Survival Mode: Lessons for Entrepreneurs
By Fernando Fabre
October 2025
I’ve long been captivated by stories of survival, particularly how humans can endure extreme uncertainty. This fascination comes from spending the last 25 years immersed in the journeys of thousands of entrepreneurs and hundreds of venture capitalists, first at Endeavor and more recently at Kauffman Fellows. I’ve learned that successful entrepreneurs are not risk takers; they are risk managers.
Entrepreneurs face unpredictable risks to their company’s survival all the time. A product fails, revenue stalls, a competitor raises millions, or an executive gets caught on a Coldplay “kiss cam.” Success is, after all, a collection of surviving crises.
What makes some entrepreneurs succeed while others fail? Why do some teams thrive under uncertainty, while others freeze? The answers may be found in how humans survive under duress.
Think Mechanism
In his behavioral study Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why?, Laurence Gonzales compares the behavior of people who, facing similar accidents, survive or die. He concludes that after an accident, once the amygdala gets hijacked and the fight, flight, or freeze mechanism kicks in, survivors instead activate their “think” mechanism.
This mechanism is always on display in Alone, the popular survival TV series. The contestants lose because they fight, flee, or freeze, while the winners think and then act: control the controllables, manage what you can. Survival isn’t about being the strongest or most skilled; it’s about regulating fear, adapting quickly, and staying mentally flexible.
Psychological Safety and Rituals
One of the most incredible survival stories ever recorded is that of Ernest Shackleton and his crew. After their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by Antarctic ice in 1915, they faced certain death. Yet, not a single person perished. Their survival was rooted in the trust bond built by psychological safety and group rituals.
Coined by Amy Edmondson and popularized by Google’s Project Aristotle, psychological safety is an environment where team members feel safe to speak up, take risks, and admit mistakes without fear of punishment. Shackleton embraced psychological safety, and he also created team rituals: a culture of sharing hardships equally, sleeping in the same tents, and eating the same rations. These gave the crew the confidence to follow him even when the odds seemed impossible.
Survival isn't about being the strongest or most skilled; it's about regulating fear, adapting quickly, and staying mentally flexible.
The Power of Narrative
In Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, the young protagonist survives an impossible situation by changing the narrative. Pi flipped a terrible tragedy into an incredible adventure, giving him the motivation and resilience to endure. Changing a narrative, when done right, has also saved the careers of politicians, athletes, and companies facing scandal. A recent example was when Astronomer, a data company, leaned on Gwyneth Paltrow to deliver a playful video response after negative press—reframing attention back to its mission.
Survival Mode for Entrepreneurs
Under high uncertainty, entrepreneurs need to turn on their survival mode:
- Activate the “Think” Mechanism: When faced with a crisis, thinking needs to beat fighting, flight, or freezing. Take a moment to regulate emotions and understand the controllables to make clear decisions.
- Cultivate Psychological Safety and Rituals: Build a culture of psychological safety where the team feels comfortable experimenting, improvising, failing, and admitting mistakes. Establish micro-routines, like weekly team reflections, shared meals, or team traditions, to strengthen bonds and build trust.
- Define the Narrative: The founder’s story needs to live in every team member’s mind: why the company exists, what we’re building, and who we serve. A strong narrative is a powerful survival tool that prevents the team from losing enthusiasm in moments of crisis.
In the pathway to success of a startup, uncertainty and failure are a feature, not a bug. Successful entrepreneurs don’t avoid failure, and they certainly don’t plan to fail. Instead, they manage to fail fast, learn from it, and get back up. In the words of Winston Churchill, “success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Fernando Fabre is the CEO of Kauffman Fellows, the leading education and community platform for venture capitalists shaping the future of the industry.