Strategic Archetypes: Boyd & OODA

June 2025 

Studies of human behavior reveal that the actions we undertake as individuals are closely related to survival, more importantly, survival on our own terms. Naturally, such a notion implies that we should be able to act relatively free or independent of any debilitating external influences—otherwise that very survival might be in jeopardy. In viewing the instinct for survival in this manner we imply that a basic aim or goal, as individuals, is to improve our capacity for independent action. The degree to which we cooperate, or compete, with others is driven by the need to satisfy this basic goal...

The Strategic Evolution of Adaptive Thinking — John Boyd and the OODA Loop 

The survival of civilizations has hinged not merely on the accumulation of knowledge but on the capacity to adapt that knowledge to changing conditions. Every major transformation, whether political, economic, or technological, has required a corresponding shift in the frameworks by which human beings perceive, interpret, and act upon the world. In this regard, strategy itself is not a static discipline but a reflection of its age: a crystallization of society’s assumptions about time, causality, organization, and power.

In our present era, technological acceleration, information surfeit, institutional fragility, and geopolitical reconfiguration, we encounter a rupture not dissimilar to the crises that beset earlier systems at the cusp of transformation. The age of industrial empires, with its emphasis on linear production, central command, and bureaucratic regularity, has given way to a decentralized, digital, and discontinuous reality. Stock markets now move at the speed of sentiment; algorithms outpace regulation; synthetic media destabilize truth; and global institutions designed for postwar stability strain under the weight of polycentric disorder.

It is within this context that the work of Colonel John Boyd assumes enduring significance. Like the hydraulic engineers of ancient Mesopotamia or the bureaucratic reformers of the Chinese Han dynasty, Boyd did not merely offer a tactical innovation; he articulated a conceptual response to a systemic challenge. His OODA Loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, was not a four-step formula for military efficiency, but a general theory of adaptive behavior under conditions of ambiguity, flux, and conflict.

Boyd’s central insight was that success in any competitive system, be it warfare, markets, or governance, depends on the capacity to cycle through perception and action faster and more accurately than one’s adversary. But more profoundly, he understood that the critical variable was not speed alone, but orientation: the interpretive lens through which information is assimilated, decisions are framed, and action is taken. This lens, shaped by history, experience, culture, and institutional memory, must itself evolve. Thus, the real challenge is not decision-making but the continuous destruction and recreation of mental models, a dialectic that parallels the evolution of scientific paradigms. 

In today’s world, Boyd’s paradigm proves more relevant than ever:

What, then, is required? Not new data alone, nor even faster computation, but a philosophy of adaptation—a way of thinking and acting that accepts uncertainty as foundational and seeks advantage through fluidity, resilience, and epistemic humility. Boyd’s OODA Loop offers precisely such a frame: not as a mechanical process, but as a living model of how to survive and thrive when systems destabilize, categories collapse, and the tempo of change exceeds comprehension.

John Boyd and his Ideas

If one wishes to understand the transformation of strategic thought in the late industrial and early post-industrial era, one must turn not to the polished doctrines of official institutions but to the disruptive insights of outsiders—men situated at the periphery of orthodoxy yet central to the evolution of practice. Among these, Colonel John Boyd occupies a singular place.

Nominally a fighter pilot, he was in truth a systems thinker of rare depth, whose intellectual trajectory traversed the cockpit, the design bureau, and finally the domain of grand strategy. Like many historical figures whose legacies are more mythic than verifiable, Boyd’s early exploits—whether or not fully documented—nonetheless reflect an enduring archetype: the reformer challenging entrenched doctrine with a new vision of reality.

Boyd’s most enduring contribution was not in his legendary “forty-second” duels in the skies of Korea, nor even in his pivotal influence on the maneuverable design of the F-16, but in the conception of a new logic of conflict and adaptation. This was the OODA Loop—Observe, Orient, Decide, Act—a schema so deceptively simple that its profundity is often overlooked. But to grasp Boyd’s insight is to grasp the transition from mechanical models of action to those appropriate for a complex world. The battlefield, the market, the political system—none of these behaves like a machine; all are dynamic systems, perpetually shifting under the influence of feedback, friction, and human interpretation.

