── ── Mental model

OODA Loop

Colonel John Boyd (1927-1997) derived the OODA Loop from Korean War air-combat data: the F-86 Sabre achieved a ~10:1 kill ratio over the technically superior MiG-15 because better cockpit visibility and hydraulic controls let pilots cycle Observe → Orient → Decide → Act faster — the slower pilot was always reacting to obsolete information.

How it works

Step 1 — Map your loop. For each stage (Observe / Orient / Decide / Act): what happens, who does it, how long does it take? Get actual time estimates.

Step 2 — Estimate the opponent's loop. Same analysis for the competitor. The relative cycle time is the strategic variable — if you take 2 weeks and they take 4 days, you are at a 3-4x disadvantage.

Step 3 — Find the bottleneck. Observe slow = data/instrumentation problem. Orient slow = synthesis/authority/framework problem (most common). Decide slow = political/sign-off problem. Act slow = capability problem. Speeding up non-bottleneck stages does nothing.

When to use it

• competitor outmaneuvers you despite worse resources
• decisions take longer than the situation allows
• team is losing a competition they should win
• setting up crisis or incident response
• someone says 'Boyd', 'decision cycle', 'get inside their loop', or 'tempo'

Worked example

AI Startups Out-Cycling Incumbents When Capabilities Shift Monthly (2024–2026)

The Korean War case shows OODA at the scale of a dogfight; the Gulf War case shows it at theater scale. The 2024–2026 AI wave shows the same mechanism in a market where the ground itself — the underlying model capability — moves faster than most incumbents' planning cycles. When a frontier model release can reset what is buildable every few weeks, the strategic variable is no longer who has the most engineers or capital; it is who can Observe a new capability, re-Orient a…

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