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Time moves differently for founders. It does not unfold in a predictable rhythm of hours and days but stretches and contracts under the weight of ambition, urgency and uncertainty. Entrepreneurs exist in a paradox: They work at relentless speeds, yet months vanish in an instant as they race toward their next milestone.

This phenomenon, which I call the Founder’s Time Dilation Effect, mirrors the physics of gravitational time dilation, where time slows under extreme gravitational forces or at high velocities. Founders, operating at what can feel like the speed of vision, experience a similar distortion. Their obsession with long-term impact lifts them above the everyday routine, altering their perception of time itself.

Related: 6 Habits That Help Successful People Maximize Their Time

A shift in perception: From employee to founder

I first recognized this shift when transitioning from an employee to an entrepreneur. As an employee, time felt structured defined by pay cycles, deadlines and predictable performance metrics. There was always another meeting, another review, another quarter. But as a founder, time became something else entirely. Every moment became a resource, measured not by the clock but by progress toward survival and success.

Breaking free from that structured existence was both exhilarating and daunting. The weight of decision-making, innovation and risk compressed time, leaving little room for anything that did not directly serve the mission. There was no waiting for the next quarter — everything had to happen now.

Elon Musk captured this mindset perfectly when he said, “If you need inspiring words, don’t do it.” Founders do not need external motivation because their internal drive dictates their pace. They experience time differently because every second counts.

The physics of founders: When vision distorts time

Physics tells us that time slows in strong gravitational fields or at extreme speeds. In much the same way, founders experience time distortion because they operate under relentless pressure while pushing forward at full velocity.

This effect does not eliminate gravity, though. Founders remain weighed down by existential business realities — funding, operations, payroll and execution. Jeff Bezos spoke candidly about Amazon’s early struggles, often describing how the company teetered on the edge of failure. He made critical decisions under extreme time pressure, knowing that survival depended on moving faster than the market.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to startup founders. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Effective Time Management highlights how even experienced business leaders must master time efficiency to maintain their competitive edge. Corporate executives face similar challenges, balancing operational urgency with long-term strategic execution. Satya Nadella’s transformation of Microsoft into a cloud-first company required navigating both immediate and future-oriented demands.

The founder’s duality: The Actor and the Observer

At the heart of the Founder’s Time Dilation Effect lies a cognitive duality that defines how entrepreneurs experience time:

• The Actor: The execution-focused self that operates in the now, making rapid decisions, solving problems and driving momentum. The Actor lives in compressed time, where days disappear in a blur of meetings, deadlines and crises.

• The Observer: The strategic self that steps back to analyze, course-correct and plan for the long term. The Observer sees time accelerating, feeling the pressure of dwindling runway and shrinking windows of opportunity.

Both roles are essential, but maintaining balance is difficult. The Actor risks burnout, and the Observer risks paralysis from over-analysis. A Journal of Applied Psychology study emphasizes the importance of leaders balancing action and reflection to improve decision-making and resilience under pressure.

This challenge intensifies for founders making the transition to CEO. How to Successfully Make the Leap from Founder to CEO explores how entrepreneurs must shift from hands-on execution to strategic leadership without losing control of their vision.

Related: 15 Time Management Tips for Achieving Your Goals

Breaking free from gravity: The entrepreneurial altitude shift

The shift from employee to entrepreneur is not just a career change — it is a transformation in how time is experienced. Employees operate within a structured timeline, while founders must create their own.

This newfound altitude provides a broader perspective, but it also increases the stakes. Founders must reconcile the gravitational pull of operational demands with their need to stay focused on long-term vision.

Steve Jobs mastered this balance by championing relentless prioritization. His famous mantra, “Innovation is saying no to a thousand things,” illustrates how successful entrepreneurs eliminate distractions to sustain momentum.

Are You Thinking Like a Founder? 4 Principles Every Successful Team Should Follow delves into the mindset shifts required to sustain this level of adaptability, resilience and clarity of purpose.

Mastering the Founder’s Time Dilation Effect: 3 strategies for success

Entrepreneurs must learn to manage time as both a tactical and strategic resource. Here are three proven strategies to avoid being overwhelmed by the distortion of time:

1. Balance execution and reflection

   • Allocate dedicated time for deep work (Actor mode) and strategic reflection (Observer mode).

   • Research from McKinsey suggests that leaders who balance these two states report significantly higher productivity and clarity.

2. Prioritize with ruthless discipline

   • Use frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix to separate urgent distractions from important priorities.

   • Steve Jobs’ ability to cut through the noise and focus on critical goals kept Apple on a path to industry dominance.

3. Stay grounded in purpose

Related: 11 Time Management Mistakes You Are Probably Making

Entrepreneurs do not experience time as a neutral force. It bends and warps under the weight of urgency, ambition and uncertainty. The Founder’s Time Dilation Effect is both an advantage and a challenge, it compresses the present and accelerates the future, demanding that leaders master both execution and vision.