The core of Boyd’s framework lies not in decision or action per se, but in orientation—a term he used with philosophical precision. Orientation, for Boyd, is the cognitive and cultural matrix through which perception is filtered and choices are framed. It is the internal structure of meaning that determines how information is synthesized, how signals are interpreted, and how intentions are formed. Crucially, orientation is not fixed; it is an evolving function of experience, education, institutional memory, and environmental feedback. Those who can reshape their orientation more rapidly than their adversaries—what Boyd called “getting inside their OODA loop”—gain the initiative and, over time, strategic dominance.

What Boyd proposed was not merely a military tactic but a general theory of adaptation in open systems. In his little-read but intellectually vital paper Destruction and Creation, he advanced a dialectical view of cognition and action. Knowledge, he argued, is never complete, for the very act of observing introduces uncertainty, and the structure of any model eventually decays under the pressure of novelty. Drawing from Gödel, Heisenberg, and the laws of thermodynamics, Boyd developed a dynamic epistemology: systems degrade unless renewed perceptions grow stale unless challenged; action becomes rigid unless infused with feedback and reform.

This constant interplay—between destruction of the old and creation of the new—is the engine of what is called “instrumental redefinition.” Just as civilizations renew themselves by transforming failing institutions into more effective ones, so too do individuals and organizations remain viable by dismantling outdated paradigms and assembling new conceptual tools. Boyd’s metaphor of the “snowmobile”—an assemblage drawn from skis, treads, engines, and handlebars—is emblematic of this process. Innovation does not emerge from linear refinement but from the synthesis of diverse elements into novel configurations. In this way, Boyd joins a long tradition of thinkers—from Veblen to Schumpeter—who understood that progress is disruptive, non-continuous, and forged in the crucible of uncertainty.

Boyd’s admiration for figures like Taichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo, pioneers of lean manufacturing, was no accident. These men, too, stood against dominant paradigms and reoriented production around feedback, flow, and local autonomy. Just as they replaced top-down control with just-in-time systems, Boyd replaced the Newtonian image of strategy as force-on-force with a dynamic view of warfare as a contest of perception, tempo, and moral legitimacy. His notion of “mission command”—clear intent, decentralized execution—redefined leadership not as command from above, but as the orchestration of alignment within fluid systems.

What emerges from Boyd’s work is not a prescriptive doctrine, but a worldview. Strategy, he argued, is a tapestry—woven from changing intentions and adaptive responses. Success lies not in rigid planning but in the capacity to adjust, to learn, to reshape orientation in real time. He called for a form of strategic thought that mirrored life itself: iterative, improvisational, experimental.

In this, Boyd aligns with the deeper rhythms of history. For no civilization has endured on the basis of permanence. Rather, survival has always belonged to those capable of internal reform—those willing to destroy in order to create anew. Whether in the cycle of political legitimacy, the evolution of institutions, or the adaptation of military doctrine, the pattern is the same: stagnation yields to entropy unless met by innovation grounded in feedback and foresight.

Boyd’s OODA Loop, then, must be seen not as a technical artifact of Cold War strategy but as a civilizational tool—part of the intellectual armature needed to navigate a world no longer governed by predictable hierarchies but by accelerating change, systemic shocks, and cognitive overload. In such a world, to adapt is not merely to survive, it is to shape the future. And for those willing to embrace Boyd’s challenge, the task is clear: dismantle the obsolete, synthesize the new, and move faster, not merely in action, but in thought.

Nature of Conflict…

In the mature stages of any civilizational conflict system, when military organization ceases to be a mere extension of violence and becomes instead a mechanism of systemic control, a shift occurs—from physical force as the sole instrument of power to a triadic interplay of moral, mental, and material leverage. John Boyd, in his Patterns of Conflict, articulates this transformation with remarkable clarity. He asserts that warfare, far from being confined to the tangible sphere of battlefield engagements, must be understood as a conflict of systems—where cohesion, perception, and force operate in concert. It is within this tripartite structure—moral will, mental orientation, and physical capacity—that strategic mastery must be exercised. Victory, then, is no longer the annihilation of armies, but the unraveling of the adversary’s capacity to function as a coherent whole.

