Apple iPhone: How to get fired as a CEO?

What Steve Jobs did at Macworld is a classic example of what CEO’s should not do. He raised expectations astronomically. (Mike Egan echoed the same sentiment in his article @ computer world). As a CEO there is immense pressure to sell the future. Steve Jobs has to figure out a way to sustain his growth rate for apple; while ipods are selling … the growth is slowing down. So he sold the future … before it happened. The future
almost always never happens the way you had expected.
Maybe this is just a show for the world and Steve has correctly set expectations at his board. But for us mere mortals, setting expectation is where you are seen as successful.

So why do CEO’s feel compelled to raise expectations:

• for most startup’s its because they want to increase the spend.
• feel like something will happen, so it wont be an issue
• over-confidence, in-experience, ego
• the board wants to believe it also, things will be great in the future

Are you setting the right expectations?