Why tech entrepreneurs live in a different spacetime

Fast Company

10-06-2025

Einstein's theory of relativity tells us that time is not absolute. It stretches, compresses, and shifts depending on one's velocity and gravitational field. He once remarked to President Roosevelt that time moves differently for soldiers in battle than for those relaxing in the White House. The point was not physical time—but perceived time, shaped by context and intensity.
Today, the same metaphor applies in the world of entrepreneurship. In a rapidly evolving digital age, entrepreneurs who integrate advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum-inspired systems are operating in a fundamentally different spacetime. These individuals are not simply more productive—they are stretching their 24-hour day into something more expansive, more strategic, and more valuable.
In this article, I argue that technology does not just accelerate business; it alters the entrepreneur's very experience of time. When used correctly, it creates a spacetime advantage—allowing entrepreneurs to live and act within a different temporal reality than their peers.
In Einstein's framework, time slows down the faster you move or the stronger the gravitational field around you. It is not the ticking of the clock that changes—but how events unfold within that frame.
In business, technology creates a similar distortion. The faster you can process, respond, and adapt, the more compressed the effort becomes—creating more space within the same time. Entrepreneurs who effectively apply technology are not merely getting things done faster. They are operating in a different spacetime, where problem-solving, execution, and iteration occur at speeds that make the traditional business cycle look static.
In this new spacetime, speed does not lead to chaos. It leads to clarity. And it separates those who ride the wave of innovation from those who are left navigating currents already passed.
TECHNOLOGY AS A TIME MULTIPLIER
Entrepreneurs often overestimate effort and underestimate friction. Technology removes that friction. It condenses what used to take days or weeks into minutes or seconds. This is not about doing the same things faster. It is about enabling completely new forms of leverage.
Artificial intelligence synthesizes vast data into immediate insights. Automation replaces repetitive labor with decision frameworks. Quantum-inspired algorithms model scenarios once considered computationally impractical. The effect is a temporal expansion: the same clock ticks, but within each tick, more is accomplished.
This is not efficiency—it is dimensional advantage. Entrepreneurs who tap into this do not just reduce task time; they unlock parallel productivity streams, handling operations, analysis, creation, and outreach simultaneously. They redefine what a day can hold.
A DAY IN TWO SPACETIMES
Consider two entrepreneurs starting the same morning. One logs in, sifts through reports, responds to emails, and schedules a meeting. Another opens a dashboard where AI has pre-analyzed customer feedback, flagged anomalies in inventory flow, and generated a list of optimized outreach targets. While the first is just getting oriented, the second is already in motion—launching, iterating, deciding.
Both have 24 hours, but they are not in the same reality.
A founder of a sustainable startup, she spent the early part of her journey manually compiling reviews, guessing at product adjustments, and answering customer questions. Her days were long, chaotic, and filled with uncertainty.
After integrating AI into her operations, everything changed:
• Customer insights now update in real time.
• Inventory adjusts through predictive models.
• 80% of customer queries are handled autonomously.
She did not gain more time—she entered a different spacetime, where clarity replaced clutter, and action replaced noise. She now works fewer hours, achieves more, and uses her surplus time to innovate, mentor, and recharge. Her clock did not slow down—but her experience of the day expanded.
In this context, time is not a constraint—it is a resource that behaves differently based on how you engage with it. Entrepreneurs who adopt advanced technologies are not just accelerating; they are altering the shape of time itself, stretching each moment to carry more value, more action, and more meaning.
GLOBAL DIVIDE: A SPACETIME GAP
This phenomenon is not evenly distributed. Around the globe, the gap between traditional and tech-enabled businesses is widening—not just in output, but in temporal reality.
In technology-driven economies like the U.S., Singapore, and parts of Western Europe, businesses are accelerating into a new operational spacetime. Meanwhile, firms without access to these tools are navigating a slower continuum—responding to market changes that others have already anticipated.
This is no longer just a productivity gap. It is a spacetime gap, where the leaders are shaping the future while others are still reacting to the past.
THE HUMAN RETURN: TIME FOR MEANING
One of the most overlooked outcomes of this spacetime advantage is creative margin. When technology handles the mechanical and the mundane, entrepreneurs reclaim cognitive and emotional space.
This surplus can be reinvested—into strategy, innovation, reflection, or personal well-being. Entrepreneurs who master this advantage are not just scaling faster—they are living more completely. They have more time to think, more time to connect, and more time to simply be.
It is not just about business growth. It is about human growth. The true reward of this new spacetime is not more tasks checked off a list—but more life per hour lived.
Don't just manage your time—reshape it. Entrepreneurs who master AI and emerging tech don't work harder; they live in a different spacetime. Step into a reality where 24 hours deliver exponential impact. The future isn't waiting. It's already happening—bend time, build smarter, and lead from tomorrow.
Einstein showed us that time is relative. Today's entrepreneurs are proving it. In the same 24 hours, those who leverage advanced technologies are experiencing a fundamentally different day—one filled with expanded decisions, outcomes, and possibilities.
This is the real innovation frontier: not just faster business, but altered business spacetime. As an entrepreneur, your greatest asset is not your product, your capital, or your network. It is how you structure time around your intent.
Success no longer belongs to those who hustle hardest—it belongs to those who master spacetime.