It’s 2014 and I’m the CTO of a 15-person startup. We’ve just closed our Series A, and I’m juggling architecture decisions, hiring, investor updates, product roadmaps, and about seventeen other responsibilities that weren’t in any job description I’ve ever read.
My CEO calls me into a conference room on a Tuesday afternoon. My lead engineer is already there. “We need to talk about your focus,” the CEO says. The lead engineer jumps in, softer but equally pointed: “The team doesn’t know what you’re working on. They think you’re checked out.” The CEO’s next words hit harder: “I’m starting to question your commitment to this company.”
I’m stunned. I worked until late last night learning more about our architecture bottlenecks. I spent my weekend writing documentation for our new deployment pipeline. I’ve been in back-to-back meetings all week trying to unlock a critical technical partnership. But apparently, none of this is visible. None of it counts. The lead engineer mentions that developers are talking, wondering if I’m interviewing elsewhere. There’s a narrative forming in the HipChat DMs and coffee runs that I’m not pulling my weight.
That night, I realize that being busy isn’t the same as being visibly valuable. I’m drowning in what I later call “submarine work”—critical tasks happening beneath the surface where no one can see them. I need a system that makes my value undeniable, not through explanation or defense, but through visible, tangible outputs that both my CEO and my team can feel.
Over the next month, I develop what becomes my Todo List framework—a systematic approach to CTO work that ensures every week produces visible wins for both the board room and the break room. My CEO stops questioning my commitment. My team starts coming to me with problems again. And most importantly, I stop feeling like I need to justify my existence every time someone asks, “So what exactly does a CTO do all day?”
The CTO’s value isn’t determined by how much work you do, but by how much of that work creates visible, felt impact for both leadership and team members.
Why Your Team Thinks You’re Checked Out (Even When You’re Drowning)
A recent analysis of CTO responsibilities across 100 tech companies found that the average CTO juggles 23 different responsibility areas, from architecture decisions to investor relations. Yet when surveyed, only 30% of team members could accurately describe what their CTO worked on in any given week.
This invisibility creates a death spiral. Your CEO sees you in meetings but not outputs. Your team sees you traveling but not coding. Everyone fills the vacuum with their own narrative, and that narrative is rarely generous.
There’s a brilliant thread by Claire VO on X that went viral recently, exposing how senior leaders gradually stop “doing the things.” They have EAs for scheduling, Chiefs of Staff for tracking, and teams for executing. Their job becomes charming customers, candidates, and boards while having “good ideas for someone else to do.” The muscle for actual work atrophies. Your CMO can’t write compelling copy anymore. Your VPE doesn’t have the latest local environment setup.
But as a CTO in a small to mid-size company, you can’t afford to stop doing things. You’re expected to be both the architect and the builder, the strategist and the debugger, the leader and the individual contributor. The challenge isn’t choosing between managing up or managing down, it’s creating a system where your work naturally serves both audiences.
The Real Reason CTOs Get Fired (Hint: It’s Not Technical Incompetence)
According to data from multiple CTO coaching organizations, the number one reason CTOs get fired isn’t technical incompetence. It’s “communication and alignment issues.” Translation: people didn’t understand or feel their value.
The typical CTO response to this is to over-communicate. Send more updates. Schedule more one-on-ones. Write longer status reports. But this just adds to the submarine work. You’re now spending even more time on invisible tasks trying to make other invisible tasks visible.
The $6 Million Hidden Cost of Being Misunderstood
When your CEO questions your commitment, it’s not just uncomfortable—it’s expensive. It triggers a cascade of second-guessing that slows every decision. When your team thinks you’re checked out, they stop bringing you problems early, leading to technical debt that compounds monthly.
One study found that teams with low confidence in their CTO’s engagement took 40% longer to make architectural decisions and were 3x more likely to build “shadow” solutions without CTO input. The gossip problem isn’t just annoying—it’s actively destroying your organization’s technical cohesion.
The Three-Audience System That Makes You Indispensable
After that painful confrontation a decade ago, I developed a system that I’ve since refined across multiple companies and shared with dozens of CTOs. It’s deceptively simple: structure your work so that every week produces at least one visible win for three distinct audiences.
Audience #1: The Money People (Who Control Your Fate)
CEO, Board, Investors They care about risk mitigation, strategic advantage, and capital efficiency. They need to feel that technical decisions are accelerating business outcomes, not just solving interesting problems.
Audience #2: The Makers (Who Control Your Reputation)
Engineering Team They care about removing blockers, having clear technical direction, and seeing that you still understand the actual work. They need to feel that you’re in the trenches with them, not above them.
Audience #3: The Market (Who Controls Your Future)
Customers, Partners, Candidates They care about innovation, reliability, and technical leadership. They need to feel that your company’s technology is in capable hands.
The Weekly Trinity That Changes Everything
Every week, your todo list should guarantee at least one meaningful output for each audience:
For The Money: Strategic Artifacts They Can Actually Use
One strategic document, analysis, or decision that directly connects technology to business outcomes. Not a status update. A piece of strategic thinking they can use.
