Founders - #432 The Mind of Napoleon

Starting point is 00:00:00 This book is a selection of written and spoken utterances on a variety of subjects grouped according to broad themes and designed to give the reader an insight into the mind of a man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree. Napoleon was a manipulator of things and men. For Napoleon, each thought is a step to an action. In Napoleon was a radiant power of the mind that cut through speculation, stripping all problems down to their simplest elements, discarding all obstacles to. action. To his mind, inaction was unbearable. He said, work is my element. I am born and built for work. I have known the limitations of my legs. I have known the limitations of my eyes. I have never been able to know the limitations of my working capacity. Long before he played any political role, he had discarded whatever illusions might have prevented him from playing it. He knows that men have

Starting point is 00:00:55 always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present. To Napoleon, men were weak, ineffectually selfish, and easily guided. The strong or good, only the weak or wicked, he once wrote. This maxim was to become a cardinal principle of his politics. As to the purpose of life, his answer was definite. We are born for the enjoyment of life. Happiness is merely the enjoyment of life in the manner that conforms best to our nature. The question then was destiny. which is determined by the manner that conforms best to our nature. All of my life, I have sacrificed everything, comfort, self-interest, happiness to my destiny.

Starting point is 00:01:42 Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine. That is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today. One of my favorite books that I've ever read. It's called The Mind of Napoleon. The subtitle is a selection from his written and spoken words edited and translated by J. Christopher Harold. What I have in my hand, this book was, very hard to find. It's out of print. First published in 195. Last time I did an episode on it was several

Starting point is 00:02:05 years ago. Price of the book went up to like a thousand dollars. I just checked. You can get it for like $100 or $200. Highly recommend buying the book immediately. Essentially what it is is just 300 pages of just Napoleon in his own words speaking directly to you. So I want to jump into some of my favorite highlights and quotes. And one of the things that will happen if you read the book is just you realize that he just had essentially unlimited ambition. He put no ceilings on what he thought he could accomplish and the levels of his ambition. So he says, a consecutive series of great actions is never the result of chance and luck. It is always the product of planning and genius. Is it because they are lucky that great men become great? No,

Starting point is 00:02:45 but being great, they have been able to master luck. Then he asked, what is luck? And his definition is very interesting. He says, luck is the ability to exploit accidents. The vulgar would call this luck. But in fact, it is the characteristic of genius. That quote to me is very similar to the one by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said that shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances, strong men believe in cause and effect. Another thing that reappears throughout the book, it's really important to Napoleon. What is especially interesting about the book is all these quotes and highlights, first are grouped by subject matter, but also the year he said it.

Starting point is 00:03:20 So you see the ideas are rarely consistent throughout his life, and one of them is take a lot of time planning what you're going to do, be excessively thorough, but once you're, you've major decision, no hesitation. He talks about this over and overhand. He says, hesitation is fatal. Once an action has begun, it must be followed through with the utmost exertion of the will. He talks a lot about ambition. He talks a lot about destiny. This why it was really interesting. Essentially, the ambition, the grandiose plans he had for his life were so innate to him, he didn't even notice them. If I have any ambition, it is so natural to me, so innate, so intimately linked with my existence, that it is like the blood that

Starting point is 00:03:55 circulates in my veins, like the air that I breathe. To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing. That is another reoccurring thing that will come over and over again. The fact that, of course, I wanted to rule the world. Who doesn't? Again, it was so innate. It was like the blood in his veins and the air that he breathes. He says there's no immortality but in the memory that is left in the minds of men. To have lived without glory without leaving a trace of one's existence is to have not lived at all. And another great thing about the book. And another great thing about the book is it goes into the way he works. So there's a great line. I'll tell you what appears at the end of this, which will give you a description of what I'm about to read you.

Starting point is 00:04:32 And it says, Napoleon combined long-term objectives with his passion for immediate usefulness, his passion for immediate usefulness is really interesting. So they give this very interesting example. He had a curious way of making budgets. If for instance, he ordered the construction of some public work, he would make sure that it was built in stages and that at the end of each stage, it could be put to some use, no matter how many years might elapse before the hole was completed. And then they give an example. If the wing of a palace or the stretch of a road or canal could be put to use after the first year, then its costs began to be amortized in the following year and could be charged off the budget. By the time the whole was completed, it had paid for itself. And then it summarizes what I just read to you, Napoleon combined long-term objectives with his passion for immediate usefulness.

Starting point is 00:05:20 This extreme, extreme sense of urgency that Napoleon had is a reoccurring theme throughout the entire book. They say that Napoleon had an artist temperament, and this is what they mean by it. The artist's temperament is characterized by his dissatisfaction with the disorderly nature of the world such as he finds it. He creates his own world. That's why we're talking about almost 200 years later. We're still in the introduction, by the way. And so the introduction is really fascinating because it's a bunch of his quotes. And then obviously the author and the editor trying to explain.

Starting point is 00:05:50 you know, why these are important in the way he thinks about it. And he was talking about one of Napoleon's favorite words was immensity. Immensity was one of his favorite words that he would use over and over again. He also had a great love for creation. He says, the greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the non-existent. And then the last thing from the introduction is Napoleon's unwavering belief in the great individual. He will say this over and over again. In fact, one of my favorite lines of the book, he says later, it's something like, in war, men or nothing, one man is everything. So he says, without great men, we have only mediocre men. And if there had never been anything but mediocre men, we would still be half apes. And so from here

Starting point is 00:06:30 on out, every single word is just Napoleon speaking directly to you and I. What I like about this is you see a lot of letters that he's writing to other people. And sometimes, you know, the letter will go on for an entire page or two. And then there's just one or two sentences that really capture the essence of Napoleon, in my opinion. He says, most sentiments are traditions. We experience them because they have preceded us. So I've read a bunch. I've obviously read this book, I don't know, two or three times.

