1. Transfer to a TPM/QA Manager role at somewhere like Amazon or Microsoft. Bar is much lower to get into this role.
2. Get hired into a higher level than you could in a SWE role.
3. Transfer within the company to being an SDM
4. Now you are one level higher, in a management role, that would have taken you 5+ years of grinding and some luck to get into.
5. Spend a few years in this role, switch to other big co, makikg 400-500k+ while bossing around engineers much smarter than you.
^This path is how people are doing it. Never take equity in a startup, never grind away as a mid level engineer, fighting with ten other engineers for one promotion.
Edit:
Adding one point to this, if you found a company with a non technical CEO, and the company sees some success, all the focus will be on the CEO. The CTO role is highly replaceable, and there is a massive power shift that occurs once there is traction with a "finished" product. The CEO, especially in B2B Saas, is the face of the company. So the CEO can sit on his hands the whole time the product is developed, but then does reap huge gains. There's no easy answer, as many engineers do not have the soft skills for the role. But arguably, they could run these businesses themselves.