Gen X boss of $11 billion smart ring company Oura says being a CEO is ‘much harder’ than he thought: ‘It's pressure, it's stress, it's responsibility’

Tom Hale, CEO of Oura (Credit: Sam Barnes / Contributor / Getty Images)

Workers may dream that if they climb the corporate totem pole to CEO, they’ll finally be able to call the shots, set their own schedule, and bask in all the spoils of success. But Oura’s chief executive Tom Hale says the fantasy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Being CEO is “much harder than I thought,” Hale said recently on Sequoia Capital’s Long Strange Trip podcast. “Any CEO in the world will appreciate that. [It’s] much harder, much harder than I thought.”