#337 Napoleon's Maxims and Strategy

What I learned from reading Roots of Strategy by Thomas R. Phillips and Napoleon and Modern War by Napoleon and Col. Lanza. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (0:01) Napoleon fought more battles than Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar combined. (5:00) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302) (7:00) Insull: The Rise and Fall of A Billionaire Utility Tycoon by Forrest McDonald. (Founders #336) (8:00) No one should believe more in your business than you do. If this is not the case you are in the wrong business. (11:00) If you do everything you will win. (13:00) Napoleon episodes: Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302) (14:00) What is the bigger number, five or one? One. One army, a real army, united behind one leader, with one purpose. A fist instead of 5 fingers. — Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones (YouTube) (17:00) Keep your forces united. Be vulnerable at no point. Bear down with rapidity upon important points. These are the principles which insure victory. (17:00) Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. Make them your models. This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study, you will reject all maxims opposed to those of these great commanders. [If Napoleon was alive you know he’d listen to Founders podcast] (20:00) The Tao of Charlie Munger by Charlie Munger and David Clark (Founders #295) (20:00) Advance orders tend to stifle initiative. A commander should be left free to adapt himself to circumstances as they occur. (23:00) The art of war consists in a well organized and conservative defense, coupled with an audacious and rapid offensive. (26:00) Ten people who yell make more noise than ten thousand who keep silent. (29:00) Long orders, which require much time to prepare, to read and to understand are the enemies of speed. Napoleon could issue orders of few sentences which clearly expressed his intentions and required little time to issue and to understand. (31:00) A great leader will resort to audacity. (32:00) “Alexander the Great thought, decided, and above all, moved swiftly. He appreciated the importance of speed and the terrifying surprises speed made possible. His enemies were always stunned and shocked by his arrival. He invented the blitzkrieg.” — Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Episode #226) (34:00) It is no harm to be too strong; it may be fatal to be too weak. (41:00) Napoleon on single threaded leadership: Once a campaign has been decided upon there should be no hesitation in appointing one commander to assure its success. When authority is divided, opinions and actions differ, and confusion and delay arises. A single chief proceeds with vigor; he is not delayed by necessity to confer. (42:00) Posess obstinate will. (43:00) Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experiences of others. (This is a great reason why you should invest in a subscription to Founders Notes ) (44:00) It is profitable to study the campaigns of the great masters. (47:00) Skill consists in converging a mass of fire upon a single point. He that has the skill to bring a sudden, unexpected concentration of artillery to bear upon a selected point is sure to capture it. (A lesson from Peter Thiel: Don’t divide your attention: focusing on one thing yields increasing returns for each unit of effort.) (49:00) All great captains have been diligent students [of history]. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00David Senra?

  Napoleon fought more battles than Alexander, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar combined. He is, beyond any doubt, the greatest of European soldiers. He never wrote his theories or principles on the conduct of war, although he often expressed the intention of doing so, and remarked that everyone would be surprised at how simple they were. I want to interrupt this real quick, because when I read that part, "everybody would be surprised at how simple they were," I thought about one of my favorite quotes I've ever read, and it says, "A novice is easily spotted because they do too much: too many ingredients, too many movements, too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention."

• 0:41David Senra?

  Back to this book, "It remained for Napoleon alone, among the great generals of his time, to seize all these possibilities and develop from them a calculated system of strategy and a system of tactics calculated with equal brilliance. No other general of his time realized these possibilities until forced to learn by combating Napoleon. He astounded his opponents by the crushing rapidity of his battles." Speed, and the importance of speed, might be the thing that he repeats the most in these maxims. "He astounded his opponents by the crushing rapidity of his battles. His strategical system was based on marching rapidly and secretly past the enemy's flank to get on the hostile line of communications.

• 1:25David Senra?

  This forced his opponents to turn and fight at a disadvantage." The way you and I have talked about this in the past is that you want to compete on your terms, you only want to play games where you have the edge. "His battles were the result of his strategical movements and were carefully calculated." The art of strategy as developed by writers for the past century has its foundations in his operation, so in other words, he influenced the generals that came after him, just like he was influenced by the generals that came before him. Clausewitz's great book on war, I have this book, I just haven't read it or made a podcast on it yet, Clausewitz's great book on war was the outgrowth of Napoleonic studies. And so the first book published on Napoleon's maxims was published all the way back in 1827. Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War carried these maxims.

• 2:10David Senra?

  In his haversack throughout his campaign. This little volume, Jackson's biographer stated, contains a fairly complete exposition, in Napoleon's own words, of the grand principles of war. And in the introduction of that book that he was carried around by Stonewall Jackson, it says, "The art of war is susceptible of being considered under two titles: the one which rests entirely on the knowledge and genius of the commander." So that line, "The commander, the general, the commander in chief," can be repeated over and over again by Napoleon for the purposes of you and I. It'd be the leader of the company, the founder, the CEO. The other, on matters of detail. So first, two titles. One rests entirely on the knowledge, the talent, the genius of the person, the founder, the CEO, okay? The other on matters of detail.

• 2:52David Senra?

  The first is the same for all time, for all peoples, whatever the arms with which they fight. From this, it follows that the same principles have directed the great captains of all centuries. So when Napoleon realized, when he's studying the history of war, it's something you and I have realized studying the history of business. It's like, oh, these people didn't know each other, they worked in different industries, they lived in different parts of the world, and they were alive at different times. How did they all arrive at similar conclusions? That should tell you and I, hey, there's some principles here that are always valuable. They are timeless, they never go out of style. The matters of detail, on the other hand, are subject to the influence of time, to the spirit of the people, and the character of the armaments.

• 3:34David Senra?

  The continuing interest and application of most of these maxims indicates that the original compiler succeeded in selecting Napoleon's most pertinent aphorisms of permanent value. And another way to say, another way to describe what they're saying there is that these are ideas that have lasted for centuries. Okay, so that is an introduction to one of the two books that I'm going to talk to you about today. That book is called Roots of Strategy: The Five Greatest Military Classics of All Time in One Volume. And so it's a book containing The Art of War by Sun Tzu, written in 500 B.C. The Military Institutions of the Romans. There's no way I'm pronouncing anybody's name, you already know this correctly. There's no way I can pronounce them correctly. The Military Institutions of the Romans by Vagetius, who knows?

• 4:19David Senra?

