The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus is credited with saying the only constant in life is change, but he obviously had no idea how clearly those words would resound in 2026. Nowadays, geopolitical situations, technology, trade, taxes, national policies and the broader economy sometimes seem to change by the hour.

The key for business leaders is being able to intelligently adapt to change, which is harder than it sounds. As CEO of Tempo Software, a strategic portfolio management platform that integrates with several popular SaaS apps, Vic Chynoweth is no stranger to adaptation. He talks to the executives who use Tempo Software about how they’re managing change, and has taken change in stride as he leads a software company. He told me about how he sees adaptability, and an excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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If you look at gas prices, inflation and consumer spending, it’s easy to see the economic impact of the Iran war. But if you look at the stock market, it’s almost as if there hasn’t been a war at all. Last week, major indexes closed at record-breaking highs for days: Analysts said last week’s markets showed the fastest turnaround in decades, and the Nasdaq ended Friday with its 13th consecutive day of growth—the longest streak since 2009. On Friday, a major part of the market rally was the Strait of Hormuz reopening to commercial ship traffic, but analysts cautioned that the reopening was tenuous and relied on the success of ongoing peace negotiations. The rally ended by Monday, after the U.S. seized an Iranian cargo ship that tried to make it through the U.S. blockade.

At the Semafor World Economy conference last week in Washington, D.C., two top officials who worked for past Democratic presidents—Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Joe Biden’s Senior Advisor for Energy and Investment Amos Hochstein—talked about the gap between markets and reality. Rubin, who worked at Goldman Sachs before joining the Clinton administration, said there have been other periods during which Wall Street was out of sync with Main Street. For two years leading up to the 1987 stock market crash, Rubin said, the markets were climbing—up until October 19, when the S&P 500 saw its largest ever one-day crash, falling 22.6%.

Hochstein added that traders have the perpetual goal of improving stock valuations. Therefore, if the president says the war’s about to end—something President Donald Trump has said since the first days of the war—taking him at his word is good for valuations. The long-term risks of the war and its impact on companies are never fully considered.

But that could also change rather quickly, Hochstein and Rubin said. If airports in Asia and Europe run out of jet fuel and have to cancel flights, kinks in the supply chain make........

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