Founders - #232 Alexander the Great

Starting point is 00:00:00 Alexander lived for 32 years and 8 months. He ruled for 12 years and 8 months. He was handsome, embraced hardship, and had the sharpest of minds. He was extremely brave and dedicated himself to both honor and to taking risks. He had an insatiable appetite for glory. Even when circumstances were unclear, he was highly skilled in seeing what needed to be done. When it came to drawing up, arming, and equipping his army, he was highly skilled in seeing what needed to be done. When it came to drawing up, arming, and equipping his army, he was highly knowledgeable. He was able to raise morale among his soldiers, to fill them with hopes, and through his own fearlessness to dispel their fear in times

Starting point is 00:00:37 of danger. At moments of uncertainty, he acted with the greatest courage. He kept his promises. It is true that passion or temper may have sometimes led Alexander astray, that to some degree he inclined towards arrogance. But Alexander was noble enough to repent for his errors. Whoever would reproach Alexander should first weigh up his own personality and achievements against Alexander's. It is my opinion that at that time, there was no nation, no city, not even one man who had not heard the name of Alexander. That is an excerpt from the last chapter of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Alexander the Great, the brief life and towering exploits of history's greatest conqueror, as told by his original biographers.

Starting point is 00:01:23 Okay, before I jump back into the book, I want to go back a few episodes ago on episode number 226. I read this book called Heroes. It's by this fantastic writer named Paul Johnson, who I just discovered and absolutely love, and I'm starting to devour his books. And he breaks down, there's like 30 heroes throughout history, Alexander being one of those heroes. He's got this fantastic chapter in the book.

Starting point is 00:01:43 It's called Earthshakers, and it's one chapter dedicated to Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. And I want to read a few quotes. I want to review some quotes from that book before we jump into this new Alexander biography. And so this is coming from the book Heroes. Again, you can see the episode and the book link on episode number 226. So first he says, it's talking about the introduction to this paragraph is comparing the traits that Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great both share. And it says, they carved out vast empires for themselves and hammered their names into the history of the earth. Each was brave, highly intelligent, almost horrifically self-assured, whose ambitions And then I just want to pull out a few sentences from just about Alexander. So it says, He was a man of formidable achievements.

Starting point is 00:02:48 He was highly creative. He woke up early. His diet was spare. He learned to drink heavily. Now that was, to my opinion, his downfall, which I'll get into more in his biography. He was skilled with the sword and the spear and an expert at all forms of arms drills. This was his trade from boyhood. He dressed to be seen in that flamboyant dress.

Starting point is 00:03:11 It goes into detail in the Alexander biography. He dressed like that even during battle, which seems a bit crazy because the fact that he's standing out makes him a greater target. He read Homer all of his life and he knew the passages by heart. It was to him a Bible. The book was a guide to heroic morality, a book of etiquette, and a true adventure story. He believed he was descended from the gods. This belief gave him a certain fatalism which made the risk of death unimportant to him. Alexander traveled over 20,000 miles, most of it on foot in difficult mountain and desert terrain.

Starting point is 00:03:47 How did he do it? The most important factor, as always with successful statesmen and men of action, was sheer willpower. He had supernatural self-confidence and persistence. There is no substitute for will. He invariably led from the front. He was wounded nine times. And finally, Alexander thought, decided, and above all, moved swiftly. He appreciated the importance of speed and the terrifying surprises speed made possible. He invented the Blitzkrieg. Okay, so now I want to jump into today's book. Reminder, Heroes is 226. Paul, the reason I recommend that book is

Starting point is 00:04:24 because I think it's like 200 pages the the episode i did before that episode 225 it was also written by paul johnson and it was a hundred and like 90 page biography of churchill and what i liked about it's paul writes in very short sentences there's no fluff it's very easy to understand to this book although the book i'm holding in my hand is only 150 pages it's it's more difficult reading and i'll tell you why because outside the introduction so the introduction is going to be written by this holding in my hand is only 150 pages. It's more difficult reading, and I'll tell you why. Because outside of the introduction, so the introduction is going to be written by this guy named Michael Wood. The rest of the text is biographies of Alexander that are 2,000 years old. Okay, so it says, the texts in this collection are drawn from three ancient biographies of

Starting point is 00:04:58 Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323 BC at the age of just 32, having conquered half of the known world. His is one of the stories in history that has had the power to captivate every generation. So that's a crazy statement. If you look up, okay, how long is generation? People say it's usually between 20 and 30 years. So let's take the middle point, 25 years. That means that's 92 generations since alexander died and we're still talking about him and he gets into why why would that be a little bit here says the internal fascination with alexander is not due only to his amazing events he set in motion but also to the tangle of history and the myth that surrounds him as the greeks said those whom the gods love die young then the book gives us a little bit of background into the environment that Alexander was born.

Starting point is 00:05:46 In addition to reading this book, I also re-listened, I've recommended this podcast a few bunch of times, but it's Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Addendum Feed. It's called Glimpses of Olympias. It's like a three and a half hour podcast, and the main character of the podcast is Alexander's mother. But it also talks about a lot about Alexander and about his father, and so we're going to get into that. The Macedonians were a rugged people. Alexander's father, Philip, had created the kingdom of Macedonia with a powerful army that crushed all opposition. And the reason I just referenced that episode is because it talks about how formidable, Dan talks about how formidable

Starting point is 00:06:18 Philip was. The accomplishments that Alexander achieved in his lifetime would have been impossible if he was born to a different father. So it talks about there's like a prehistory to Alexander's birth. And it's this constant war between the Persians and the Greeks. And so it says, and this is also the reason I'm reading this section to you, is because it gives you an insight to just how grand and a little bit crazy that Alexander was. 150 years earlier the persians had attempted to conquer greece only to be decisively defeated to the greeks the persian

Starting point is 00:06:49 war represented a latter-day heroic age they had never forgotten the desecration of their temples and there had long been long been talk of mounting a war of revenge okay so they're talking about something that happened 150 years earlier right alexander became ruler of Macedonia at the age of 19 after his father's assassination. Two years later, he set out on the great war of retribution against the Persians. So in the previous book, it talks about, hey, he had an unquenchable thirst for glory. He thought he was a descendant from the gods. He had no fear of death. Think about this. At 19 years old, you think it is your place in history to take revenge on something that

Starting point is 00:07:32 happened 150 years previous. That is unapologetically extreme. So from this point, when he starts this war with Persia until he dies, he is just going around conquering the entire world. So to give a brief overview, I'm going to go to the end. This is just the introduction, keep in mind. So it says, at this point, the heat, the monsoon rains, disease, and local resistance all began to erode morale. Alexander's army showed its disinclination to go any further. From then on, certainly with hindsight, his dream begins to unravel. We hear reports of drunkenness and get the impression of a lack of direction. The death of his friend and lover after a massive binge seems to have led

