This may be just plain horse sense  but I have been in the careers business for eons compared to freshly minted MBA graduates. Further having resided in Silicon Valley since before it had that name, I have seen many a CEO gain the title virtually overnight or, at least, with the launch of their start-up. Titles are inflated and virtually free here but making good on them becomes the challenge in high tech.

However, the Forbes, "How to Become a Fortune 500 CEO" article addresses a much bigger pond for that title. Still the studies showed that a  tech company CEOs had a much shorter timeframe to reach the top and were more likely to be recruited from outside the company. Other industries had much longer slogs to the top with the average executive arriving at about age 50 compared to a tech executive of 40 or less. 

It's not for every executive but for those that do succeed, the ROI is well worth the effort as well all know.
Forbes article : read more here