Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work

by Steven Kotler

But what the SEALs accomplished on that raid comes much closer to illustrating the true core of special operations culture: at their best, they are always an anonymous team. “I do not seek recognition11 for my actions . . . ,” reads the SEAL code. “I expect to lead and be led . . . my teammates steady my resolve and silently guide my every deed.”

Nutt’s evidence-based rankings confirm what many would suspect. On the list of toxic substances, drugs like heroin, crack, and methamphetamine rank high. No question about it, they’re really bad for you and really bad for those around you. But, while heroin is so destructive it claims the number-two slot, it still couldn’t beat out the number-one scourge: alcohol. And tobacco—another legal staple of modern life—clocked in at number six, two ahead of marijuana, and just behind cocaine and methamphetamine. And what about MDMA, that supposed public enemy number one? It barely made the list, coming in at number 17, just ahead of LSD and magic mushrooms, which were 18 and 20 respectively.

Simply by examining the biometric profile of each sailor, Berka and her team could reliably track and identify which sailors were going to excel at collaborative problem solving. With nothing more than these data printouts, they could tell the difference between a novice team still fumbling around, a sophomore team just starting to gel, and a high-performing team of experts. By the end of the full sixteen-week program, they could predict—months in advance of actual deployment—which teams were going to be able to “flip the switch” and drop into group flow together, and which ones ran the risk of flipping out a thousand feet underwater. By measuring biometrics in the present, they were literally able to see into the murky depths of the future.

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by examining the neurophysiological profile of these students, Berka was able to identify “emergent leaders”—those individuals who would have an outsize positive impact on the team and its decision making—in as little as thirty minutes. While there was no correlation between emergent leadership and how much students talked or even what they said, there was a direct relationship between their neurophysiological responses and those of their classmates. Transformational leaders not only regulated their own nervous systems better than most; they also regulated other people’s.

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In the same way that multiple clocks on a wall end up synchronizing to the one with the biggest pendulum, emergent leaders can entrain their entire teams and create a powerful group flow experience.

leaders’ ability to create group coherence proved to be a reliable indicator of effective decision making

Instead of using trendy leadership books and a new mission statement to fire up employees, we can follow ESADE’s lead and use neurofeedback to heighten group coherence and prompt more productive strategy sessions.

VR’s potential as a technology of surveillance and control. “It’s very easy to imagine a company that succeeds in dominating the VR universe44 quickly stockpiling intimate data on not just what you and three billion other people ‘favorite’ but . . . a thousand other details. To do that in real life would be expensive and intrusive. To do that in VR will be invisible and cheap.” Soon VR systems are going to track everything from eye gaze to vocal tone to—as DARPA-style biometrics get further integrated—neurochemistry, hormones, brainwaves, and cardiac coherence. “This comprehensive tracking of your behavior inside these worlds,”45 continues Kelly, “could be used to sell you things, to redirect your attention, to compile a history of your interests, to persuade you subliminally, to quantify your actions for self-improvement . . . and so on. If a smartphone is a surveillance device we voluntarily carry in our pocket, then VR will be a total surveillance state we voluntarily enter.”