Why did Mike Hayes leave the Navy SEALs after commanding SEAL Team 2?

Mike Hayes said that about eight months into his 2012 Afghanistan deployment, Commodore Tim Szymanski ranked him first of six commanders and then pulled the report back to make him second, so that a commander without a combat command tour could also be promoted. Hayes told him on the spot he would leave after the deployment. He did not hold a retirement ceremony. His wife later called the first million dollars he earned his first Szymanski.

• Hayes had offers from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, then chose Bridgewater after Dave McCormick introduced him to Ray Dalio and Greg Jensen.
• Bridgewater told Hayes that two thirds of its senior hires fail.
• Hayes later worked at Cognizant and became chief operating officer of VMware, which was sold to Broadcom for $69 billion.

▸In their words

“But what Tim Szymanski was trying to do was get two of his guys promoted and moved upward instead of just one.” Mike Hayes · at 4:01:03 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Shawn Ryan Show (2026-10-22). Read the whole episode summary →

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