#232 Alexander the Great

What I learned from reading Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:28] Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulleby Paul Johnson (Founders #226) [2:16] Each was brave, highly intelligent, almost horrifically self-assured, whose ambitions knew no bounds. [2:46] He was a man of formidable achievements. He was highly creative. He woke up early. His diet was spare. He was skilled with the sword and the spear and an expert at all forms of arms drills. He dressed to be seen. [3:50] He had supernatural self confidence and persistence. There is no substitute for will. [4:26] Churchill by Paul Johnson (Founders #225) [5:50] Addiontal research: Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Addenum Glimpses of Olympias [6:03] The Macedonians were a rugged people. [7:23] Think about this— At 19 years old you think it is your place in history to take revenge on something that happened 150 years previous. That is unapologetically extreme. [9:42] There’s a rule they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School. It is: If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess.” —Edwin Land [12:11] Alexander had excessive tolerance of fatigue [13:14] Combine an excessive tolerance of fatigue with an intolerance of slowness. [14:06] Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp (Founders #184) "Excellence is the capacity to take pain." [14:17] All the things you want in life are on the other side of difficulty and discomfort. [17:12] The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Founders #175) [21:59] He considered that the task of training and educating his son was too important to be true and trusted to the ordinary run of teachers. [22:14] Knowledge Project: Inside the Mind of A Famous Investor | Marc Andreessen [25:03] Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay Jones (Founders #161) Mind Your Own Business: A Maverick's Guide to Business, Leadership and Life by Sidney Harman (Founders #229) Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. (Founders #228) [27:40] Learning is nonlinear. [31:38] I meant to say Alexander, not Aristotle. Alexander is the one writing the letter to Aristotle. [33:49] Alexander was a lover of books. [38:55] George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones (Founders #35) [44:51] Time to Make the Donuts: The Founder of Dunkin Donuts Shares an American Journey by William Rosenberg (Founders #231) [49:16] Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS by Greg Niemann (Founders #192) [51:24] Fortune generally makes those whom she has compelled to put their trust in her alone more thirsty for glory than capable of coping with it. [54:11] What folly forced you, knowing as you did the fame of my achievements, to try the fortunes of war? [58:05] No trait of Alexander's was more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. [58:30] Winners don't go around leaving negative comments about other people winning. [1:01:59] Stand firm, for it is toil and danger that lead to glorious achievements. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “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?

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

• 0:45David Senra?

  It is true that passion or temper may have sometimes led Alexander astray, that to some degree, he inclined towards arrogance. But Alexander was noble enough to repent for his errors. Whoever would reproach Alexander should first weigh up his own personality and achievements against Alexander's. It is my opinion that, at that time, there was no nation, no city, not even one man, who had not heard the name of Alexander. That is an excerpt from the last chapter of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror, as told by his original biographers. Okay, before I jump back into the book, I want to go back a few episodes ago on episode number 226. I read this book called Heroes.

• 1:29David Senra?

  It's by this fantastic writer named Paul Johnson, who I just discovered and absolutely love, and I'm starting to devour his books. And he breaks down, there's like 30 heroes throughout history, Alexander being one of those heroes. He's got this fantastic chapter in the book. It's called Earthshakers. And it's one chapter dedicated to Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. And I want to read a few quotes, I want to review some quotes from that book before we jump into this, this new Alexander biography. And so, this is coming from the book Heroes. Again, you can see the episode and the book link on episode number 226. So, first, it's talking about the introduction to this paragraph. It's comparing the traits that Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great both share.

• 2:11David Senra?

  And it says, "They carved out vast empires for themselves and hammered their names into the history of the earth. Each was brave, highly intelligent, almost horrifically self-assured, whose ambitions knew no bounds." They were both also selfish, cruel, without scruple, and fundamentally unlovable. But they were admired, inevitably, more perhaps than any other two men of their kind. They were giant-like, almost superhuman in every respect. And then I just want to pull out a few sentences from just about Alexander. So it says, "He was a man of formidable achievements. He was highly creative. He woke up early. His diet was spare. He learned to drink heavily."

• 2:55David Senra?

  And that was, to my opinion, his downfall, which I'll get into more in his biography. "He was skilled with the sword and the spear, and an expert at all forms of arms drills. This was his trade from boyhood. He dressed to be seen in that flamboyant dress." It goes into detail in the Alexander biography. "He dressed like that even during battle." Which seems a bit crazy, because the fact that he's standing out makes him a greater target. "He read Homer all of his life, and he knew the passages by heart. It was to him a Bible. The book was a guide to heroic morality, a book of etiquette, and a true adventure story. He believed he was descended from the gods. This belief gave him a certain fatalism, which made the risk of death unimportant to him.

• 3:40David Senra?

  Alexander traveled over 20,000 miles, most of it on foot in difficult mountain and desert terrain. How did he do it? The most important factor, as always with successful statesmen and men of action, was sheer willpower. He had supernatural self-confidence and persistence. There is no substitute for will. He invariably led from the front. He was wounded nine times. And finally, Alexander thought, decided, and above all, moved swiftly. He appreciated the importance of speed and the terrifying surprises speed made possible. He invented the blitzkrieg." Okay, so now I want to jump into today's book. Reminder, Heroes is 226.

