Only the Paranoid Survive

Biological Parallel

Ground squirrels in high-predation environments exhibit constant vigilance—scanning every 8-12 seconds even while feeding—while squirrels in predator-free zones relax and get eaten when threats return. The hypervigilant lineages persist; the complacent go extinct. This isn't neurosis, it's calibration: in variable threat landscapes, the metabolic cost of vigilance is trivial compared to the catastrophic cost of surprise. Grove's paranoia mirrors ground squirrel evolution: the organizations that survive strategic inflection points are those that maintained costly surveillance when threats were invisible.