Starting point is 00:06:51 I've read a bunch of biographies of Napoleon. And one thing that you see that he does over and over again, even if he doesn't give this advice explicitly, he's just like, he's always asking why. He's always thinking things through for himself. This idea, it's like, well, you're just, you're, the way you live, this is just traditions. Like, we're experiencing this because the people before us experiences.

Starting point is 00:07:08 So maybe it's the best way to do things, or maybe we can just create our own world. He has a lot of critique about his fellow humans throughout the book. and, you know, kind of the, a lot of anti-advice, like do the opposite of what these people are doing. So the great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it, the precise time when it's too late. He says that true character always pierces through in moments of crisis. There are sleepers whose awakening is terrifying.

Starting point is 00:07:36 Then he goes a lot into how to influence the people around you. Men are moved by two levers only, fear and self-interest. men are guided by nothing else than self-interest. It's funny, the idea of, so he's talking about, obviously, politics and war and conquering. You see the importance of appealing to self-interest over and over again, where you're studying one of the history's greatest advertising agency founders or anyways really run and built a great company. It's like they essentially consider it like acts of service,

Starting point is 00:08:06 and they don't appeal to, hey, buy my product because I'm great. It's buy this because this is what it will do for you. They're constantly appealing to interests. Men are guided by nothing than self-interest. One thing when I get to the section, because, you know, I just said he has this like enduring critique of the humans around him and the general population. I went back and looked at these quotes from poor Charlie's almanac for Charlie Munger. And this is a description of Munger, but I really believe this is a great description of Napoleon as well. So it says his underlying philosophical view was one of deep and realistic cynicism about human,

Starting point is 00:08:42 nature. In fact, there's another great quote from Munger that I just looked up where he says, you want to avoid other people who are total rat poison, and there are a lot of them. And so another great thing about the book is that it will tell you when Napoleon says something, and he repeats it. So this says repeated saying, he says this over and over again throughout the years. And Napoleon says, I start out by believing the worst. I defy anyone to trick me. Men would have to be exceptional rascals to be as bad as I assume them to be. And then another repeated saying in the opposite direction is be successful. I judge men only by the results of their actions. Before we get back into this, I want to tell you about the presenting sponsor of this

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Starting point is 00:10:30 I think the important part of going through this book and essentially spending a few hours just letting Napoleon talk directly to you. He will increase the scope of your ambition. He'll have you questioning what you're doing. But he's also unapologetically extreme. I'm sure he was writing a bunch of these words and didn't expect it to be compiled into a book

Starting point is 00:10:45 150 years later. But, I mean, he says some wild shit in the book. Here's an example. My wife could have died and it would not have interfered for a quarter of an hour with the execution of my plants. And then he has a bunch of ideas on life. destiny and greatness. And so he's writing a letter. He says, what is the future? What is the past and what are

Starting point is 00:11:05 we? What is this magic fluid that envelops us and hides from us what we most need to know? We are born, we live, we die surrounded by wonder. And then he has a line. That's one of my favorite lines in the entire book. He says, the truth is, is that everything around us is a miracle. He is then writing a letter to somebody that their nephew died in war. And again, it goes back to his, his views on life and destiny and greatness. He says, your nephew Elliot has been killed on the battlefield. That young man had acquired valuable military experience. Someday, he would have been a most valuable officer.

Starting point is 00:11:42 He died gloriously and facing the enemy. He did not suffer for an instant. What reasonable man would not have chosen such a death? What man is there who, in the vicissitudes of life, would not have put down his money to buy such a way out of an often contemptible world? and then he has a really you know really amazing way with words he's a fantastic writer and you can see the clarity of his thought through all the writing that he's doing and so there's a there's a case where a few people had around him had killed themselves and he just really talks about the

Starting point is 00:12:20 mistake that is you know every single suicide is a mistake and he says the man who breaking down under the weight of present evils ends his life commits a grave injustice towards himself and yields through despair and weakness to a momentary mood at the expense of his entire future existence. And then he talks about the worst way to live your life. When on rising from sleep, a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place. When scanning the future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next. When he asks himself, why do I exist? Then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all.

Starting point is 00:13:02 And then back to the fact that he's just unapologetically extreme, talks about seeking immortality over and over again. In fact, this is one of his repeated sayings. What is a great reputation? A big noise. The more noise you make, the farther it will go. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all of this passes. But the noise it makes continues to vibrate through other generations.

Starting point is 00:13:24 And then we're still in the section on life, destiny, and greatness. He's writing a letter. He says, die young and I shall accept your death. But not if you have lived without glory, without being useful to your country, without leaving a trace of your existence. For that is to not have lived at all. So this idea of if you live and die and there's no trace that you've been existed, that means you did not live at all. It's a repeated saying over and whatever again. It's just saying, don't be timid.

Starting point is 00:13:45 I think boldness, later on we'll get to the fact that, you know, Napoleon was was a massive student of history. And the author does a great job of analyzing, like, what did Napoleon like about all the great commanders that he was saying that came before him? And the one common thing between all of them, Napoleon commented on it, was how bold they were. So don't be too timid. I love this idea of Charlie Munger has another great line in this where he says, you know, go at life with a little courage. Right underneath this in another letter written in the same year. He says, everything on earth is soon forgotten, except the opinion we leave imprinted on history.