• 4:23David Senra?

  Paul, the reason I recommend that book is because I think it's like 200 pages. The episode I did before that, episode 225, it was also written by Paul Johnson and it was a 190-page biography of Churchill. And what I liked about it is Paul writes in very short sentences, there's no fluff, it's very easy to understand. To this book, although the book I'm holding in my hand is only 150 pages, it's more difficult reading, and I'll tell you why. Because outside of the introduction, so the introduction's gonna be written by this guy named Michael Wood. The rest of the text is biographies of Alexander that are 2,000 years old. Okay, so it says, "The texts in this collection are drawn from three ancient biographies of Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in 323 B.C. at the age of just 32, having conquered half of the known world.

• 5:06David Senra?

  His is one of the stories in history that has had the power to captivate every generation." So that's a crazy statement. If you look up, okay, how long is a generation? People say it's usually between 20 and 30 years, so let's take the middle point, 25 years. That means that's 92 generations since Alexander died and we're still talking about him. And it gets into why would that be a little bit here. It says, "The internal fascination with Alexander is not due only to his amazing events he set in motion, but also to the tangle of history and the myth that surrounds him. As the Greeks said, 'Those whom the gods love, die young.'" Then the book gives us a little bit of background into the environment that Alexander was born. In addition to reading this book, I also re-listened, I've recommended this podcast

• 5:49David Senra?

  a few bunch of times, but it's Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Addendum Feed. It's called Glimpses of Olympias. It's like a three and a half hour podcast and the main character of the podcast is Alexander's mother, but it also talks about a lot about Alexander and about his father, and so we're gonna get into that. "The Macedonians were a rugged people. Alexander's father, Philip, had created the Kingdom of Macedonia with a powerful army that crushed all opposition." And the reason I just referenced that episode is because it talks about how formidable, Dan talks about how formidable Philip was. "The accomplishments that Alexander achieved in his lifetime would have been impossible if he was born to a different father." So it talks about that there's like a prehistory to Alexander's birth.

• 6:31David Senra?

  And it's this constant war between the Persians and the Greeks. And so it says, and this is also the reason I'm reading this section to you is because it gives you how an insight to just how grand and a little bit crazy that Alexander was. 150 years earlier, the Persians had attempted to conquer Greece, only to be decisively defeated. To the Greeks, the Persian War represented a latter day heroic age. They had never forgotten the desecration of their temples, and there had long been talk of mounting a war of revenge. Okay, so they're talking about something that happened 150 years earlier, right? Alexander became ruler of Macedonia at the age of 19, after his father's assassination. Two years later, he set out on the Great War of Retribution against the Persians.

• 7:15David Senra?

  So in the previous book, it talks about, hey, he had an unquestionable thirst for glory. He thought he was descended from the gods. He had no fear of death. Think about this, at 19 years old, you think it is your place in history to take revenge on something that happened 150 years previous? That is unapologetically extreme. So from this point, when he starts this war with Persia, until he dies, he is just going around conquering the entire world. So they give a brief overview. I'm going to go to the end. This is just the introduction, keep in mind. So it says, "At this point, the heat, the monsoon rains, disease, and local resistance all began to erode morale. Alexander's army showed its disinclination to go any further.

• 7:58David Senra?

  From then on, certainly with hindsight, his dream begins to unravel. We hear reports of drunkenness and get the impression of a lack of direction. The death of his friend and lover after a massive binge seems to have led to fits of murderous fury and bouts of depression. Wounds and sickness had also taken, no doubt, taken their toll. And in 323, Alexander died in Babylon, probably from medical complications exacerbated by alcoholism, although there were persistent rumors that he had been poisoned by disenchanted members of his court." Those are the bare bones of the story. It was one of the great episodes of history of the world, in the history of the world. "An extraordinary tale of bravery and cruelty, endurance and excess, chivalry and greed, a journey of 10 years and 20,000 miles." The empire broke up rapidly after Alexander's death.

• 8:44David Senra?

  Then it goes into the fact that he was famous in his own day, right after, and then as he continues to be really famous today. So it says, "His legend spread to every corner of the old world. Alexander appears in the Bible. He appears in the Quran. There are over 200 different Alexander epics and poems in medieval European languages alone. There's an Indian legend about Alexander that said he had found the speaking tree, which had foretold his destiny, to die young but win eternal glory." And then before I continue in the introduction, I want to go back to that one paragraph where it talks about, he starts binge drinking, becomes alcoholic. I think one of the benefits of reading biographies is that you see all these very smart and formidable people make mistakes and struggle.

• 9:28David Senra?