Such unraveling is achieved not by brute repetition, but by accelerating the tempo of engagement beyond the adversary’s ability to comprehend and respond. Here, Boyd introduces a conception as subtle as it is lethal: the exploitation of fast transients—discontinuities of movement, method, or intention—that collapse the opponent’s decision-making cycle. This principle finds ancient antecedents. In the dual structure of Cheng and Ch’i, familiar to the strategists of Sun Tzu, Boyd identifies the archetype of maneuver warfare: the orthodox advance conceals the unorthodox strike, and from this dialectic emerges surprise, confusion, and ultimately paralysis.

Where Clausewitz saw mass and decisive engagement, Boyd sees systemic dislocation: a fracturing not of lines but of linkages—disrupting communications, expectations, and the very assumptions upon which the adversary’s coherence depends. This approach, unmoored from formal doctrine, finds fertile expression in guerrilla movements, whose decentralized agility mirrors the rhythms of their environment. By contrast, regular armies, once adaptable, often fossilize into structures of command that suppress initiative and magnify delay.

The pattern is cyclical and tragic: success begets systematization, systematization breeds rigidity, and rigidity invites reversal. Napoleon, whose early campaigns embodied Boyd’s principles, succumbed in his later years to the very predictability he once outmaneuvered. Tactical genius hardened into formula; ambiguity gave way to linear assault. Boyd reads this not as failure of talent but of structure—a warning to all organizations whose tempo lags behind reality.

In the final analysis, it is not control of space but control of perception that determines supremacy. As the Mongols demonstrated through terror, stratagem, and misinformation, it is possible to dominate an adversary’s orientation before battle is ever joined. The true field of war, Boyd implies, lies not in geography but in cognition. Here, in the minds of men, is where war is conceived, fought, and won—or lost.

The OODA Loop: John Boyd’s Adaptive Framework for Navigating Complexity

The OODA Loop, short for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, is often oversimplified as a four-step decision-making process. But in truth, John Boyd’s original conception is far more nuanced, dynamic, and powerful. Far from a linear model, the OODA Loop is a recursive, adaptive framework for action under conditions of uncertainty. Its core insight lies not in speed alone, but in the capacity to reorient faster and more effectively than one’s opponent or environment.

Defensive vs. Offensive OODA Loops

In practical environments, the application of the OODA Loop varies significantly depending on the scale and resources of the decision-maker. A defensive loop often defines the solo operator, like a backcountry ski guide, who cycles more slowly due to limited observational input and fewer action options. In contrast, offensive loops occur when teams with greater observational tools, communication channels, and historical data can act quickly, powerfully, and with superior coordination. Think of an avalanche control team with access to drones, satellite data, and explosive charges, such teams can adapt not only faster, but more precisely.

Deconstructing the Loop


On the Need for Decisions

“Decisions must be rendered to monitor and determine the precise nature of the actions needed that will be compatible with the goal.”

The Nonlinear Nature of OODA

Boyd was clear that the OODA Loop is not a tidy four-step progression. Instead, it's a complex, self-renewing system. The steps interact, overlap, and reshape one another. Orientation, in particular, feeds back into observation, influencing what data is even noticed in the first place.

Orientation as the Heart of the OODA Loop

While the OODA Loop is often recited as a four-step sequence, Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, this simplification misses the depth and dynamism that John Boyd intended. At the core of his strategic philosophy lies orientation, not merely as a step in the loop, but as the engine that powers it. Think of orientation as an internal operating system: it determines how we filter observations, how we define problems, what options we perceive, and ultimately how we act.

Interpreters of Boyd’s work have underscored that orientation is not a static input; it is a living process shaped by our genetic heritage, cultural traditions, prior experiences, education, and even personal biases. As we encounter new experiences, orientation evolves. It is less like a gear in a machine and more like a living neural network, continuously reconfiguring itself in response to the world.

Boyd saw the loop not as a mechanical progression but as an ongoing, iterative flow, a dance with reality. Orientation influences and is influenced by each of the other phases. Observations are never raw data; they are always filtered through the lens of orientation. Decisions and actions in turn reshape how we observe and orient. Chet Richards, one of Boyd’s close collaborators, emphasized this, noting that orientation is the brain at work. He described it as the most important part of the loop, because it informs everything else. Indeed, in Boyd’s later formulations, orientation came to include explicit processes of analysis and synthesis, underscoring its active, adaptive nature.

