actually be a demotion and it will be an issue".
This doesn't mean "I will have a tantrum and leave". It means, "don't assume that you can seamlessly bring in a layer of management above me and this will fit my expectations".
This position may be a bad idea, I'm not disputing that. However, it may be what's contingent on someone doing a pile of work for very little money - part of their vision of the startup might be not suddenly acquiring a layer of people to report to who have been parachuted in after the hard, nasty work has been done.
If you want to make it clear that at any moment, the guy who thinks he going to run the company or the technical aspects of the company can have someone parachuted in on top of them, then denying them the CxO title is a good way of communicating that. That's fine, but don't pull this sophomoric shit where you pretend that people in small companies are insisting on these titles out of sheer ego alone.
If the main purpose is "reserving" the title for the potential future, wouldn't some kind of contract be more effective and less pretentious? Just asking.
What would this contract look like, and say? All up it seems a lot more complex - and potentially brittle and problematic - than just saying "look, we have a CEO and CTO now, for what that's worth in a tiny company, deal with it".
But there's a bullshit aspect to it that bothers me - it seems to be ignoring something basic that's being communicated when people insist on CxO titles.
Specifically, people who insist on CxO titles at some stage in a startup where it seems a bit pretentious may have a very good reason. What these titles communicate internally and to the board is something like:
"I am joining this startup and doing a buttload of work under the assumption that I will be the effective leader (or, CTO = effective technology leader) of the the company, and if anyone wants to make me step down from this, it will actually be a demotion and it will be an issue".
This doesn't mean "I will have a tantrum and leave". It means, "don't assume that you can seamlessly bring in a layer of management above me and this will fit my expectations".
This position may be a bad idea, I'm not disputing that. However, it may be what's contingent on someone doing a pile of work for very little money - part of their vision of the startup might be not suddenly acquiring a layer of people to report to who have been parachuted in after the hard, nasty work has been done.
If you want to make it clear that at any moment, the guy who thinks he going to run the company or the technical aspects of the company can have someone parachuted in on top of them, then denying them the CxO title is a good way of communicating that. That's fine, but don't pull this sophomoric shit where you pretend that people in small companies are insisting on these titles out of sheer ego alone.