  And one thing that you notice is the same extreme traits that allow them to achieve abnormal or unusual success can also cause their downfall. And so the lesson I always take away from this is these personality types, it's very hard, there's almost no such thing as moderation to them. I always think back to that Edwin Land quote, where he's like, "There's something they don't teach you at Harvard Business School, and it's if anything's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess." And so I think Charlie Munger has the right idea on this, is you have to understand you're a highly driven, somewhat crazy person to pursue. I think almost all entrepreneurs, that's why this thing's called the misfit feed, right? We're just not normal people. And so entrepreneurship is a vehicle to channel all this energy into something positive. But Charlie Munger makes the point that a large part of succeeding life is just avoiding bad habits.

• 10:12David Senra?

  And there's a number of quotes he has about this, but one specifically about alcohol, to relate it back to what we're learning about Alexander right now. He talks about, this is a quote from Charlie Munger, he says, "The four closest friends of my youth were highly intelligent, ethical, humorous types. They were favored in person and background. Two are long dead, with alcohol a contributing factor, and a third is a living alcoholic, if you call that a living." And so you go back and you really think about how he started off this thought. He brought up the point, because you say, "Oh, this alcohol, that person's just undisciplined, not very intelligent, they let the substance destroy their lives." But Charlie starts out that paragraph with, "They were highly intelligent."

• 10:56David Senra?

  And that ties back to what you and I are doing. The fact that we're reading biographies, we're learning from biographies constantly. You see this over and over again. Okay, this is a smart, driven, formidable person that made a mistake. It's silly to think that I won't do the same thing. So I need to learn from their experience. I want to avoid. I do not want to die young or have my hopes and dreams dashed because I couldn't stop drinking or being addicted to drugs. Okay, so let's go back to the book. The guy writing the introduction, this guy named Michael Wood, what he is doing while he's writing the introduction, he's retracing Alexander's steps through, like, literally where he goes, right? So he's trying to follow this path, this like 20,000 mile path, and he's reading these three biographies. He has the three biographies with him.

• 11:41David Senra?

  And the crazy terrain and the terrible weather and all the stuff that Alexander had to endure, he talks about that here. So he's giving us insights into Alexander the Great. And I want to combine something that Michael writes here with a discussion I just had with a founder and investor who listens to this podcast. So he says, "What we also gained on the ground, and especially from his night marches at high altitude in the pitch dark, was of course, an insight into Alexander's character. The implacable drive, remorseless, unstoppable, his incredible mental energy and almost excessive tolerance of fatigue." What one of his biographers calls his pathos, his desire to win and excel, his drive.

• 12:25David Senra?

  And so I double underlined that one section where it says, "almost excessive tolerance of fatigue." And so I get to this section, I was like, wait a minute, that's a really interesting trait to have, and I think it should be combined with another trait that I just learned about. So there's a founder and investor named Seth who listens to this podcast. I've talked to him before. He happened to be in town. We wound up meeting up and just discussing all kinds of ideas about entrepreneurship for a few hours. And he was telling me about one of the most formidable entrepreneurs that's part of his portfolio and the way this guy thinks and some traits he has. And Seth said something, and after he said it, I said, hold up. I had to pull out my phone. I was like, I gotta write that down. I cannot forget that, what you just said. And he said that this founder had an intolerance for slowness. So the importance of speed comes up over and over again in these biographies, right?

• 13:09David Senra?

  But what if, like, now where we are in this section of the book, the reminder to myself is we should combine an excessive tolerance of fatigue with an intolerance of slowness.

• 13:21David Senra?

  And the reason I think that came to mind when I was reading this is because I think Alexander had both of those traits. He prioritized speed over and over again. There's some times where he's getting more resistance, like some, as he goes around all these conquests. Some people just fold, or, you know, he moves fast, where he kind of runs over the opposition rather quickly. But there's some times when he's pushed back and he's got to get creative or find another way in. And you, there's a discussion where it's like, all right, well, maybe, instead of spending an extra day or two here, maybe I should just move on to something, to another city that I could conquer faster. And so then the author continues here. This is going to remind me, one of my favorite things, it's become like, almost like a maxim, or something I repeat to myself over and over again, when it's inevitable that you're going to come into some form of discomfort in your work, right? And it's

• 14:05David Senra?

  the fact that, what the founder of Four Seasons, Izzie Sharp said. And he said, "The excellence is the capacity to take pain." And so, that is a main theme in this book. And Alexander specifically says that over and over again, that all the things that you want in life are on the other side of difficulty and discomfort. And so his point to his troops is like, therefore, it's not something to avoid, it's something to embrace. And so it says, "Nothing put him off. In spite of everything, Alexander just kept coming on and on. The freezing cold and the starvation made it a tremendous task, but they could not stop him. And in the end, his enemies were struck with fear and amazement at the speed of his advance." And so the introduction ends with Michael getting to the end of Alexander's journey.

• 14:47David Senra?

