As President Trump begins his second term, he has the support of many business leaders, especially the entrepreneurs and founders who make up the ascendant ‘tech right.’ Why did this faction emerge and rally behind the president? Some point to policy issues such as regulation, taxation, government contracting, and antitrust. Others note that self-interest and perhaps self-preservation motivate its members as much as principle or policy.

But sincere converts to the tech right share at least one thing in common: a belief in founders — change agents capable of upending stale industries — taking on Goliaths, and reaching into the future to unite it to the present. The tech right sees founders, and the qualities they embody and inspire in others, as the key to company success. Conversely, founder-less institutions don’t work, like a body without a head — or perhaps, without a soul.

With its support of Trump, the tech right is just applying this model to politics, the ultimate stale industry, and Washington, D.C., the ultimate Goliath. In Donald Trump, the tech right and the American people see a leader. More to the point, we see a founder.

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What is a founder? At the most basic level, a founder is an originator. He gets there first. The reason he’s first is because he has the qualities required to be first: a tolerance for risk, vision, relentlessness, hunger, capacity to inspire, and a belief in the primacy of winning.

If you want to be first, you need vision, courage, and drive. If you want to stay first, you need to keep those qualities alive in your organization. You have to be right on your vision, then you have to rally your people to that vision. You have to inspire them to sacrifice comfort, ease, and quite possibly more to achieve that vision — day in and day out.

Luck is a factor, but founders have a way of making their own. Christopher Columbus wasn’t merely lucky when he landed in America instead of Asia, and he didn’t get there by being risk averse and content to deliver a modest return on his patrons’ investment. Columbus discovered America by risking his and his crew’s lives to deliver a power-law return and change the course of history.

Plenty of smart people have noted the starkly different outcomes of founder-driven institutions and their headless, faceless counterparts (though Paul Graham was ultimately the one to popularize the concept of “founder mode” and “manager mode”). When companies operate according to conventions, norms, and best practice playbooks, they are well managed... into the ground. The focus shifts to how things ought to work instead of how they in fact do work. This leads to a corporate cargo cult that prays at the altar of process. This dynamic would have been fatal for Apple in 1997 when it was just 90 days away from bankruptcy after John Scully’s “manager mode” tenure as CEO, were it not for the fact that previously-ousted founder Steve Jobs returned to the company (and then proceeded to turn it into one of America’s most valuable companies by inventing the iPhone).

The tech right sees America as stuck in “manager mode.” While SpaceX put more than 300 rockets into orbit for less than $10 billion, California has built 1,600 feet of elevated rail for $11 billion, and now projects its high speed rail project will cost a total of $128 billion. Unimaginably large parts of Los Angeles were just destroyed by a devastating fire while its fire hydrants didn’t work, and while fire department leadership seemed more focused on DEI than saving lives. The federal government allocated $42.5 billion on rural broadband and has connected zero homes after three years. Congress earmarked $7.5 billion in 2021 for a half-million electric-vehicle charging stations. By May 2024, only eight had been built. Not 8,000. Not 800. Eight.

In Donald Trump, the tech right sees a founder who can get the whole country into founder mode and lead us to a new golden age for America and its people.

Trump’s campaign operated like a founder-driven organization. In 2015, he took on both the Republican and Democratic establishment like an insurgent — and won handily. He did this in large part by saying things Americans knew were true but that his competitors either couldn’t see or couldn’t say. He saw an opportunity in a bipartisan political class that wasn’t serving its customers and disrupted the market.

Tearing up the conventional playbook, Trump called in directly to cable news to stir the pot and drive attention during his first campaign. Then, in 2024, he mostly circumvented the ailing traditional media and went direct to voters on long-form podcasts like Joe Rogan and Theo Von. Like the founder of a particularly nimble startup, he was guided by instinct and capable of pivoting on a dime.

These qualities carried over from his campaign to his first term, where more playbooks went on the bonfire. The Middle East was the graveyard of presidential legacies, before and since, but Trump destroyed ISIS and delivered the Abraham Accords. Every economist ever granted a degree said that tariffs couldn’t work, but he used them as leverage to negotiate better deals for American workers and manufacturers.

Trump also displayed the uncanny foresight of a founder. He warned European leaders that their addiction to Russian gas and Chinese goods put them at the mercy of ruthless foes. He warned California’s political class that its ludicrous environmental rules about forest management and endangered species risked ruining one of the most beautiful and special places on Earth. Like many prophets, his warnings fell on deaf ears — but he was right.

If anything, Trump’s second term is shaping up to be even more revolutionary than the first. He capped his first day in office with a broadside of activity, signing nearly 100 executive orders while taking questions from the press in the Oval Office. Bold proposals like DOGE, the External Revenue Service, Greenland, and the Panama Canal also feel distinctly founder driven. Even Trump’s four-word mission statement reflects a founder focus — it’s not about steady, predictable preservation of the status quo. It’s about greatness, saving our country, and realizing America’s exceptional potential.

The companies and countries that are crushing it are almost always led by a founder personality with brilliance, vision, and maybe a touch of madness. These are the Elon Musks of industry. And they’re the Javier Mileis and, yes, Donald Trumps of government. If you want to inspire people to “fight!” and accomplish great things, you don’t tap an MBA or a lifelong politician. You bring the chainsaw and the kitchen sink.

—Shyam Sankar