$16 billion Twilio CEO wakes at 4:30 a.m., works Sundays and runs laps in his house between meetings

EXCLUSIVE: Forget work-life balance . Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler starts checking his emails at 4:30 a.m, is on the job until 9 p.m. and runs laps around the house to blow off steam in between. “The gap that I allow for me to not think about work is six to eight hours on Saturdays,” the Gen X boss tells Fortune . He credits that discipline with making him CFO of a multi-billion-dollar at just 31 and now CEO of a $16 billion tech giant, insisting that sacrifice is what separates leaders and everyone else.

For most 20-something-year-olds fresh out of college, 4:30 a.m. is when the night ends, after a night of partying. For Twilio’s CEO, Khozema Shipchandler, it was the beginning of his day.

The 51-year-old exec says he’s always been a morning person—on weekdays, at least—and