Survive To Do Good

On wartime, and what to do about it

I recently heard the phrase "survive to do good." A classmate casually mentioned it while sharing a story he learned growing up in India. I can't find anything like it online, so I'll do my best to retell it here.

The story was about wartime morality—how if you believe you are good, your number one obligation becomes staying alive vs. doing good. You may not be able to do as much "good" as you'd like during this time, and you might even have to do things you'd never consider in peacetime. But survival becomes essential—even the "good guys" must sometimes make difficult choices during war, so they can ultimately continue being one of the ones doing good in the world when peace returns.

This concept has been on my mind lately.

When Business Becomes a Battlefield

"Wartime" is a term used in Silicon Valley to describe when things aren't going well. Every company encounters it—even the most successful ones. There are periods of growth and prosperity when everything feels relatively easy. During these times, playbooks emerge and thought leaders rise, all based on the false assumption that these same approaches will work when conditions change.

And conditions always change.

Eventually, everyone hits wartime. This could stem from an internal mistake or leadership crisis, but more often, it's due to external factors beyond anyone's control: international shipping disruptions that suddenly make your pricing strategy impossible, major policy changes affecting online advertising, or shifts in interest rates impacting the investment landscape. These create wartime conditions that no playbook fully prepares you for.

It's easy to blame yourself during wartime, and some investors might try to blame you too. But usually, it's not your fault. The world is shifting, and you didn't build for this exact scenario—it’s impossible to predict the future.

Those who ultimately survive wartime are those who pay attention and adapt.

The Failure of Peacetime Protocols

Wartime is hard. The fun disappears. You suddenly face difficult decisions that don't follow any established playbook.

This mirrors what happens in actual military contexts. Colonel John Boyd developed the concept of the "OODA Loop" (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act), emphasizing that success in unpredictable combat situations depends on rapid adaptation rather than following fixed procedures. In his book Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal describes how traditional military hierarchy and rigid protocols became ineffective in asymmetrical warfare, requiring more adaptable, creative approaches.

I know many of you reading this are experiencing some form of wartime right now. In these scenarios, it's tempting to double down on what worked before, leaning even harder into peacetime strategies. It's also when people tend to fall back on their least productive behaviors—people-pleasing, trying to make everyone happy, or engaging in deceptive or power-grabbing tactics.

None of this works. We're seeing it all around us, and the results speak for themselves.

My Own Wartime Education

I remember when I had to learn this firsthand. We'd just lost a massive fundraising round on the day of close and suddenly, we'd gone from the hottest consumer startup around to a distressed asset. I had no time for denial—I immediately had to make changes to adjust to our new financial situation.

I could no longer be the leader making sure things were fun for everyone—in fact, I was soon preparing to lay off half of my team. I had no idea the things I would have to do to keep the company alive and ultimately navigate it to a sale. This was the beginning of my transformation as a leader, and I consider it the best education I've ever received.

Until you experience wartime, you only know half of what is required of a leader. The peacetime playbooks become irrelevant overnight, and you discover exactly what you're made of (the good and the ugly) when the stakes are at their highest.

A Wartime Survival Guide

So here's how to survive wartime - to survive so you can do good:

First, pause and observe. Stop and understand the situation in front of you. Slow down. One of the hardest parts is accepting that things are different now. Take time to understand the trends affecting you. This isn't particularly difficult—journalists cover these trends constantly. Find those writing about factors impacting your business, whether shipping logistics, advertising trends, or technological shifts. This helps you understand what's happening and take it less personally, knowing many companies face similar challenges. It will also help educate less sophisticated investors and employees, who may be looking for someone to blame.

Next, adapt to reality. When you accept reality, adjusting becomes easier. The worst response is hoping things will magically return to how they were. They never do. Redesign your approach based on current conditions. The sooner you adapt, the more likely you'll make it through.

Finally, manage yourself. Monitor yourself closely. How are you behaving? Are you keeping your cool? Making emotional decisions? Do you have a handle on yourself? This is when you need to level up personally and be the calm, mature presence—because many around you won't be. Wartime transforms people, especially those new to crisis, into reactive versions of themselves. You can't control others' behavior, only your own. Part of that is learning to deal with difficult behavior calmly while not becoming reactive yourself.

The Hard Choices of Survival

Wartime is inevitable for every company. The critical step is recognizing when you're in it. Those in denial, unwilling to adapt, are unlikely to survive.

The decisions you'll face will often feel uncomfortable. You might need to lay people off, fire team members who performed well in peacetime but struggle during crisis, or deal with unsophisticated investors blaming you for macro trends beyond your control. You'll have to fight for your company in countless ways, and fighting rarely feels good. In some scenarios, you’ll have to be the “bad guy.”

But the good ones sometimes have to be “bad guys” in wartime, just like everyone else. Like it or not, they cannot be passive when times get hard. They have to fight—to survive, so they can ultimately do more good when conditions improve.

Sometimes survival itself is the most moral action you can take—because it preserves your ability to create positive change when conditions change. And conditions always change. In wartime, that’s the one thing you can look forward to.

H