Polygon Co‑founder Sandeep Becomes First CEO, Shifts to Startup Mode

Polygon co‑founder Sandeep Nailwal has stepped into the CEO role at the Polygon Foundation. He says the move will make decision‑making faster. It will also give clearer direction to developers and token holders.

From Builder to Boss

Nailwal helped build Polygon from day one. Until now, he focused on setting up institutional governance. He let a board guide major choices. But he found that process too slow for today’s needs. “Polygon needs clear direction and focused execution”, he said.

Zero‑to‑One Startup Mode

Under his leadership, Polygon will act more like a lean startup. Nailwal plans to cut red tape and make bold bets. He calls it a return to “zero‑to‑one mode”.Think of a small software team at Amazon using the “two‑pizza rule”, if a team can’t be fed by two pizzas, it’s too big. Nailwal wants similar small, nimble groups here. That means quick launches, fast updates, and learning from mistakes.

One big change is the Gigagas upgrade on Polygon PoS. On June 30, its testnet hit 1,000 transactions per second, enough capacity to handle a medium‑sized retailer processing thousands of sales during a flash sale. Next steps aim for 5,000 TPS with under‑one‑second finality, comparable to Visa’s peak transactions per second. Long term, the team targets 100,000 TPS to support global payment networks. Faster speeds should lower fees and make the network more efficient.

Polygon will also wind down its zkEVM chain in 2026. Nailwal compared it to maintaining an old codebase: at some point, you freeze it and focus on the new version. The focus will shift to Polygon PoS for payments and AggLayer for cross‑chain connections. AggLayer v0.3 is slated to roll out in late June, with full interop by Q3.