The technical capacity of a CTO matters less then the CTOs ability to stay in their lane (for a lack of a better term).
I once worked for a company with a self taught CTO (and not the good kind). They had a number of star players, and this CTO would frequently lash out at them. All because he was getting in the way of them doing their jobs, doing work he wasn't qualified to do, trying forcing them to clean up after him, and then yelling at them for it. It was insanely toxic. I only lasted a few months. It was so bad I back channelled patches and project briefs to people he liked to get them approved.
Had this CTO remained people, project and product focused everything would have been fine.
> this CTO would frequently lash out at them [...] doing work he wasn't qualified to do, trying forcing them to clean up after him [...] and then yelling at them for it
Was that a Fintech in Germany, by any chance? :)
I once witnessed a meeting between a CTO and a Tech Lead. The CTO was attending from his laptop in an open office, and he was yelling in Russian for one hour straight at another Tech Lead because he wanted the tech lead to finish his work. It was a pathetic display, with the whole company watching and wondering what was going on.
Eventually he was "phased out" by having a few people promoted to VP of engineering who would deal directly with the CEO instead of him.
Last I heard he tried to rewrite the financial core in Golang by himself, but he failed since nobody wanted to work together with him and he doesn't really knew the language.
Self taught in the programming sense, or the people management sense? Because I feel like the letter is much more common than not in software. Just curious in case there's an expected background you're thinking of when you say that. I have no point of reference for CTO backgrounds beyond generic MBAs or senior devs that either gave themselves the titles as founders or failed upwards.
I once worked for a company with a self taught CTO (and not the good kind). They had a number of star players, and this CTO would frequently lash out at them. All because he was getting in the way of them doing their jobs, doing work he wasn't qualified to do, trying forcing them to clean up after him, and then yelling at them for it. It was insanely toxic. I only lasted a few months. It was so bad I back channelled patches and project briefs to people he liked to get them approved.
Had this CTO remained people, project and product focused everything would have been fine.