I was brought in to a company a while back and took on the leadership role for a while (then brought in a friend to actually be the CTO as I wanted to be pure h

I was brought in to a company a while back and took on the leadership role for a while (then brought in a friend to actually be the CTO as I wanted to be pure hands-on). When I arrived at the company, the original code base was a mess - originally outsourced to India, then given to a company in China and then a developer in the Czech Republic. The code was using amazing code like "$sourceboy = $sourceboy;" and tons of other gems. Anyhow, the decision was quite clear a rewrite was in order. The original code base received a little love here and there to make it work, but in the end we replaced it all and the company ended up selling for a little shy of 8 digits. While you may not be able to just scrap it all, there is no reason you can't do things the right way behind the scenes and then relaunch the right way over time. I think a good CTO or leader should recognize what will be better for the company, and perhaps at times that does indeed involve maintaining what you have - but if it is indeed broke; it's also in your best interest (as well as the company's) to fix it.