Boyd called orientation a “many-sided implicit cross-referencing process,” involving empathy, projection, correlation, and rejection. It functions both as a repository, our accumulated models, instincts, and experience, and as a process, actively interpreting and reshaping how we engage with the world. It exists at every scale: within individuals, across teams, and even inside organizations.

A key insight from Boyd is the danger of losing touch with external reality, what he called “inward focus.” If a team or organization becomes trapped in its own narratives, its orientation loop can detach from the environment, leading to confusion, disorder, and ultimately paralysis. This breakdown is especially fatal in fast-moving, adversarial environments, where success depends on adapting more quickly than your opponent. To “get inside” someone else’s OODA loop is to move at a tempo and rhythm that they cannot match, forcing them into a reactive and incoherent state.

True strategic advantage lies not in simply acting faster, but in keeping orientation aligned with reality, despite complexity, pressure, and uncertainty. That is the leader’s primary responsibility: to help their team continuously adjust their mental models, discard outdated assumptions, and remain connected to what is actually happening. As Boyd warned, “People see what they want to see.” Strategic blindness begins the moment orientation serves internal comfort rather than external truth.

Destruction and Creation: John Boyd’s Theory of Adaptive Thinking

John Boyd’s seminal paper Destruction and Creation is more than the intellectual foundation of the OODA Loop. It presents a deeper theory of how humans think, adapt, and innovate. Often described as the clearest explanation of Boyd’s thinking process, the essay reveals the cognitive engine behind his breakthroughs, including the Energy Maneuverability theory that transformed aircraft design. But its reach goes well beyond aviation. The paper describes a dynamic process. To survive and thrive in a changing world, individuals must continually dismantle outdated mental models and construct new ones. For Boyd, adaptation is not a smooth or linear journey. It is a cycle of breakdown and renewal, a spiral of disorientation and discovery.

This process begins with mental models. Humans build internal representations, concepts and frameworks, to help them make sense of their environment. These models must be revised constantly to reflect an evolving reality. Survival, therefore, demands both action and the ability to reorient and make effective decisions in uncertain conditions.

On Mental Models and Survival

“To comprehend and cope with our environment we develop mental patterns or concepts of meaning.”

“The goal, as individuals, is to improve our capacity for independent action.”

Boyd argued that individuals strive for independent action, to live on their own terms. This independence often requires cooperation by pooling resources, or competition for limited ones. But it always relies on having an accurate understanding of the world. Effective decisions depend on mental concepts that reflect reality, not wishful thinking. Decision-making, then, becomes a continuous act of learning and refinement.

On Cooperation and Competition

“If the group cannot or does not attempt to overcome obstacles deemed important... the group must risk losing these alienated members.”

Boyd described two key modes of thought: analysis, which breaks things down into parts, and synthesis, which reassembles parts into new wholes. These modes are linked to what he called destructive deduction, the tearing down of old ideas, and creative induction, the building of new, more relevant ones. This cycle allows for innovation by creating temporary disorder that opens space for new understanding.

Yet Boyd warned that our concepts can never perfectly match reality. Drawing from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, he showed that all mental frameworks are, by nature, incomplete and uncertain. Mismatches are inevitable. Doctrine, while useful, must remain flexible. “Doctrine is useful,” Boyd once said, “but only on day one.” Without critical challenge, doctrine hardens into dogma. Adaptability requires fluency in multiple systems of thought, without being trapped by any single one.

Boyd’s famous snowmobile example illustrates this well. Imagine taking parts from skis, an outboard motor, handlebars, and rubber treads. Recombine them, and you get a snowmobile, something entirely new. This act of breaking apart and recombining elements from different domains is the essence of creativity. Innovation does not come from mastery of a single field but from seeing connections across boundaries.

This dynamic process, which Boyd called a dialectic engine, lies at the heart of how individuals and societies progress. But it does not unfold without resistance. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy, disorder, increases in closed systems. The same applies to our thinking. Without new inputs, our models become stale and confused. The only remedy is to keep cycling through destruction and creation, challenging our assumptions and building better ways to understand the world.

On the Role of Entropy

“High entropy implies a low potential for doing work, a low capacity for taking action or a high degree of confusion and disorder.”