For me, this realization marked the difference between working a job and building a legacy. Breaking free from conventional time structures required abandoning external validation and embracing the reality that time is the entrepreneur’s greatest asset.

Elon Musk’s words remain true: Entrepreneurship is not for those who need external motivation. It is for those willing to operate at the altitude of purpose and vision, where time becomes elastic and every decision shapes the future. The question is not whether time will pass — it is how you will choose to navigate it.

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You’ll be able to transcribe both live recordings and audio files, and this iOS-friendly app even offers unlimited transcriptions. However, the app doesn’t stop there. Its AI is capable of producing instantaneous summaries from lengthy transcriptions, allowing you to take the big ideas of any lecture or presentation and apply them more practically. Thismight be perfect if you’re brainstorming a new marketing or outreach campaign for your brand.

Once you’ve let My Notes AI take notes from your transcriptions or audio files, you’ll get summaries you can organize with the app’s advanced tools. Sort them by topic, dates, and more to help you avoid losing vital information for a new business initiative or deal. Collaborating with another coworker or new client? The app makes it simple to share your notes.

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Amazon is retiring Chime, the company’s internal meeting software for video and audio calls, and replacing it with Zoom, an external solution with the same capabilities.

An internal memo to employees viewed by Business Insider on Wednesday said that Zoom would now be the “standard meeting application” for internal Amazon meetings companywide, marking a major win for industry juggernaut Zoom, which reported more revenue than expected in the third quarter of 2024 ($1.18 billion compared to $1.16 billion expected).

The memo also revealed that Amazon has begun rolling out Microsoft 365 productivity tools to employees.

Related: ‘2,000 People, 900 Parking Spaces’: Amazon’s Return-to-Office Mandate Has Hit a Snag

An Amazon spokesperson told BI in an email that the company retiring Chime because it offered “limited” use outside of Amazon, and Zoom was “a good fit” for their employees.

Amazon Chime has been Amazon’s default videoconferencing app since the company introduced it in 2017, publicizing its clear audio and high-definition video. Amazon clients, including recruiting software Jobvite and software consulting firm Kinetech, also used Chime to conduct virtual meetings.

Amazon announced earlier this week that it would stop accepting new Chime customers on Wednesday and end support for the service on February 20, 2026.

The change from Chime to Zoom affects the 350,000 employees Amazon had in its corporate workforce as of early 2023. Amazon employed 1.55 million people overall, including warehouse and operations workers, as of Sept. 30.

Amazon corporate employees are also migrating to Microsoft 365 cloud tools like Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on a “rolling basis,” per the memo. They can use Microsoft Teams for meetings, but Zoom will be the default.

Chime isn’t the only product Amazon has shut down this week. On Tuesday the company ended Inspire, the TikTok duplicate it showcased in its mobile app that allowed users to find new products on Amazon endorsed by influencers and brands.

Related: ‘Most Successful Yet for Amazon’: Walmart Has Topped the S&P 500 for 12 Years. This Month, Another E-Commerce Giant Is Expected to Take Its Crown.

As companies like Amazon, JPMorgan, and Walmart implement return-to-office (RTO) mandates, one business is sweetening the deal by giving its employees a $10,000 annual raise for showing up to the office more often.

Cameo, a startup that allows users to purchase and receive personalized video messages from celebrities, began a new RTO policy this week requiring the 26 employees who work at the company’s headquarters in Chicago to be in the office Monday through Thursday, per CNBC Make It. The policy, which the company first announced to staff last month, enables employees to receive a $10,000 yearly raise in addition to free parking, a free daily catered lunch, and free access to an onsite gym.

“We really felt like we wanted to make HQ a perk, not a punishment,” Cameo CEO Steven Galanis told CNBC Make It. “We know we’re asking more out of you to give up the flexibility, and we wanted to compensate you for it.”

Related: AT&T and Sweetgreen Are Following Amazon’s Lead With Stricter Return-to-Office Mandates — Though Amazon’s Plan Has Hit a Snag

Cameo has two dozen additional employees based elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, mainly in New York and Los Angeles. They were allowed to keep working remotely but weren’t given a pay raise.

Galanis, 37, chose to set the annual raise at $10,000 because the figure would make a “meaningful” difference in employees’ lives and hoped it would help junior employees find housing nearby instead of taking on long commutes.

The Chicago headquarters opened in the summer of 2024, but Cameo leadership never mandated a strict set of days employees had to report to the office. Workers based in Chicago previously came to the office whenever they needed to, showing up an average of two to three times per week, according to Galanis.

^{Cameo CEO Steven Galanis. Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images}

When Cameo informed its Chicago employees of the four-days-a-week in-office policy last month, it also gave them the option to move out of Chicago to not have to come into the office at all.