Starting point is 00:08:10 to fits of murderous fury and bouts of depression. Wounds and sickness had also taken no doubt taken their toll. And in 323, Alexander died in Babylon, probably from medical complications exacerbated by alcoholism, although there were persistent rumors that he had been poisoned by disenchanted members of his court. Those are the bare bones of the story. It was one of the great episodes of history of the world, in the history of the world, an extraordinary tale of bravery and cruelty, endurance and excess, chivalry and greed, a journey of 10 years and 20,000 miles. The empire broke up rapidly after Alexander's death. Then it goes into the fact that he was famous in his own day right after and then he as he continues to be really famous today. So it says

Starting point is 00:08:50 his legend spread to every corner of the old world. Alexander appears in the Bible. He appears in the Quran. There are over 200 different Alexander epics and poems in medieval European languages alone. There's an Indian legend about Alexander that said he had found the speaking tree, which had foretold his destiny, to die young but win eternal glory. And then before I continue in the introduction, I want to go back to that one paragraph where it talks about he starts binge drinking, becomes alcoholic. I think one of the benefits of reading biographies is that you see all these very smart and formidable people make mistakes and struggle. And one thing that you notice is the same extreme traits that allow them to achieve abnormal or unusual success can also

Starting point is 00:09:35 cause their downfall. And so the lesson I always take away from this is these personality types, it's very hard. There's almost no such thing as moderation to them. I always think back to that Edwin Land quote where he's like, there's something they don't teach at Harvard Business School, and it's if anything's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess. And so I think Charlie Munger has the right idea on this. It's just you have to understand you're a highly driven, somewhat crazy person to pursue. I think almost all entrepreneurs, that's why this thing is called the misfit feed, right? We're just not normal people.

Starting point is 00:10:02 And so entrepreneurship is a vehicle to channel all this energy into something positive. But Charlie Munger makes the point that a large part of succeeding life is just avoiding bad habits. And there's a number of quotes he has about this, but one specifically about alcohol to relate it back to what we're learning about Alexander right now. He talks about, this is a quote from Charlie Munger. He says, the four closest friends of my youth were highly intelligent, ethical, humorous types. They were favored in person and background. Two are long dead with alcohol, a contributing factor. And a third is a living alcoholic. If you call that a living. And so you go back and you really think about what how he started off this this thought.

Starting point is 00:10:41 He brought up the point because you say, oh, this alcohol person's you know just undisciplined not very intelligent he let they let this substance destroy their lives but charlie starts out that sentence that paragraph with they were highly intelligent and that ties back to what you and i are doing the fact that we're reading biographies we're learning from biographies constantly you you'll see this over and over again okay this is a smart driven formidable person that made a mistake it's silly to think that i won't do the same thing so i need to learn from their experience i want to avoid i do not want to die young or have my hopes and dreams dashed because i couldn't stop drinking or being addicted to drugs okay so let's go back to the book i the the guy writing the introduction this guy named Michael Wood, he is at what he is doing while he's writing the introduction.

Starting point is 00:11:27 He's retracing Alexander's steps through like literally where he goes. Right. So he's trying to follow this path. It's like 20,000 mile path. And he's reading these three biographies. He has the three biographies with him and the crazy terrain and the terrible weather and all the stuff that Alexander had to endure. He talks about that here. So he's giving us insights into Alexander the Great. And I want to combine something that Michael writes here with a discussion I just had with a founder and investor who listens to this podcast. So he says, what we also gain on the ground, and especially from his night marches at high altitude in the pitch dark, was of course an insight into Alexander's character. The implacable drive, remorseless, unstoppable, his incredible mental energy and almost excessive

Starting point is 00:12:15 tolerance of fatigue. What one of his biographers calls his pathos, his desire to win and excel, his drive. And so I double underline that one section where it says almost excessive tolerance of fatigue. And so I get to this section, I was like, wait a minute, that's a really interesting trait to have. And I think it should be combined with another trait that I just learned about. So there's a founder and investor named Seth who listens to this podcast. I've talked to him before. He happened to be in town. We wound up meeting up and just discussing all kinds of ideas about entrepreneurship for a few hours. And he was telling me about one of the most formidable entrepreneurs that's part of his portfolio and the way this guy thinks and some traits he has. And Seth said something. And after

Starting point is 00:12:56 he said it, I said, hold up. I had to pull out my phone. I was like, I got to write that down. I cannot forget what you just said. And he said that this founder had an intolerance for slowness. So the importance of speed comes up over and over again in these biographies. Right. But what if like now we're where we are in this section of the book? The renoir of myself is we should combine an excessive tolerance of fatigue with an intolerance of slowness. And the reason I think that came to mind when I was reading this is because I think Alexander had both of those traits. He prioritized speed over and over again. There's some times where he's getting more resistance, like some, as he goes around all these conquests, some people just fold or, you know, he moves fast, but he kind of runs over the opposition rather quickly.

Starting point is 00:13:37 But there's some times when he's pushed back and he's got to get creative or find another way in. And you, there's a discussion was like oh well maybe instead of spending an extra day or two here maybe I should just move on to something to another city that I could conquer faster and so then the author continues here this is going to remind me one of my favorite things become like a almost like a maxim or something I repeat myself repeat to myself over and over again when it's inevitable that you're going to come into some form of discomfort in your work, right? And it's the fact that what the founder of Four Seasons, Izzy Sharp said, and he said, the excellence is the

Starting point is 00:14:10 capacity to take pain. And so that is a main theme in this book. And Alexander specifically says that over and over again, that all the things that you want in life are on the other side of difficulty and discomfort. And so his point to his troops is like, therefore it's not something to avoid, it's something to embrace. And so it says, nothing put him off. In spite of everything, Alexander just kept coming on and on. The freezing cold and the starvation made it a tremendous task, but they could not stop him. And in the end, his enemies were struck with fear and amazement

Starting point is 00:14:41 at the speed of his advance. And so the introduction ends with Michael getting to the end of Alexander's journey. So it says, when our own journey in Alexander's footsteps was over, I remember sitting in the sweltering little port on the edge of the forbidding Makran Desert, which Alexander crossed on his desperate return from India. As a wind hot as an oven swept in over the fiery gravel landscapes and sand dunes of the desert, I turned to Arian's last page. So this is one of the, his, one of the biographies that's quoted heavily in this book. And this guy's writing 2000 years ago. And this

Starting point is 00:15:18 is what he says. Anyone who belittles Alexander has no right to do so on the evidence. It is my Okay, so from here on in, in the book, they take these three ancient texts and they organize them and build a unique narrative, the combination of these texts. And they do that because some biographers are very negative about Alexander, some are very positive. A lot of the text is details about specific battles, stuff like that. I'm not going to talk about that at all. I'm interested in who he was as a person, the traits that he had that we could use in our own work. And then if he has like a useful idea or something like that, I pulled that out. And so we're in the section about his early life. He's about a teenager and it just goes in chronological order from here.

