I'm the CEO of Klaviyo. I run on a 'creator-type' schedule and love Diet Coke and country music.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Andrew Bialecki, the 40-year-old CEO of Klaviyo, based in Boston. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I got a BA in physics, astronomy, and astrophysics from Harvard. While in college, I interned at a small division of Microsoft that managed the MSN.com website.

After graduating in 2007, I worked at several startups. I reached the point where I realized I had great ideas and wanted to build something of my own. I pulled in a friend who had worked with me — we're both engineers and share a love for autonomy, automation, and scaling humanity.

That's the whole thesis behind the company we founded, Klaviyo, in 2012. We wanted to build a technology that business owners could scale and have a million conversations with their customers at once.

For the first three years, it was just the two of us. We raised some money, and four years in, we settled on official titles after my cofounder decided to step back to part-time and move to the West Coast.

I became the CEO and now lead a team of 2,000 people. Here's what a day in my life looks like.

I wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m.

I'm an engineer, and sometimes I would like to stay up till 1 or 2 a.m., either building things, coding, or reviewing work, but I have young kids, so I keep a schedule.

Next, I'm out for a jog. I run outside all year long, rain, wind, or snow. I'm a true Bostonian. I love listening to audiobooks while I run, such as Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles." I listen to 50 to 100 books a year.

I'll run for an hour to an hour and a half, and then I get back and start the day with my family around 7 a.m.

One of my favorite activities in life is washing dishes, so I'm very happy when my wife, who's a great cook, makes us breakfast.

I walk the kids to school around 8:30 a.m.

I sometimes meet customers or partners after work, and I may not be home when my kids go to bed. During the week, that family block in the morning is important.

I'm not a coffee person, I'm a Diet Coke person, and I drink too many to count. I'll have a Diet Coke with my kids on our walk.

Our walk is about 20 to 30 minutes, and I use that extra time to chat with my kids. I drop them off and head back home to drive to work.

I'm in the office five days a week, arriving around 9:30 a.m.

When I finally crack open my laptop or phone, I go through the day and run a bunch of scripts I've written to screen emails. The AI script pushes me a consolidated message containing the most important information and what happened in the last 24 hours.

I try to find one or two projects that I'll go deep on. Sometimes I know those in advance, but sometimes things are generated for me from my scripts.

I don't like meetings every 30 minutes or a typical schedule like that. The morning is done right when I have a block of two or three hours to pick a problem. I have a more creator-type schedule, where I've got a lot of creative time to go deep.

One thing I dislike is being lectured at. If my team has a great idea, it's easier for me to read and understand, and it just goes faster without needing a meeting. I typically select a small group of people to collaborate with for a couple of weeks.

We have lunch in the office between 12 and 1 p.m.

I'm a sandwich or salad person.

We're usually working on something during lunch. We have a great cafeteria setup, with a lunch area in our large kitchen. I love going down there, as it brings me back to my college days.

My afternoon is more deep work and some meetings

I like to chunk up the afternoon into deep dives of two or three projects.

Usually, by the time I get home from work in the evening, somewhere between 7 and 8 p.m., I'm tired.

I'll check in with the family, and my wife and I will do our daily stand-up meeting. We share: What'd you build (get done) yesterday? What will you build (get done) today? And where are you blocked and need help? One minute each debugs blocks.

Around 8:30 to 9 p.m., I'll have dinner

Our kids are sometimes already asleep, or sometimes it's bedtime, so I'll tuck them in.

My wife and I are both busy, so there are a couple of nights a week when she or somebody from our family is over and makes dinner. Other times, we'll order takeout or delivery.

I don't watch any streaming services, but we're in Boston, so there are lots of sports here. I'll throw on a baseball, football, basketball, or hockey game in the evening.

Once things calm down, I like to do a little bit of building on my own

It could be prototyping things or actual coding. I feel like my skills fade if I don't spend time practicing, experimenting, and building.

I normally work until 11 or 11:30 p.m., and then I usually have to force myself to stop. I'll listen to some music while I'm building — despite being from New England, I'm a big fan of country music.

We have offices on the West Coast, so I'll get a few nudges from folks there, but largely everybody on the East Coast is sleeping, so I get to work uninterrupted.

I try not to work on the weekend, but I do

I love what we're building; I love playing with technology and, certainly, building with other folks.

I work a little on Sunday, and then once we get to Sunday night, I'm back into my normal evening routine.