Examples from my notebook:
A one-page analysis showing how moving to microservices would reduce our AWS bill by 30% while improving deployment speed
A technical risk assessment for the upcoming product launch with specific mitigation strategies
A build-vs-buy analysis for a critical component, with TCO calculations over 3 years
For The Makers: Proof You Still Have The Touch
One hands-on contribution that shows you’re still a practitioner, not just a pontificator.
Real examples that worked:
Fix that annoying test that’s been randomly failing for weeks
Write the first draft of the API design for the new feature
Pair program with a junior developer on a tricky problem
Deploy something to production yourself
For The Market: Evidence of Technical Leadership
One external-facing artifact that demonstrates technical leadership.
This could be:
A technical blog post about a problem you solved
A conference talk proposal or podcast appearance
A detailed response to a customer’s technical concerns
An open-source contribution from your team’s work
The Daily Battle Plan That Actually Works
Here’s the actual todo list structure I use every single day:
Monday: Become The Strategic Bridge
Write one strategic insight for CEO/Board (Morning)
Review and respond to technical escalations (Afternoon)
Update technical roadmap with business context
Tuesday: Get Your Hands Dirty (Mandatory)
Code/Architecture/Debug for 3 hours minimum
Review critical PRs personally
Pair with team member on complex problem
Wednesday: Break Down The Silos
Meet with Product/Sales/Customer Success
Document technical decisions and rationale
Identify and communicate technical wins
Thursday: Build Your Army
1-on-1s focused on growth, not just status
Teach something technical to the team
Recognize someone’s work publicly
Friday: Play The Long Game
Write/speak/share something publicly
Research emerging technologies relevant to business
Connect with other CTOs/technical leaders
The Four Visibility Multipliers That Create Legends
Beyond the daily practice, there are four “multipliers” that amplify the visibility of your work:
1. The Friday Five Email (10 Minutes That Changes Everything)
Every Friday, send a brief email to your CEO with five bullet points: What I shipped, What I decided, What I learned, What I’m worried about, What I need from you. Takes 10 minutes, changes everything.
2. The “Watch Me Code” Weekly Demo
Weekly team meeting where you personally demo something you built or fixed that week. Not something your team built—something you touched with your own hands.
3. The Decision Telegraph (Real-Time Transparency)
A public channel (Slack, email, whatever) where you share technical decisions as they happen, with business context. “Just chose PostgreSQL over MongoDB for our new service because we need ACID compliance for financial transactions.”
4. The Glass Calendar (Let Them See Your Priorities)
Make your calendar visible to your team with clear labels. “Architecture Review,” “Coding Block,” “Customer Technical Call”—let them see that you’re not just in mysterious “meetings” all day.
Your First Week: From Invisible to Undeniable
This Monday Morning: Three Non-Negotiable Actions
Don’t try to implement everything at once. Start with this:
Block 3 hours of coding time on Tuesday. Put it in your calendar. Call it “Technical Deep Work.” Honor it like you would a board meeting.
Send your first Friday Five this week. Even if it feels awkward. Even if you think your CEO won’t care. They will.
Fix one annoying bug yourself. Something the team has been complaining about. Don’t delegate it. Don’t ask someone to pair. Just fix it and ship it.
The Four-Week Transformation Timeline
Week 1: The Confusion Phase People will be confused. Your CEO might wonder why you’re sending the Friday Five. Your team might be surprised to see your name on a commit. That’s good. You’re changing the narrative.
Week 2-3: The Narrative Shifts The gossip will shift. Instead of “What does the CTO even do?” it becomes “Did you see the CTO fixed that nasty cache bug?” Instead of questioning your commitment, your CEO starts forwarding your Friday Five to the board.
Week 4 and Beyond: The New Normal It becomes natural. You stop feeling like you need to justify your role. Your visible outputs speak for themselves. The submarine work still happens, but it’s now supported by tangible evidence of value.
The Emotional Journey From Imposter to Indispensable
When I started this practice, I felt exposed. Writing that Friday Five felt like admitting I needed to prove myself. Coding in front of my team felt like I was trying too hard. But then something shifted. I stopped performing and started just doing.
The beautiful thing about this system is that it doesn’t require you to work more hours or sacrifice strategic thinking for tactical work. It just requires you to be intentional about making some portion of your work visible and felt by the people who matter.
The Compound Effect of Visible Value
A CTO who makes their value visible and tangible doesn’t just survive—they become indispensable. Your CEO stops questioning your commitment because they see your strategic thinking weekly. Your team stops gossiping because they see you in the code. The market stops wondering about your technical chops because they see your thought leadership.
But perhaps most importantly, you stop second-guessing yourself. When your work is visible, you can see your own impact. You can point to specific wins. You can trace the connection between your daily todos and your company’s success.
The Choice That Defines Your Legacy
Ten years ago, that painful conversation with my CEO and lead engineer nearly broke me. Today, I’m grateful for it. It forced me to stop hiding in submarine work and start creating visible value. It taught me that being busy and being valuable are not the same thing.
Your todo list isn’t just about getting things done. It’s about ensuring that the right things are done in a way that creates undeniable, visible value for everyone who depends on you.
Start this Monday. Block the time. Send the email. Fix the bug. Make your value impossible to ignore.
Because at the end of the day, the stories people tell about you are shaped by what they can see. Give them something worth talking about.