Starting point is 00:14:21 Everything on earth is soon forgotten except the opinion we leave imprinted on history. What I find fascinating is when Steve Jobs was working on that biography. with Walter Isaacson. At the end of his life, obviously, he knew he was dying. There's a great paragraph in there that I looked up because I was thinking. I was like, well, I remember reading that book, and there was like one paragraph where it really describes what drove Steve Jobs. I want to read this to you. And again, this is, I think written right after he died. So it says he had neither Larry Ellison's conspicuous consumption needs nor Bill Gates' philanthropic impulses, nor the competitive urge to see how high on the Forbes list he could get. Instead, his ego needs and personal

Starting point is 00:14:56 drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people, a dual legacy, building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, and indeed a notch above people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Everything on Earth is soon forgotten except the opinion we leave imprinted on history. So then he goes back to destiny. Oh my God. This is so good. Men of genius are meteors destined to be in lighting up their century. A man cannot excel unless he is of a unique cast. All my life, this is another repeated saying of Napoleon's,

Starting point is 00:15:35 all my life, I have sacrificed everything, comfort, self-interest, happiness to my destiny. Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine. And then he goes back into the critique of, you know, the average person, of humanity in, you know, general. He loves and admires and studies and. reveres greatness and true excellence, but he does not have high respect for the common person. He says, men are strange. It is easier to impress them and strike their imagination with tomfooleries than with sound ideas. And then on the very next page, it goes back to the fact that you must be known.

Starting point is 00:16:11 It is not enough for him to exist. He must be known. He must know himself. Until then, all endeavors are in vain and all schemes collapse. That second sentence is way more important than the first, in my opinion. He must know himself until then all endeavors are in vain. All schemes collapse. And then as you can imagine, there's a lot of critique of the English in the book. Some of it's funny, but this isn't a funny part. This is, I think, one of the most interesting parts is I've read a few books on George Washington. And then to see Napoleon's, you know, writing in 1816 about his view of Washington and he's writing it to the British. And so he says, your nation, which is the British, called Washington a leader of rebels for a long time and refused to acknowledge either him

Starting point is 00:16:54 or the independence of his country. But his success obliged them to change their minds and acknowledge both. It is success which makes the great man. You see how he'll say the same idea in slightly different ways over and over again. He's like, you have to be successful because I'm going to judge you by the results of your actions. Now he's saying, hey, you guys were dismissive of this guy. You refused to acknowledge either him or his independence. Guess what? His success obliged them, you to change your mind. It is success which makes a great man. So one of the biographies of George Washington that I read a long time ago, he is this great line about how he viewed the American Revolution. And he says, we have the opportunity to destroy British pretensions of superiority and

Starting point is 00:17:35 win control over half a continent. And then if you look behind me, some of Robert Carrow's biographies of Lyndon Johnson are behind me on the bookshelf behind me. And one of my favorite ideas, maybe the single most important idea that I learned from that book is this maxim that LBJ would repeat over and over again, that if you do everything you will win, when Napoleon says the exact same thing. All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity. The less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything. And then we have a sentence where Napoleon describes himself, what I am, I owe to strength of will, character,

Starting point is 00:18:15 application and daring. And then if you listen to last week's episode on Henry Singleton, this is going to sound a lot like Singleton. And this is something again where Napoleon repeats this. I had few really definitive ideas. And the reason for this was that instead of obstinately seeking to control circumstances, I obeyed them. And they forced me to change my mind all the time. Most of the time, I had no definitive plans, but only projects. That is going to be one of the most, To me, it was one of the most surprising things that I've read about, that read about Napoleon, and something that was surprised that he repeated over and over again, the fact that he didn't control his circumstances, he obeyed them. To me, it's very similar to this quote from Singleton.

Starting point is 00:18:58 And that quote says, once criticized for not having a business plan, Henry replied that he knew a lot of people running companies had very definitive plans that they followed decisiously. But we are subject to a great number of outside influences on our business. And most of them can't be predicted. So my plan is to stay flexible. My only plan is to keep coming to work every day. I like to steer the boat each day rather than plan way ahead into the future. And so Napoleon says, I had no definitive plans, but only projects. Another one of my favorite lines in the entire book, imagination rules the world.

Starting point is 00:19:32 And then what's interesting, he's constantly analyzing these historical figures, and then pointing out what they did well, and then some of the mistakes they made. And so he's going to describe some of the mistakes that Alexander the Great made that he, again, at the time he's writing in about two decades in the future, future will also make the mistakes, even though he was aware of the fact that Alexander made the mistake. That is a very interesting thing to me. I say it's all over and over again. It's like, think about all the people that you and I discuss on this podcast. In my opinion, every single one is smarter to me. Every single one is more productive than me. It's arrogant for me to see these, these wildly intelligent and competent people make these mistakes, similar mistakes

Starting point is 00:20:03 year after, or century after century, book after book, episode after episode, and think that I would not be susceptible to fall prey to those exact same mistakes. I mean, he's literally saying Alexander believed himself a God. And he wanted to make others believe it too. He talked about the fact that Alexander was essentially consumed by his ambition. Ambition, which overthrews governments and private fortune, which feeds on blood and crimes. Ambition is a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases. He's talking about Alexander, but two decades later, you could say that he's talking about himself. Ten years later, on the very next page, we see he's kind of giving into this.

Starting point is 00:20:43 This is what he says. There is only one thing to do in this world, and that is to keep acquiring more and more money and power. And then we get to the chapter on the conquest of history. This is really, in my opinion, the right way to study history, the way to think about it and think, you know, something that hopefully drives you and I. And he says, history I conquered rather than studied. That is to say, I wanted from it and retained of it only what could add to my ideas. I spurned what was of no use, and I seized upon certain conclusions that pleased me. It was to say, it was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was. It was was a prompt for his own thinking, not an instruction manual. I really, really like that. And the funny thing is, I guess you combine the last two things you and I just talked about. It's like learning from history, using it as prompt for your own thinking, grabbing ideas that's useful you do you, you know, discarding others that aren't. It's a perfect way to do it. But then we just talked about the fact that he was, in some cases, he learned from Alexander, right, and was able to apply that because learning is not memorizing information. Learning is changing your behavior, right? And so he was able to change certain behaviors based on what he learned from Alexander, but in some cases, and in some cases not where he let ambition essentially consume him, right?

