> The skills and character required to be a succesfull developer are totally different than whats needed for C level.

I would disagree. Hiring for a small company/startup typically leans towards people with a breadth of skills. You need the first set of engineers to be thinking about the product and the business in addition to how to build something. Good leaders will also emerge from those early hires, otherwise the company will struggle to grow. Those early hires are often well suited to eventually move into executive roles.

I think the bigger issue is whether the early engineers want to stop coding and be in management where their primary job is hiring, strategy, and sales (everyone sells all the time in a small/medium sized company).