  That was written in 390 A.D. Then My Reveries Upon the Art of War, written by Marshall. Maurice de Saxe in 1732, the instruction of Frederick the Great for his generals written in 1747, and then the one we're going to focus on today, which is the military maxims of Napoleon. So that is Root of Strategy. That is book number one. I'm going to go through this one first. The second one, and how I got this idea for this, to do this podcast, is because I was given this lovely book as a gift called Napoleon and Modern War, and it's Napoleon's Maxims, first published in 1943. The book I'm holding in my hand and the one I'll get to after I go through Roots of Strategy, I have the 1949 edition. And

• 5:01David Senra?

  what's going to be interesting is I've read these books at different times. So maybe the most impactful, maybe the most important book that I read last year was this book called The Mind of Napoleon. It's episode 302 of Founders. If you have not listened to it, I would listen to it right after this. And if you've already listened to it, I would listen to it again. That book is almost impossible to find. After that podcast came out, I heard from people that spent upwards, anywhere from 500 to like $2,000 buying that book. Interesting to note, especially in the times that we're living in now, Sam Altman, the founder of, the creator of OpenAI and ChatGPT, he said, when that was The Mind of Napoleon, was the most important book that he read in the year 2019, if I'm not mistaken. Shortly

• 5:43David Senra?

  after reading that book, I read Roots of Strategy, went through and did what I normally do. I read the book, highlight it, and just write notes to myself on what this means to me or things that came to my mind. So that is what I'm going to go, I'm going to read off of right now. And then, the last few days, I read Napoleon and the Modern War. So some of these maxims are going to be repeated, but my interpretation or what came to mind are different. And this is why I've told you in the past, like, I love rereading books, because the words on the page don't change, but you do. And, you know, you can even be a different person the next week, or your interpretation could be a different, you know, in this case, it was several months spread in between the two readings. Okay, so I'm going to go right into Napoleon's own words. So he says, "A plan of campaign

• 6:25David Senra?

  should anticipate everything which the enemy can do, and contain within itself the means of thwarting him, of thwarting your enemy. Plans of campaign may be infinitely modified according to the circumstances, the genius of the commander, the genius of the founder, the quality of the troops, and the topography of the theater of war." And so the note I left myself when I read this, it has to do with what you and I usually study. The quality of the business is based on the quality of the founder, the talent the founder is able to recruit to their mission and the market that they target. At the commencement of a campaign, the question whether to advance or not requires careful deliberation. But when you have once undertaken the offensive, it should be maintained to the last extremity. This is something that he says, he repeats over and over again, says in slightly different

• 7:09David Senra?

  ways, but plan, think before you act, but once you act, I love that idea, should be maintained to the last extremity. Burn the boats. Think before you act and then burn the boats. A general should say to himself, I love this part, a general should say to himself many times a day, if the hostile army were to make its appearance in front, in my front, or on my right, or on my left, what should I do? And if he's embarrassed, his arrangements are bad. There is something wrong and he must rectify his mistake. No one should be able to take you just by surprise and your business should be able to survive in all kinds of different macroeconomic climates. I mean, now, this is even rereading this after studying Sam Insul. If you think about it, Sam Insul didn't do this. He didn't build

• 7:52David Senra?

  a business, even though he was, you know, genius and gifted person and successful for 53 years, but he didn't build a business that could withstand the Great Depression. In other words, he was allowed, he allowed something to take him by surprise. And as a result, he died broke. And so, another thing that Napoleon repeats a lot is the importance of morale, of a general hyping up, he's not going to use those words, but like hyping up his troops. I'm going to skip over the maxim, but I love the note that I left myself here. No one should believe more in your business than you do. If this is not the case, you are in the wrong business. A well-established maxim of war is to not do anything which your enemy wishes. A well-established maxim of war is to not do anything which your enemy

• 8:34David Senra?

  wishes. I think about this fantastic quote from Ed Thorp, episode 222, only play games where you have an edge. He says at the end of his autobiography, after 50 years of managing money, and 50 years of being an investor and entrepreneur, he says you should only play games where you have an edge. Napoleon says, you should therefore avoid a field of battle which your enemy has studied. You should still, you should be still more careful to avoid one which he has fortified and where, and one where he has entrenched himself. Again, you have no edge in this game. Do not play here. Find another game, or better yet, create your own. And then this is an interesting use of language, kind of difficult to understand. But if you think about what he's saying here, the natural positions which are commonly

• 9:17David Senra?

  met with cannot secure an army against the superiority of a more numerous one without the aid of art. So a small team, right? You don't want to go up against an army that has bigger numbers. And if you do, you can't do so without the aid of art. The way I think about what he's saying here is that smaller teams, smaller companies must be more clever and resourceful than larger ones. They just have to. You have to outthink them. That line of outthinking them. One of the books, I think it was The Everything Store, I read on Jeff Bezos. And at the time, Zappos is just like selling shoes online, but they're making a lot of progress against them. This is before Amazon buys them. And there's a great, there's a great story in the book about this meeting that they're

• 9:57David Senra?

  having inside of Amazon because Bezos realized that when they started making, like after all the, like the terrorist attacks, they started making Americans take off their shoes and everything and put them at the airport, that Zappos realized, oh, you're taking off your shoes, you're putting them in this, this like, you know, plastic bin. Can we see if we can buy advertising on that plastic bin? And Bezos saw that, thought it was a great idea, and he was like, pretty pissed off about it. He's like, they're outthinking us. And so Napoleon is, you need the aid of art. When you occupy a position which the enemy threatens to surround, you should collect your forces quickly and menace him with an offensive movement. Default offense is the way I think about a lot of what Napoleon writes about.

• 10:41David Senra?

  The, I love this quote, Nolan Bushnell's the founder of Atari and Steve Jobs mentor. He hired like a 19-year-old Steve Jobs. And he says in one of his books that Steve Jobs only had one speed, go. And I think you could think the same way about Napoleon. A general should be enterprising, strike vigorously, and maneuver against the flanks of his adversary. And if he does, victory is his. This is something I talked about in episode 302 on the mind of Napoleon. He says, "When you have it in contemplation to give battle, it is a general rule to collect all of your strength and leave none unemployed. One battalion sometimes decides the issue of the day." If you study, if you read Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson, I think Lyndon Johnson's maxim that is excellent.

• 11:26David Senra?

  My favorite maxim that he has, one of my favorite maxims of all time is that if you do everything, you will win. Napoleon did the exact same thing. It's like, listen, we're not leaving things, anything to chance. We're not having resources that we don't use. Leave none unemployed. One battalion can sometimes decide the issue of the day. If you do everything, you will win. When you intend to engage in a decisive battle, avail yourself of all the chances of success. Again, that is just another way of saying, if you do everything, you will win. In the mind of Napoleon, he even expounds on this. I don't think it's in this book or the other maxim book I'm going to read after this. But he says, this is a direct quote from Napoleon, "All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity.

• 12:08David Senra?

  The less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything." That is so important. I need to repeat that. "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." Anytime you read examples of what Napoleon had said, he's gonna, he spends like, I'm not even going to read this to you because he's talking about some campaign from 1645. But he spends a lot of time talking about the strategy of crossing rivers. And he's talking about, well, in 1645, they did this. And in 1715, they did this. You know, in 300 AD, they did this. The main point here is obviously, should be obvious to you and I.

• 12:53David Senra?

