Which one sounds more concrete:

"For our design brief I came up with ten design elements that fit with the message we're trying to sub-communicate on our website, and found five examples of each element used on various sites across the web."

or

"I spent three hours talking to my computer."

The point is if it sounds that nebulous it's probably because you don't understand what they're actually doing. To someone who doesn't understand what coders do, coding sounds just as nebulous as 'business stuff'.

Now it's possible that the business person isn't actually doing anything, but then again it's just as possible that the coder isn't actually doing anything either.

Any programmer who says "I spent three hours talking to my computer" is not a programmer. It's true that if you push someone on their vague talk they may become more concrete and specific. I'll grant you that there are CEOs out there who, once you get past the nebulous weasel-words, can articulate a clear plan for what the company needs to do and where it needs to go. Those are good CEOs.

I would bet the vast majority, once you push them on it, would respond with more of the same, and if you continued to push them on it, would ultimately defer to an underling for specifics.

It's not even the mumbo-jumbo that annoys me. It's fine if you want to say that a CEO sets the direction, goals, and overall plan of the company. I can believe that, and it's certainly valuable. What I cannot believe or accept is that they deserve to be paid an order of magnitude more money for doing so.

A clear ticket queue and test suite are indicators of good habits, but they have nothing to do with getting work done. You might as well promote a prep chef based on the cleanliness of their line station, or an accountant based on how many spreadsheet cells they filled in during an average week. Best practices and good intentions do not magically translate into value.

This is where you need a smart, ambitious CEO with a strong vision. They place the goalposts so that everyone can measure their own progress and contribution, as well as that of their group. It also gives investors and shareholders something on which to evaluate the company other than simple financials.

"A clear ticket queue and test suite are indicators of good habits, but they have nothing to do with getting work done."

Really? How's that? If the tickets and test suites (for example) where your task, then how is completing them not an indicator of getting work done?

And the lifetime financial reward one gets for doing the latter will dwarf what you'd get for doing the former. So make sure your children understand that. Being "on top" of a business will pay 10x+ than being "on bottom", even for otherwise comparably difficult tasks.