Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

The Fake C-Suite: Why Your 8-Person Startup Doesn't Have a COO

15 Jun 2026 · 0 min

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Cameron Herold traces how corporate title inflation started in the 1990s when banks handed out VP titles to help emails bypass gatekeepers, then spread to startups that now call eight-person teams directors and COOs. The fake hierarchy misleads investors and employees about who actually runs things.

Over the last 25 years, there's been a lot of title inflation, meaning that 1994 to '95, the banks started to give away vice president titles, even though the VPs were 7 to 8 layers below the CEO. They did that because if you sent out an email with the term VP on it, you could get through the gatekeeper. Prior to that, to get a C-level title, you had to be a major player at a major company. Now you see guys with like 8 people going, "I have a COO and a CMO and a CTO." No, you don't. You have a director with a big title.