I've been in the same position. Was first to join a couple of founders, built the first few iterations of the application, small group, great fun, lots of chall

I've been in the same position. Was first to join a couple of founders, built the first few iterations of the application, small group, great fun, lots of challenges, lots of code. As funding came, team grew I became the CTO officially. But then the fun stopped. Technical decisions which were meant to be mine were dropped on me by one of the founders despite my objections (most if not all proved to be mistakes). In the end I stepped down and we invented a new role where I'd be in charge of innovation. That worked well. The CTO who replaced me run away himself after a short while and after that we were CTO-less. Thing is there are many forms to the CTO role and different people see that role in different eyes. To me the CTO is a technical leadership position. You are meant to decide the technical strategy of the business. Decisions from which servers to use, to what language to how things are done, architecture from the top down, etc. Someone mentioned about the VP of Eng. role which I can't agree more - That role is there to support you with the crap. That person needs to be more manager than tech. He is there to make sure your time is dedicated to the core of your position. Not everybody saw this roles as I did which is why I was happy to stand down than try to fight it. I was there from day 0 to acquisition about 7 years later.