You have some startup, the founder is either young or doesn't want to do the CEO stuff. Things kind of eek along until the founder either steps aside or is removed by the board because a) it's time for a "grown-up" CEO; b) the CEO needs real sales experience; c) the founder overpromised and under-delivered; d) board/VC politics make it helpful to install a buddy as CEO; e) etc.

Then the CEO clock starts, typically they have 18 months to get lucky and hit their metrics. They do a lot of glad-handing. They hire "their team" of sales/marketing/etc people. They spend A LOT of money. And I mean A LOT. They talk about OKRs or SMRTs and KPIs. Out of nowhere a small army of project managers show up and try to tell you how to do your job and why you can't just talk to the <thing X> team directly but have to go through them for "efficiency" and "visibility."

In 3-6 months, senior engineering and R&D staff starts to leave. Whatever culture you had slips away. HR has "culture" meetings to "find the right company culture."

Sales/product can't sell and points the finger at R&D, maybe even for the right reasons. You OKR/KPI harder, but it doesn't matter because nothing addresses whatever the underlying problem is. Multiple senior people have pointed loudly to the problem and are ignored; they're often not managers so it's unclear if they were even heard.

At some point there are one or more rounds of layoffs; sometimes these are announced, sometimes it's just a gradual attrition.

Eventually the CEO clock runs out. They don't get lucky. Nothing they did helped, and some of it hurt. They collect their $1M severance, get to keep their stock, get 9-12 months of health insurance, and move on. In a year or two you hear about them joining a new company as CEO.

In the meantime, you've either moved on or have a new CEO with a new 18-month clock.