The article doesn't say they should spend time writing code. It says they should be good enough to be employed by you to do so (if they weren't being employed a

The article doesn't say they should spend time writing code. It says they should be good enough to be employed by you to do so (if they weren't being employed as the CTO). It means that they ought to be ABLE to have an informed and intelligent conversation about technical issues at a LOW level if need be. They should't need to very often, and never to actually put code into production. But it's a vital skill for hiring and tie-breaking in case of conflict further down the hierarchy.