Cameo found that none of its employees quit or moved away after the announcement. Instead, the opposite happened. Some of Cameo’s remote workers based in other locations expressed interest in moving to Chicago and taking advantage of the perks offered to in-office employees.

A HealthEquity study released earlier this month surveyed more than 600 full-time employees who shifted from fully remote to hybrid or fully in-person work. Three out of four employees said their RTO experiences were positive, with 74% saying they experienced enhanced collaboration.

The top motivators for office attendance weren’t free lunches or a raise, it was professional development opportunities (50%) and team-building events (47%). The biggest obstacle to in-person work identified by the survey was commuting costs (54%).

Related: Read the Letter Sent to AWS CEO Matt Garman, Signed By 500 Employees, Protesting His RTO Comments

Cameo has experienced a tumultuous few years. The pandemic catapulted the startup to unicorn status, with a valuation of $1 billion by 2021. Sales declined by March 2024, erasing 90% of Cameo’s value.

Galanis told Time in December that he thinks the momentum has shifted in Cameo’s favor.

“I’m really grateful for our investors and our team, that they’ve believed in me and allowed us the second shot to build a company that we don’t think has reached near its potential yet,” he stated.

^{This article originally appeared on Business Insider.}

Riley Willis sits behind his keyboard for 30 hours a week. When he clocks out on Saturday, he’s made it through all his shifts without speaking to a soul.

Willis is an AI contractor, working in data annotation through a company called DataAnnotation.tech. He says his job is fully remote and operates asynchronously — with no set boss, no contact with coworkers, and no daily meetings.

“It’s perfect for an introvert,” he told Business Insider.

Willis said his days consist of “fact-checking” the output of various AI models — but only because that’s what he chooses to take on. He says DataAnnotation.tech offers a variety of projects for contract workers to choose from, including teaching AI to improve its creative writing and coding skills.

“You are literally going through and you’re labeling the information based on a series of criteria that differ between projects,” Willis said. “I personally work on a lot of factual stuff, just because I just find the pay-to-effort ratio is nice. So, there’s a lot of fact-checking responses, making sure the models aren’t lying or hallucinating information.”

As companies continue the push to improve their AI models, there’s been a corresponding spike in demand for data annotators and labelers. Workers in the field spend their time either “generating data for training and labeling data for training,” Willis said, completing tasks in programming, writing, and research.

Willis said he was first drawn to the job when he was looking to move out of his parents’ house and wanted to avoid a role in retail.

“I wanted a job that wasn’t customer service or anything like that,” he said. “I was already doing remote school, so I was kind of already comfortable with the remote environment.”

When he first onboarded, Willis said he was making $20 an hour, but now nets about $25. Hourly rates vary depending on the projects workers take on, and Willis said he’s seen them reach as high as $30.

Despite not undertaking a full-time workload, Willis, who is pursuing a bachelor’s in computer science through the University of Florida’s online program, said he’s able to fully cover his expenses — including tuition and rent in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“I can pay rent, and I can pay my way through college,” Willis said. “It’s not like I have a lot of spending money in the end, especially if I’m not working 40 hours full time kind of stuff, but I have enough where I can live generally.”

Willis said his frugal lifestyle is what allows him to stretch his pay, adding that he “couldn’t support himself” if he were living alone.

“I live poor, honestly,” he said. “If I had some extravagant lifestyle — If I went out to, you know, bars and everything, and spent a lot online — I probably couldn’t do it. But, just getting through my day, it completely covers it.”

The job does have its drawbacks. Willis said the repetitive nature of the tasks can be “mind-numbing.” And unlike a full-time position, Willis only gets paid for the time he’s sitting down at his computer, actively working on assignments.

“Even in a high-paced job, I feel like, you know, there’s paid lunch breaks, stuff like that,” he said. “Or, you know, you spend a second or two talking to someone, but you’re still on the clock getting paid. With this, you’re really not getting paid unless you are doing the work.”

Willis said he sometimes spends “six or seven hours” on research but only gets paid for about “five hours of actual work” because of the need to pause occasionally. Regardless — Willis said the pros of the job outweigh the cons.

“I will personally say work-life balance is nice, in the sense that, obviously, it’s remote and I can work whenever I want,” he said. “I can work at 1 o’clock in the morning if I really feel like it.”

For someone who’s looking for a side hustle to tack onto their full-time role, Willis says working to train AI might be a better overall fit.

“I think this would be really, really good for someone who has an actual job and is doing this, like two hours a day,” he said. “I think this is really what this kind of setup shines in. If you have an actual full time job, and you just add the extra hour, hour-and-a-half, a day, earning an extra $25 to $50 a day, just when you have nothing else to do, is definitely doable.”

