I am shocked this is a question to be honest. If you are executive leadership you should have negotiated significant equity when you were hired.
Downplaying happens often but that usually is in the form of the CTO getting X shares and the CEO getting 4X not the CTO getting 0.
Even if you are in an established company (think fortune 100) you should still be getting shares. At a small company it should be more.
To put it from a business perspective, the C-Suite should be highly incentivizes to move the needle and to do that, their compensation needs to be tied at least partially to the company outcome. Even if you make market salary (which it sounds like you don't).
With that said, if the company is established, has a product that is already built and is just in maintenance, or technical projects are not core to the company's business model that compensation goes down proportionate to the risk. If the company is already established the risk is lower for you.
I've had this conversation with a lot of people and this is honestly the first time I've heard "zero" for a CxO positional.
Perhaps you should ask yourself is your job role one that is strategic and your decisions make a long term impact on the company. If the answer is "no" you might actually just be a principal software engineer with a fancy job title.
Edit: To add to that last part. And this will be tough to hear. The CTO is at least partially a business and political role. If you need to ask this question and you didn't negotiate equity, you may be punching above your weight class. Not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes that is an effective way to get ahead. But I would recommend taking some business and management classes if you haven't already.
Downplaying happens often but that usually is in the form of the CTO getting X shares and the CEO getting 4X not the CTO getting 0.
Even if you are in an established company (think fortune 100) you should still be getting shares. At a small company it should be more.
To put it from a business perspective, the C-Suite should be highly incentivizes to move the needle and to do that, their compensation needs to be tied at least partially to the company outcome. Even if you make market salary (which it sounds like you don't).
With that said, if the company is established, has a product that is already built and is just in maintenance, or technical projects are not core to the company's business model that compensation goes down proportionate to the risk. If the company is already established the risk is lower for you.
I've had this conversation with a lot of people and this is honestly the first time I've heard "zero" for a CxO positional.
Perhaps you should ask yourself is your job role one that is strategic and your decisions make a long term impact on the company. If the answer is "no" you might actually just be a principal software engineer with a fancy job title.
Edit: To add to that last part. And this will be tough to hear. The CTO is at least partially a business and political role. If you need to ask this question and you didn't negotiate equity, you may be punching above your weight class. Not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes that is an effective way to get ahead. But I would recommend taking some business and management classes if you haven't already.