  It's like the founders should have deep historical knowledge of past founders so that they can then use those lessons as leverage in their career because it's exactly what Napoleon did. I think I've talked to you about this on every single episode I've done on Napoleon. I will leave them all linked and listed below in case you want to like, go back and listen to all of them. But the reason I keep doing episodes on Napoleon and Winston Churchill is because when you go back and read biographies of great founders, they talk about Pre-World War II founders all talk about being inspired by Napoleon. Post-World War II founders also talk about being inspired by Napoleon, but then they also talk about being inspired by Napoleon Churchill. And then you read Churchill's words and he talks a lot about Napoleon. In fact, I have another book to my right. It is called "The Maxims and Reflections of the Honorable Winston S. Churchill",

• 13:38David Senra?

  also published in 1947. And he mentions Napoleon multiple times in that book. And then he talks a little bit about how to get an advantage and encourage your troops. "Enthusiasm, love of country and the desire of contributing to the national glory may also animate young troops with advantage. Never underestimate enthusiasm. The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship." That's a combination of two of my favorite maxims. "By endurance we conquer," from Shackleton, "and excellence is the capacity to take pain," by the founder of Four Seasons. "The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship." Now, this is fascinating because I read this, you know, a couple of months ago,

• 14:22David Senra?

  then I read it, reread it on, in a different book this week, and I came up with the same exact idea. Everything seems to, with me, seems to relate back to Game of Thrones. And so, he says, "Nothing is more important," and he repeats this, and Napoleon repeats the same idea in different ways. "Nothing is more important in war than the unity in command. You should have but one army acting on one line and led by one commander." And so, I will leave a link and you can watch this video on YouTube, but there is a character in Game of Thrones called Robert Baratheon. He's the king at the time, at the very beginning of the series, right? And he gives this speech where he thinks they're, they're at a disadvantage and potentially weak and can be overthrown by, by a new army.

• 15:05David Senra?

  And it's the five verse one speech in Game of Thrones. And so, he's talking to his Queen Cersei, his wife. And he's like, "If they come over here, this, this, the Dothraki, uh, we're gonna lose." And she's like, "What are you talking about? Like, we have castles, we have everything else." And he's ruling five separate kingdoms that don't really like each other, don't really work together, like, kind of loose affiliation. And so, he goes, "What is the bigger number, five or one?" And so, he shows her an open hand, right? Five fingers. And she goes, "Five, of course." He goes, "One." One army, a real army, united behind one leader with one purpose. Those five fingers go into a fist. The fist is stronger than the palm.

• 15:50David Senra?

  One army, a real army united behind one leader with one purpose. One founder-led company with a real mission. One is bigger than five. For this next one, I don't have anything other than this is just a great line. True wisdom, so far as a general is concerned, consists in energetic determination. An extraordinary situation requires extraordinary resolution. How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death? And then he starts to identify some principles that he just sees repeatedly used throughout history by the greatest generals. And he's going to talk about the importance of learning from the best people and the

• 16:33David Senra?

  great people who lived before you over and over and over again. In fact, in The Mind of Napoleon, that book, he talks about like if he was designing an education system for his son, he would just be reading about great people that came before him. Commanders in chief are to be guided by their own experience or genius. This is acquired only by your own experience and the studying of the great campaigns of all the great captains. And so he lists some of these people like Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar. And he says, they've all acted on the same principles to keep, and these are the principles. Keep your forces united. Be vulnerable at no point. Bear down with rapidity upon important points of your competitor. These are the principles in which ensure victory. He continues this point on the very next maxim. Read over and over again.

• 17:18David Senra?

  I love that he said that. Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, he's listing all these other people, Frederick the Great. Make them your models. This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study, you will reject all maxims opposed to these great commanders. And in this one, if you replace general with founder, this all still works. The first principle of a general in chief is to calculate what he must do. To see if he has all the means to surmount the obstacles with which the enemy can oppose him, and when he has made his decision to do everything to overcome them. This is also something he talks about in The Mind of Napoleon. He's not a big fan of pen pushers.

• 18:00David Senra?

  Something he repeated in that book, The Mind of Napoleon, he says, "The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen pushers." In this book, he says, "If you permit yourself to be guided by administrators, you will never budge and your expeditions will fail." And then this is the last one that I'll read from The Roots of Strategy, and then I'll pick up the Napoleon and Modern War book. "War is composed of nothing but accidents. A general should never lose sight of everything to enable him to profit from these accidents. That is the mark of genius. There is but one favorable moment. The great art is to seize it." Okay, so now I'm going to pick up Napoleon and Modern War. It was annotated by Colonel

• 18:40David Senra?

  C. H. Lanza, and like I said, originally published in 1943. This book I have in my hand was published in 1949. It's actually interesting how I got a copy of this book. I talk to and hang out with a lot of other founders, and I have the habit of always asking them, like, "Who's the smartest person you know?" And then, "What is the best business that you know of?" And it's not necessarily, like, you know, the most valuable business. It can't be like Apple, Microsoft, just like, "Most interesting business." And for founders that don't know each other, I kept hearing the same name. I heard this name, Zach Frankel, over and over again. And then I'm going, randomly going to a friend's birthday party. I walk through the gate, I open the gate, turn around, and there's another guy coming through. I was like, "Oh, hey, I'm David." And he's like, "Hey, I'm Zach." I'm like, "Zach Frankel?" And so that night, me, Zach, and then my friend Chris,

• 19:23David Senra?

  who's the founder of AG1, we had this, like, two or three-hour-long conversation. And you know it's a good conversation, because at the end, my Amazon cart was full of all these book recommendations that I got from Chris and Zach. And then Zach was nice enough a few days later to give me this book. And so some of these maxims are going to be repeated, but Colonel Lanza's, like, explanations or added context are different than what's in the Roots of Strategy book. So I want to start with the foreword. He says, "Examination shows that the rules expressed in the maxims of Napoleon are the same as those which are followed by all the great generals of history, from Alexander and Caesar to Napoleon himself. This is what the maxims of Napoleon are: brief, pithy sayings by a master of the art of war."

• 20:07David Senra?

  And this is also, I think, a perfect example of a book. I put this up there with, like, The Tao of Charlie Munger. These, like, small little books, full of maxims. Leave them on your desk, pick them up, read them for, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever the case. How they, like, essentially prompt your own thinking. And so I want to jump right into what Colonel Lanza said about Napoleon's maxim. Napoleon's maxim that we already covered, "A plan or campaign should take into consideration everything the enemy can do and prescribe the necessary measures to counteract him. Plans of campaign may be modified endlessly according to circumstances." So that is Napoleon. I love, uh, there's specifically a line I'm going to get to that I absolutely love. So this is the explanation, "No plan can provide for everything that may happen. Advanced orders tend to stifle initiative.

• 20:51David Senra?

  Advanced orders tend to stifle initiative. A commander should be left free to adapt himself to circumstances as they occur." Another idea, "It is a distinct advantage to have near at hand ammunition, food, supplies, and repair facilities to restore rapidly troops and weapons of war and enable combatants to carry out at maximum efficiency." The way I would describe that for you and I, keep a fortress of cash. This is what John D. Rockefeller did. This is what Warren Buffett did. They kept fortresses of cash. "It is a distinct advantage to have near at hand all the supplies you need." I've told you this story before when I went to dinner at Charlie Munger's house. He told an advantage, an example of having advantage of the fact that, that Berkshire always had a ton of cash.

