It’s an honor and a pain to interview a CEO, particularly the CEO of a publicly traded company.
An honor, because the CEO’s organization has decided your track record as a journalist warrants a few minutes of time with the company’s leadership. A pain, because the more highly paid the CEO, the larger the organization, the bigger the market cap, the less unvarnished the truth you’ll hear during the interview.
It’s guaranteed, while interviewing a high-flying CEO, that you’ll hear that everything is great with the company. The customers love the company’s products, can’t live without them, and assist and insist on helping the company produce its next release.
