10/12/2026
Have you always felt a bit different from the people around you?
Research suggests that around 26 percent of startup founders identify as neurodivergent, roughly double the rate in the general population. Given how many people remain undiagnosed, that number is likely higher.
I became a founder partly because I found it genuinely difficult to work within systems that did not match how I think.
I worked with people whose standards did not align with mine, in environments that moved too slowly or in directions that did not make sense to me. It was not arrogance. It was wiring.
I discovered I was dyslexic and autistic in my late forties. And a lot of things suddenly made sense.
The intensity I had always felt, the pattern recognition, the deep drive to do things a particular way, and the frustration when others could not see what felt so obvious to me.
Being neurodivergent as a founder comes with strengths and challenges.
The ability to hyperfocus, to see problems differently, and to care about your work in a way that most people around you simply do not, alongside the friction that comes when your way of operating collides with the people you need most.
If you have always felt like you were built slightly differently from everyone else in the room, you probably were. Trust me, that is worth understanding.
Some of the most important work I do with neurodivergent founders and executives is helping them lead from that wiring rather than despite it.
If that resonates, I would love to have a conversation.
Lee