Starting point is 00:21:48 And so he says nations and individuals alike learn only from their own experience and most of the time from misfortunes. He's saying that most humans are incapable of learning from history. And then he goes back to this idea where, you know, essentially Napoleon trying to learn from history. He's just like watching game tape, just like an athlete does to me. He's trying to emulate the traits that he desires that would help him and he wants to, avoid, you know, the other, the negative ideas or, you know, a fate that he doesn't want for his own life. It goes back to Alexander. Alexander had barely outgrown his boyhood when with a handful of men, he conquered a portion of the globe. Everything was calculated deeply, carried out audaciously,

Starting point is 00:22:25 and managed wisely. So that is his description of Alexander, calculated deeply, carried out audaciously, and managed wisely. So that's an example of something he wants to emulate on the very next page, he's talking about a mistake that a leader in 1250 Egypt did. And he says he spent eight months praying when he should have spent them marching, fighting, and consolidating his hold over the country. And before we get back into this, I want to tell you about Apploven. One of my all-time favorite quotes is from the book zero to one. In that book, Peter Thiel writes, he says, the single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places. And they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas. And

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Starting point is 00:25:17 That is a great line. So when I first read this book many years ago, I left notes to myself on this page of some revolutions that, again, could not be stopped. Somebody at some point in history is going to take advantage of this. Obviously for you and I, they were going to build, invent new technology, build companies around it. So you can think of some of the list of these are like the internet. human-powered flight, which you and I've talked about, mass-reduced automobiles with internal combustion engines. These three things, and among many others, completely changed the world. I think we're right now in the midst of another obviously revolution that can't be made nor stopped, which is the one with

Starting point is 00:25:50 artificial intelligence. And I love this idea for thinking of the times that we're in and observing what's going on. The only thing that can be done is for one or several of its children to give it a direction. Goes back to the importance of victory of winning. Since one must take sides, one might as well choose aside which is victorious. It is better to eat than be eaten. One of my favorite quotes that Napoleon never said that I think about all the time. He says that appetite comes with eating. The more you win, the more you want to win. He's constantly criticizing people that never let their ideas get tested by reality. He says, these poor scholars don't understand themselves. They talk and talk and talk. My aversion for this breed of ideologists goes to the point of hatred. I don't care who knows it.

Starting point is 00:26:31 And this is another example where I've told you in the past. I think the order in which you read things is very important. So having just spent, you know, week reading about Henry Singleton, reading those two books on Henry Singleton, this idea where it's like these scholars don't understand themselves, they just talk, talk, talk. You know, I hate these people. What I was really shocked by and I'd maybe forgotten the first time I studied Henry Singleton is just how many people, if you actually go back and like read what was written while he's doing what he was doing, the press and people around him, analysts, business press, would call him arrogant. And I'm like, why do they keep calling this guy arrogant? And you realize they keep calling him arrogant because he's

Starting point is 00:27:02 doing things his own way and they don't like it. And they don't understand it either. Human nature has this natural aversion to you thinking, oh, like, there's a different way to do it. Why aren't you just doing it with how everybody else is doing it? And one of the interesting thoughts is like he's got a lot of thoughts obviously on politics in this. And again, he saw change, especially in the political domain, to be completely natural and to be something that occurred before he lived, happened during his life and will happen after. He says there's not a single constitution in the world that is actually observed. Everything around us changes continually.

Starting point is 00:27:35 And on the very next page, we see another example of his extreme self-confidence. France needs me more than I need France. And then he goes back to that idea that a revolution can be neither made nor stopped. He says it may be possible to arrest the surge of progress or to throttle it, but not to destroy it. And then here's another idea that reappears throughout the book, that the fact that we are all full of apocracies and contradictions. And so because a lot of these quotes are not only grouped together by some, subject matter, but also by year, we get to see him contradict himself a bunch. So he's in 1806, he's saying, I'll say it once more. I do not want any censorship of books because every

Starting point is 00:28:11 bookseller is made responsible for the works he sells, because I do not wish to take responsibility for every nonsense that comes off the printing press. And finally, because I do not want some clerk to tyrannize over the mind and to mutilate genius. And so he said that in 1806, and it says in 1810, however, Napoleon did establish book censorship. And here's another example of Napoleon believing he had no limits, believing that he could build life to his specifications. He says, I am informing the Pope of my plans in a few words. If he does not acquiesce, I shall reduce him to the same status that he held before Charlemagne. And then back to this reoccurring idea from Napoleon, you should be using reality to get closer to truth.

Starting point is 00:28:53 Every thought or idea should just be leading to action. So he says, avoid everything that might give false ideas of the truth. Another great line here. I have read your letter. It is utterly worthless. There are too many words and not enough ideas. And because this book is 300 pages, largely of Napoleon's own writing, reminding me of this description of Julius Caesar. One, that one thing Napoleon and Julius Caesar had in common is that the belief that you should tell your own story. That is your obligation to tell your own story. And then they also write, like, you don't read anything that Napoleon wrote. And we wonder, like, what did he mean by that? And so there's this great description. I read this book on Julius Caesar one time I went.

Starting point is 00:29:32 need to. Says Julius Caesar simplicity was deliberate. He wrote not to show off or to astonish, but to get his point across. He said you should quote, avoid an unfamiliar word as a ship avoids a reef. So his works were wildly read. I love this idea. Too many words, not enough ideas. There's another idea that that's on the same page that reminded me a few weeks ago you and I discussed this idea of the episode on Peter Thiel on how to make a creative monopoly. So Napoleon says, the masses must be guided without their noticing it. In that book, 0 to 1 that Peter Thiel wrote, he says the best sales are hidden. I think those two ideas are somewhat related. The masses must be guided without them noticing it. He says over and over again, tell your own story.

