Great question. If he were fulfilling what I view as his responsibilities, I would not necessarily feel it imperative to take over for him. If he were to leave — whether voluntarily or forced out — I would gladly take over the role. I'm qualified for it and I'd be the natural choice. Not sure if that answers your question. I generally have ambitions to continue to level up and that definitely involves being in the CTO spot somewhere, but I don't feel it has to be here and now. But if they wanted me to take over, I'd very excited to do so.

I think you're right in general though that I really do need to do some soul-searching to figure what I want.

Oh and yes, I do think he's "trying" to recover in a sense. The thing I'm unsure about — and maybe he himself is unsure of — is whether that ship has sailed and he's either unable or unwilling or unmotivated to recover.