Starting point is 00:16:03 So it says, even when he was still a boy, he gave plenty of evidence of his powers of self-control. His passionate desire for fame implanted in him a pride and a grandeur of a vision which went far beyond his years. And so before I read this section, I'm going to read you my note, which is just a summary of the section. I think hearing it beforehand will help you. It says he was disciplined. He had an intense desire for fame and glory. He desires useful information for revenge on Persia. He is 16, around 16 years old, with the section I'm about to read to you. He wanted to row. This is a quote from a description of Teddy Roosevelt, who also is very similar to Alexander in that they both wanted they wanted to struggle, and they had – they also forced themselves. They had internal discipline, but they had external forces of discipline

Starting point is 00:16:49 as a way to make sure they can make themselves do what they want to do, if that makes sense. But the note I left myself after reading the section was the fact that there's a line in one of the biographies of Teddy Roosevelt that I read, and it says that Teddy wanted to row in a boat, right? Row over the roughest waters in the smallest boat in the hottest sun. He purposely put himself over and over and over again. I mean, that book, The River of Doubt I did on Teddy Roosevelt was a perfect example of that. He wanted struggle. He did not avoid discomfort. He ran towards it. And the sickness that he winds up and all the stuff that he goes through on the River of Doubt, winds up contributing to a relatively early death. I think he died when he was, what, 60 or 62, something like that.

Starting point is 00:17:30 That's Founders No. 175, if you don't know what I'm talking about. It's a fantastic book to read, by the way. The writing is amazing. The River of Doubt, I've been giving that as a gift to friends, and they've all loved the book, too. Okay, so let's go back to this section, what spawned all these notes I just made. So at this point in the story, his father's out conquering other places, and so he leaves his teenage son in charge. And it says,

Starting point is 00:17:53 On one occasion some ambassadors from the king of Persia arrived in Macedonia, and since Philip was absent, Alexander received them in his place. This is what I meant about he constantly sought out useful information. He talked freely with them and quite won them over, not only by the friendliness of his manner, but also because he did not trouble them with any childish or trivial inquiries. He questioned them about the distances they had traveled, the nature of their journey, and the character of their king, his experience in war, and the military strength and prowess of the Persians. Three years later, or thereabouts, maybe three

Starting point is 00:18:26 to five years later after this conversation, he's going to use that information. He's going to overthrow and attack them. And so while this is happening, Philip's having a lot of great victories. He's becoming more famous, more powerful, richer. Alexander does not like that because he desires for the, he wants the fame and glory for himself, right? Whenever he heard that Philip had captured some famous city or won an overwhelming victory alexander would show no pleasure at the news but he would declare to his friends my father will forestall me and everything there will be nothing great or spectacular for you and me to show the world he cared nothing for pleasure or wealth but only for deeds of valor and glory and this is why he believed

Starting point is 00:19:04 that the more he received from his father, the less would be left for him to conquer. And this is a crazy sentence. And so it says, so every success that was gained by Macedonia inspired in Alexander the dread that another opportunity for action had been squandered on his father. He had no desire to inherit a kingdom which offered him riches, lux he also had external forces of discipline. So it says a great number of nurses, pedagogues, and teachers were appointed to take part in his upbringing. So I had to look up, there's a bunch of words in this book that I came across. I had no idea what they meant. That's one of them. So it says a pedagogue is a teacher, especially a strict one. And so he

Starting point is 00:19:56 has this guy named Leonidas, who was one of his pedagogues. So it says they were all appointed to take part in his upbringing, but the man who supervised them all, meaning all his teachers, was Leonidas, who was a severe disciplinarian. So then Philip comes back, and there is a story. If you read it,

Starting point is 00:20:15 I've watched documentaries on Alexander before. This story that I'm about to tell you comes up over and over again. It's a story about Alexander breaking in a wild horse. And it's really, the reason I'm reading this to you is because the realization, over and over again. It's a story about Alexander breaking in a wild horse. And it's really the reason I'm reading this to you is because his, with the realization, he's going to do this right in front of his dad, the realization of who his son is or who his son could be by Philip. Because

Starting point is 00:20:35 again, Philip's not, he's very smart. Dan Carlin makes that point in that podcast. Like this is not a dumb person by any means. So it says, the king went down to watch this horse and came to the conclusion that the horse was too wild and quite unmanageable. So Philip orders the horse to be led away. But Alexander remarked, what a horse they are losing. And all because they don't know how to handle him or dare not to try. Philip asked him, are you finding fault with your elders because you think you know more than they do? Or can you manage a horse better? At least I can manage this

Starting point is 00:21:05 one better, retorted Alexander. So his father's like, okay, go ahead and try. And so they're watching them and he thinks to be very dangerous. He could get thrown off. He could be stomped, whatever the case is. I'm skipping over him breaking in the horse. We're going to get to the punchline here. At first, Alexander and his friends held their breath and looked on in the agony of suspense until they saw Alexander reach the end of his gallop, turn in full control and And so he learns something about his son. He's like, I cannot just bully him into just doing whatever I want him to do. I have to persuade. I have to persuade and I have to reason with them. Philip had noticed that his son was self-willed and that

Starting point is 00:21:49 while it was very difficult to influence him by force, he could easily be guided towards his duty by an appeal to reason. And he therefore made a point of trying to persuade the boy rather than giving firm orders. Besides this, he considered that the task of training and educating his son was too important to be entrusted to the ordinary run of teachers. Now, this is going to be a weird thought for you. So while I'm reading this, like a week or two ago, maybe longer, a listener sent me a podcast. It's the Knowledge Project episode with Marc Andreessen. It just came out.

Starting point is 00:22:18 And he said, listen to the last 10 minutes of this. It sounds exactly what you're doing. And in the last 10 minutes, Marc Andreessen is talking about, you know, he's read hundreds of biographies. He's a devotee of history and he talks about building mental models of great people. And some of these people are still alive. So he's like, I have this is Mark talking. Mark's like, I have a mental model of Mark Andreessen. I have a mental model of Elon Musk. I have a mental model of Peter Thiel. He has a mental model of all these people. And by reading about them, by listening to him speak him speak in some cases knowing them he's able to when he's presented with a decision he taught he has such an such an interesting way to put this he says he stress tests his ideas do like the scope of the

Starting point is 00:22:55 history of entrepreneurship and so that's why i think the listener said said hey listen to the last 10 minutes because it's like what we're doing in the podcast where he's able okay i'm presented a decision in my life in my business what would elon Musk say? What would Charlie Munger say? What would Edwin Land say? What would Steve Jobs say? And he has all these different mental models as a way to help him make sure that he's making the right decision, which obviously Mark's brilliant. I was like, of course, he's going to come up with that and say it explicitly, even if we're trying, we say so implicitly, right? That's exactly what's happening. But also, I listened to the whole episode, because anytime I get a chance to listen to Mark speak, I try to,

Starting point is 00:23:30 and he brings up the fact that, like, they're like, oh, he's asked the question of something, oh, like, how do you, you know, fix our broken educational system? And he's just like, you don't. Like, that system's never going to be fixed. There is no reform. Like, you have to build something new in its place. And it sounded like, to me, at least when I listened to this part two times so far, that he is a six-year-old child and that he wants some

