Young CEO Syndrome

Michael Dell — and a number of other tech titans — are in a tough position. They've been with their companies much longer than the average insider CEO, who steps down after 9½ years, says consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. But they are years from the average CEO retirement age of 58½.

CEOs with too much time at the top can be a huge, hidden liability, says Yale University management expert Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. They can become complacent, run out of new ideas or become unreceptive to new ways of doing things, he says.

So where does that leave Dell and his contemporaries — Microsoft's Bill Gates, Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy, Gateway's Ted Waitt, Apple's Steve Jobs and Oracle's Larry Ellison?

Go here to read more. (This is an interesting issue for all of us to think about.)