There is an old line founders pass around like a private joke: every night I slept like a baby — I woke up every few hours and cried myself back to sleep. It gets a laugh in a room full of CEOs because everyone knows it is not really a joke. That is the texture of the job. Being a founder and CEO is one of the most romanticized roles in business and one of the least honestly discussed, so I want to talk about it plainly, from both the professional and the personal side.
The professional weight of being a founder and CEO
Every single day there is a fire. You are always managing some kind of crisis, trying to figure things out in real time, carrying the pressure of the board, the investors, the competitors, and a list that keeps going long after you wish it would stop. None of it pauses because you are tired. Over time, that constant state of alert does something to you. In some ways you develop a kind of PTSD around it.
For me it shows up in small ways. Whenever my phone goes off, I stay cool, calm, and collected on the outside — but on the inside the first thought is always, okay, what am I about to deal with? You learn to hold a steady face while your mind is already bracing for the next thing. That is the part nobody warns you about: the readiness never fully switches off.
Why being a CEO is so lonely at the top
The personal side bleeds into the professional one, and here is the part most people do not realize: at the top, being a founder or CEO is lonely. When you are trying to do something great, something genuinely different from what exists in the world, a lot of people — including the ones closest to you — will quietly turn away. They will not always support you the way you hoped.
Friends will say, what about this company or that one, they are already doing the same thing. In those moments you are not looking for a critic. You are hoping someone will simply ask, hey, what do you need? I know you are trying to build this thing from the ground up — is there anything I can do to help, even if it is just a quick call every week to check in? You do not always get that. And the absence of it is its own kind of weight.
The responsibility of carrying other people’s livelihoods
You are also working around the clock, and not only for yourself. There are people who took a chance on this vision, this company you created. Their livelihood is tied to the decisions you make. That creates a personal responsibility you cannot put down at the end of the day. I would not call it worry — I am not really a person who worries — but I am always thinking. Am I making the right call? Am I doing the right thing by the people who believed in this?
I share this not to complain, but because the honest version of leadership is worth telling. The pressure, the loneliness, and the responsibility are real — and so is the meaning underneath them. If you are building something of your own and feeling all of this at once, you are not doing it wrong. You are doing it for real.
If this resonates, I write more about leadership, building companies, and what the journey actually feels like on my blog.