Official skill · Management
Wartime or peacetime check
Places a company in peacetime or wartime as Ben Horowitz defines them, checks the leader's style against it, and names the hard call being delayed. Use it when results have turned and the style may need to change.
AI skill
Have your AI tell you whether you're in wartime, and which hard call is waiting
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Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.
When to use it
- Results have turned and the style may need to change
- A founder delays a layoff, a firing or a pivot
- Before explaining the situation to the board or team
What you give it
- Core market lead and growth
- Threats and runway
- How decisions are made now
- Decisions being delayed
What you get
Peacetime and wartime tests, the state, a style-against-state table, the hard call with its cost of delay, a message to the team, and 30-day actions.
How it works
- Test for peacetime
- Test for wartime
- Call the state
- Compare the style to the state
- Name the waiting hard call
- Plan the truth-telling
- Set the next 30 days
Example
What you give it
We run a 40-person delivery-route software company in Spain. Until last year we led our niche with about half the regional couriers as customers [our estimate]. In the last 6 months a funded rival has signed 9 of our 60 customers at half our price. Runway is 11 months. We still hold quarterly offsites to brainstorm new products, and every roadmap decision needs agreement from all 6 department heads. Our VP of Sales has missed target for 3 quarters; I've postponed the conversation twice.
What you get back (the start of it)
Wartime or peacetime check: delivery-route software
Date: [date] · Leader: [check: name]
Peacetime test
Large lead in the core market? It was: about half the regional couriers [your estimate]; now falling. · Market growing? [check]
Wartime test
| Threat | How soon | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Funded rival at half price taking customers | Now | 9 of 60 customers lost in 6 months |
| Runway | 11 months | your figure |
The rest of this output, the full steps and the checks the AI runs before it answers are in your pod once you add the skill.
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Changelog
- v1.0.0 · · First release.
Sources
- Ben Horowitz: Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO (2011) (read 2026-11-04)
- HarperCollins: The Hard Thing About Hard Things (read 2026-11-04)
- Wikipedia: Ben Horowitz (read 2026-11-04)