>I also reject your premise that CEO's are necessarily business owners. In large companies, they're usually not. They're just hired guns and they're not taking any personal financial risk.
>

Got a news flash for you :)

From research done by research firms that study Fortune 500's - most CEOs are not "hired guns", instead they rose through the ranks of operations including COO roles. Yes, there are some whose background is more on the financial or general management area, but more CEOs come about from executive operational positions than executive financial positions.

Also, almost half of Fortune 500 CEOs served as non-executive directors on public company boards (where they gain valuable experience and insight) before being named CEO.

There seems to be a habit of hand-picking a couple of situations and drawing conclusions that they represent how most large company CEO's operate. It's simply not the case.