Ok, so maybe they’re not. They’re not endangered, they’re not that cute, and they definitely don’t have the time to play mascot to anybody’s cause. The analogy is still tempting, however, because finding a CTO seem to be the current “issue” of the global startup trend: founders need them, accelerators like them, and aspiring startup cities are desperate for them to move in.

A Scarcity of CTOs

There are many specific reasons for the scarcity of CTOs in any of these new startup hubs, and most of them have something to do with regional history, legislature, infrastructure or economic context. However, regardless of particularities, all these reasons stem from a simple issue of supply and demand; there just aren’t that many developers out there...