  So it says, "When our own journey in Alexander's footsteps was over, I remember sitting in the sweltering little port on the edge of the forbidding Makran Desert, which Alexander crossed on his desperate return from India. As a wind, hot as an oven, swept in over the fiery gravel landscapes and sand dunes of the desert, I turned to Arian's last page." So this is one of the biographies that's quoted heavily in this book. And this guy's writing 2,000 years ago, and this is what he says. "Anyone who belittles Alexander has no right to do so on the evidence. It is my belief that never in the world was there another like him." Okay, so from here on in, in the book,

• 15:32David Senra?

  they take these three ancient texts and they organize them and build a unique narrative, the combination of these texts. And they do that because some biographers are very negative about Alexander, some are very positive. A lot of the text is details about specific battles, stuff like that. I'm not going to talk about that at all. I'm interested in who he was as a person, the traits that he had that we could use in our own work. And then if he has like a useful idea or something like that, I pulled that out. And so we're in the section about his early life. He's about a teenager and it just goes in chronological order from here. So it says, "Even when he was still a boy, he gave plenty of evidence of his powers of self-control. His passionate desire for fame implanted in him a pride and a grandeur of a vision which went far beyond his years."

• 16:17David Senra?

  And so before I read this section, I'm going to read you my note, which is just a summary of this section. I think hearing it beforehand, it will help you. It says, "He was disciplined. He had an intense desire for fame and glory. He desires useful information for revenge on Persia." He is 16, around 16 years old, was the section I'm about to read to you. "He wanted to row," and this is a quote from a description of Teddy Roosevelt, who also is very similar to Alexander in that they both, they wanted to struggle and they had, they also forced themselves, they had internal discipline, but they had external forces of discipline as a way to make sure they can make themselves do what they want to do, if that makes sense. But the note I left myself after reading the section was the fact that there's a line in one of the biographies of Teddy Roosevelt that I read.

• 17:00David Senra?

  And it says that Teddy wanted to row in a boat, right? Row over the roughest waters in the smallest boat in the hottest sun. He purposely put himself over and over and over again. I mean, that book, The River of Doubt, I did on Teddy Roosevelt, was a perfect example of that. He wanted struggle. He sought, he did not avoid discomfort. He ran towards it. And the sickness that he winds up in, all the stuff that he goes through on The River of Doubt, winds up contributing to a relatively early, early death. I think he died when he was, what, 60 or 62, something like that? That's Founder's Number 175, if you don't know what I'm talking about. It's a fantastic book to read, by the way. The writing is amazing. The River of Doubt, I've been giving that as a gift to friends and they've all loved the book, too. Okay, so let's go back to the section, what spawned all these notes I just made.

• 17:43David Senra?

  So at this point in the story, his father's out conquering other places. And so he leaves, like his teenage son. In charge. And it says, "On one occasion, some ambassadors from the king of Persia arrived in Macedonia, and since Philip was absent, Alexander received them in his place." This is what I meant about, he constantly sought out useful information. "He talked freely with them and quite won them over, not only by the friendliness of his manner, but also because he did not trouble them with any childish or trivial inquiries. He questioned them about the distances they had traveled, the nature of their journey, and the character of their king, his experience in war, and the military strength and prowess of the Persians." Three years later, or thereabouts, maybe three to five years later after this conversation,

• 18:28David Senra?

  he's going to use that information, and he's going to overthrow and attack them. And so while this is happening, Philip's having a lot of great victories, he's becoming more famous, more powerful, richer. Alexander does not like that, because he desires for the, he wants the fame and glory for himself, right? "Whenever he heard that Philip had captured some famous city or won an overwhelming victory, Alexander would show no pleasure at the news. But he would declare to his friends, 'My father will forestall me in everything. There will be nothing great or spectacular for you and me to show the world. He cared nothing for pleasure or wealth, but only for deeds of valor and glory.' And this is why he believed that the more he received from his father, the less would be left for him to conquer." And this is a crazy sentence, and so it says, "So every success that was gained by Macedonia

• 19:13David Senra?

  inspired in Alexander the dread that another opportunity for action had been squandered on his father. He had no desire to inherit a kingdom which offered him riches, luxuries, and the pleasures of the senses. His choice was a life of struggle, of wars, and of unrelenting ambition." And so this is the section where I meant that he also had external, he was extremely self-disciplined, but he also had external forces of discipline. So it says, "A great number of nurses, pedagogues, and teachers were appointed to take part in his upbringing." So I had to look up, there's a bunch of words in this book that I came across, I had no idea what they meant. That's one of them. So it says, "A pedagogue is a teacher, especially a strict, a strict one."

• 19:56David Senra?

  And so he has this guy named Leonidas, says, who was one of his pedagogues. So it says, "They were all appointed to take part in his upbringing, but the man who supervised them all," meaning all his teachers, "was Leonidas, who was a severe disciplinarian." So then Philip comes back, and there is a story, if you read it, if, I've watched documentaries on Alexander. Before this story that I'm about to tell you comes up over and over again. It's a story about Alexander breaking in a wild horse. And it's really the reason I'm reading this to you is because his with the realization, he's going to do this right in front of his dad. The realization of who his son is or who his son could be by Philip. Because again, Philip's not, he's very smart. Dan Carlin makes that point in that podcast.

• 20:40David Senra?

