The default result for a startup founding engineer who gets "kicked upstairs" into a CTO role is for them to end up with no real responsibilities and end up lea

The default result for a startup founding engineer who gets "kicked upstairs" into a CTO role is for them to end up with no real responsibilities and end up leaving the company in ~12 months. Happens all the time. Using Google as an example for how things should work is generally a poor idea due to the huge outlier nature of the company.