A CTO's role should be technical leadership. If a major part of your role is dealing with everyone's crap and putting out fires, I wouldn't necessarily consider

A CTO's role should be technical leadership. If a major part of your role is dealing with everyone's crap and putting out fires, I wouldn't necessarily consider that technical leadership. I've been in a similar situation, and for me, the right solution was having the right people under me that I could trust to fight the fires. You should be deciding how the fires are fought, but your team should fight them. At least some part of your day should be available for steering your team/organization/product. (But code, not so much. :)