High-agency professionals talk about risk, but almost none have a clear sense of how much error their strategy can actually afford. The result is whiplash: some decisions get stuck in endless caution, others move recklessly fast, and nobody can explain why. This episode introduces the “Executive Error Budget”: a simple way to define how much failure is acceptable in different parts of your work so you can increase speed where it’s safe and slow down where it’s not. You’ll learn a three-move model—Classify, Cap, Calibrate. First, Classify: group your recurring decisions into categories like Explore (bets and experiments), Exploit (known engines), and Expose (reputation or regulatory surface). Second, Cap: assign an explicit error budget to each category—how often you’re willing to be wrong or miss the mark. Third, Calibrate: tune processes, AI usage, and review depth to match those caps. By the end, you’ll have a practical lens for aligning pace, scrutiny, and experimentation with real downside, not vague fear. Clarity is leverage; an error budget is how you quantify it around risk.