I’ve been thinking a lot lately around the difference between people who talk about doing impactful things and the ones who actually move fast enough create that impact.
Here is my quick take.
Founder mode vs leader pace
Founder mode, as YC and Paul Graham describe it, is about founders staying hands-on, close to problems, and deeply involved in decisions instead of disappearing into pure “manager mode.” It’s about ownership, proximity to reality, and being willing to do the unglamorous work yourself when needed.
Leader pace is what happens when that mindset hits time. It’s the speed and rhythm with which a person or team moves: how fast they decide, execute, learn, and adjust day after day. It’s less about the org chart and more about: when something lands on your plate, how long does it actually sit there.
What is a strong pace?
Strong pace is not “always online” or permanently stressed. It’s the habit of closing loops quickly. A task shows up, you either do it, delegate it, or kill it – but you don’t let it idle for days by default.
You can almost measure it in micro-moments:
- How quickly you get out of bed when the alarm rings.
- How quickly you reply to an important email or message.
- How quickly you turn a rough idea into a doc, a Loom, a prototype.
- How quickly you send the calendar invite instead of saying “let’s do a call sometime.”
Each of these is tiny, almost trivial. But stacked over weeks, they create a compounding effect. A team that moves with strong pace cycles through more experiments, more conversations, more learnings in the same calendar time than a slow team. Over a year, that gap becomes massive.
Why pace separates great from mediocre
Two teams can have the same idea, the same resources, even the same “founder mode” story. The one with higher leadership pace usually wins. They:
- Ship sooner, so they hit reality faster and learn from real users.
- Pivot faster, so they waste less time clinging to dead directions.
- Align faster, so decisions don’t rot in Slack or Notion.
This doesn’t mean the slower team is lazy or bad. Often, they simply live in a culture where it’s normal to let things wait, where nobody feels real urgency, or where people are not fully brought into the mission. Pace is a culture, not a single heroic founder gesture.
What really drives leadership pace
Pace is rarely just a “discipline problem.” A lot of it is emotional and contextual:
- Do people genuinely believe the problem is real and worth solving?
- Do they feel their work actually moves the needle, or is it all theatre?
- Are they aligned with the direction, or are they half-convinced and half-looking for exits?
When people deeply believe in the mission and see progress, they naturally move faster. When they don’t, every task feels heavier, every decision more delayed. Incentives matter, but often it’s not about bonuses, it’s about meaning and clarity. Pace improves when:
- The vision is clear enough that people know what “good” looks like.
- Priorities are sharp enough that people know what to say no to.
- Leaders are consistent enough that people feel safe to execute aggressively.
Pace in daily life and why it matters
Leadership pace shows up far before OKRs and board decks. It’s in:
- Showing up on time, or five minutes early, as a default.
- Writing clearly and quickly instead of sitting on half-drafts.
- Sending that calendar invite now, not “later tonight.”
- Closing the loop with “Got it, will revert by X” instead of silent ghosting.
These micro-actions quietly define who can actually lead a fast-moving organization. Someone who can’t close small loops quickly will struggle to hold the weight of big loops like strategy, hiring, or fundraising. Over time, the entire company’s success leans on this leadership pace – the collective, everyday decision to not let time leak away unnoticed.
This was just an introspection converted to a blog. It’s not about being a founder or leading a team, it’s just about your hunger to be better version of yourself.