I've found that the kind of company that cultivates a culture in which degrees are paramount is not the kind of company I want to work for. I skipped college because I was alone in NYC and had to make ends meet. In that I'm wholly a self-made man, yet I choose to look forward to my future achievements instead of past ones. Anyone who is incapable of accepting my approach to life has nothing to offer me which I could learn.
A word of caution: don't fall prey to the Peter principle. You seem to have marketable hard skills, which brought you some success to date. You're better off capitalizing on those hard skills instead of moving up the management ladder. Think of it this way: at 28 you still have 30-ish years of professional work to look forward to. Assuming you can make the jump to CTO right now, will you be able to sustain movement along a continuum of CTO-level employment until your retirement? That sounds unlikely because it is. You're better off pacing yourself by building out a technical base of unassailable solidity. You will reap rewards for this in the long term.
A word of caution: don't fall prey to the Peter principle. You seem to have marketable hard skills, which brought you some success to date. You're better off capitalizing on those hard skills instead of moving up the management ladder. Think of it this way: at 28 you still have 30-ish years of professional work to look forward to. Assuming you can make the jump to CTO right now, will you be able to sustain movement along a continuum of CTO-level employment until your retirement? That sounds unlikely because it is. You're better off pacing yourself by building out a technical base of unassailable solidity. You will reap rewards for this in the long term.