• 21:32David Senra?

  They get this call on like a Saturday morning, they were buying like a pipeline. Charlie was actually telling us this story, uh, because there was young entrepreneurs there. So like, uh, me and my friend Andrew Wilkinson and Chris Sparling, the founders of Tiny. And he was telling us a story because he says, "Don't let lawyers, uh, he said, this is his word, 'Don't let lawyers fuck up deals.'" That's what he said. And he was telling this, but it's also a story of why you want to keep a fortress of cash and how that could be an advantage of you. And he said something like, they were going to buy this pipeline. I think Warren gets the call like Saturday morning, they're like, "Hey, but we need the money by, uh, by Monday and I don't have my notes in front of me." So, but I think they had to spend, they had to send them like a couple hundred million dollars. And their lawyers like, "No, you can't do this. We have to inspect it. There's all these liabilities."

• 22:15David Senra?

  But, uh, they had already mapped out like all the assets that they wanted to own. And so the punchline was that Warren sent, uh, wired the money Monday morning without even an email. Again, Charlie Munger has this great quote where he says, "That trust is one of the greatest economic forces on earth. Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on earth." And Warren trusted the person that was bringing him this deal. And then he said something like, oh yeah, we made a, you know, a couple billion or a couple hundred, like million out of the deal. I forgot. I think it was a couple billion dollars out of the deal. But again, keep a fortress of cash. Rockefeller did this. Buffett did this. You're able to buy assets usually, you know, for way less than they're worth opportunistically. And you can never predict beforehand when that opportunity will happen.

• 22:57David Senra?

  Another maxim by Napoleon, "War should be made methodically, for it should have a definitive object and it should be conducted according to the principles and rules of the art." And then there's just a great bunch of like little lines here describing this maxim. So that maxim is two sentences long, right? And the description is like two or three pages. Just want to pull out some highlights. Love this. "A war without object would have no sense. Generals would not know what to fight for. The art of war consists in a well organized and conservative defense, coupled with an audacious and rapid offense." Well organized conservative defense, coupled with an audacious and rapid offense. This is a quote from Napoleon describing this maxim, or it's used to describe by Cronol Lanza

• 23:41David Senra?

  to describe the maxim. "In everything that is undertaken, two-thirds must be calculated and one-third left to chance. In war, all is opinion. Opinion about the enemy..." This is still Napoleon. "In war, all is opinion. Opinion about the enemy and opinion about one's own soldiers." I want to go back to that first sentence where he says, "In everything that is undertaken, two-thirds must be calculated and one-third left to chance." He is always well-prepared. He has also always read all the history, but he expects to be flexible and to improvise. And so this is another example of this idea where Napoleon is going to engage in, you know, psychological warfare. He says, "Great captains have always published statements for the benefit of the enemy, that their own troops were very strong in numbers. Like,

• 24:25David Senra?

  hey, we're, you know, we're, maybe there's 100,000 of us, but there's a million of us. You better be careful. You don't want any of this." While to their own people, "The enemy was represented as very inferior." So externally project strength and then tell your team, "We're going to roll over these fools." This is part of Napoleon's Propaganda Bureau, which I talked a lot about on episode 302 of The Mind of Napoleon. Really, the idea for you and I is that you have to tell your own story. I'm shocked that I meet entrepreneurs and people running businesses that are not telling their own story. This is a very old idea, used by Julius Caesar, used by Napoleon, used by Alexander the Great. And this is the Napoleon version of this. "Public opinion is invisible and mysterious. Before it, nothing stands. With it, everything becomes easy."

• 25:10David Senra?

  That's a really important sentence, two sentences, I'm gonna repeat it. "Public opinion is invisible and mysterious." I mean, think about this, I'm gonna interrupt my own self. Last week, Sam Ensel, how much, right? His customer base, he wanted the customer base to literally be every single citizen. He thought he could sell electrical service to every single citizen in Chicago. Remember on that episode, how crazy, this is, I was talking to my friend about this the other day. It's like, it like pops open my own brain, right? Because even the most optimistic people in Chicago, in the electrical, in early days in electricity industry, they're like, "Why you spend so much money, Sam? Like, at best, you might be able to get 25,000 paying customers."

• 25:51David Senra?

  That was the, that was the optimistic, like, projection of the total adjustable market, right? And Sam's response was like, "Well, how many people live in Chicago?" And they're like, "A million people." He's like, "Okay, so I'm gonna get a million people." And then, so, it was at 40 times what the most optimistic version of that. And then somehow, he even undershoots that because he winds up getting one-eighth of the entire, his customer base winds up being one-eighth of the entire population of America. But he talked about the importance of public opinion. He says, "Everything that a business does is public relations." So again, we have here Napoleon. "Public opinion is invisible and mysterious. Before it, nothing stands. And with it, everything becomes easy. Tell your own story." I'm pretty sure in that book, The Mind of Napoleon, Napoleon talks about it, it's like,

• 26:34David Senra?

  he bought the French, the main, the two French main newspapers, and he got to the point where he didn't even have to read them, because he knew what was in them. He knew the importance of telling your own story. And this next line's even better, I think. This next line just says what I said, but even better and in less words. "Ten people who yell make more noise than ten thousand who keep silent." Tell your own story. "Ten people who yell make more noise than ten thousand who keep silent." This one I already repeated, but I think it's so super important. And they all, depending on when the book is printed, you know, the, the, the language slightly changes. So it says, "At the beginning of a campaign, to advance or not to advance is a matter for grave consideration.

• 27:17David Senra?

  But once the offensive has been assumed, it must be maintained to the last extremity there. Think about what you want to do, but once you engage, there is no turning back. A commander in chief should several times a day ask himself, if the enemy appears to the front, or on my right, or on my left, what should I do? If he finds himself embarrassed as to his reply, his dispositions are faulty and he should correct them." Now, I know I repeated that because some of these maxims, I also, they also jumped out to me when I read The Roots of Strategy, even though, you know, the, the two readings were several months apart. But my interpretation of them also changes. And so I think this interpretation is better than the first one. If you think about what he's saying here, it's like you're, you're running these, these scenarios in your head about your company. Like if this happens, what do I do? If this happens, what do I do?

• 28:00David Senra?

  And when you do that, that is a great way to find weaknesses in your company and then fix them. And it's a lot more profitable to fix them before somebody else exposes them. So I love that. I love using maxims as prompt for my own thinking. "The strength of an army is the product of the mass by the velocity." So what he calls "speed of action," right? "The strength of the army is the product of the mass by the velocity. A rapid march augments the morale of an army and increases its means of victory." Now, obviously Napoleon's going to repeat rapid movement, rapidity, speed over and over again. But for some reason, when I read that, I, I hear little Jeff Bezos in my head. Cause I've read, you know, Jeff, Jeff's shareholder letters three times.

• 28:43David Senra?