Starting point is 00:23:51 form of like homeschooling or your own curriculum. And that's exactly what Philip realizes here. He says, listen, besides that, he considered the task of training and educating his son was too important to be entrusted to the ordinary run of teachers. And unfortunately, Mark goes into details about his theory on why this has occurred, but like that's the description of our education system. And so I think Mark's solution is very similar to Philip's solution, although as if Philip's solution is in the extreme, one of my favorite things I've ever learned about Alexander is the fact that his private tutor was Aristotle. That is crazy to me. So Philip sent for Aristotle, the most famous and learned of the philosophers of the time, and rewarded him with the generosity that his reputation deserved. And so the idea of like

Starting point is 00:24:35 setting up your son, your child or whatever with a private tutor, that's out of reach for the for most of humanity, right? But if you are rich, or if you are wealthy, like is there something better that you could actually spend your money on than the education of your child and there is like a very low cost almost even free version of this is if you can actually curate all the the abundant the abundant educational educational resources that the internet provides but there is something to be said about purchasing access to the greatest minds because there's weird examples that come up over and over again in these books so i think of dr Dr. Seuss as an example of this. Sidney Harmon, who I just did on episode number 229. Michael Bloomberg on episode 228. They're all, and there's a much more examples in the books,

Starting point is 00:25:13 but they talk about, they're like, I learned more from this one person in 10 minutes than I learned in the previous 10 years. And that sounds so crazy, but it's not. And you know it's not because people that don't know each other, lived in different times, worked in different industries, all talk about having an experience of being guided by somebody that has just a fundamental understanding of what they're trying to learn. And they can convey key insights in a very short amount of time. But I also had this experience too because a long time ago, so I went, I told this story before, but I was in the, when I was in college, I was in the pilot entrepreneurship program. So the very first year, this was like 15 years ago, something like that. No, maybe more. And you know, the last two years you're in this entrepreneurship program, there's like 300 people in the program. And a lot of it, like anybody else has told you, like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett talks about like

Starting point is 00:25:55 the quality of business schools. I don't know. But what struck me is the fact that there was a guy, he was an entrepreneur, he was donating a building. So I think he was going to donate, I think he was building a building at the time for like $3 or $5 million, some number like that. And he's like, I have one prerequisite attached to this money. And he's like, I want to talk to your entrepreneurship students before I give you the money. And so he gives like a 30, 40-minute talk, and then he just lets us light him up with as many questions as we want. And I learned more from that guy in one hour than I did in two years. And it was just basic, the common sense of an entrepreneur.

Starting point is 00:26:33 He started a company. His company was, I think it was called Tires Plus. It's like these places where they'll change your tires, but they do, like, basic stuff like oil changes. And, you know, they're not, like, full mechanics full mechanics, but they'll do like basic maintenance on your car. And he told us the entire story of like how he got the idea, how he expanded, how he picked the right locations, just very useful information. And then he told us a story about the way he sold the company is he wind up being the largest customer for Bridgestone Tires. And so Bridgestone was this giant company.

Starting point is 00:27:04 And now because his, his other, because this guy's, I don't remember his name, his, um, because his company grew so large with such a large percentage of the tires that Bridgestone sold to retail businesses, they had to buy them. They're like, if this guy chooses to say, what if he goes with, you know, I don't know, other tire brand, Toyo tire, whatever, like that, that's too big. We have to, we have to buy your company. And so he was forbidden to tell us like the amount, but he said, Hey, you know, hypothetically, this is what we're doing in sales. And you know, in this industry, a good purchase price would be whatever 7% or 10% or whatever it was, but I remember doing the math and was something like

Starting point is 00:27:35 40 or 50 or $60 million, something like that. So anyways, I guess the point is that learning and education is nonlinear. And so it's very difficult to design a system where you can actually optimize for the benefit of you know the mass and i just highly recommend listening to to that podcast not only his mark andreason's um thoughts on building mental models which comes towards the end but also his his opinions on the education system i thought were interesting and useful let's go back to this so aristotle's now tutoring alexander it says it seems clear that alexander was instructed by teacher, not only in the principles of ethics and politics, but also those secret and more esoteric studies, which philosophers do not impart to the general run of students, but only by word of mouth to a select circle of the initiated. Some years later,

Starting point is 00:28:22 now this is very fascinating. I'm never going to get through this book if I keep taking these tangents, but this is very fascinating. So it's saying, okay, Aristotle has like one set of curriculum that's publicly available for everybody else. And then he's got some other stuff that's only for a select circle. So this is very similar to why, how many autobiographies have you and I gone over on this podcast? A ton. I don't know, a hundred. It's a large number. They're not writing, no entrepreneur writes a biography in the middle of his career, his or her career. They wait till the end. And so they're teaching, you know, the main theme of this podcast is the fact that the

Starting point is 00:28:55 best founders thought of themselves as teachers. Go back to that founder of Costco, Jim Sinegal. He's like, you're the leader of the company. That means you should spend, if you're not spending, as the leader of the company, as the founder, as the CEO, if you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job. It's insane how many of these founders talk about themselves as teachers. But they're only teaching people inside their company. You have to wait. You can download Sam Walton's best ideas for building a company, Phil Knight's, all these other people's best ideas.

Starting point is 00:29:24 But you have to wait until their end. They write these books either when they know they're dying, Ingvar Kamprad, the list goes on and on, the founder of IKEA. They wait till they're older. They're like 70, 80, whatever the case is. We just did this with Sidney Harmon, right? He was 80 years old when he wrote that book that I just did the Dunkin' Donuts guy. He waited till he's 84. He was offered to write a biography back in the 1960s. He's like, nope, I'm going to wait until I'm 84. And Steve Jobs picked up on this. This is a quote that I repeat over and over again to think about this

Starting point is 00:29:54 because there's a lot of people saying like, a lot of people publicize and help use information to other entrepreneurs, but you know that they're saving their best stuff for themselves because they don't want to. And why? Because they don't want to produce more competitors. And steve was learning this because he's doing this extensive when he when he's trying to help grow pixar he's in this extensive study of the movie industry of animation and so he talks about this he says listen this is a direct quote from steve i love

Starting point is 00:30:18 this guy i miss him so much you can't go to the library and find a book titled the business model for animation steve explained the reason you can't is because there's only been one company disney that's ever done it well and they're not interested in telling the world how lucrative it is and so we see very that's that's just in my opinion constant of human nature, we see Aristotle doing the same thing 2,300 years ago. He's like, listen, I got, you know, I got a lot of stuff that I can teach you. The more esoteric, right? This is only going to be kept with us. And so obviously he's being paid very handsomely, as he should be. I think teachers should, I think teachers should make a ton of money. And I think with the internet, you're clearly seeing the best teachers in the world will make,

Starting point is 00:31:04 I think it was Chamath Palihapitiya, he said that teachers, in his opinion, teachers are going to be paid like athletes, that you're going to see teachers making $30 million a year, whatever the case is, over the internet, obviously. So it says, esoteric studies with philosophies that do not impart to the general run of students, but only by word of mouth to a select circle of the initiated. Some years later, Alexander learned that Aristotle had published some of these conversations they're having, right, that deal with these esoteric matters, and he wrote to him in blunt language and took him to task for the sake of the prestige of philosophy. This was the text of his letter, so Aristotle's pissed. He's like, you're telling other people what you told me. Shut up.

