[indymike]

> . I'd be inventing their core technology (which didn't exist yet and which their CTO wasn't fit to do) and probably interviewing every engineer and growing them.

I see this a lot in failing startups:

The CTO is a pure manager who can't do any actual engineering. The result is that the shares and salary that could have been traded for getting product to market faster & better ends up being burnt on an empty chair.