  I think I've done, I don't know, six, eight podcasts on Jeff. I'll probably do 20 more over the lifetime of this podcast. And so you read so much about him and you listen to him speak and you read transcripts of his speeches and everything else. And so I have this little Jeff Bezos on my shoulder that I hear. And Jeff says, you can drive great people away by making the speed of decision making slow. Why would great people stay in an organization where they can't get things done? So a rapid march augments the morale of your employees, of your team. Napoleon was a master of speed. He was quick to get started on a campaign, kept moving right along and struck hard as soon as he was in contact with the enemy's main force. He never let up until he had accomplished his mission. And then I love this because under this explanation, it's like, what do you do?

• 29:28David Senra?

  So you know how to go fast, but one way to go fast is by removing things that make you slow. One way to go fast is by removing things that make you go slow. And so he's saying, not long orders, right? He hates pen pushers. He hates administrators. There's no work about work, just work, right? Long orders, which require much time to prepare, to read and to understand are the enemies of speed. Napoleon could issue orders of a few sentences, which clearly expressed his intentions and required little time to issue and to understand. This is excellent. Do not let your company engage in paper warfare. Another combination with Winston Churchill. It is slothful not to compress your thoughts. And then David Olgavy, believe in the dogmatism of brevity.

• 30:13David Senra?

  This happens over and over and over again. Our time is limited. Compress it. Give me what I need. I think there's another thing. Oh, and I was reading Churchill's maxims this week too. And he insults this guy, this guy, because he's like, you use so many words for so little thoughts. That's like the opposite of that. Long orders require time to make, time to read, time to understand, and they are the enemies of speed. They are the enemies of speed. With an army inferior in numbers, back to Napoleon, with an army inferior in numbers, a commander must avoid a general action. He must make up the deficiency in numbers by rapidity of movements. In such circumstances, the morale of the soldier is a great factor. He talks about morale over and over again. It is magic, this weird thing, how our moods affect our performance.

• 30:55David Senra?

  But really, the main point of that maxim is smaller must be faster. If you are smaller and slower, you're gonna lose. It's just not gonna happen. Excellent, excellent maxim here by Napoleon. A great leader will resort to audacity. A great leader will resort to audacity. When I hear that, I think one of my favorite Winston Churchill maxims. Always more audacity. He would repeat that out loud to himself when he was younger. Not just in his head, not just write it down. He would, it's like a mantra. Always more audacity. A great leader will resort to audacity. Another version of this is by Jeff Bezos in his shared letters. It's the same thing. We will be bold. A great leader will resort to audacity from Napoleon. Always more audacity by Winston Churchill. We will be bold by Jeff Bezos. Same idea, expressed three different ways.

• 31:40David Senra?

  A commander must quickly assemble his forces and threaten the enemy by an offensive movement. Why do you have to be quick? Why are you always on the offense? This reminds me of this fantastic quote from the book Heroes by Paul Johnson. He, this is, I did this back on 226. I would recommend buying that book because it's like short little biographies of like 30, maybe 20 or 30 different heroes throughout history. But he says this about Alexander the Great, which is gonna be, of course Napoleon studied. Of course Napoleon talked about Alexander over and over again. And so Paul Johnson writes, Alexander the Great decided, uh, he, no, sorry. Alexander the Great thought, decided, and above all, moved swiftly. He appreciated the importance of speed and the terrifying surprises speed made possible. His enemies were always stunned and shocked by his arrival.

• 32:24David Senra?

  He invented the blitzkrieg. This has happened to me over and over again, and I did not understand this before I started reading all these biographies like a madman and making this podcast where I told you before, I'd read all about Steve Jobs, right? Which makes sense because he's one of the most gifted entrepreneurs of our lifetime. We all use his products and you have all these ideas like, oh my God, this is a great ideas. And then he mentions, oh yeah, I love this guy named Edwin Land. And then you go read Edwin Land and oh my God, those aren't even Steve Jobs' ideas. He learned that from somebody else and applied him to his own work. This is what happens when you read Napoleon. Like, all these ideas that are tumbling out of his mouth, which obviously are enhanced and augmented to his own experience, came from Alexander the Great.

• 33:09David Senra?

  That is inspiring to me. That means I can do the exact same thing. That's why I bring it up. It fills me with energy. A general should be audacious, strike hard blows, and maneuver upon the flanks of the enemy. Napoleon wrote this comment based upon a study of the campaigns of Frederick the Great. I love that idea. Like, again, be audacious, strike hard blows. One of my favorite things that Charlie Munger said, he says, "Don't be too timid. Go at life with a little courage." And if you really think about this for our purposes, maneuvering upon flanks, that's what a startup does. A startup notices an opportunity left open by bigger competitors. When a commander intends to give battle, he should collect all his forces and overlook none. A battalion sometime decides the day. The last time I read this to you, the words were slightly different. I said, "Hey, reminds me of LBJ.

• 33:54David Senra?

  If you do everything, you will win." This time I read it, and I just, I have a post-it note on my desk. I have two things written to myself on my desk. Do one thing relentlessly. And the second one is a post-it note that asks me, "What assets do I have that I'm not using?" And I think that's, that's very similar to what he's, very similar to what Napoleon is saying. When a commander intends to give battle, he should collect all his forces and overlook none. A battalion sometime decides the day. A battalion is just an asset that a commander has in battle. It is no harm to be too strong. It may be fatal to be too weak. If you are opposed by a great captain, so if you're going up against a very talented person, give yourself all the chances of success.

• 34:37David Senra?

  Reminds me of Rockefeller on episode 324. He wrote, "An enterprise is like a battlefield, and the purpose of strategic goals is to create the most beneficial state for oneself." Right? He says, "The purpose of your goals is to create the most beneficial state for oneself." Napoleon says, "Give yourself all the chances of success." It's the same idea. Fortresses are used, are useful. They are an excellent means by which to retard, embarrass, weaken, and annoy a victorious enemy." So he's using fortresses. We would use motes from the book, A Few Lessons from Warren Buffett. Motes, a metaphor for the superiorities a business possesses that make life difficult for their competitors. Fortresses make life difficult for an invading army. Now,

• 35:22David Senra?

  Napoleon also says, "Fortresses are not necessarily permanent." Warren Buffett says, "Business history is filled with roman candles. Companies whose moats proved illusory and were soon crossed." I don't know if I pronounced that correctly. "Proved an illusion." Companies whose moats were proved to be an illusion and were soon crossed. Napoleon noticed the same thing in battle. "Fortresses are not necessarily permanent." Napoleon says, "Nothing is absolute in war." Peter Thiel says, "There is no formula for success. The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula cannot exist because every innovation is new and unique and no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative." This is why I've gone on other podcasts and say it's like, I view reading biographies

• 36:06David Senra?

  like watching game tape on somebody's life, right? Same way that a basketball player would watch game tape. Doesn't mean like you're learning the tendencies of your competitors, maybe learning some good ideas that you could also copy, but it doesn't mean you're going to be presented with those same opportunities to act on the information in an actual game. You just have to have it in the back of your mind for one day it might. "Nothing is absolute in war." Napoleon may have only used 20%, 30%, 5%, who knows of what he actually studied, but he still found value in that studying. "It is your duty to follow up the victory and prevent the beaten enemy from rallying." You know the weird idea I had when I read that? Buying up your competitors that you're outperforming. This came top of mind because I just read Sam Insell's biography. It's in Rockefeller's biography. It's in Henry. So Sam Insell did this. Rockefeller did this.