Starting point is 00:30:17 This is how you have to control the message. He says it is necessary to enlighten public opinion. With ink and paper, you can draw any picture you like. Only by telling the facts simply and with details, can we convince them? And as the founder, you should be doing this yourself. You should act as your own minister of propaganda for your company. I love this part. Napoleon dictated all important army bulletins himself. Their purpose was multiple to inform the public, to counter rumors, to mislead the enemy, or to stir up enthusiasm. He served as his own minister of propaganda. And so not only did he write and tell his own story, but he also owned the press and he controlled the message. This is wild. He says, while he was being shaved,

Starting point is 00:30:57 I used to read the newspapers to him, always beginning with some French newspaper. And Napoleon would respond. Skip it, skip it. I know what's in them. They say only what I tell them to. And so then another reoccurring piece of advice from Napoleon is you must. You must acquire talent and knowledge. He says, without talent, without knowledge, there is no equality, but the equality of misery

Starting point is 00:31:18 and servitude. There's a great biography of Alexander the Great. And this description of Alexander reminded me of Napoleon, especially when we get to this section the book on Napoleon. It says no trait of Alexander's was more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. I definitely think that Napoleon was the exact same. This goes back to his kind of distaste for men of inaction, men of just theory. He says, good God, how stupid men of letters are. A fellow who's capable of translating a poem is incapable of leading 15 men. And so I would say this distaste for three,

Starting point is 00:31:57 theory and for learning, for not learning things that are actually pragmatic, that is very clear when you're studying Napoleon. There's a, there's a story that came to mind that I read in one of these biographies of Henry Ford many years ago. And I just want to read this quick story to you because I think it illustrates the same perspective that Henry Ford and Napoleon had the same perspective. It's like, well, you're spending all this time. You're in school, but you're learning things that are not actually applicable to life. So what are you actually doing? So it says Henry Ford had an old schoolmate whose son wanted to become a forester. Ford paid. for the young man's college education, arranged his transportation, and later helped him

Starting point is 00:32:31 obtain a four-street job in Oregon. When the young man arrived, a lumber company put him on a large wagon traveling over a rough road to a remote camp. During the journey, the boy fell from the wagon, was run over and died. And so when he's hearing about the news, this terrible news, Ford responds, do you realize that they forgot to teach that boy in college how to ride a wagon? Ford's point is that information would have actually been useful. Going back to the inevitability of revolutions that you cannot make them nor control them, it is wrong to believe that the people does not act unless it is led. The people has an instinct that pushes it and makes it act spontaneously.

Starting point is 00:33:13 During the revolution, it led the leaders. And then Napoleon, on the importance of having the people on your side, men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses. The first method is that of a schemer and leads only to mediocre results. The other method is the path of genius and changes the face of the world.

Starting point is 00:33:36 And I think for our purposes, it's serving the customer best. In fact, I just talked to Travis, the founder of Uber, and he had a great line. He said something like, the person who serves the customer best gets all the customers.

Starting point is 00:33:46 He is very blunt about the best education you possibly have. He's just reading history over and over again. In fact, he criticizes other people where he feels they haven't done so. And he says, speak as little as possible. Your knowledge is too limited and your education has been too neglected for you to engage freely in discussions.

Starting point is 00:34:05 As I've mentioned many, many times or many episodes, I have a slight obsession with Game of Thrones. It's my favorite show ever and I love the books. And one of my favorite lines in the entire series is by Tywin Lannister. And he's giving advice to his son, who he wants to succeed him and to be his heir. And he says, the lion does not concern himself with the opinions of the sheep. Napoleon says something very similar here. It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished.

Starting point is 00:34:30 And then we see another example of Napoleon contradicting himself being full of contradictions and hypocrisies like we all are. This is obviously not a critique of him. Obviously, it's present in him. It's likely it is president of you and I. And so he's saying, you know, the art consists in making others work rather than wearing oneself out. Okay. This is one of history's greatest micromanagers. And so what's great is, you know, it says this is the quote,

Starting point is 00:34:53 then the editor put this together goes, this is good advice, but the following anecdote illustrates Napoleon's inability to leave even the most trivial details to others. And so one thing he says earlier is like a lot of this, he would, his mind move faster than his hand did. And so he would dictate and have other people write as much as possible. And so he's an example. He's like, okay, yeah, the art, it's better have other people do the work rather than wearing yourself out. And so Josephine is taking to the water. So she's going on this trip she needs to go on. And Napoleon is telling the person that he's dictating to.

Starting point is 00:35:27 Josephine is leaving tomorrow for her water cure. I must dictate her itinerary and outline her conduct. Right. And then he dictated 21 large sheets of paper. And then as you can imagine, there's a huge section in the book on the art of war. He says, war, an immense art which comprises all others. And one thing that Napoleon prioritized was spending a lot of time, essentially over-communicating with his troops, and this gives you an idea

Starting point is 00:35:55 of why, the morale of your troops who are either strong and victorious or weak and beaten, depending on which they think they will be. That goes back to one of my favorite maxims, that the mind is a powerful place in which you feed it, it affects you in a powerful way. Again, going back to the fact that he's unapologetically extreme, he is watching this town burn, and he's talking to the person next to him, he's like, it's like Vesuvius erupting. Don't you think this is a beautiful sight? and the person sitting next to him says,

Starting point is 00:36:20 it's horrible, sire. And Napoleon responds, the corpse of an enemy always smells sweet. And then there's just all these lines where, again, it's just one sentence and you understand him. You do not get peace by shouting peace. Another sentence, I yield nothing.