  Like, this is not a dumb person by any means. So it says, "The king went down to watch this horse and came to the conclusion that the horse was too wild and quite unmanageable. So Philip orders the horse to be led away, but Alexander remarked, 'What a horse they are losing, and all because they don't know how to handle him or dare not to try.' Philip asked him, 'Are you finding fault with your elders because you think you know more than they do? Or can you manage a horse better? At least I can manage this one better,' retorted Alexander." So his father's like, "Okay, go ahead and try." And so they're watching them, and he looks to be very dangerous. He could get thrown off, he could be stomped, whatever the case is. I'm skipping over him breaking in the horse. We're going to get to the punchline here. "At first, Alexander and his friends held their breath and looked on in the agony of suspense until they saw Alexander reach the end of his gallop, turn in full control,

• 21:24David Senra?

  and ride back, triumphant and exulting in his success. His father wept for joy. And when Alexander had dismounted, he kissed him and said, 'My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedonia is too small for you.'" And so he learns something about his son. He's like, "I cannot just bully him into just doing whatever I want him to do. I have to persuade, and I have to reason with him." "Philip had noticed that his son was self-willed, and that while it was very difficult to influence him by force, he could easily be guided towards his duty by an appeal to reason. And he therefore made a point of trying to persuade the boy rather than giving firm orders. Besides this, he considered that the task of training and educating his son was too important to be entrusted to the ordinary run of teachers." Now, this is going to be a weird thought for you.

• 22:09David Senra?

  So while I'm reading this, like a week or two ago, maybe longer, a listener sent me a podcast. It's the Knowledge Project episode with Mark Andreessen. It just came out. And he said, "Listen to the last 10 minutes of this. It sounds exactly what you're doing." And in the last 10 minutes, Mark Andreessen's talking about, you know, he's read hundreds of biographies. He's a devotee of history. And he talks about building mental models of great people. And some of these people are still alive. So he's like, I have, this is Mark talking. Mark's like, "I have a mental model of Elon Musk. I have a mental model of Peter Thiel. He has a mental model of all these people." And by reading about them, by listening to him speak, in some cases, knowing them. He's able to, when he's presented with a decision, he has such an interesting way to put this.

• 22:51David Senra?

  He says he stress tests his ideas through like the scope of the history of entrepreneurship. And so that's why I think the listeners said, hey, listen to the last 10 minutes because this is like what we're doing on the podcast. Where he's able, okay, I'm presented a decision in my life and my business. What would Elon Musk say? What would Charlie Munger say? What would Edwin Land say? What would Steve Jobs say? And he has all these different mental models as a way to help him make sure that he's making the right decision, which obviously Mark's brilliant. I was like, of course, he's going to come up with that and say it explicitly, even if we say so implicitly, right? That's exactly what's happening. But also, I listened to the whole episode because anytime I get a chance to listen to Mark speak, I try to. And he brings up the fact that like, they're like, oh, he's asked the question something, oh, like, how do you, you know, fix our broken educational system?

• 23:36David Senra?

  And he's just like, you don't. Like, that system's never going to be fixed. There is no reform. Like, you have to build something new in its place. And it sounded like, to me, at least when I listened to this part two times so far, that he is a six-year-old child and that he wants some form of like homeschooling or your own curriculum. And that's exactly what Philip realizes here. He says, listen, besides that, he considered the task of training and educating his son was too important to be entrusted to the ordinary run of teachers. And unfortunately, Mark goes into details about his theory on why this has occurred, but like, that's the description of our education system. And so I think Mark's solution is very similar to Philip's solution, although the Philip solution's in the extreme.

• 24:19David Senra?

  One of my favorite things I've ever learned about Alexander is the fact that his private tutor was Aristotle. That is crazy to me. So Philip sent for Aristotle, the most famous and learned of the philosophers of the time, and rewarded him with the generosity that his reputation deserved. And so the idea of like, setting up your child or whatever with a private tutor, that's out of reach for most of humanity, right? But if you are rich or if you are wealthy, like, is there something better that you could actually spend your money on than the education of your child? And there is like a very low cost, almost even free version of this is if you can actually curate all the abundant educational resources that the internet provides. But there is something to be said about purchasing access to the greatest minds because there's weird examples that come up over and over again in these books.

• 25:03David Senra?

  So I think of Dr. Seuss is an example of this. Sidney Harman, who I just did on episode number 229, Michael Bloomberg on episode 228. They're all, and there's much more examples in the books, but they talk about, they're like, "I learned more from this one person in 10 minutes than I learned in the previous 10 years." And that sounds so crazy, but it's not. And you know it's not because people that don't know each other, lived in different times, worked in different industries, all talk about having an experience of being guided by somebody that has just a fundamental understanding of what they're trying to learn. And they can convey key insights in a very short amount of time. But I also had this experience too, because a long time ago, so I went, I told the story before, but I was in the, when I was in college, I was in the pilot entrepreneurship program. So the very first year, this was like 15 years ago, something like that, no, maybe more.

• 25:47David Senra?

