No offense, but you appear to be acting deliberately obtuse. I am not denigrating the role of developers. In most cases engineer #1 is the founding CTO and has

No offense, but you appear to be acting deliberately obtuse. I am not denigrating the role of developers. In most cases engineer #1 is the founding CTO and has commensurate equity. The first hired developer, like the first hired sales guy, marketing guy or customer service guy, is the first person in an eventual team of people, all performing similar duties in parallel.