Starting point is 00:31:44 Aristotle, greetings. You have not done well to write down and publish those doctrines you taught me by word of mouth. What advantage? And this is why. This is wild. Because what Alexander's picking up here is exactly what Steve Jobs realized about Disney. He's like, you're telling everybody what you taught me. And then why is he mad about that?

Starting point is 00:32:03 This is what Alexander says. everybody what you taught me and then why is he mad about that that's what alexander says what advantage shall i have over other men if these theories in which i've been trained are to be made common property i would rather excel the rest of mankind in my knowledge of what is best than in the extent of my power farewell so that's a play way of saying shut up right um this another example and this i'm still on the same page this is crazy how much um and that's a play way of saying shut up, right? There's another example. I'm still on the same page. This is crazy how much – and that's what I've realized about this book. It's like a feast and famine where there's some pages where I can't stop highlighting and taking notes, and then there's an entire chapter where I have nothing. It's not an easy book to read by any means.

Starting point is 00:32:38 Even though I thought when I picked it up, it was like, oh, 150-page – what I thought of was like, oh, it's a 150-page biography of Alexander. This is going to be like that 190-page biography of Churchill. It's really not. They're going to make you work for it. So this is really a reminder. It's like you got to read all the time. And so before I read this to you, I want to read, you know, let's go back to Grandpa Charlie. What did Grandpa Charlie Munger tell us? In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject area who didn't read all the time. None. Zero. And the great thing is I think now with the invention of podcasts and audiobooks,

Starting point is 00:33:09 the fact that you can read. I was just listening to an interview with Tim Urban, the writer of Wait But Why. And, you know, that guy reads a ton and does a lot of research for his blog. But he's like audiobooks has been the best invention for him because he's like, I'll go to the store. Right. I have to walk to the store, get my groceries, come back. I just read, you know, 30 minutes. If you read 30, he does this math where if you can read 30 minutes a day, you'll read a thousand books in 20 years or 40 years. I forgot. Basically over your lifetime, you can read a thousand books, right? And he's like, I'm standing in line at TSA. I'm reading. I'm on this boring plane ride. I'm reading.

Starting point is 00:33:44 And his method is audiobooks. But again, physical books, whatever, you just have to read all the time. Alexander was also devoted by nature to all kinds of learning and was a lover of books. He regarded the Iliad as a handbook of the art of war and took it with him on his campaign. This is crazy. The copy of the Iliad he had was annotated by Aristotle. This became known as his casket copy. I'm not sure what that means. And which he always kept under his pillow with his dagger.

Starting point is 00:34:13 When his campaigns had taken him far into the interior of Asia and he could find no more books, he ordered his treasurer to send him some. Send him some. Oh, and then it moves in a different direction. So we're now skipping over his love of reading into the fact that he was engaged in war even who is 16 years old this is something he's very happy because uh philip's out gone so they think oh philip's not there we're going to take over you know we're going to attack and we're going to make quick work of his son that just doesn't happen although he was only 16 weeks 16 years old he defeated the medea who had risen in revolt captured their city who had risen in revolt, captured their city,

Starting point is 00:34:46 who had risen in revolt. Alexander captured their city, drove out its inhabitants and established a colony of Greeks assembled from various regions and named it Alexanderopolis. Because of these achievements, Philip became extravagantly fond of his son, so much so that he took pleasure in hearing the Macedonians speak of Alexander as the king and Philip as their general. Not long after this, Philip is assassinated. There is some rumors, and Dan Carlin goes into way more detail on his podcast. I'd highly recommend you listen to it if you're interested in this kind of stuff. No one really knows who assassinated Philip. It was who actually stabbed him. But there is rumors that Alexander and his mother were the

Starting point is 00:35:27 ones that initiated the plot and so in that podcast Dan Carlin talks about he's like this is how and he always talks about the ancient world is so foreign and bizarre to the world we live in so it's hard to understand that so he used the analogy of the JFK assassination and so Dan uses this metaphor he's like listen to understand how bizarre this sequence of events is, imagine if Jackie is the one that convinced Lee Harvey Oswald to kill her husband. And then the added twist is that Lee Harvey Oswald and JFK were lovers. And so Dan's point was like, that is what many people believe happened here. Okay, so at the beginning of all these chapters they have like a brief description of what is about to occur in this chapter i'm just

Starting point is 00:36:09 going to give you this overview so it says as the new king of macedonia the 20 year old alexander immediately sets out re-establishing his father's control over greece he does encounter resistance notably from one uh from one one of the key powers in greece which he swiftly defeats destroying the city and selling almost all the surviving citizens into slavery. Athens is then quick to surrender. Only Sparta, the major remaining power in Greece, maintains its independence from Macedonia rule. So then it goes into detail. Like I said earlier, I'm skipping over the battle parts. We're really just trying to figure out who Alexander was, right, as a person and so he winds up stumbling like he's going around and conquering all these areas right but there's also many examples in the book where he wants he seeks out interesting people and he wants

Starting point is 00:36:53 to meet them and so there's a bunch of interesting supporting characters and so one of these is this guy named diogenes which is he's one of the founders of the cynic philosophy and so i want to read this section to you because i love that, like, there's all these like weird independent characters and all these biographies and some of them like just stick in my mind. So this guy, for whatever reason, when we're reading this section, there's something that happens

Starting point is 00:37:12 in George Lucas's biography that popped my mind. So it says, many of the Greek statesmen and philosophers visited Alexander to offer their congratulations and he had hoped that Diogenes would do the same. Right? So come and, you come and give me adulation. He's not going to do that, right? So it says, however, since he paid no attention,

Starting point is 00:37:31 whatever, to Alexander, he continued to live at leisure in the suburb of Corinth. So you have all these people who are keeping track of these current events, going and trying to seek favor with Alexander. This guy's off in the cut, just living his own life. He he's kind of ignoring he's almost like muted the world is the way to think about that and so he's like i'm not like i'm not even paying attention to alexander and so it says so this piqued alexander's interest alexander went in person to see him and found him basking in

Starting point is 00:37:58 the sun so there's a the legend here is like he stumbles upon him he's just sunbathing naked and it says uh when when he saw so many approaching him, Diogenes raised himself a little on the elbow and fixed his gaze upon Alexander. The king greeted him and inquired whether he could do anything for him. Yes, replied the philosopher. You can stand a little to one side out of my son. Alexander is said to have been greatly impressed by this answer and full of admiration for the hauteur and independence of mind of a man who could look down on him with such condescension.

