Mike Hayes: The SEAL Commander Paying Off Mortgages for Gold Star Families

Written by: Dillon Kivo

The Man Who Listens First

In a lower Manhattan conference room, a man who once commanded a 2,000-person task force in Afghanistan and later helped close one of the largest software acquisitions in American

history listens before he speaks. The habit shows up everywhere Mike Hayes has worked over the last thirty years, from SEAL platoons to the White House Situation Room to corporate boardrooms at Bridgewater, VMware, and now Insight Partners. He builds things, and then he gets out of their way.

That habit runs through everything he has done: five careers, two bestselling books, and a foundation that pays off mortgages for Gold Star families and asks no one to clap.

 

A Grandfather’s Question

Hayes traces the foundation of his worldview to his grandfather, a Naval Academy graduate who survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor, later commanded a 35-plane bombing squadron at the age of 26 after his commanding officer was shot down, and finished his career as the professor of naval science at Holy Cross College.

What his grandfather pressed on him as a boy was not a career path. It was a question. “He would always say, ‘Who do you want to be?’” Hayes recalled.

The difference between what you do and who you are. That question shaped everything that came next.

 

Twenty Years in the SEAL Teams

Hayes graduated from Holy Cross in 1993 and entered Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training shortly after. His class started with 120 candidates. Nineteen graduated.

Over the next two decades, he served at SEAL Teams Four, Eight, and Ten, and ultimately as the Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Two. He deployed to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, earning the Bronze Star for valor in Iraq and a second Bronze Star for Afghanistan, where he commanded a 2,000-person Special Operations Task Force in the southeastern provinces.

One decision from that final command captures who he became as a leader.

A team of Army Green Berets under his command had confirmed intelligence on approximately ten Taliban fighters gathered in an isolated location at three in the morning. There were no civilians present. Hayes authorized the strike. Eight enemy fighters were killed.

Military policy at the time required a physical inspection of the site afterward to confirm no civilian casualties. The road leading in was lined with improvised explosive devices. Hayes refused to send his men.

“I will not take unnecessary risk with the lives of my men. The only road to that area is

unquestionably paved with IEDs, and the risk is not worth the outcome,” he said of the moment. “I could have been fired and sent home from the deployment as insubordinate. But in that moment, I couldn’t just blindly follow the policy. I had to act consistently with my values and make a judgment and subsequent decision that I was going to be able to live with.”

Higher headquarters instead ordered an Afghan partner unit down the road. The Afghan’s lead vehicles struck an IED. Several of their special forces were killed. Days later, Hayes flew to the outstation where the Green Beret team under his command was based. The room went silent when he walked in. One of the operators stood up, extended his hand, looked him in the eye, and thanked him softly and earnestly. “Sir, there aren’t many leaders who would have stood up for us and made the decision you did. Some of us in this room are undoubtedly here today because of your conviction and ability to make the harder decision.”

He has since called the lesson of that night simple: process matters. “Your own process and a values-based decision-making process can, no exaggeration, save people’s lives.”

 

The White House Years

Between SEAL commands, Hayes was selected as a White House Fellow in 2008, one of fourteen chosen from thousands of applicants. He served two years as Director of Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He helped negotiate the START Treaty in Moscow. He led the U.S. response to the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, the first major foreign policy crisis of the Obama administration.

The selection process itself revealed the same instinct his grandfather had instilled. His interviewer asked what he knew about the START Treaty.

“I know how to spell it,” Hayes replied.

He had no background in nuclear policy. What he had, he told the interviewer, was the ability to get the right people into a room, surface the best idea regardless of whose it was, and leave with the best possible outcome.

“I walk into any room and always assume that people in it are smarter than I am, faster than I am, and more agile than I am,” he said. “That way I can never be wrong.” He got the job.

 

The Private Sector

After retiring from the Navy, Hayes built a second career that mirrored the trajectory of his first.

