I'm not sure if it's a cynical view. Isn't it what business guys do in most people's minds? To bring together investment, marketing and product because they don't just magically blend.

I knew someone who chose to major business despite he got an offer for top biology degree in my country, for this exact reason. By the way, when he told me this decision we were both only 17.

(I really should ask whether he still thinks that's what business is all about today though.)

Alot of CEOs dont start out thinking this way, but it definitely occurs to them as they run the business that its the case. Once the platform is built with sticky customers, the CTO is replaceable with a generic high performing engineering manager. Not always, but for run of the mill b2b saas, they are

CTOs just arbitrate between dev teams and product teams.

In the same way that engineers are just arbitraging between the company and the computers, I suppose.

Every job sounds much easier from the outside.

Yes! That’s exactly what we’re doing. It’s not as easy as it sounds.