Starting point is 00:38:34 That is a weird response, right? So much so that he remarked to his followers as they were leaving, because they were laughing at the fact that and mocking the philosopher, right? Alexander had a different point of view. He says, you may say what you like, but if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes. And so one of my favorite books that I've ever read for the podcast, I think it's episode number 35. It's George Lucas's biography. I will definitely reread it in the future and make another podcast on it. And what I found really fascinating about that is that there's a collection when they're in their early 30s right this is our maybe the late 20s so there's a group that is not yet famous that will be famous and they all know each other and hang out so you got George Lucas Francis Ford Coppola Steven Spielberg Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma and so the book

Starting point is 00:39:20 covers like who these people were before they became famous and successful with Star Wars and Jaws and The Godfather and all these other movies, right? And so what a lot of them did not like at the time, I think it was in the early 60s. I can't remember the time, the decade exactly. But they didn't like the standard way that the movie industry was set up. And they were looking for a different path in. And so this is – I'm going to relate this to, you know, just have this guy that is like these independent characters that are kind of they just set up their life the way they want to do it, regardless of how other people or other people tell them they should or the industry thinks you should. And I just find these people extremely admirable. I like these people just like Alexander, like Diogenes.

Starting point is 00:39:58 Right. John Cordy. And John Cordy is essentially like the blueprint, the business model and the modus operandi that George Lucas is going to copy and then take to an extreme level, right? And so it says, I'm going to quote from George Lucas's book for a minute. Sitting next to him was 31-year-old independent filmmaker from Northern California named John Cordy. And it says, while Cordy spoke eloquently on the topic at hand, it was when he digressed into the details of his filmmaking that Lucas really took an interest. This is the blueprint Lucas is going to follow. For the past three years, Cordy had been running his own filmmaking facility out of his barn at Stinson Beach, which is a small town just north of San Francisco. George Lucas winds up setting up

Starting point is 00:40:37 shop in a similar area because he's like, I don't want to be in LA. Everybody's telling me I have to be in LA. I'm not going to do that. That's where he built Skywalker Ranch. So anyways, this is many years in the future. had cordy had privately raised a hundred thousand dollars for his movie by hitting up friends colleagues and even actors for the money he shot the movie locally then edited it on his own equipment this is all the stuff that george lucas is going to do at the film's premiere at the museum of modern art in san francisco it received a lengthy standing ovation and hollywood executives fell over themselves scrambling to distribute it and distribute the movie and recruit Cordy but now we see this fierce independence of mind in Cordy we just saw in Diogenes we see it in Henry Singleton we see it in Claude Shannon we see

Starting point is 00:41:15 this over and over again and so it says but Cordy was having none of it from what I saw of Hollywood they can keep it I would rather work for myself in Hollywood you have a producer breathing down And so Coppola and Lucas are realizing this guy nails it. This is exactly what we should do. Coppola and Lucas had seen the future in cordy's barn on the beach they were going to build their own cinematic community somewhere if you can do it he had told cordy enthusiastically we can and this is the punchline this was exactly what they had in mind for themselves cordy inspired us both he was a real innovator and so there's no books written on john cordy you know there's no biographies most people don't know he is But if you read a ton of biographies, you come across these just independent, really interesting characters that can then influence your thinking.

Starting point is 00:42:11 Just like Cordy influenced George Lucas' and Francis Ford Coppola's thinking, he's definitely like half the book about this fight that he's having with trying to revenge, what's it called? Persia, like the 150, the battle of Persia that happened 150 years before he was born. Imagine being the leader of Persia and it's like, wait a minute, guy, you're seeking retribution for something that happened, you know, 125 years before I was born. So he's going to wind up overthrowing Darius. This part's just incredible because it, this is what I know to know that myself. This is incredible. Read this part slowly. The Persian king doesn't want to hear the truth. And so there's been all these like skirmishes, but Darius knows that Alexander is coming for him, right? And so Darius is asking advice from this guy who has no reason to lie to him because he doesn't like Alexander.

Starting point is 00:43:05 So it says Darius turned to the Athenian. His name's, I don't know how to pronounce this, so I'm going to call him Chad. He turned to the Athenian Chad, who was an experienced soldier with a grudge against Alexander because of his exile. It was on Alexander's command that he had been expelled from Athens. And he proceeded to ask whether in his opinion, so Darius is asking Chad his opinion, if he was well enough equipped to crush his enemy. With no thought for his own circumstances and the vanity of royalty, Chad answered, perhaps you do not want to be told the truth. And yet, if I do not tell it to you now, it will serve no purpose to admit it at another time.

Starting point is 00:43:42 This magnificent army, this conglomeration of so many nations can strike terror into your neighbors. He's describing Darius's army. It gleams with purple and gold. It is resplendent with armor and an opulence so great that those who have not witnessed it simply cannot conceive of it. Now he's going to compare what you have, Darius, to what Alexander has. This is not going to go well you have darius to what alexander has this is not going to go well for you darius the macedonian line is certainly coarse and inelegant so let's think about that yes another weird thought for you i was struck i cannot stop thinking about the dunkin donuts book and the fact that the arrogance of his son. You have, so you have, what is Chad telling us?

Starting point is 00:44:27 Like you're, you know, your army's great in number. You're wearing fancy clothes. You have gold and all this other stuff. And you're going up against this Macedonia. And they're coarse and they're inelegant, right? But they're skilled. That's the difference here. So you have this 25-year-old son of the Dunkin' Donuts founder who grew up in a wealthy house, right, because his dad, his dad, if you haven't listened to that episode, the guy that founded Dunkin' Donuts, writes the book when he's 84 years old.

Starting point is 00:44:53 Okay? He's been working full-time since he was 14. He has an eighth-grade education, had to drop out because his dad's business in the Depression went under. And so he was forced to learn how to make money from a young age. Every dollar he made had to, in in turn be given to support his family. So over the course, so you take that set of skills that he started to acquire at 14. Now fast forward, he's 50 years old. He's been making a ton of money for a long time because he's a really good entrepreneur.

Starting point is 00:45:19 But he only has a ninth grade education. His son grows up in an environment opposite that he grew up in, right? He grows up, his dad's making money. His dad has enough prestige that he can get into Harvard Business School. Then he comes out at 25 years old, right? So now you have a 25-year-old with a Harvard Business School education and no experience at all making money. And then you have a 50-year-old entrepreneur with almost 40 years of experience. He's built two amazing businesses. One of them went public, right, which is Dunkin Donuts. That 50 year old that has all that experience is not twice as smart as a 25 year

Starting point is 00:45:51 old with no experience. He's a thousand times in terms of entrepreneurship, right? He's a thousand times smarter. And then you, you, we are proceed as you read that book, you're proceeded to just hear the story of this arrogant kid being advised by his dad right your dad loves you more than anybody else in the world he has all this experience he's telling you hey don't do that this is a bad idea this is why why you shouldn't do that but he defers to his son he's like you shouldn't do this his dad he goes okay thanks or his son goes thanks for the advice dad i'm going to do the opposite and then he proceeds to run the company into the ground where they literally had to find a white knight to be

Starting point is 00:46:26 bought out or else duncan does is going to have a hostile takeover and his son was like he even said it in quotation marks that you're you're you you are you and your um dad you and your like crew like your your executives are not sophisticated that that is a line in the book that is insane and he said it's not sophisticated because you don't do reports and sit in meetings like we do. It's insane. You can't believe that this is true. You just cannot. Like, you're reading that book.

