[victortrac]

I was recently in your shoes and took the CTO position, leaving behind a very cushy, well-paying job at an established software company. It's more work than I was doing at my previous company, and I'm working a lot more hours than before (much to my wife's chagrin). I spend most of my time writing code (75%), but I do participate a lot in product discussions, strategy, and general managing (1-1s, code reviews, architecture discussions, etc). It's more of a VP Eng position than a CTO since I'm so hands-on, but, for me, the title itself is not relevant.

The startup raised a big seed round, and will go through a Series A fund-raising round within the next 6-12 months. My reasons for leaving the established company were to challenge myself and learn. I'm hoping to start my own company one day, so for me I'm trading financial well-being and stability at the established company for a crash-course start-up MBA experience. And in the event that we take have a favorable exit, than that's all the better (as much as I believe in the company, I do realize that statistics say otherwise).