He served as Chief of Staff and later Chief Operating Officer at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. From there, he moved to Cognizant Technology Solutions, where he sat on the executive leadership group of a Fortune 200 company and ran profit and loss for its biggest banking clients. He went on to become Chief Operating Officer at VMware, leading worldwide operations through the company’s ninety-four-billion-dollar acquisition by Broadcom. Today, he is a Managing Director at Insight Partners.

When asked how he moved between such different worlds, Hayes pushed back on the question itself.

“All high-stakes organizations and all high-stakes decisions are pretty much the same. The concrete knowledge you need is the easy part. Anyone can learn that. But the details don’t matter if you don’t have the right process, and if you do have the right process, you can go anywhere.”

 

The Books

Hayes is the author of two national bestsellers.

The first, Never Enough: A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility, and Meaning, was published in 2021 and built a framework around the three qualities of its subtitle. The second, Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose, released in September 2025, was praised by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as “a powerful blueprint for leading with integrity, resilience, and purpose.” Medal of Honor recipient Command Master Chief Britt Slabinski put it more simply, calling Hayes “an honor graduate of the ultimate school, the college of life and death.”

Mission Driven is structured in two halves. The Long Game asks the reader who they want to be and what kind of impact they want to leave behind. The Short Game translates that clarity into the choices that fill a calendar. Hayes wrote it for people at the threshold of a transition, whether they are twenty-three and starting a career or fifty-two and rebuilding one.

Asked what compelled him to write a second book, Hayes pointed to a debt.

“My grandparents and parents modeled the saying, ‘to those whom much has been given, much is expected,’” he said. “I’ve lived a lifetime of countless once-in-a-lifetime experiences, both good and bad, from helping amputate a teammate’s leg in Afghanistan to running hundreds of meetings in the White House Situation Room. I’m compelled to share.”

 

The 1162 Foundation

Every dollar of profit from both books flows to the 1162 Foundation, a 501(c)(3) Hayes founded to pay off mortgages for Gold Star widows and children, the families of service members killed in the line of duty. So do his speaking fees. By his own account, he has never personally earned a dollar from either book or any public appearance.

The name comes from a date. January 1, 1962, was the day President John F. Kennedy formally established the SEALs and the Green Berets. It is also, by tradition, a day of renewal.

To date, the Foundation has paid off thirteen mortgages for Gold Star widows. The recipients are not named publicly. There is no donor wall. There is no annual gala.

“I, like every SEAL of my era, have buried about 75 teammates,” Hayes said. “The opportunity to help families that pay that ultimate sacrifice every single day is indescribably meaningful.”

 

What He Builds

Look at the books, the foundation, and the career together, and a single idea runs through everything. Hayes builds things that keep going after he leaves.

A SEAL Team that runs without him. A nuclear treaty that holds under the next administration. A software company that scales after he is no longer in the boardroom. A mortgage quietly paid off for a widow he will never meet. A book that lands in the hands of a twenty-three-year-old at the exact moment they need it. None of these needs Mike Hayes in the room to do their work.

He is also the founding board member of the National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas, an institution built to keep the stories of more than 3,500 recipients alive for generations who will never get to shake their hands.

In a culture where many leaders spend their second act building a personal brand, Hayes is doing the opposite. He is not building a profile. He is putting things in place that other people will live inside of long after he is gone.

When asked once what he plans for the next chapter, his answer was characteristically direct.

“I will live every moment of my life here on the planet in service of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice and their families who continue to pay that ultimate sacrifice. My ultimate goal is for every American to recognize the sacrifices of others while being inspired to use their own gifts, abilities, and passions to help make this great nation greater every single day.”

Take him at his word. The pattern is consistent.

 

Connect with Mike Hayes

Instagram: @thisis.mikehayes
X (Twitter): @thisismikehayes
His books: Never Enough and Mission Driven, with all proceeds benefiting the 1162 Foundation.