In the late 1950s, an Air Force pilot named John Boyd had a standing bet. From any disadvantaged starting position in a one-on-one dogfight, he would beat his student in forty seconds or pay forty dollars. "40-Second Boyd," as he came to be known, never paid. He spent the next fifteen years figuring out what he was doing that the students weren't. The answer was the OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. The pilot who cycles faster wins, even when their individual decisions are less elegant.
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