• 36:51David Senra?

  Henry Clay Frick did this. Why are you buying? You're already beating them. Why are you buying up? And in Rockefeller and Sam Insell's case, they would pay more than the assets are actually worth. And they talked about that there's a line that Sam has where it's like, "Listen, money can't buy friends, but it can prevent people becoming your enemies." But there's a strategic like commercial application of this, which is it prevents them from regaining strength and threatening your position in the future. Napoleon's telling you, it's your duty. You're winning. Prevent the beaten enemy from rallying. You go to sleep on a win, you'll wake up with a loss. Napoleon also talks about the dangers of excessive luxury, of things being too easy for everybody. And so the description of this is Napoleon seems to have in mind the dangers of having troops concentrated in your home area, where they might be exposed to a loss of discipline,

• 37:35David Senra?

  to the pleasures of living among friendly people. He preferred to have his troops far from such locations, where a harder life would better prepare them for the vicissitudes of war. A lot of money and success will make your company sloppy and soft. We see this over and over again. It's just part of human nature. And when that happens, a younger, hungrier competitor will soon overtake you. You have to avoid excessive luxury. There's a great illustration of this point in David Ogilvie's autobiography, Confessions of an Advertising Man, which I think he wrote in like 1965. And really, when I read this the first time, I was like, oh, this is why there's always opportunity for new businesses, because this is just part of human nature. Like me and you can study this. We can learn this. Highly likely, towards the end of our career, it's going to happen to us too. And so this is what David Ogilvie says about this. "Once every few years, a great new agency is born.

• 38:19David Senra?

  It is ambitious, hardworking, full of dynamite. It gets old accounts, or excuse me, it gets accounts from soft, old agencies. It does great work. The years pass. The founders get rich and tired. Their creative fires go out. They become extinct volcanoes. The agency may continue to prosper. Its original momentum is not yet spent. It has powerful contacts, but it has grown too big. It produces dull, routine campaigns, based on the echo of old victories. Dry rot sets in. At this stage, it begins losing accounts to vital new agencies, ruthless upstarts, who work hard and put all their dynamite into their advertisements or into their product. We can all name famous agencies which are moribund.

• 39:04David Senra?

  You hear demoralizing whispers in their corridors long before the truth dawns on their clients." Back to Napoleon, a good general, a good corps of officers, a good organization, good training, rigid discipline makes good troops, independently of the cause for which they fight. Nevertheless, fanaticism, love of country, national glory, may also inspire young troops to advantage. He goes back to talking about morale, right? You can make good troops by having a good founder, good support staff, good executives, good organization, good training, discipline, everything else, but you cannot discount, it goes back to not never discounting the the power of enthusiasm. But fanaticism is one of my favorite words because it's what Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett talk about.

• 39:47David Senra?

  You know, you're looking for intelligent fanatics. And in the new version of Poor Charlie's Dominique, which you and I just covered a few weeks ago, I love that that idea where he like breaks down the entire career of Sam Walton. And I think he does this for Les Schwab too, but he has a line in that book that I love, that scale and fanaticism combined can be very powerful. And some examples of that would be Warren Buffett, Sam Walton, Les Schwab. You know, these are fanatics, intelligent fanatics that also achieve scale. And then that combination made them even more powerful. Troops soon discover whether their officers are competent or not. They will not follow with confidence or enthusiasm those who they believe to be incompetent. And then we get to the maxim where I think

• 40:30David Senra?

  this is the only one where I had the same interpretation, that nothing is more important in war than unity of command. Nothing is more important in war than unity of command. Thus, when war is waged, there must be one army acting on one line and led by one chief. Remember, Robert Baratheon, what is the bigger number, five or one? The answer is one. One army, a real army, united behind one leader with one purpose, a fist instead of five fingers. One is is larger than five, more powerful than five. Once, this is Napoleon on single threaded leadership. Once a campaign has been decided upon, there should be no hesitation in appointing one in appointing one commander to assure its success. When authority is divided, opinions and actions differ, and confusion and delay arises. A

• 41:14David Senra?

  single chief proceeds with vigor. He is not delayed by the necessity to confer.

• 41:21David Senra?

  And so again, he's going to use different words, general, chief, leader. It's all the same thing. We think about it as like the founder, the CEO of the company. In war, the chief alone understands the importance of certain things. And he alone, by his will and superior knowledge, can conquer and overcome all difficulties. That made me think of one of my all time favorite quotes from any of the books that you and I talk about. And it comes from the fish that ate the whale. Sam Zemurray said that if you know your business from A to Z, there is no problem you cannot solve. If you know your business from A to Z, there is no problem we cannot solve. Another great line by Napoleon that gets me fired up. Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary resolutions. How many things have appeared impossible, which nevertheless have been done by resolute men

• 42:03David Senra?

  who had no other recourse than death? Possess obstinate will. And then Napoleon talks about the fact that emotions blur judgment. The first quality for a commander in chief is a cool head. He should not allow himself to be confused by either good or bad news. Commanders in chief are guided by their own experience and by their genius. The knowledge of grand tactics is gained only by experience and by the study of history of the campaigns of the great captains. This is one I already repeated. Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar have all followed the same principles. Keep your forces united. Don't be vulnerable at any point and move rapidly on important points. These are the principles which assure victory. Again, learn from, learning from history is a form of advantage.

• 42:45David Senra?

  Pay attention to the principles that are repeatedly used by the formidable is the way to summarize that. Read and then reread campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Frederick, all these people. Model yourself upon them. This is the only way to become a great captain and to discover the secrets of art, of the art of war. Your genius enlightened by this study will reject the maxims opposed to those of these great men. Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others. That could be a tagline for Founder's Podcast. That could be a tagline for Founder's Notes. Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others. And if you really think about the importance of using history as a form of leverage,

• 43:30David Senra?

  it's like time is the best filter. You have to go through so billions of people to get, you know, a few thousand or whatever the number is that actually stand out. In fact, in the book, it talks about like how rare great generals are. And so he says, in the Civil War, there was about 2 million combatants and only about half a dozen really great generals arose out of that entire time period in war. So you got four years, 2 million people fighting, and there's really, you know, six, 10 really, really supremely, you know, power law level talented people. They say the same thing in World War I. There's 20 million fighting men and there's only been around six or a dozen that have been considered worthy of a permanent place in history. Great people are rare and always will be.

• 44:14David Senra?