  And, you know, the last two years, you're in this entrepreneurship program, there's like 300 people in the program, and a lot of it, like anybody else has told you, like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett talks about, like, eh, the quality of business schools, eh, I don't know. But what struck me is the fact that there was a guy, he was an entrepreneur, he was donating a building. So I think he was gonna donate, like, I think he was building a building at the time for like three or five million dollars, some number like that. And he's like, "I have one prerequisite attached to this money." And he's like, "I want to talk to your entrepreneurship students before I give you the money." And so he gives like a 30, 40 minute talk, and then he just lets us light him up with as many questions as we want. And I learned more from that guy in one hour than I did in two years.

• 26:29David Senra?

  And it was just basic, the common sense of an entrepreneur. He started a company, his company was, I think it was called Tires Plus. It's like these places where they'll change your tires, but they do like basic stuff like oil changes and, you know, they're not like full mechanics, but they'll do like basic maintenance on your car. And he told us the entire story of like how he got the idea, how he expanded, how he picked the right locations, just very useful information. And then he told us a story about he, the way he sold the company is he winded up being the largest customer for Bridgestone tires. And so Bridgestone was this giant company. And now because his other, because this guy's, I don't remember his name. Because his company grew so large, with such a large percentage of the tires that Bridgestone

• 27:13David Senra?

  sold to retail businesses, they had to buy them. They're like, if this guy chooses to say, what if he goes with, you know, I don't know other tire brand, Toyo Tire, whatever, like, that's too big. We have to, we have to buy your company. And so he was forbidden to tell us like the amount, but he said, hey, you know, hypothetically, this is what we're doing in sales. And, you know, in this industry, a good purchase price would be whatever, 7% or 10% or whatever it was. But I remember doing the math and it was something like 40 or 50 or 60 million dollars, something like that. So anyways, I guess the point is that learning and education is nonlinear. And so it's very difficult to design a system where you can actually optimize for the benefit of, you know, the mass. And I just highly recommend listening to, to that podcast. Not only his Mark Andreessen's thoughts on building mental models, which comes towards

• 27:56David Senra?

  the end, but also his, his opinions on the education system I thought were, were interesting and useful. Let's go back to this. So Aristotle's now tutoring Alexander. It says, "It seems clear that Alexander was instructed by his teacher not only in the principles of ethics and politics, but also those secret and more esoteric studies which philosophers do not impart to the general run of students, but only by word of mouth to a select circle of the initiated." Some years later, now this is very fascinating. I'm never going to get through this book if I keep taking these tangents, but this is very fascinating. So it's saying, okay, Aristotle has like one set of curriculum that's publicly available for everybody else, and then he's got some other stuff that's only for a select circle. So this is very similar to why, how many autobiographies have you and I gone over on this podcast?

• 28:41David Senra?

  A ton. I don't know, 100? It's a large number. They're not writing, no entrepreneur writes a biography in the middle of his career, his or her career. They wait till the end. And so they're teaching. You know, the main theme of this podcast is the fact that the best founders thought of themselves as teachers. Go back to that founder of Costco, Jim Sinigal. He's like, you're the leader of the company. That means if you're not spending, as the leader of the company, as the founder, as the CEO, if you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job. It's insane how many of these founders talk about themselves as teachers. But they're only teaching people inside their company. You have to wait. You can download Sam Walton's Best Ideas for Building a Company, Phil Knight's, all these other people's best ideas, but you have to wait till their end.

• 29:25David Senra?

  They write these books, either When They Know They're Dying, Ingvar Kamprad, the list goes on and on, the founder of IKEA. They wait till they're older. They're like 70, 80, whatever the case is. We just did this with Sidney Harmon, right? He was 80 years old when he wrote that book. I just did the Dunkin' Donuts guy. He waited till he's 84. He was offered to write a biography back in the 1960s. He's like, nope, I'm gonna wait till I'm 84. And Steve Jobs picked up on this. This is a quote that I repeat over and over again, to think about this, because there's a lot of people saying, like, a lot of people publicize and help use some information to other entrepreneurs, but you know that they're saving their best stuff for themselves, because they don't want, and why? Because they don't want to produce more competitors. And so Steve was learning this, because he's doing this extensive, when he's trying to

• 30:10David Senra?

  help grow Pixar, he's in this extensive study of the movie industry of animation. And so he talks about this. He says, listen, this is a direct quote from Steve. I love this guy. I miss him so much. "You can't go to the library and find a book titled 'The Business Model for Animation,'" Steve explained. "The reason you can't is because there's only been one company, Disney, that's ever done it well, and they're not interested in telling the world how lucrative it is." And so we see, that's just, in my opinion, a constant of human nature, we see Aristotle doing the same thing 2,300 years ago.

• 30:46David Senra?

