Why didn't you go the co-CEO route instead? From my experience CEO has a tendency at some point to dominate other CxOs for whatever reasons (usually business guys view tech as inferior).
That's sort of what our relationship is-- from my view-- but I believe that at some point someone has to make a decision. Some of them are coin flips, or can be changed before too long if they turn out to be mistakes. I don't want to spend time on a lot of stuff that's not about building the product.
The CEO is also the domain expert in this situation, and we have a great personality fit.
Ideally I think engineers should be CEOs. Engineers can learn business a lot easier than biz guys can learn engineering. But it's not always going to be the right choice.
I really hope it would work for you and you found a reliable CEO. Just recently a friend of mine, CTO of a startup, was cheated out of equity by CEO & CFO of the company he founded (while being assured all the time they are BFFs and bros). That's one of the reasons I would never go for less than co-CEO and a legal requirement to have my approval required for any decision... I would also love to see more engineers as CEOs.