  Another tagline for reading biographies. It is profitable to study the campaigns of the great masters. It is exceptional and difficult to find in one man all the qualities necessary for a great general. That which is most desirable and which instantly sets a man apart. Now, this is very fascinating. This is Napoleon talking about, okay, one, so hard to find one person. These like power. My friend Sam Hinkie has this great quote where he says, "People are power law and the best ones change everything." And there's this guy named Graham Duncan that has another great line that's similar to this. He says, "Talent is the best asset class." And I think this is very similar to what Napoleon is trying to teach us here. And he's talking about the balance of these, like, one, are you even going to have all these qualities yet? Okay.

• 44:58David Senra?

  So out of the mass of humanity, the presence of all these qualities in one person is unbelievably rare, but what's even more rare than that is the balance of them. This is fascinating. So what instantly sets a man apart is his intelligence or talent, and they're balanced by his character or courage. So intelligence or talent. And character or courage. If his courage is greater, a general heedlessly undertakes, undertakes things beyond his ability. So his courage is greater than his talent or his intelligence. If on the contrary, his character or courage is less than his intelligence, he does not carry out any plans. He's a smart but ineffectual person. His point is you need the balance.

• 45:42David Senra?

  Your intelligence and talents have to be balanced in perfect harmony with your character or courage. All right. If you're more, if you're more courageous and smart, you're going to do dumb shit is the way that, that Napoleon is telling us, right? But if you're smarter and you have no courage, then you're brilliant, but ineffectual. You don't do anything. So you need them all. Napoleon, something he says over and over again in The Mind of Napoleon is like, he believes in destiny. He's like, you know, the fulfillment of destiny, he believes in cause and effect. And so he'll say stuff like this, "The importance of actions of a great general are not the results of chance or destiny. They are always arise from planning and from genius." And so related to that is a general above all needs good judgment and common sense.

• 46:24David Senra?

  And then again, Napoleon on make sure you're planning, but once you plan, go all in to the last extremity. He says hesitation and half measures lose all in war. Skill consists in converging a mass of fire upon a single point. He that has the skill to bring a sudden, unexpected concentration of artillery to bear upon a selected point is sure to capture it. Skill consists in converging a mass of fire upon a single point. He that has the skill to bring a sudden, unexpected concentration of artillery to bear upon a selected point is sure to capture. He's talking about focus, right? There's a lesson from Peter Thiel that I love, and he says, "Do not divide your attention. That focusing on one thing yields increasing returns for each unit of effort."

• 47:09David Senra?

  It sounds very similar to what Napoleon said, you know, 200 years ago. In the last few weeks, you and I have talked about this idea over and over again, that business is problems. The best companies are just effective problem solving machine, machines. War is composed of nothing but surprises. While a general should adhere to general principles, he should never lose the opportunity to profit by these surprises. It is the essence of genius. In war, there is only one favorable moment. Genius seizes it. Think about that. Business is composed of nothing but surprises and profiting from those surprises is the essence of genius.

• 47:44David Senra?

  And then we get to this short story that I mentioned earlier, that Napoleon was also gifted at psychological warfare. And then we see this again, like an understanding of human nature helps you rise to the top of your profession. And so he says praises from enemies are to be suspected, right? Do not believe them. They can flatter a man of honor only when they are given after the cessation of hostility. So if they, if you beat your enemy, and then he wants to praise you, maybe you can believe it then. But do not believe it until the war is already over. Right? And so this is, I love what he did here. Or it just surprised me. He says Napoleon was thinking of the Austrian general who opposed him in 1796. Provera was a very poor general.

• 48:23David Senra?

  With a view to having the Austrian government maintain him at his post, Napoleon made great reports extolling the wisdom and efficiency of Provera. The Austrian government believing that Provera must be indeed, must be indeed good to gain praise from Napoleon, kept him at his post, where he remained as incompetent as ever. This was really a ruse and an excellent illustration of Napoleon's knowledge of psychology. And then the last one, this is a great place for you and I to close. He's again going back to the importance of studying history, and identifying and analyzing the principles that the greats used. All great captains have accomplished great things only by conforming to the rules and natural principles of the art of war.

• 49:08David Senra?

  Whatever may have been the audacity of their enterprises, and the extent of their success, they succeeded only by conforming to rules and principles. It is only for this reason that they are great models, they are our great models. And it is only by imitating them, that we may hope to approach them. All great captains have been diligent students. Histories of wars must be critically analyzed to discover why successes were obtained, and why defeats were inflicted. The teaching of strategy is built around history.

• 49:43David Senra?

  And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Highly recommend buying both of the books. So if you buy the books using the links in the show notes in your podcast player, or by going to founderspodcast.com and using the links there, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. I'd buy both of them. I'd buy, I'd keep The Maximus and Napoleon, like I said, on your desk, just along with like the towel of Charlie Munger. And I would buy Roots of Strategy, because Roots of Strategy has all these other books contained in them. They're excellent. They're fun to read. And more importantly, they will prompt your own thinking. That is 337 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon. Okay, before you go, real quick, I just want to go through a couple of ideas that I had and thoughts that popped in my mind as I was making this episode, reading all these books on Napoleon, rereading my past highlights. And this has to do with

• 50:27David Senra?

  why I think it's really in your best interest. If you are already running a successful company, I need to preface all the comments I'm about to make. If you're already running a successful company, I would definitely heavily encourage you to invest in a subscription to Founders' Notes. Founders' Notes is every single one of my highlights and notes that I've been compiling for the last eight years and for the last, since 2018, putting into this app, Readwise. So you actually, it's an app that I use every day. And what Founders' Notes is, it allows you to see what I see. So it's a direct mirror to my notebook that I use to make the podcast, but not more important than that. One, I couldn't make the podcast without it, but I also stay in it every day. I read in it every day. I search through

• 51:08David Senra?

  it every day. I do think it's the most valuable notebook in the world for founders. And the reason this came up is because it's very obvious. Like, I could say, I've now read, what, three? I think it's the third or fourth, third podcast I've done on Napoleon. It is very obvious that if you listen to his own words, without a doubt, he would endorse not only Founders' Podcast, obviously, but Founders' Notes as well. He says, "Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great. Make them your models. It is the only way to become a great general and to master secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study." I feel if you use Founder Notes, if you read it every day. So I've been getting a bunch of messages from people about how they're using it. Because you know, I put this thing out into the world. I'll tell you how I use it.

• 51:53David Senra?

  But it's very fascinating. Somebody told me yesterday that they're using it as if they used to read the newspaper or check the news every day. And instead of that, they're reading Founder's Notes and they're reading a different book every day or reading the highlights from a different book every day. So that line, "With your own genius enlightened by this study," I love that. "You will reject maxims opposed to those of these great commanders." And then the other tagline that, you know, jumps out at me, which I think is Napoleon describing why you and I should invest time in this, doing this. "Experience must be supplemented by study." You're getting your experience in your day, during your day, building the business that you're building, right?

• 52:34David Senra?