“Entropy must increase in any closed system... Accordingly, we should anticipate an increase in entropy hence an increase in confusion and disorder.”

Boyd extended this logic to how teams function. One of his key concepts was implicit guidance and control, a shared sense of understanding that allows people to act in coordination without constant direction. This principle, similar to the German military idea of Einheit, is seen in jazz ensembles, martial arts groups, or elite fighter squadrons. It relies on mutual trust and shared experience. Such cohesion cannot be imposed. It must be earned and developed over time.

Diversity, Boyd believed, is vital to this process. Just as a fighter jet like the F-18 draws on diverse systems to operate effectively, teams need a wide range of perspectives and experiences. This cognitive variety encourages creative thinking and strengthens resilience. It enables teams to adapt to surprise and respond with agility.

Boyd’s emphasis on independent action never meant rejecting community. He understood that enduring success often comes from mutual flourishing. Strategic advantage is not just about defeating an adversary, but about expanding one’s freedom to act.

Perhaps Boyd’s most provocative idea is that “progress is confusion at a higher level.” Growth often feels like stepping into fog. It involves letting go of comfortable certainties and embracing more complex truths. That sense of confusion is not a setback, it is a sign that transformation is underway.

On the Way Out

“Fortunately, there is a way out... we can forge a new concept by applying the destructive deduction and creative induction mental operations.”

“Uncertainty and related disorder can be diminished by the direct artifice of creating a higher and broader more general concept to represent reality.”

The OODA Imperative: How Startups and Investors Learn to Loop Faster

Among founders and investors alike, the phrase “tight OODA loop” has become shorthand for a startup’s capacity to make sense of chaotic feedback, update its assumptions, and pivot with agility. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder, has drawn the analogy directly: as with combat pilots, those who iterate faster tend to survive longer. In early-stage venture capital, that principle is fast becoming doctrine.

This logic has been institutionalised in methodologies such as the Lean Startup, whose architect Steve Blank openly described his customer development approach as an “OODA Loop for entrepreneurs.” Rather than pursue a fixed plan, founders are urged to continually absorb market signals, refine their mental models, and act accordingly, sometimes by pivoting to entirely new ideas. For seed-stage investors, such agility is not just desirable but expected. A startup’s ability to loop quickly, learning, discarding, and reinventing, can signal its fitness for the unpredictable terrain of product-market discovery.

Famous investment decisions now read like case studies in OODA-driven foresight. Sequoia Capital’s early bet on YouTube was not the product of luck or speed alone. Well before the founders pitched their idea, Sequoia had been orienting toward a thesis on online video, monitoring broadband trends, the economics of content creation, and international adoption patterns. By the time the YouTube team appeared, Sequoia could move faster than competitors because its decision-making process had already begun. The insight was less about clairvoyance and more about preparation, an OODA loop set in motion long before the opportunity formally arrived.

Agility also matters after investment. Consider the case of Slack. Initially funded as a gaming startup, Stewart Butterfield’s company struggled until an internal communication tool they had built showed greater promise. Faced with this pivot, investor Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz had to choose between salvaging the game, shutting down the company, or backing the untested tool. He chose the latter, quickly reallocating the remaining capital. This was not an act of blind faith, but of adaptive reasoning: a readiness to act decisively on new information rather than defend a sunk cost. The gamble paid off. Slack became a standout success in enterprise software, less because of initial foresight and more because of an investor’s willingness to reorient in real time.

Accelerator programmes institutionalise this ethos. Y Combinator, for instance, pushes startups through cycles of iteration compressed into mere weeks, encouraging founders to test, fail, and pivot ahead of Demo Day. These programs function less as finishing schools and more as compressed laboratories of adaptation. The most successful graduates are not those with the grandest plans, but those who learn and re-learn fastest.

As the 2024 Startup Accelerator Report put it, OODA-style learning is particularly well suited to the early stages of a company’s life. Once product-market fit is found, decision cycles can afford to slow. But in the pre-revenue fog of innovation, speed of orientation can make the difference between finding a viable model and burning out in the wilderness.