  He's like, listen, I got, you know, I got a lot of stuff that I can teach you. The more esoteric, right? This is only going to be kept with us. And so, obviously, he's being paid very handsomely, as he should be. I think teachers should, I think teachers should make a ton of money. And I think with the internet, you're clearly seeing the best teachers in the world will make. I think it was Chamath Palihapitiya. He said that teachers, in his opinion, teachers are going to be paid like athletes, that you're going to see teachers making $30 million a year, whatever the case is, with, over the internet, obviously. So it says, "Esoteric studies with philosophies that do not impart to the general run of students, but only by word of mouth to a select circle of the initiated. Some years later, Alexander learned that Aristotle had published some of these conversations they're having, right, that deal with these esoteric matters, and he wrote to him in

• 31:31David Senra?

  blunt language and took him to task for the sake of the prestige of philosophy." This was the text of his letter. So Aristotle's pissed. He's like, "You're telling other people what you told me. Shut up." Aristotle, greetings. "You have not done well to write down and publish those doctrines you taught me by word of mouth. What advan-" and this is why, this is, this is wild, because what Alexander's picking up here is exactly what Steve Jobs realized about Disney. He's like, "You're telling everybody what you taught me." And then, why is he mad about that? That's what Alexander says. "What advantage shall I have over other men if these theories in which I have been trained are to be made common property?

• 32:11David Senra?

  I would rather excel the rest of mankind in my knowledge of what is best than in the extent of my power. Farewell." So that's a playway of saying, "Shut up," right? This is another example. And this, I'm still on the same page. This is crazy how much, and that's what I've realized about this book. There's like, it's like a feast and famine, where there's some pages where I can't stop highlighting and taking notes, and then there's an entire chapter where I have nothing. It's, it's not an easy book to read, by any means. Even though, you know, I thought, when I picked up, I was like, "Oh, 150-page," what I thought of was like, "Oh, it's a 150-page biography of Alexander. This is going to be like that 190-page biography of Churchill." It's, it's really not. They're going to make you work for it. So this is really a reminder, it's like, you've got to read all the time.

• 32:54David Senra?

  And so, before I read this to you, I want to read, you know, let's go back to Grand Paul Charlie. What did Grand Paul Charlie Muller tell us? "In my whole life, I have known no wise people over a broad subject area who didn't read all the time. None. Zero." And the great thing is, I think, now with the invention of podcasts and audiobooks, the fact that you can read, I was just listening to an interview with Tim Urban, the writer of Wait But Why. And, you know, that guy reads a ton and does a lot of research for his blog. But he's like, audiobooks has been the best invention for him because he's like, I'll go to the store, right? I have to walk to the store, get my groceries, come back. I just read, you know, 30 minutes. If you read 30, he does this math where if you can read 30 minutes a day, you'll read a thousand books in 20 years or 40 years. I forgot. Basically, over your lifetime, you can read a thousand books, right?

• 33:38David Senra?

  And he's like, I'm standing in line at TSA. I'm reading. I'm on this boring plane ride. I'm reading. And his method is audiobooks. But again, physical books, whatever, you just have to read all the time. Alexander was also devoted by nature to all kinds of learning and was a lover of books. He regarded the Iliad as a handbook of the art of war and took it with him on his campaign. This is crazy. The copy of the Iliad he had was annotated by Aristotle. This became known as his casket copy. I'm not sure what that means. And which he always kept under his pillow with his dagger. When his campaigns had taken him far into the interior of Asia and he could find no more books, he ordered his treasure to send him some. Send him some. Oh, and then it moves in a different direction.

• 34:23David Senra?

  So we're now skipping over his love of reading into the fact that he was engaged in war, even when he was 16 years old. This is something he's very happy because Philip's gone. So they think, oh, Philip's not there, we're going to take over, you know, we're going to attack and we're going to make quick work of his son. That just doesn't happen. Although he was only 16 years old, he defeated the Medeia, who had risen in revolt. Alexander captured their city, drove out its inhabitants and established a colony of Greeks assembled from various regions and named it Alexandoropolis. Because of these achievements, Philip became extravagantly fond of his son, so much so that he took pleasure in hearing the Macedonians speak of Alexander as the king and Philip as their general. Not long after this, Philip is assassinated.

• 35:08David Senra?

  There is some rumors, and Dan Carlin goes into the way more detail on his podcast. I'd highly recommend you listen to it if you're interested in this kind of stuff. That no one really knows who, they know who assassinated Philip. It was who actually stabbed him. But there is rumors that Alexander and his mother were the ones that initiated the plot. And so in that podcast, Dan Carlin talks about, he's like, this is who, and he always talks about the ancient world is so foreign and bizarre to the world we live in. So it's hard to understand that. So he uses the analogy of JFK assassination. And so Dan uses this metaphor. He's like, listen, to understand how bizarre this sequence of events is, imagine if Jackie is the one that convinced Lee Harvey Oswald to kill her husband.

• 35:52David Senra?

  And then the added twist is that Lee Harvey Oswald and JFK were lovers. And so Dan's point was like, that is what many people believe happened here. Okay. So at the beginning of all these chapters, they have like a brief description of what is about to occur in this chapter. I'm just going to give you this overview. So it says, as the new king of Macedonia, the 20-year-old Alexander immediately sets out re-establishing his father's control over Greece. He does encounter resistance, notably from one, from one, one of the key powers in Greece, which he swiftly defeats, destroying the city and selling almost all the surviving citizens into slavery. Athens is then quick to surrender. Only Sparta, the major remaining power in Greece, maintains its independence from Macedonia rule.