Starting point is 00:36:36 One more. An acute but short pain is preferable to prolonged suffering. He continues that idea on the next page. If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter. and consequently, less inhuman. And then this story illustrates the fact that, you know, he didn't think rules applied to him.

Starting point is 00:36:54 He was willing to do essentially anything to get what he wanted. And in many cases, he was going up against opponents that wanted to win, but not nearly as badly as Napoleon did. And would essentially stop themselves from doing things that Napoleon had no problem doing. So he's having this conversation with this guy named General Mack, who was the commander of these Austrian forces that had just surrendered to Napoleon. And so Mack says to Napoleon, it is said that you had troops marching through sort of, Switzerland, whose neutrality we had respected. Napoleon responds, I had not recognized its neutrality. Consequently, I have a right to enter its territory. Max says, ah, we were always dupes of our good faith. You had violated a neutrality of Prussia, thus gaining eight days in affecting the junction

Starting point is 00:37:36 of your forces. This premature junction gave you the opportunity to crush us. And yet, if I had wished to violate Prussian territory, I could have easily cut you off. Napoleon responded, but first he smiled. So why didn't you do it? He spends a lot of time writing and talking about the importance of building your army's morale, obviously for you and I, building your company's morale, really over-communicating. And one thing, essentially, this is not a direct quote, but it's what he means. Like, winning solves everything. You want to increase morale? Just win. It says, when I arrived, its morale was being undermined by all the malcontents. I took some strong measures. I used every means to reorganize their supplies and victory has done the rest.

Starting point is 00:38:18 winning, solves everything. He stays on this subject his entire life. There's many pages on it. He's really talking about how to speak to your team. And he says, you know what words can do to the soldiers. And so then he goes and gives us talk to all in front of all soldiers. Soldiers, you are ill-fed and almost naked. The government owes you a great deal, but it can do nothing for you.

Starting point is 00:38:38 Your patience and courage do you honor, but give you neither worldly goods nor glory. I shall lead you into the most fertile plains on earth. There you shall find great cities and run. rich provinces. There, you shall fight honor, glory, and riches. Goes back to this idea. Again, over and over again, a general's principal talent consists in knowing the mentality of the soldier and in winning their confidence. And then he repeats the importance. Before you start something, make sure you're researching, make sure you're unbelievable prepared, know everything you need to know. And then once you decide, that is the path you are going to take. Hesitation is fatal.

Starting point is 00:39:12 Burn the boats. You have to go forward. At the beginning of a campaign, much thought should be given to whether a specific strategy should be adopted. However, once the offensive has started, it must be sustained to the last extremity. Retreats are always disastrous. They cost more lives and material than the bloodiest battles. In a battle, the enemy loses approximately as much as you. Well, in a retreat, you lose and he does not. And in this remark reminded me of Elon's perspective, where he says, no work about work, just work.

Starting point is 00:39:43 And so this is a repeated remark of Napoleon. the ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen-pushers. And then again, one of the greatest lines in the book, which already told you once, in war, men are nothing. One man is everything. And then he's giving advice to another general. But again, it goes back to this repeated maximum of his, that a wasted life should be your greatest fear. A wasted life should be your greatest fear. He says, these three things you must always keep in mind. Concentration of strength, activity, and a firm resolve to perish gloriously. They are the three, principles of the military art, which have disposed luck in my favor in all my operations.

Starting point is 00:40:20 Death is nothing, but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day. And then there's just a series of great ideas spread across these pages. This is one of my favorite lines in the book, too. The simplest moves are the best. Another idea, my great and most distinctive talent is to see everything in a clear light. This is something he repeats over and ever again. I am rational and I do not let my emotions blur my judgment. My great and most distinctive talent is I see everything in clear light.

Starting point is 00:40:44 Then he goes back to doing, if you do everything, you'll win. The issue of a battle is a result of a single instant, a single thought. The adversaries come into each other's presence with various combinations. They mingle. They fight for a length of time. The decisive moment appears. A psychological spark makes the decision, and a few reserve troops are enough to carry it out. Sometimes a single battle decides everything.

Starting point is 00:41:07 And sometimes, too, the slightest circumstance decides the issue of a battle. Then he goes back to the importance of using his. history as a form of leverage. Knowledge of the grand principles of warfare can be acquired only through the study of military history and of the battles of the great captains and through experience. There are no precise determinant rules. Everything depends on the character that nature has bestowed on the general. I think that's same for entrepreneurship too. There are no precise determinate rules. Everything depends on the character that nature has bestowed on the general. And he goes back again, time is the best filter. You should be studying the greats.

Starting point is 00:41:44 The principles of warfare are those which guided the great captains whose high deeds history has transmitted to us. So he named some like Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Frederick the Great. The list goes on and on. The history of their 83 campaigns would constitute a complete treatise on the art of war. The principles that must be followed in defensive and offensive warfare would flow from it as from a common source. And then Napoleon starts analyzing Julius Caesar.

Starting point is 00:42:12 And again, you see these ideas that he repeats over nerve again, do everything and you will win, the importance of boldness. And so he says, Caesar's principles were the same as Alexander's and Hannibal's. And he lists them off what these three people had in common. To keep his forces united, to be vulnerable at no point, to strike speedily at critical points, to make use of every possible opportunity of increasing his chances of victory on the battlefield. That is a way to say that do everything and you will win. He took great risks in the adventures into which he was pushed by his boldness. There's that word again.

Starting point is 00:42:46 His genius got him out of his difficulties. He was a man whose genius and boldness were equally great. This section is absolutely great because he's just going through in a few paragraphs, few sentences, just analyzing all these great generals from history. Just want to pull out one on the next page. The boldness and length of these marches astonished France. And until they were justified by success, they were the target for criticism of mediocre men. That is happening in the 1600s, is the example.