Starting point is 00:46:50 You're like, what the hell? And I think if you listen to that podcast, I start dropping F-bombs because I'm so incredulous at the arrogance, the undeserved arrogance that's coming from his son and the focus on the absolute wrong thing. So we're going to see that here. So it says, okay, you guys are great. You're in gold. Okay, that's nice. The Macedonian line is certainly coarse and inelegant, but it protects behind its shields and lances, immovable wedges of tough, densely packed soldiers. The Macedonians call it a phalanx, an infantry column that holds its ground.

Starting point is 00:47:23 They stand manned, next to man, arms interlocked with arms. They wait eagerly for their commander's signal, and they are trained to follow the standards and not break ranks. To a man, they obey their order. So what is he saying? You may think they're elegant, you may think they're coarse, but they're disciplined and they're skilled, and they're not going down without a fight and from top to bottom this organization is much more formidable than yours so says the common soldier is no less skilled than the officer and don't think what motivates them is desire for gold and silver this is exactly what the duncan donut says until now such strict discipline has been due to poverty's schooling. That is a crazy line. He's like, you guys have

Starting point is 00:48:07 been rich for generations. These guys grew up poor and their discipline is due to the school, the education that you learn from poverty. When they are tired, the earth is their bed. They don't need the fancy tents that you guys have and all the gold and all this other stuff. They're in the fancy food. They are satisfied with food. They can prepare while they work. Their sleeping time is of shorter duration than the darkness. So this goes on for some while. Imagine if you're some spoiled rich king, you're not going to like people talking to you like that, right? Which is exactly the opposite of what we just learned from Alexander. Dionysus or whatever the guy's name is, I can't pronounce it. It was like, get out of my son. And he thought it was funny.

Starting point is 00:48:47 What you need is strength like theirs. You must look for help in the land that produced those men. He's talking about the unique environment. Molded them like a sculpture. Send off that silver and gold that you have and hire soldiers. That is a hell. He's like, you don't even have soldiers. You have an army.

Starting point is 00:49:02 You don't have soldiers. And it says Darius had Chad dragged off and executed. And he did this at a time when Chad was making very useful recommendations. And so the lesson there that's tied to us, like we're obviously not going to be conquering the world, but I can't help but think of what the founder of UPS told us. He's like, I don't want to get my information from my executives. Their incentives is to give me good information, is to flatter me so they can make more money. He's like, when I'm driving around the city and I see a UPS driver, a truck, I immediately stop and I get out and I talk to the driver because that driver is the end point. He's the connection to my customer. He's the foundation

Starting point is 00:49:38 upon which my empire rests. He will tell me the truth, the day-to-day of what do we need to do better? What are we doing well? What can we improve at? My executives will not. So you need people that will tell you the truth. I would say the supporting character in this story is difficulty. He talks about the importance of difficulty over and over again. He seeks things out. And I'm just going to give you one example.

Starting point is 00:50:05 The fact that it is difficult makes it more important. That is something Alexander believed. Once he arrived to the city, Alexander gave orders for the siege to be put together, only to be advised by his engineers that the steepness of the hill would make it impossible to take the city by force. Alexander believed that these difficulties actually made the capture of the city even more essential, as such unexpected success would strike terrible fear into his enemies, whereas failure would bring disgrace upon him. And then, you know, some of his, not some, almost all of his behavior is unapologetically extreme

Starting point is 00:50:38 because he believed, and like he was a descendant of the god, he believed his fate was to rule the entire world so you know you're this is why he's talked about you know 2500 years later whatever the case is it the scope of his ambition is just it's limitless so he's talking to the priest he says the oldest of the priests um alexander proceeded to ask whether he was fated to rule over the entire world the priest answered that he was going to rule over all of the earth. And that he added, the priest added, that Alexander would remain undefeated until he went to join the gods.

Starting point is 00:51:14 And then this is a hell of a line. A hell of a line considering that this was written 2,000 years ago. And it's a description of Alexander, but really of human nature. Fortune generally makes those whom she has compelled to put their trust in her alone more thirsty for glory than capable of coping with it. Alexander was more thirsty for glory than capable of coping with it. I think the lesson for us there, like be careful what you wish for. Humans are terrible at predicting what they actually want.

Starting point is 00:51:51 Another trait for you here, it's interesting because my wife asked me this morning, she's like, what did you learn about Alexander the Great? The first thing that came out of my mouth was like, he had a high tolerance for pain. And again, that was not, I didn't have that prepared. Just that's what stumbled out immediately. This is an example of that.

Starting point is 00:52:06 For besides all of his other hardships, he had recently been wounded below the knee by an arrow, which had splintered his shinbone. On another occasion, he had received such a violent blow on the neck from a stone that his vision became clouded. In spite of all this, he continued to expose himself unsparingly to danger. He had crossed the river, routed some other tribe, and pursued them for 12 miles, even though all the while he was suffering from an attack of dysentery. And so this is very close to the end of the book. This is his apex.

Starting point is 00:52:37 This is a description of the chapter before you read the chapter. So it says, yet even though Alexander is advised that these lands are rich, he's in India at the point, he's trying to overtake India. Yet even though Alexander is advised that these lands are rich and that the victory should be within his grasp, his men are exhausted. Their spirits are broken at last by hardships of the monsoon. Led by an old and respected general, they refuse to continue. Having come so close to complete domination of India, Alexander is forced to give in to his men and begins his retreat. So that is as far as he gets. That's his apex shortly after is when he's going to die. There's a line in this book that Jeff Bezos would be extremely proud of. Terrified by the

Starting point is 00:53:14 unbelievable boldness of the Macedonians. So bold. I can't tell you how many times he uses that. If you've read Jeff's shareholder letters, it might be his favorite word. So he's having this great war with this another, like, almost like the version of Alexander if he was born in India. And it's just remarkable. Look at how Alexander treats and respects genuine excellence, even in an enemy. This part was really surprising to me. This guy is a hell of a there's all these kinds of crazy stories in the book but this guy's fighting the guy that alexander's about to defeat has like an army of elephant he shows up to battle with like 85 elephants and like 30,000

Starting point is 00:53:52 troops and all kinds of crazy things and alexander's like just defeated him it looks like the guy's gonna die so alexander's talking to him he's like why didn't you give up essentially what he's saying he's like you know who i am you've heard my now he's a decade into his conquest like why would you even attempt to fight me and then die for this and so let's pick up this conversation which is just remarkable what folly forced you knowing as you did the fame of my achievements to try the fortunes of war since you ask replied porous i shall answer you with the frankness your inquiry has granted me. And again, there's always another you. You know, you're not the only.

