Hey there,

A few years back, a client of mine (Dave) paid me $400K a year.

Not because I wrote code for him (though my team did plenty of that). He paid me because I was the CTO in the room – the person who knew which technical decisions would cost him money six months from now, which architecture choices would scale, and which ones would become invisible tech debt that would slowly eat his business alive.

Beyond saving money, I also innovated software that multiplied the value his company delivered. So, while our professional relationship started with a $2,475 invoice, it turned into $1.9M (invoiced over several years).

As for his company?

He exited for 'many multiples' of that. That said, the money isn’t the point – Dave, like many non-technical founders I’ve worked with for years – knew that yes, you could pay for a ‘coder’, but the true value was having the judgment behind the code. Knowing what to build, when to ship, what to fix now vs. later, and when to say "pause…this isn't ready." It’s why he (and the buyers of his business) had me in the room at the exit – I spoke both the language of ‘code’ and ‘business’.

That's part of what a CTO actually does. And for anyone that’s trying to go from idea to real software with AI as a coding assistant – decades of CTO expertise isn’t something they have (or even something that's accessible).

But I'll get to that. First, let me tell you why I'm thinking about all this – because the "why" isn't what you might expect.

It Started With Killer Robots