A Series
Both at altitude and in a company, the hard part isn't the plan. It's deciding fast, with bad information, and living with the call.
My log is full of summits — and just as full of turn-arounds. Aconcagua took three attempts. Mont Blanc, Grossglockner, Dufourspitze all sent me back down before I made them. None of that felt like failure on the way home; it felt like the only sane decision with the information I had at 5am on a ridge.
That's the same muscle you use building a company. The weather window is the market window. The summit fever that gets people killed is the sunk-cost project nobody will kill. Going light and fast — Kilimanjaro in 24 hours, Orizaba solo in 48 — only works because you've decided in advance what you'll carry and what you'll leave. You don't get more information by standing still; you get colder.
This series follows real expeditions and pulls out the decision underneath each one — when to commit, when to turn around, and how to make the call before the conditions make it for you.