Starting point is 00:43:14 that he has given. That happens today. It'll happen a thousand years from now, goes into Frederick the Great again. Again, Napoleon admires boldness. Napoleon wants you to be bold. What distinguishes Frederick most is not the cleverness of his moves, but his boldness. Boldness is the common quality singled out by Napoleon in the seven great generals whom he cites as examples in every single one. So then he goes back to this idea that you should be careful, even timid, when planning, but then you're bold and relentless when acting. And so he says, there is no man more timid than I when I'm planning a campaign. I purposely exaggerate all the dangers and all the calamities that the circumstances make

Starting point is 00:43:59 possible. I am in a thoroughly painful state of agitation. This does not keep me from looking quite serene in front of my entourage. Once I have made up my mind, everything is forgotten, accept what leads to success. That's a great line. Once I made up my mind, everything is forgotten,

Starting point is 00:44:16 except what leads to success. And so then he talks again about his immense ambition. What I would say is one of the main takeaways from spending hours. Essentially, you know, reading the thoughts of Napoleon,

Starting point is 00:44:27 having Napoleon speak directly to you is that whatever you do, do it constantly and massively increase the scope of your ambition. Do it constantly and massively increase the scope of your ambition.

Starting point is 00:44:37 And so he says, whether I waged constant warfare to indulge my personal taste or whether I was pushed into it against my will, whether my immense ambition was spurred by lust for power or thirst for glory or the necessity of establishing order, or love of general warfare. It is not up to me to deal specifically with these questions. So this conversation is like, well, these are what actually occurred. We could argue over why they were done. But the main takeaway of this entire conversation that it plays it on this page is like,

Starting point is 00:45:08 whatever you're doing, doing it constantly, and then having no limits on your ambition. And as the conversation continues, he goes back to that idea, which again, I think was the most shocking thing from the book, is that I was ruled by my circumstances. And he goes, thus, I never was truly my own master, but I was always ruled by my circumstances. This is so true that when at the beginning of my reign, my true friends and most enthusiasticist champions asked me where I was headed, I always answered that I had not the least idea. This astonished and possibly annoyed them, and yet I was telling them the truth. The fact, fact was that I was not master of my actions because I was so insane as to attempt to bend events

Starting point is 00:45:43 to conform to my policies. On the contrary, I bent my policies to accord with the unforeseen shape of the events. And then several times throughout the book, he talks about the importance of being feared. He says, as soon as I cease to be feared, my empire will be destroyed. And then back to the importance of winning. That winning is the main thing. You have to keep the main thing. The main thing. It solves, winning solves almost all of your other problems. My power is dependent on my glory and my glory on my victories. My power would fall if I did not base it on still more glory and still more victories. Conquest made me what I am. Conquest alone can keep me there. That's a great line. Conquest made me what I am and conquest alone can keep me there. And then a few pages later,

Starting point is 00:46:31 he picks up this idea. Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest. to allow anyone to take her away from me. I know what it has cost me, the sufferings, the sleepless nights, and the scheming. From triumph to fall, there is but one step." And then it goes back to his immense ambition. I found the crown of France in the gutter, and I picked it up. I wanted to rule the world. Who wouldn't have in my place? The world begged me to govern it. And then just two more ideas for you. This is Napoleon on why he wants his son to read history. He says, my son should read much history and meditate upon it. It is the only true philosophy.

Starting point is 00:47:08 Let him read and meditate upon the wars of the great captains. It is the only way to learn the art of war. And then finally, this is Napoleon on his detractors. My soul is made of marble. Lightning has found no grip on it and had to slide off of it. I have no fear of becoming their victim. They will be biting into granite. One of my favorite descriptions of Napoleon.

Starting point is 00:47:31 I read one time in a biography of him said that Napoleon was a man of stone and iron. And I think this book is a great way to get to know that man. Highly recommend reading it. That is where I'll leave it. That is 432 books down, 1,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon. So I have this AI assistant I called Sage. You might have heard me talk about it in the past.

Starting point is 00:47:52 Since 2018, I've been storing every single note that I've taken on a book and every single highlight I've made in a book in this database. Then I added to that database all the transcripts for all my episodes. And then my AI assistant has just read everything. And so I use this constantly. I use Sage constantly to make the podcast because now it's almost 10 years since I've been doing founders to start in September 2016. There's no way I could remember everything. And so I was actually texting a friend today about what the benefit of Sage is.

Starting point is 00:48:19 And it allows you to pull up any idea from founders at the moment you need it. And so what I want to do is I was actually prepping for the episode that you just heard. And obviously because I use Sage to make every single episode. I use it every day just to ask questions about whatever's on in my mind. And so what was fascinating is like you and I've talked about this. idea in the past that there is, like, you can just create a product. And if you just hold on long enough, somebody else is going to create technology that makes that product more powerful over time. So I think I've had this, this AI system for like three years now. And all I'm doing is

Starting point is 00:48:50 keep adding notes from the books I'm reading, keep obviously making podcasts, so therefore producing transcripts from those podcasts. But the freaking models are just getting better and better and better. And this thing is getting more and more useful. So I want to give you an example of this. So let's say you didn't listen to the podcast. You just listened to. or let's say a year from now you want to, you know, figure out, like, what are the best ideas from the mind of Napoleon? Let's say you didn't even read the book. So simple prompt, what are the most important ideas from the book, The Mind of Napoleon? And I read through this several times last time. I was like, damn, this is so good. I'm going to essentially record me going

Starting point is 00:49:22 through this real quick, should take just a few minutes, as a demonstration of why you might want to get access to this tool. So it says, the mind of Napoleon is less a conventional biography than a collection of Napoleon's written and spoken ideas. Its central subject is the unusual combination of intense thought and immediate action. Napoleon did not think merely to understand. He thought in order to act. And so I was just like, okay, so what are some of the great ideas? And there's about, let's say, 10 to 12 of them. So it's going to run through them really quickly. Combine energy of thought with energy of action. Napoleon's defining characteristic was a conversion of thought into movement. Inaction was almost physically unbearable to him. Speculation mattered only if it

