I've always been of the view that two-term presidency rule is a pretty good one and CEOs shouldn't overstay their welcome.
Empirically the way you get a product visionary as CEO is for him to found the company and not get fired.
In very big companies, you find less entrepreneurialism than you really want to see. Success is defined as 'don't make a mistake.' And you get to be the C.E.O. by outlasting everybody else, then you're there for five or six years, and you want to get your bonus on the way out.
21 years as CEO is a long time. I was and probably still am the longest serving CEO in America. Certainly I am in the media industry, bar none.
You can stay too long in a job, that's for sure. But by the same token, in the 12 years I have been CEO of GE, there have been four CEOs of Toshiba. So there's too short a time to do it, and there's too long a time to do it.
I do not want to be a long-term CEO.
CEOs can stay too long.
I'm a really big believer in chief executives not staying forever.