As venture capital matures, so too does its tempo. What began as a game of high-conviction, patient investing has evolved into one increasingly defined by velocity. In recent years, some of the most successful growth-stage investors have gained ground not by deeper insight alone, but by outpacing their rivals in how quickly they move from thesis to term sheet. The OODA loop, Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, originally a military construct, has become an unlikely lodestar for this new mode of thinking.

In early-stage investing, the OODA loop’s appeal is intuitive: rapid cycles of testing and adaptation help startups iterate their way toward product-market fit. But its influence is now extending into later-stage investing, where the stakes, and the sums, are significantly larger. Growth equity was once a domain of methodical diligence and deliberate pacing. Now, speed is a competitive edge.

Tiger Global’s venture strategy in 2020–21 offers a case in point. Originally a hedge fund, Tiger applied its public-market reflexes to private markets with astonishing results. While traditional VCs adhered to quarterly investment meetings and lengthy approval chains, Tiger issued term sheets in days, sometimes hours. Its model was blunt: deploy capital faster than anyone else. In effect, it operationalised the OODA loop, absorbing signals, reorienting theses, and acting with a speed that forced the rest of the industry to adjust.

Competitors responded. Some created “quick strike” teams to accelerate internal processes. Others loosened rigid investment committee structures, decentralising authority to enable faster commitments. The message was clear: in contested deals, speed is strategy. A faster decision loop doesn’t merely win more bids, it creates a feedback mechanism. Each investment generates learning, sharpening future orientation and compounding the advantage.

Yet speed alone is not a virtue. The dangers of a rapid OODA loop untempered by rigour became apparent when several pandemic-era investments, bid up in haste, struggled to justify their lofty valuations. The lesson: decision velocity must be paired with clarity of orientation. A fast loop without depth is merely a shortcut to error.

Technology now helps bridge this gap. Data platforms, real-time dashboards, and AI-powered diligence tools compress the Observe–Orient phases without sacrificing insight. Investors in real estate, for instance, now use automated systems to underwrite deals in seconds. Venture capital is following suit, with firms increasingly relying on instant analysis of traction metrics, cohort behaviour, and sector dynamics to inform decisions. OODA, in this sense, becomes not just a mindset, but a system architecture.

Reid Hoffman, incorporate OODA-like logic into broader strategic frameworks. His concept of “blitzscaling” rests on the premise that, in winner-take-all markets, the fastest learner tends to win. Hoffman argues that Silicon Valley’s embrace of fast feedback and iteration echoes Boyd’s model, even if the terminology differs.

For many investors, the answer is not to replace traditional frameworks but to complement them. Use OODA principles to move quickly when conditions demand it; apply more comprehensive models (like Plan–Do–Check–Act) when refining operations or evaluating follow-on rounds. In this hybrid mode, early-stage experimentation gives way to structured optimisation as a company matures.

Ultimately, what the OODA loop offers is not a method but a posture: adaptive, data-aware, unafraid to discard sunk costs and reframe problems. In markets shaped by acceleration and noise, the capacity to loop faster, without spinning out, may be the most important skill a modern investor can cultivate.

Conclusion: The Strategic Mandate of Continuous Reorientation

John Boyd’s enduring contribution is not merely a model of decision-making, it is a philosophy of dynamic adaptation. In a world where complexity accelerates and certainties erode, his emphasis on orientation as the engine of effective action offers a powerful antidote to institutional rigidity and intellectual complacency.

At its core, Boyd’s insight is both humbling and liberating: no framework is permanent, no plan immune to obsolescence. Surviva and more importantly, success demands a continuous willingness to challenge assumptions, update mental models, and act before clarity is fully achieved. It is a discipline of curiosity as much as decisiveness, one that privileges learning loops over static plans and prioritizes tempo over perfection.

The implications stretch across domains. Whether shaping a military campaign, steering a company, or navigating social change, the advantage belongs to those who observe clearly, orient fluidly, decide swiftly, and act with conviction, then begin again. Strategy, in Boyd’s hands, becomes not a blueprint but a living process. Its practitioners must be both students of reality and agents of transformation.

In an era defined by turbulence and surprise, Boyd’s message is deceptively simple: adapt or be outpaced. The challenge for modern leaders is not only to embrace speed, but to pair it with sense-making to build organizations capable of learning faster than the environment changes. Those who do will not only endure, they will set the rhythm to which others must respond.