You'd make a better CTO than him. I'd rather work for a CTO who listens to good advice than one who is really sharp, but fucks people over. Obviously, you are

You'd make a better CTO than him. I'd rather work for a CTO who listens to good advice than one who is really sharp, but fucks people over. Obviously, you are fairly technically competent (or he wouldn't need you around, and you wouldn't have gotten the prototype working). You're also a competent leader - you are listening to technical advice. But let's say you hire a few more good coders. The CTO feels threatened. Is he going to listen to them when they challenge him, and possibly even step aside if one of them would be a better CTO, or is he going to fuck them over the same way he's fucking you over? He sounds like a toxic political player. You can think "He's a snake, but he's our snake. His political skills will give us an edge", but it rarely works that way. If you can, get rid of him, promote yourself to COO, and make the other good programmer CTO or lead programmer or something.