Memes

There are actually examples of quite big companies without CEO at all.

But it really depends on what type of company we're talking about. In small and medium companies usually (not always unfortunately) CEOs do a terrific job and, depending on the company's financial condition, might even earn less then some of their employees while bearing a huge responsibility (financial and moral).

Even in small companies it is sometimes a case that managers do all the work and the CEO is eating profits - there are stories where employees actually prefer the boss to not show up in the office because they only mess everything up.

Yet if we're talking about big and huge companies then CEO existence is much harder to defend. If CEO disappeared then by pure inertia the company would work for at least months. Then there's the Peter Principle and numerous studies how MBAs are actually rather bad boses, in which case if the company keeps existing or even growing then someone else is doing all the management.

And then, you can't convince me that someone like Musk, who spends days on posting hateful tweets and attending meetings promoting reproduction, does a meaningful job at all.

What companies actually need is some decision making body. And that body doesn't have to be a rich white asshole, but can be for example board representing (proportionally) all the groups in the company, which then can use deliberative democracy to make decisions. Virtually any other solution is better than old rich white sexists CEO.