Starting point is 00:50:00 clarified the next action. He says the essential elements of his mind were to eliminate anything that obstructed execution. That was one of my favorite lines in the book. This may be the book's central idea. Clear thought should terminate in decisive action. Number two, planned pessimistically then execute boldly. How many times did you and I just talk about this? Napoleon's boldness was not carelessness. During planning, he deliberately imagined every danger, failure, and catastrophe. But once he decided, he stopped revisiting the decision and concentrated every faculty on victory. And so he has this very powerful operating principle. Before deciding, doubt, investigate, and exaggerate the downside.

Starting point is 00:50:36 That's really interesting. After deciding, eliminate hesitation and act with complete commitment. I'm not reading those. I mean, the answer is huge. So I'm just giving you the highlights of what I think are interesting. And again, this idea of, hey, I have now a tool that I built for myself first, that I can pull up any idea from the 10 years history of founders podcast on demand when I need it. That is the value prop of this.

Starting point is 00:50:57 Fortune is captured through preparation and attention. The practical lesson is not. that you can control everything. It's that you can prepare yourself to capitalize on what you cannot control. And so he talked about over and over again, kind of analyzing the way he thought. Neglect no potentially decisive detail. That's do everything if you win. Preserve optionality. Move quickly when an opening appears. Increase the odds before taking a dramatic risk. And the cool thing is it tells you where it got that idea from. So you can click on it. You can see either the part in the transcript or the actual note or highlight from the book if you want to go deeper.

Starting point is 00:51:28 Number four, concentrate strength at the decisive point. Napoleon studied Caesar, Alexander, and Hannibal, and extracted a reoccurring pattern. Keep forces united, avoid unnecessary vulnerability, and strike rapidly where the outcome can be decided. Napoleon distilled his own principles into concentration of strength, activity, and unbreakable resolve in the three principles behind his victories. Number five, imagination and morale are material forces. Napoleon understood that people act accordingly to the reality that they believe in. Troops who imagined themselves victorious behave differently from those who accept defeat. That's why he invested so heavily in speeches, symbols, bulletins, and communication, imagination rules the world.

Starting point is 00:52:09 Was not a sentimental observation. It was a strategic doctrine. Number six, tell your own story. Napoleon did not delegate the meaning of his actions to outsiders. That's a great line. Don't delegate the meaning of your actions to outsiders. I just had a guest on my new show who had a phenomenal experience. he went on the show he was he's not widely known

Starting point is 00:52:29 but he's known to a like if you're a lot of most of the elite entrepreneurs know who he is but the general population definitely doesn't know and even like the broader you know entrepreneur community doesn't and he was just explaining like he was like blown away by the people that listen to this and like and what they thought and everything else

Starting point is 00:52:46 and that's one of the he called me because he's like hey I've been thinking a lot about you recently and he called me and he said this he's like why don't you record especially for founders everybody knows why you're doing it's like kind of obvious, right? But for your new show, like, you should record yourself, like, explaining why you're doing what you're doing. It's like, it's exactly what Napoleon would tell you. Don't delegate the meaning of your actions to outsiders. That's awesome. Number seven, prefer adaptable projects to

Starting point is 00:53:10 rigid plans. I think I just hammered that point so much in this episode with Singleton, obviously with Napoleon, you know, it's a subtle but important distinction. I will read this one section because I think it's important. This is a subtle but important distinction. A rigid plan prescribes each move in advance. A project preserves the objective while allowing the route to change. Napoleon combined firmness of purpose with flexibility of means. That's an excellent line. Number eight, unite long-term ambition with immediate usefulness. That story is hilarious, where it's like, I'm going to build. I don't even know if I came across that idea anywhere else in any of the books so far. It's very rare for that to happen, you know, 430-something books in and 10 years in. But the idea of like,

Starting point is 00:53:48 hey, I'm going to build something. I'm going to divide when I'm building it to stages. Every sage needs to become useful as soon as possible, then the project could therefore begin generating value before the entire vision was complete. Pursue an immense objective through increments that stand on their own. It's very interesting. Number nine, character is intellect plus courage. Napoleon admired bold commanders more than merely clever ones. Knowledge can reveal the right move, but character determines whether you make it under pressure. That's another great line. Number 10, great creation begins with dissatisfaction. This is something that Napoleon obviously has a common with a lot of the great founders. Napoleon possessed dissatisfaction with the world as it exists, followed by the determination

Starting point is 00:54:26 to create a different one. Creation gives form to something that previously existed only in the imagination. You are not limited to choosing among existing arrangements. You can construct a new arrangement. That's excellent. Number 11, immense ambition is both the engine and the disease. This is the book's deepest warning. The quality of the produced exceptional achievement can eventually destroy the person and the system

Starting point is 00:54:47 he created. And number 12, exceptional people contain. extreme contradictions. Napoleon could defend intellectual freedom and then later established censorship. He could warn against false ideas while operating a sophisticated propaganda machine. He could adapt brilliantly to circumstances and yet become imprisoned by his own image of invincibility. And then this is the great synthesis of the main ideas that I pulled out from the book. Think clearly, prepare for disaster, concentrate your resources, act boldly, communicate constantly, and adapt rapidly, but never allow ambition, image, or past success to sever your contact,

Starting point is 00:55:21 with reality. So that is an example of what Sage can do. It can help you pull up any idea from Founders on demand when you actually need it. If you want more information, go to Founderspodcast.com for slash sage.

Founders - #432 The Mind of Napoleon

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