When I came back to Korea, I ended up taking on the CTO role more out of circumstance than plan. Engineers would ask, "What should I do to become a good developer?" and I would answer, "Take a wider view of development, and especially get good at writing and presenting. That will give you ten times more opportunity."
Looking back, what they were probably asking was how to get promoted or raise their salary. But my answer was pure career advice coming from a founder with a developer background. And it matters even more now, because writing and presenting are distribution skills. As development gets easier and products ship faster, distribution in the market, and obsessive iteration around it, decide who wins and who loses.
Storytelling, empathy, sincerity. Finding something that resonates with the arc of your life, then experiencing it, building it, writing about it, showing it, and sharing it. A person who has something to say to the world.