Do you have a great business idea but feel stuck on where to start? Are you feeling stretched too thin, struggling to attract the right customers, and constantly worrying about cash flow while trying to scale your business?

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UnitedHealthcare is offering some of its employees a buyout, or a financial package in exchange for their resignation, if they agree to leave by March 3.

The buyout, called the Voluntary Resignation Separation Program, applies to employees in UnitedHealthcare’s benefits operations unit, sources told CNBC on Wednesday. They clarified that anyone who does not accept the offer will keep their current job for the time being or be moved to a comparable role.

The sources also told the outlet that if the company does not meet an unspecified resignation quota, it will lead to layoffs.

“This voluntary option is part of our ongoing efforts to ensure our team is best positioned to meet the evolving needs of the people and customers we are honored to serve,” a UnitedHealth spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

UnitedHealthcare did not disclose how many employees received a buyout offer, but an internal memo sent to employees Monday and viewed by CNBC showed that the buyout applied to full-time and part-time workers in four subdivisions under the benefits operations unit: corporate, consumer operations, core services, and provider services.

Related: A Cyberattack on the Largest Health Insurer in the U.S. Could Put Your Prescriptions and Personal Data at Risk

Per the memo, employees who accept the buyout will leave by May 1 at the earliest and November 13 at the latest. They will receive resignation packages on their termination date, and the amount will vary depending on how many years they have been at the company.

UnitedHealthcare is the health insurance division of UnitedHealth Group, which has more than 440,000 total employees, including 160,000 clinical professionals, as of a December 31, 2023 filing. UnitedHealth Group is the largest healthcare company in the U.S. based on revenue — it brought in over $400 billion in 2024, its highest annual revenue yet. It is also the largest company based on market cap, which stands at about $465 billion at the time of writing.

The company faced a tumultuous end of 2024 after the killing of its CEO, Brian Thompson, in December. Thompson’s death has placed the U.S. healthcare system and its rising costs under scrutiny. UnitedHealthcare named a new CEO, Tim Noel, in January.

UnitedHealth Group also faced a cyberattack on its subsidiary Change Healthcare in February 2024 that forced it to pay over $3 billion to healthcare providers affected by the breach.

Related: Should Business Leaders Fear For Their Lives? What You’re Not Hearing About the UnitedHealthcare CEO Tragedy.

Apple has a new affordable iPhone option to replace its 2022 iPhone SE: the iPhone 16e.

Apple announced the new 6.1-inch phone on Wednesday in a press release, touting its upgraded features and compatibility with Apple Intelligence, Apple’s suite of AI features that enable users to do a host of tasks, including removing distracting objects from photos, cleaning up writing in emails, and generating custom emojis.

The iPhone 16e provides Apple Intelligence capabilities at the lowest price on the market. So far, only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max and the iPhone 16 lineup have Apple Intelligence, but these phones range in price from $799 to $1,599, compared to the iPhone 16e’s starting price point of $599.

Related: Apple Is Adding ChatGPT to iPhones This Week. Here’s How It Works.

“We’re so excited for iPhone 16e to complete the [iPhone 16] lineup as a powerful, more affordable option to bring the iPhone experience to even more people,” Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing, stated in the press release.

^{Apple iPhone 16e. Credit: Apple}

The iPhone 16e also corrects one of the biggest weaknesses of the iPhone SE: poor battery life. Compared to the SE, the 16e has 12 more hours of battery life for a total of 26 hours of video playback. Apple says in the press release that the 16e has “the best battery life ever on a 6.1-inch iPhone,” lasting 6 hours longer than the iPhone 11.

The home button and touch ID on the iPhone SE are gone too — the 16e is a more modern-looking iPhone. It also has a bigger display at 6.1 inches, compared to the SE’s 4.7 inches, and comes with the latest A18 chip used by the iPhone 16 instead of the A15 chip used in the SE for faster processing.

Related: Apple Is Reportedly Creating New Foldable iPads and iPhones. Here Are the Details.

All of those upgrades come at a price. The iPhone 16e is still $170 more than the $429 iPhone SE, raising the bar of what it means for a phone to be called “affordable.” Budget AI phones from competitors are sold at lower price points. For example, an unlocked Google Pixel 8a with AI retails for $399.

Preorders for the iPhone 16e start at 5 a.m. PT on February 21. The phone will be generally available on February 28 and comes in black and white with storage options of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB.

Apple CEO Tim Cook first teased the new iPhone on February 13, writing in a post on X, “Get ready to meet the newest member of the family. Wednesday, February 19.”

Apple discontinued the iPhone SE on Wednesday, as well as the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus.

Apple no longer sells any iPhones with home buttons.

Related: Is an Ultra-Thin iPhone 17 ‘Air’ on the Way? New Rumors Float About a Potential Fall Release.