Most people compare business to chess.

It sounds clever: neat pieces, predictable moves, a brilliant strategist “seeing 10 moves ahead.”

But the problem is, chess is finite. You win, lose, or draw. Outcomes are immediate and visible. Once the king falls, it’s game over. That’s not business.

Business is Go.

In chess, the board narrows as pieces come off. In Go, the board expands with every stone placed. New territory opens, weak positions can become strong, and the real game is about influence and patience, not just brute force tactics.

That feels a lot closer to the reality of value creation:
• In chess, you know if you’re losing. In Go, you often don’t. You might think you’ve lost a corner, only to realize it gave you control of the center.
• In business, losing a deal today can feel like failure, until three years later, when you see you dodged a disaster.
• Passing on a “must-have” acquisition might look weak in the moment, but brilliant in hindsight.
• Taking the smaller win now can set up bigger plays later.

The examples are everywhere:
• Facebook passed on buying Twitter in 2008. At the time, it looked like a miss. Today, nobody at Menlo Park is losing sleep over it.
• SoftBank’s billions into WeWork looked like a dominating chess move, until the board flipped and the “loss” was unavoidable. The firms that passed looked smarter by doing nothing.
• Lego nearly collapsed in 2003 chasing distractions (theme parks, video games). The “loss” of cutting those businesses looked brutal in the moment, but it’s what saved the company.

PE firms love chess analogies because they make the work sound clean and decisive. The truth is most value creation is murkier. It’s incremental, emergent, and decided in the margins.

The best operators don’t play chess. They place stones.