  "Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others." So I just want to run through a couple of ideas on how to use it. So you go to foundersnotes.com and you sign up. Once you sign up, it is, it'll drop you on this page and you'll see a series of options on how to read and search through all the highlights. So the very top, there's this big box at the top. It's actually blue right now. I should turn it black though, since the colors of Founder's is black and white. So I'll make that change. But it says, "Search Highlights." This I use every day. I keep it up in my browser. And you know, any, any term, any person, anything that comes to mind, I just try to search and see what I can find. Any issue I'm having, any idea that pops to mind, I use this.

• 53:19David Senra?

  And now it is a keyword search. We have so many crazy AI features coming. And so one thing that we're going to add is not just the ability to search by keyword, but then search by inference and meaning, which then opens up a whole new set of highlights. But I guess I don't want to confuse you, but I've been testing as since last week. I got access to, I'm calling it Founder's GPT. I don't know if that's the, the, the name that I'll put on the actual feature, but I...

• 53:52David Senra?

  I got access at like nine forty-five at night, uh, cause that's when it was released. And we're obviously still beta testing this on the backend, cause the guys from Readwise are helping me do this. And I had to go meet my trainer the next morning at like six in the morning and I was late and very tired. He's like, what is wrong with you? I was like, well, I was playing with this thing all night because it's like, it's like a history nerd, history, business history nerds like dream. And so let me give you an example.

• 54:19David Senra?

  This, you, it shows right now because we're testing it. It shows like everything it pulls. So I was like, hey, give me a list. I, I was using it to help me make this podcast, right? And to help me think about everything Napoleon, Napoleon's telling me. And so I was like, give me a list of Napoleon's best ideas. And so this founders GPT is essentially like an AI coach to help you brainstorm and give feedback on business ideas. Right? And it's powered by the encyclopedia of all my notes and highlights. And I'm adding a bunch of crazy stuff, which I won't talk about yet. And so I was like, give me a list of Napoleon's best ideas. And then I can see what it is pulling because it's going to give me a list of 10 ideas. Right? But it pulled like 50 different highlights and it's not just from the three different books that I've done on Napoleon. There's stuff from Aristotle Onassis in here.

• 55:03David Senra?

  That was, that he was, he had a very, essentially it's matching the way Napoleon thought with other, uh, of like the people that you and I've studied. Some examples of like other ideas and tactics and tendencies of history's greatest entrepreneurs. So entrepreneurs, so it pulls things from like Aristotle Onassis, Henry Ford, Mozart, Bernard Arnault, David Ogilvy, Elon Musk, Billy Durant, the founder of General Motors, Larry Ellison, and of course, Alexander the Great. And it does all this super fast. And so what we're left with is, you know, maybe a 200 word summary of Napoleon and the way his ideas are similar to some of the other examples of the people that you have, I, you and I have studied in the past. So that's just something I've been messing around this week.

• 55:46David Senra?

  If you already have a subscription to founders notes or if you sign up, everything that I add, there's like every new feature, there's no like, I'm not charging anymore. I'm going to keep making this better, keep adding features. And as I add more features, obviously the price will go up. So that's why you're heavily incentivized to get in now and obviously do that at foundersnotes.com. So anyways, that's just one thing that was, I was obsessed with, uh, this week that I'm super excited about. But I want to go back to, if you sign up now. You landed on this page. This is what I would do right after listening to the episode that you just listened to. You log into Founder's Notes, right? And you could search highlights, but I would go to books. And then, once you click on books, you see all the books that I have, all the highlights that I have. And then you can search there too. And I would just type in Napoleon.

• 56:30David Senra?

  And once you do that, you see the three books that I've done. Napoleon and the Modern War, which is the one I just covered. Napoleon, A Concise Biography by David Bell. And then The Mind of Napoleon. So The Mind of Napoleon, this is why, you know, I just mentioned it six, half a dozen times in the episodes you just listened to. I think this is a very, very special book. And what I would try to do, I really would try to get a copy if you can. Cause it's 300 pages of Napoleon's own words, essentially speaking directly to you. It is so much more detailed than just maxims. Right now, I just clicked on the link, the copy that I have, which was first published in 1955. There's only one copy available on all of Amazon. It's $1,500. That's in the United States Amazon store.

• 57:14David Senra?

  I've heard from a bunch of listeners that if you have access, if you either use a VPN or if you have a friend in Canada, if you go to the Canadian version of Amazon, I think you get the book for like $40. So highly recommend you get that. But I like this idea of using this as like, in substitute for like the newspaper, reading the news every morning. Like, what if you went into Founder's Notes and you just picked a new book? And like, you did that tomorrow when you woke up and you started your day by reading, it probably takes you 10 minutes to read all of my highlights and notes on The Mind of Napoleon. That is a better use of your time than just reading the highlights for the current events, most of which that you're reading is not going to stand the test of time. And what you, the reason I bring this up to you and the reason I'm telling you all this is like, well, don't even take my word for this.

• 57:59David Senra?

  Now, obviously I spent my life doing this, right? What would Napoleon do? What would Napoleon do? What like, really? I'm asking you. So like, can you answer that? What would he do? Of course, he would do this. If he had access to Founders Notes, he'd be reading it constantly. So that's just one idea. There's a million ideas. I'm going to keep, at the end of the episodes, I'll keep like introducing ways to use this. But I think I can leave it there for now, just as simple as that. It's like, hey, sign up, read the highlights from one book a day, and you have a year. Like, you can sign up right now. You do an annual subscription, right? Which means not only do you have access to every single thing I've done so far, but in that year, I'm going to read another, you know, 40, 50 books, no, probably 50 books, add a couple thousand more highlights.

• 58:44David Senra?

  So the, the product actually gets better every day. And I can recommend this with my whole heart because I made it. I use it every day. And I love, and when I hear things about like what Napoleon says, like, "Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others." Like, that's just, every indication, the more biographies I read, the more time I spend rereading this, it's just every single, the, the, when I get to meet people like Charlie Munger and Sam Zell, who are seeped, they are seeped in history, just like Napoleon was. When Napoleon was like, hey, when you read his words, he was like, hey, you know, in 300 AD, this guy did this, and in 1645, this guy did this, and look, he was trying to cross the river here, or 1755, this guy did this.

• 59:26David Senra?

  I got the chance to talk to both before they passed away, two hours of Sam Zell and three hours of Charlie Munger. They were exactly like that. That is my goal, and you know, like, I'm much younger than they are, but like, when I get there, to be seeped in history where everything that you're seeing, you're just, you're just analyzing everything through the ideas and all, like, the giant game tape of history's greatest entrepreneurs. I believe with my whole heart, I will have a better life, I will have a better career because of this relentless studying that I'm do, doing than if I didn't do that. Again, read over and over again. He says that. That's a literally line from Napoleon. Read, not read once and then move on, no, read over and over and over again. So I love that idea.

• 1:00:10David Senra?

  I wanted to combine that idea with Napoleon, from Napoleon, with one of the subscribers to, to Founders Notes that says, like, man, this has replaced my, instead of reading the newspaper, instead of reading the news, I'm just reading this every morning. I think you'll like it, gets better every day, I have a ton of new features coming. That is foundersnotes.com, foundersnotes.com. As always, thank you very much for listening.