True Resilience Is Built Beforehand or Not at All
A Personal Letter from the COO of Silicon Valley Innovation Center
In times of crisis, the winners are decided long before the storm hits. I learned this lesson firsthand on Wall Street in 2008,in Silicon Valley during 2020 and learning this in 2025. Whether it was a global financial meltdown or a pandemic lockdown, the organizations that prevailed were those that had quietly prepared for turmoil in advance. The companies that made it through didn’t just respond better—they had already built for uncertainty. Today, amid trade wars, inflation, and political rifts, the same principle holds: the best way to navigate tomorrow’s uncertainty is to start building ability to change now.
A Tale of Two Crises
My first real exposure to how organizations handle uncertainty came when I joined Goldman Sachs just after the 2008 financial crash. It was an intense time—markets were in free fall, confidence had evaporated, and yet here I was, sitting in a over airconditioned room overlooking the Hudson river. The grey interior room was full of new analysts hearing from then-CFO David Viniar – 30 year GS veteran by then.
He told us something that I still remember 15 years later:
“When you are in bad times – remember, they will pass; but when you are in the good times – remember, they will pass too”
That mindset—always expecting the change—shaped everything Goldman did. People often assume Goldman came out of the crisis unscathed. That’s not quite true. There was pain. Viniar himself admitted that their models hadn’t accounted for a 25 standard deviation move—statistically speaking, something so improbable it shouldn’t have happened in the lifetime of the universe.
But here’s what made the difference: Goldman could respond faster than almost anyone else.
Their systems—especially around pricing, sales, and risk—were built for speed and agility. Again, not for regulation or headlines—but for the ability to move fast and trust what’s being done.
They had poured resources into what many at the time saw as “low-value” infrastructure: complex pricing engines, back-office automation, tight data pipelines. These weren’t “cutting-edge”. They didn’t win awards. But when liquidity vanished and the market for complex portfolios turned opaque, Goldman’s infrastructure let them reprice portfolios in hours, not days. That speed gave them options. That speed saved them. The lesson was simple: by the time a crisis arrives, it’s too late to invent a playbook.
True resilience is built beforehand or not at all.
Fast-forward a decade, and I was on the other side of the country in Silicon Valley, watching the pandemic upend everything again. This time it was a different kind of chaos—offices shut down, global demand collapsed in some sectors and exploded in others, every company was scrambling. But again, a familiar pattern emerged: the companies that had done the real work beforehand adapted best.
Amazon is the obvious example. Almost instantaneously, Amazon became a lifeline for millions stuck at home, and its revenues and profits exploded. The company reported a near 200% rise in profits during the pandemic as online shopping demand surged . But Amazon’s success wasn’t because its leaders suddenly devised brilliant emergency tactics in March 2020—it was the product of years of investment in adaptable, scalable systems. Long before anyone heard of COVID-19, Amazon had bet heavily on e-commerce infrastructure, cloud computing capacity, and a decentralized “two-pizza team” architecture (microservices) that allowed it to scale quickly and innovate on the fly. Those pre-pandemic decisions meant that when crisis hit, Amazon could expand rather than contract: in 2020 it expanded its fulfillment network by 50%, adding 250,000 employees to meet skyrocketing demand.
I remember startups here in the Valley scaling 10x overnight—not because they had genius responses, but because their systems could handle it. It came from the culture – when VCs give you millions of dollars, they expect you to scale tomorrow, not in a year. It was the difference between hoping your engine holds at high RPMs and having already tested it on the track.
What I’ve Found Interesting About How Organizations Thrive Under Pressure
Working with companies to prepare for high-pressure situations, a clear pattern emerges those that thrive under uncertainty usually laid groundwork well before any changes come. They invested in resilience during the good times – whether in their supply chains, systems, or culture – so that when disruption came, they could adapt instead of panic. And, again, that disruption does not need to be negative to destroy your company – can you handle 3X more business tomorrow?
Luck plays a big role in business, but are you prepared to seize that luck? Do you have adaptability and foresight to grow whether your competition grows or struggles?
A few recent examples really drive this home:
- Apple’s Supply Chain Safety Nets: Apple saw the writing on the wall years ago regarding U.S.-China trade tensions back in 2017 that pays off in 2025. Rather than remain over-reliant on Chinese factories, Apple quietly began diversifying production to other countries. In the past few years, it has shifted chunks of iPhone assembly to India and Vietnam. This wasn’t a trivial move; it was a strategic bet to mitigate tariff risks and supply shocks. In short, Apple’s foresight in spreading out its production meant that a hit to one country (be it from tariffs or a virus) wouldn’t knock the whole company off course.
- British Airways’ Tech Upgrade Triumph: It’s not only manufacturing – sometimes an infrastructure upgrade can avert a catastrophe. British Airways learned this the hard way after several IT meltdowns over the past decade grounded flights and enraged customers. So the airline committed £750 million to overhaul its aging IT systems, building in redundancy and backup capacity. That investment paid off in late 2024 when a critical system fault struck. In the past, such a glitch might have canceled dozens of flights for days. But this time, BA’s backup network kicked in immediately and core systems were restored within an hour, avoiding any cancellations.
Quick insight into the above: almost all of this emphasizes the boring stuff. Not bold vision. Not a crisis PR plan. Just solid fundamentals. Speed. Clarity. Trust. Data that’s real, and people who can act on it fast.
The Questions I’m Asking Now (And You Probably Should Too)
Rather than focusing on “what ifs,” I’m more interested in questions that expose readiness:
- How can we build and ship code 3X faster?
- How can we hire and onboard talent 5X better?
- How do we create feedback loops so tight that we know we’re off course within days, not quarters?
