The fastest-growing founders achieve outlier results not by working more hours, but by operating differently. They identify the single biggest bottleneck (e.g., low sales close rate), generate high-volume opportunities to test it (e.g., five sales calls a day), and then iterate on their process with extreme speed (e.g., reviewing and shipping changes every two days).

Before hiring for a critical function, founders should do the job themselves, even if they aren't experts. The goal isn't mastery, but to deeply understand the role's challenges. This experience is crucial for setting a high hiring bar and being able to accurately assess if a candidate will truly up-level the team.

Top entrepreneurs don't just build a product; they become historians of their domain. They study predecessors, understand market evolution, and learn from past attempts. This deep historical knowledge, seen in founders of Stripe and Airbnb, is a key differentiator and trait of the very best.

Effective leaders operate in a "square wave" pattern. They spend time on high-level strategy, then dive vertically into the granular details of a key problem, solve it alongside the team, and then return to the big picture. This is "founder mode."

A common trait among exceptional founders is a deep, almost academic, understanding of their industry's history. They learn from every past attempt, success, and failure. This historical context allows them to innovate with a unique perspective and avoid the pitfalls that doomed their predecessors, a sign of true commitment and expertise.

The best leaders don't just stay high-level. They retain the ability to dive deep into technical details to solve critical problems. As shown by Apple's SVP of Software, this hands-on capability builds respect and leads to better outcomes, challenging the 'empower and get out of the way' mantra.

In an era defined by notifications and multitasking, a founder's ability to block out all distractions for extended periods is a profound competitive advantage. This deep, rigorous focus allows them to solve complex problems at a level that is increasingly rare and valuable.

Simple Mills founder Caitlin Smith's key advice is that entrepreneurship requires constant self-reinvention. She notes that if you succeed, your job will eventually outgrow you unless you are constantly learning and adapting. This makes continuous personal scaling the most critical leadership skill.

An engineering background provides strong first-principles thinking for a CEO. However, to effectively scale a company, engineer founders must elevate their identity to become a specialist in all business functions—sales, policy, recruiting—not just product.