In 1980, retired Air Force Col. John Boyd walked into the Pentagon and pitched a concept that reshaped how the United States trains its pilots to win dogfights: the OODA loop. It stands for Observe-Orient-Decide-Act, and it’s a framework for decision-making that is used today by everyone from Olympic athletes to Wall Street traders. One of Colonel Boyd’s hallmark insights with OODA was this: Moving quickly through the whole decision cycle is more valuable than speeding through any one part of it. The world’s fastest trigger finger can’t hit a target that’s no longer there. Over time, pilots that cycle quickly – reacting and reorienting with each loop – will dominate their competition. The OODA concept can map to programmatic advertising – specifically to a single RTB auction.