Actually, I disagree. If you have a CEO that does not fully understand the company's product to a sufficient technical degree, then you have someone who is leading the company with no idea of what is possible. What nearly always happens in companies when this is the case is the development group starts making outlandish claims ("that feature will take 30 man-years and $9m to develop", etc.) with no one to call BS on them.
Personally being able to code (even if I'm not the sharpest at it) has led me to be able to drive teams a lot faster because I can say "well, if I can develop this in a week and I suck at programming, then you should be able to get it done in a day - come back tomorrow and let me know how it went".
That said, you're right - after a product is on its way it's all about sales and doing deals. But you still have to be able to whip the parts of the organization that need whipping (mind you, that's not always the development team either).
Surely that's the job of the CTO rather than the CEO? If the CTO is supporting those 30-man-year estimates, the problem is not with the "development group" - and by that stage it's very reasonable for the CTO and the CEO to be two different people.
Personally being able to code (even if I'm not the sharpest at it) has led me to be able to drive teams a lot faster because I can say "well, if I can develop this in a week and I suck at programming, then you should be able to get it done in a day - come back tomorrow and let me know how it went".
That said, you're right - after a product is on its way it's all about sales and doing deals. But you still have to be able to whip the parts of the organization that need whipping (mind you, that's not always the development team either).