Starting point is 00:54:31 I love, let me go back to Tim Urban. One of my favorite ideas I learned from him is like, he's like, when I'm writing a post, I just envision 100,000 other Tims. He's like, there's people on me that are very, we have similar traits. We're interested in the same things. And so what Alexander realizes, like, this is another me. And so Porus says, I shall answer you with a frankness your inquiry has granted me. I did not think there was anyone stronger than I. Though I knew my own strength, I had not yet tested yours.

Starting point is 00:54:59 And now the outcome of the war has shown you to be the stronger. Alexander questioned him further, asking his opinion on what his victor should do with him. What this day tells you to do, said Porus, the day on which you have discovered how transitory good fortune is. Porus's advice did him more good than pleas would have done. His greatness of spirit, meaning Porus's, was not cowed or broken even in adversity so alexander's like this is another me and when when two people realize okay this is another me i always use the example i've gone back and like i you know i was obsessed with michael jordan when i was a kid and i've read a lot about kobe ryan listen to him speak because his mindset right i wasn't even a laker fan but i really enjoyed his mindset and he realized that too because there's a ton of examples when, you know, Jordan becomes an older brother to Kobe because he realizes, like, Kobe won't back down.

Starting point is 00:55:51 So Phil Jackson, there's two stories I want to tell you real quick. Phil Jackson talks about, hey, he's currently coaching Kobe at this time. He's like, hey, Mike will come by to practice, like, if you got free time. And so he's talking, like, he's, you know, kind of trying to test Kobe Bryant. He's like, oh, you know, you can't guard me. They're talking back and forth. And, you know, at this time, people were afraid of Michael. And Kobe's like, you can't guard me.

Starting point is 00:56:13 And so they go back and forth. And he's like, well, I got shoes. We can do this right now. And so they wind up leaving. Michael walks away with Ahmad Rashad, who was also there. And he turns to him. He goes, man, I love that dude. That dude is

Starting point is 00:56:25 a warrior and Ahmad is now interviewing Kobe this is what I'm watching and Ahmad's like how old were you when that happened and Kobe's like 21 and then later on Kobe tells a story he comes in the league I think he's like 17 the first time he plays against Jordan he's like 18 or 19 years old something like that and you know idolized Jordan growing up copied his moves studied him and so his teammate right before the game is like, hey, you want some advice? He's like, yeah, what's that? He goes, don't look him in the eye. And Kobe's like, what? Excuse me?

Starting point is 00:56:52 And so Kobe tells the story. He's like, well, my teammate didn't realize. He's like, I'm that too. You can't look me in the eye either. And that mutual admiration, even if they're competitors, is like, okay, this guy thinks like me. This is very similar to me. It usually engenders respect. And it's really the only way to deal with a formidable

Starting point is 00:57:08 individual because a lot of these formidable individuals if we've seen time and time again in these books they'll run over you if they think you're weak or you're going to give in like they strength respects strength you cannot and kobe realized like zyron will look at the guy in the eye you think i'm going to be able to beat him in the basketball court like that's ridiculous so let me tie this back to what Alexander does, because this is insane. He just ran over the guy, almost tried to kill him, and he's going to wind up recruiting him. He's like, I want you on my team.

Starting point is 00:57:33 So it says, Porus's advice did more good than please would have done. His greatness of spirit was not cowed or broken, even in adversity. And we've seen that Alexander wouldn't cow or break in adversity. And Alexander felt obliged to treat him not only with mercy, but with respect. He tended to his wounds just as if Porus had fought on his side. And when they recovered, contrary to, and when Porus recovered, contrary to everyone's expectations, they thought he was going to die.

Starting point is 00:57:55 Alexander made him one of his friends. And shortly afterward, bestowed on him an empire larger than Porus had formerly held. That's insane. In fact, no trait of Alexander's was more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. And so that is what separates. We talk a lot about the naysayers, the negative people. We went over that with Dunkin' Donuts guy last week. He talked about it's just a part of human nature. You've got to ignore these people.

Starting point is 00:58:24 The 10% of people that overachieve have positive mental attitudes. That right there separates the losers from the winners. Winners don't go around leaving negative comments about other people winning. There was no trait of Alexander's more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. When a mediocre person is faced with genuine excellence, they retort, they become negative because they see in themselves everything that they are not.

Starting point is 00:58:52 The greatest founders, investors ever. They do not denigrate the past. They build upon it. They go out and seek these people. Let's read that one more time. There was no trait of Alexander's more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. And then now we got to the part where he's facing declining morale, and he gives, in my opinion, just a remarkable speech.

Starting point is 00:59:18 So it says, Macedonian resolve was flagging as the men watched their king pursuing a relentless campaign that was fraught with hardship and danger remember i said that supporting cast this book is hardship right it's difficulty he's embracing it within the can he gives this is why i think it's fantastic because he really synthesizes his his worldview and at the fact that everything that you want is on the other side of discomfort and danger and uncertainty and terror. Macedonia resolved was flagging as the men watched their king pursue a relentless campaign that was fraught with hardship and danger. Within the camp, meetings were taking place where the more moderate among them complained about their predicament, while others utterly refused to follow any further, even though Alexander was leading them. As soon as Alexander heard what was going on, and before the disorder and despondency among the

Starting point is 01:00:03 soldiers could get any worse, he called a meeting and gave the following speech now that i see that you my macedonians and allies no longer have the spirit to follow me into dangers i have called you together so that i might either persuade you and forge ahead or let myself be persuaded to turn back if indeed there is some cause for reproach regarding the hardship that you have endured up to now, or regarding my leadership, he's taking the opposite path that Darius did earlier where he didn't want to hear the truth, right? Or regarding my leadership, it is pointless for me to continue addressing you. But the result of the hardship that you have endured, you now occupy. And then he's listing all these places that they conquered. So it's like if you were in, you would, it's like if you would, like, let's say, because I don't know the names of these things, I'm just going to give you an

Starting point is 01:00:49 example of like how long this goes on. So imagine that somebody came and you started conquering like individual states in America. It's like, as a result of the hardship you have endured, you now occupy Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, minnesota oklahoma north dakota new mexico new hampshire tennessee utah virginia washington wisconsin wyoming it just goes on and on why then do you shrink from adding alabama alaska arizona delaware florida it goes on and on and the peoples behind are and the peoples beyond like canada and mexico to your macedonian empire and then he makes the point he's like I don't have any of these limits. My limit is the entire world.

Starting point is 01:01:27 So he says, as far as I can see, true men need no reward for their labors aside from those labors themselves, as long as they have noble consequences. Nevertheless, if any of you, if anyone should wish to know what limit is set for our campaign, then let me tell you that it is only the whole of the earth. And then he ends by summarizing himself. So stand firm, for it is toil and danger that lead to glorious achievements,

Starting point is 01:02:05 while pleasure lies in a life of courage and in a death that brings undying fame. And that is where I'll leave it. For the full story, buy the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. If you want to buy a friend, a gift subscription to Founders, that link is below as well. That is 232 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.

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Founders - #232 Alexander the Great

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