# Founder-as-CPO versus delegated CPO at scale.

**Practitioner:** Brian Chesky
**Source:** Lenny's Podcast — Brian Chesky episode
**Timestamp:** 16:08
**Move:** 1 of 8

## The tension

Founder-as-CPO versus delegated CPO at scale.

## Where they landed

Extreme founder-as-CPO — no CPO title exists.

## What they accepted to lose

Founder time fully consumed by product reviews. Cannot delegate product oversight, even at 7,000 employees. The CEO seat is permanently in the details of the work.

## Verbatim

> we don't have a chief product officer title, but if we had one, it would be me. I wouldn't have a chief product officer. I think the CEO should be basically the chief product officer of a product or tech company.

— Brian Chesky, Lenny's Podcast, 16:08

## Load-bearing phrase

*if we had one, it would be me*

## What it pushes back against

The Ben Horowitz observation that founders are told to delegate the product role away.

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**Source attribution:** This call is drawn from Lenny Rachitsky's public podcast archive at [LennysData.com](https://lennysdata.com), released April 2026 with an explicit invitation to builders.

**Verify on votu.app:** [https://votu.app/move/chesky-1](https://votu.app/move/chesky-1)

**License:** Verbatim quotes are © the original speaker; attribution and timestamp guaranteed accurate to the source transcript.