Every company has its own version of the “secret sauce.”
It might be a piece of intellectual property, a supply chain partner, a machine, or even an AI framework from a large vendor. At first glance, these look like commodities—always available, always affordable. But history has shown us that what looks abundant today can turn scarce overnight. A pandemic, a trade war, or a sudden regulation can rip away what you thought was permanent.
When the Chips Run Out
I was reminded of this when I came across a fascinating thought experiment: what if humanity suddenly forgot how to make CPUs?The tiny chips we barely notice, but which sit inside every laptop, phone, car, and washing machines.
The videoby Laurie Kirk [@lauriewired], that I watched walks through what would happen year by year.
In the first year itself, startups and cloud companies would collapse.
No new servers could be built, and even running a simple website would become expensive. People would desperately try to keep machines alive, sometimes even cooling them manually, while older, bulkier computers would outlast the sleek modern ones.
By the third year, CPUs would be so precious that black markets would appear.
Governments would seize remaining stockpiles for essentials like electricity grids and banks. Entertainment and “luxury” uses such as gaming or crypto mining would be banned.
By year seven, phones and laptops would stop working, routers would fail, and the internet would begin to disintegrate.
Data would once again travel by physical drives and compact disks.
By year fifteen, the internet as we know it would collapse.
By thirty years, only the most basic machines from the 1980s would still run, thanks to Black’s equation.
This scenario is deliberately extreme, but it forces us to confront a crucial question: how much of our business is dependent on a single line of technology, partner, or process?
For founders, that’s not a theoretical question—it’s survival.
Guarding Your Secret Sauce
What should you do?
Start with awareness. Map your critical dependencies. If your product relies entirely on one AI API, ask what happens if that API suddenly changes pricing or access terms. If your supply chain runs through a single country, model the impact of a sudden disruption. The exercise may feel uncomfortable, but it builds resilience.
Next, run stress tests and premortems. Imagine your key system is suddenly gone—what would break first? Could you pivot to alternatives? Could you scale back to a simpler but still functional model of your service? Large enterprises call this “business continuity planning,” but for founders, it’s simply good survival instinct. This is something I often write about in my book, Founder Catalyst —the need for founders to shift from reacting to crises toward building the clarity and discipline of a CEO, while still staying true to their founder instincts.
Finally, don’t just mitigate risks—turn them into strategic opportunities. Some of the biggest companies today were born during times of scarcity because they found creative substitutes, simpler models, or new markets when the old ones collapsed. Resilience isn’t only about surviving; it is also about positioning yourself to grow while others are paralysed.
Founders who do this work early are not pessimists—they are realists.
You can’t control pandemics or geopolitics, but you can control how prepared you are. That preparation could be the difference between a business that collapses when the chips run out, and one that finds new ways to thrive.
???? As a founder, your “secret sauce” can be your biggest strength, but also your biggest risk if it’s fragile.
That’s why I work with founders to stress-test their strategies, map dependencies, and build resilience into their businesses.
???? If you’d like to explore this for your venture, reach out for a consultation: v@test.sobr.digital
???? And if you’d prefer to receive more of these insights directly, subscribe to my Founder Catalyst Digest, where I share practical lessons on leadership, AI, and building companies that last.
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