- If we spend 10X more, can we move 10X faster—or just burn money 10X faster?
These aren’t futuristic goals. They’re table stakes for any organization that wants to thrive, not just survive, in the next disruption—whether it’s geopolitical, technological, or macroeconomic.
Practical Steps to Prepare for Uncertainty in People, Processes, and Technology
When people talk about resilience, they often jump to tech. But in my experience, resilience starts with people.
1. Resilient People
When the pandemic hit, or when the financial system cracked, the organizations that held together were the ones with strong internal trust and distributed decision-making. It wasn’t just heroic leaders at the top—it was middle managers and frontline teams who had the autonomy and judgment to act. Resilience begins when your team doesn’t wait for permission. When they know how to make good decisions because they’ve been trained to do so, and you’ve built a culture that supports that. Empower your people by:
- Cross-train and upskill your workforce. Allow as many individuals wear multiple hats and get to know as many people within your organization as possible.
- Foster a culture of adaptability and continuous learning. Encourage employees to experiment (and fail), learn new skills, and stay curious.
- Prioritize well-being and psychological safety. Make sure your employees feel safe to speak up with concerns or idea – that way leaders get both early warnings of problems, and a diversity of solutions proposed
2. Resilient Processes
Next comes the structure. Do your systems let people move fast—or are they trapped in bureaucracy? Can they reroute a supply chain, reallocate marketing dollars, shift customer messaging in real time? The goal is flexibility with focus. You don’t want chaos. But you need room to respond. The companies that over-index on efficiency (with no room for error) usually find themselves stuck when plans go sideways. Improve your processes by:
- Tighten your feedback loops and communication. Overcommunicate, create protocols and forums where you can get information as fast as possible. Most of the time it will be boring and mundane, but it will save you more than once.
- Build slack into your systems. Introduce a bit of breathing room – whether it’s extra inventory of critical materials, a backup team that can be activated, or budget set aside for unexpected event.
- Embed scenario planning and war-gaming into your strategy cycle. Normalize the act of pivoting plans on the fly. What if demand spikes 50%? What if a key supplier disappears overnight?
3. Resilient Technology
And yes, the tech matters. Can you trust your data? Can your product handle 10X or 100X the scale without imploding? In venture circles, we often ask: if we give a startup $1M for marketing tomorrow, while they’re spending $10K today, can their system handle 100X the business in three months? Often, the answer is no—and that tells us they’re not ready. True tech resilience isn’t just uptime. It’s performance under pressure:
- Invest in robust, redundant systems before they’re mission-critical. Look into “boring” systems like accounting, finance and tax. If it takes you 25 days to report your financials, it’s not about regulations—it’s about broken data and broken processes.
- Embrace modular and flexible tech. Track how many changes you make in a month. Hint: the more modular systems are, the more changes you can introduce.
- Keep an eye on emerging tools. Most of them will be useless, but finding one gem will make all the difference for you.
How Leaders Can Build Resilience.
You, as a leader, can take immediate action today to be better prepared for the change (good or bad) tomorrow. We, at SVIC, found the few things to be most effective in getting your leaders ready. With or without our help try to do the following:
- Immersive visits to innovation hubs: We believe exposure is a powerful teacher. SVIC regularly hosts immersive visits for executives to places like Silicon Valley (and across the globe), where they can meet with companies at the cutting edge of technology and new business models. These visits aren’t just business tourism – they’re about shaking leaders out of the day-to-day mindset and inspiring them to see challenges through a new lens. It’s essentially stress-testing one’s thinking by seeing how the most inventive organizations operate. Leaders return from these visits with fresh insights and a broader toolkit for problem-solving under pressure.
- Time to slow down and think: In a world of Slack messages, back-to-back meetings, and crisis du jour, it’s rare for executives (especially in large corporates or public offices) to get dedicated time to pause and reflect. SVIC deliberately carves out this space. Through our engagements, we create environments where leaders can step away from firefighting, digest what they’ve learned, and ask deeper questions about their organization’s direction. This could be during a multi-day executive immersion program or facilitated roundtable discussions. By slowing down, leaders often realize they’ve been so busy sailing the ship that they haven’t scanned the horizon. Help them take that strategic pause – to query assumptions, envision different futures, and reimagine “what could we do better now to avoid disaster later?” It’s a bit like a mindfulness retreat meets strategy session, and it’s amazing how many “aha” moments happen when people are given permission to think deeply.
- Scenario planning and strategic war-gaming workshops: Perhaps the most direct way to build resilience is by running interactive scenario and war-gaming sessions. We set up realistic simulations – some focused on upside opportunities (like a sudden market surge or a breakthrough technology appearing) and others on downside crises (like a supply chain collapse or a reputational scandal). Cross-functional teams of executives must navigate the scenario in a compressed timeframe, making decisions with incomplete information, just as in real life. We’ve seen companies discover unnoticed process flaws and also untapped leadership talents through this method. By rehearsing both the seize-the-moment scenarios and the keep-the-lights-on crises, organizations build muscle memory for agility.
If I’ve learned anything from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, it’s this: the next crisis won’t wait for you to get ready. Build now. Move now. Test now. That’s how you end up not just surviving—but accelerating.
Everything discussed in this letter — from empowering teams and modernizing infrastructure to sharpening leadership thinking and building operational resilience — is at the heart of our upcoming executive program, the C-Suite Innovation Lab: AI, Digital Transformation, and Venture Building, taking place in Silicon Valley, June 23–26, 2025.
This immersive 4-day experience is designed for senior leaders ready to test, refine, and future-proof their strategy in an environment that mirrors the intensity of real-world disruption. If you’re serious about building your organization’s next-level resilience, this is your opportunity to learn from the companies that do it best.
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