When I first started practicing Kendo, the thing I feared most was getting hit. I put all my effort into making my defense watertight, terrified of exposing even the slightest opening. It wasn’t until later that I learned a counter-intuitive move: deliberately exposing a vulnerability.
For example, I would tilt the tip of my sword slightly to expose my head. As long as the opponent had any desire to attack, their physical instinct would drive them to strike right at that opening. That strike comes with a rush of wind; it looks intimidating.
To an untrained observer, it looks like a death wish.
But truthfully, even when the opponent’s bamboo sword is inches from my mask, my mind is completely still. Only one thought remains: “Let him strike with all his might; he is but a breeze sweeping across the hills.”
How can I be so composed? Because everything is under calculated control.
I anticipated exactly where and how he would strike. The reason I dare to expose my midsection is not that I cannot defend it, but that I want to trick him into exhausting his energy, forcing him to throw all his cards into this single attack vector. Right at the juncture when he thinks he is about to succeed—when his initial force is spent and his new force has yet to generate—I have already shifted into a superior position, with a “counterattack” fully prepared for him.
In Kendo, this technique has a name: “Sutemi” (Sacrifice). Simply put, it means offering your vital point to the opponent in order to trap their greatest vulnerability.
But do not misunderstand: true Sutemi is absolutely not a blind, eyes-closed gamble with your life—that is mere recklessness. Those who dare to execute Sutemi rely on absolute clarity and the underlying confidence that “everything is under control.” If you panic even slightly, the moment you drop your guard, your opponent will shatter you and your helmet with a single strike.
Only when your mind is as still as a placid pool of water are you qualified to use this move.
Looking back to my PhD days, I once stubbornly clung to a research direction that was doomed to fail. Why didn’t I give up? Because my computer already held tens of thousands of words of data and drafts. Every night, I tortured myself: If I change direction now, wouldn’t all those sleepless nights be for nothing? I sank deeper and deeper into that invalid trajectory. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what blocked me wasn’t the difficulty of the research, but a pathology in my own mind.
In business history, there is a bald executive who took over a mess suffering from the same “terminal illness” I had, and executed a textbook “Sutemi.” The man who feigned taking the hit was Satya Nadella.
Cast your mind back to 2014. Microsoft at the time was practically the aging joke of Silicon Valley. Terrifyingly massive, lethally clumsy, and constantly putting on airs. Apple and Google were stepping right on its face, gleefully carving up the mobile internet landscape.
Why was Microsoft so clumsy back then? Because it was wearing the heaviest, thickest suit of heavy-metal armor in the universe: Windows.
Without a doubt, Windows was the most powerful money-printing moat in human business history. As long as this cash cow stood, Microsoft made money just by breathing. Therefore, the only thing on the minds of those executives in Seattle was: “Defend this armor to the death.” They were so arrogant that they stubbornly refused to release Office for the iPad—“Why should our cash cow run on your flimsy tablet? What if people use iPads and stop buying our PCs?”
Microsoft at that time was like an insecure, overweight, wheezing old knight. It strapped every piece of scrap metal it could find onto its body, shivering in a bunker called Windows. The result? The more you fear death, the faster it comes.
Under this logic of its “Decision Operating System,” Microsoft had contracted a terminal disease. Translated into plain English: Its brain was held hostage by its past stakes.
This is the most agonizing demon in our lives that we need to discuss: Sunk Cost. Look around us; how many people suffer from the exact same terminal illness as the Microsoft of that era?
You are in a terrible relationship where your partner uses the silent treatment, lacks ambition, or even cheats. You cry every night wanting to break up, but grit your teeth and endure it the next morning. Why? Because a voice in your head is screaming: “I’ve already wasted three years on this relationship. If we break up now, aren’t those three years of my youth completely down the drain?” You are in a job that feels like a daily march to the grave: the boss feeds you empty promises, colleagues deflect blame, and your body is developing stress nodules. You dare not resign. Because you are afraid: “I’ve finally made it to manager. If I pivot to a new track now, won’t all my accumulated network and experience be wasted?”
If you have poured a fortune and decades of your youth into a hunk of iron, when the times change and the blade is truly swinging at you… your nervous system will immediately lie to you, creating an illusion: “Hold on a little longer, maybe I can turn this around.” You tightly clutch that piece of Windows armor named “I refuse to let go,” sinking deeper and deeper into the mud. In reality, you know better than anyone that this isn’t perseverance; it is a slow suicide wrapped in self-delusion.
That was until February 2014, when Satya Nadella took over the mess. He came in, took one look at this “indestructible” iron-clad fortress, and made a move that left all the veteran employees’ jaws on the floor.
In our decision-making equation, there is an ultimate line of defense that overrides all calculations, called δ (the circuit breaker mechanism). When a system is overflowing with anxiety driven by past sunk costs, every brilliant plan turns to shit. At this point, the only viable action is to manually pull the switch and force δ = 0.
Nadella pulled the switch. Not only did he readily release Office for the iPad, but he also stood in front of the global media and calmly pulled an iPhone out of his pocket for a demonstration.
The media gasped, “Microsoft surrenders.” But internally, Nadella was likely scoffing. He had already peeled back the surface and identified the single core truth: Windows had long since devolved from a moat into a noose. To wield the swift blade known as Azure (Cloud Services), the heavy armor had to be stripped off first.
Handing over the exclusive monopoly of Office would certainly make Apple grin from ear to ear. So what? Let them profit. Only by letting go of the “not-invented-here” tribal obsession could Microsoft imperceptibly infiltrate the heart of every single device on this planet.
Therefore, the true danger in this world has never been exposing a vulnerability to others. The real danger is clinging desperately to that tiny shred of past security (even when it can no longer protect you), causing your execution to completely deform.
When making high-stakes decisions, many people default to the rogue logic of “wanting it all”: they want to cling tightly to their sunk costs while simultaneously grasping for the massive gains of a new era. Unwilling to expose even a fraction of a vulnerability, they not only reduce themselves to useless deadweight without any offensive capability, but also become the most bloated, walking targets in the tidal wave of a new era.
Through this resolute willingness to “take a hit,” Nadella forcefully hoisted Microsoft back onto the throne as a global leader. In that nerve-wracking spring, he taught this corporate elephant a single lesson:
If that exorbitantly expensive suit of armor has weighed you down so much that you lack the strength to even raise your sword. Take it off immediately. Persistence without a circuit breaker (δ) is not resilience; it is self-mutilation.
PS: Why are the smartest people the most likely to die by “sunk cost”? In our “Decision Operating System,” δ is merely the first gate. Next time, we will discuss how, once the gate is open, tech giants lock onto the probabilistic kill-shot amidst the chaos.
