you are confused. ‘founder’ isn’t an operational position, it just means you have equity.

and using your ownership stake to bully others in their operational role is really bad form. your job ain’t your equity status and it apparently ain’t ceo. if you care about the value of your equity, focus on doing your job and be supportive of your ceo and wider management team.

In my experience, some startup events are typically CEOs-only, most are CTO-welcoming. Maybe the question is if you are fully aligned and trust CEO to represent you, and if you're okay with not getting as much network building, in exchange for more focus time and skipping many unnecesary and repetitive meetings that us tech people often despise