It used to be that you needed a lot of capital to enter markets - you had to build a data center, hire people, build and sustain in the hope of a market. For that you needed money, and for old school VCs to feel comfortable, they wanted someone in their mold, and who they could trust. So founders became CTOs and VPs of Engineering, and picked someone the VCs could get behind to raise money.
But with the cost of starting a company plummeting, founders no longer have to show this deference. And as some of these companies succeed, their founder CROs are now the new rock stars. And a new breed of VCs asks looks for performance metrics and worries less about fitting a theoretical mold. If there is a mold, it's the founder-CEO in their minds, not the old school baronial CEO.
I think a similar dynamic operates in larger companies as well. The necessity of capital acted as an automatic restriction on competitors emerging. Companies could charge high prices, make higher profits and build private five-star hotels.
With the cost of building a business dropping however, markets are more competitive than ever, and it's much harder to charge the prices required to sustain profit growth expectations. And investors of course will have no patience for the lavish perks.
The times they are a changin'.