• 36:36David Senra?

  So then it goes into detail. Like I said earlier, I'm skipping over the battle parts. We're really just trying to figure out who Alexander was, right, as a person. And so he winds up stumbling, like he's going around and conquering all these areas, right? But there's also many examples in the book where he, he seeks out interesting people and he wants to meet them. And so there's a bunch of interesting supporting characters. And so one of these is this guy named Diogenes, which is, he's one of the founders of the cynic philosophy. And so I want to read this section to you because I love that, like, there's all these like weird independent characters in all these biographies. And some of them like just stick in my mind. So this guy, for whatever reason, I'm reading this section, there's something that happens in George Lucas's biography that popped my mind. So it says, many of the Greek statesmen and Greek statesmen and philosophers visited Alexander to offer their congratulations.

• 37:21David Senra?

  And he had hoped that Diogenes would do the same, right? So come and, you know, give me adulation. He's not going to do that, right? So it says, however, since he paid no attention, whatever to Alexander, he continued to live at leisure in the suburb of Corinth. So you have all these people are keeping track of these current events. Going and trying to seek favor of Alexander. This guy is off in the cut, just doing his own, living his own life. He's kind of ignoring, he's almost like muted the world is the way to think about that. And so he's like, I'm not, like, I'm not even paying attention to Alexander. And so it says, so this piqued Alexander's interest. Alexander went in person to see him and found him basking in the sun. So there's, the legend here is like, he stumbles upon him, he's just sunbathing naked.

• 38:03David Senra?

  And it says, when, when he saw so many people approaching him, Diogenes raised himself a little on the elbow and fixed his gaze upon Alexander. The king greeted him and inquired whether he could do anything for him. "Yes," replied the philosopher, "you can stand a little to one side out of my son." Alexander is said to have been greatly impressed by this answer and full of admiration for the hauteur and independence of mind of a man who could look down on him with such condescension. That is a weird response, right? So much so, that he remarked to his followers as they were leaving. Because they were laughing at the fact that, and mocking the philosopher, right? Alexander had a different point of view.

• 38:46David Senra?

  He says, "You may, you may say what you like, but if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." And so one of my favorite books that I've ever read for the podcast, I think it's episode number 35, it's George Lucas's biography, I will definitely reread it in the future and make another podcast on it. And what I found really fascinating about that is that there's a collection, when they're in their early 30s, right, this is our, maybe they're late 20s. So there's a group that is not yet famous, that will be famous, and they all know each other and hang out. So you've got George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma. And so the book covers like, who these people were before they became famous and successful with Star Wars and Jaws and all, and The Godfather and all these other movies, right?

• 39:28David Senra?

  And so what a lot of them did not like at the time, I think it was in the early 60s, I can't remember the time, the decade exactly, but they didn't like the, the standard way that the movie industry was set up. And they were looking for a different path in. And so this is, I'm going to relate this to, you know, just have this guy, there's like, these independent characters that are kind of, they, they just set up their life the way they want to do it, regardless of how other people, or other people tell them they should, or the industry thinks you should. And I just find these people extremely admirable. I like these people, just like Alexander, like Diogenes, right? And so this guy named John Cordy. And John Cordy is essentially like the blueprint, the business model and the modus operandi that George Lucas is going to copy and then take to an extreme level, right?

• 40:11David Senra?

  And so it says, I'm going to quote from George Lucas's book for a minute. Sitting next to him was 31-year-old independent filmmaker from Northern California named John Cordy. And it says, "While Cordy spoke eloquently on the topic at hand, it was when he digressed into the details of his filmmaking that Lucas really took an interest." This is the blueprint Lucas is going to follow. "For the past three years, Cordy had been running his own filmmaking facility out of his barn at Stinson Beach, which is a small town just north of San Francisco." George Lucas winds up setting up shop in a similar area because he's like, "I don't want to be in L.A. Everybody's telling me not to be in L.A. I'm not going to do that. That's where Bill Skywalker ran." So anyways, this is many years in the future. Cordy had privately raised $100,000 for his movie by hitting up friends, colleagues, and even actors for the money. He shot the movie locally, then edited it on his own equipment. This is all the stuff that George Lucas is going to do.

• 40:56David Senra?

  "At the film's premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, it received a lengthy standing ovation, and Hollywood executives fell over themselves scrambling to distribute the movie and recruit Cordy." But now we see this fierce independence of mind in Cordy. We just saw it in Diogenes. We see it in Henry Singleton. We see it in Claude Shannon. We see this over and over again. And so it says, "But Cordy was having none of it. From what I saw of Hollywood, they can keep it. I would rather work for myself." In Hollywood, you have a producer breathing down your neck. Hollywood is dying slowly. Here in Northern California, I am happier working with less money. The risk of failure is far less. We can complete a film in a year, getting the results that we want." And so Coppola and Lucas are realizing this guy nails it.

• 41:41David Senra?

  This is exactly what we should do. Coppola and Lucas had seen the future in Cordy's barn on the beach. They were going to build their own cinematic community somewhere. "If you can do it," he had told Cordy enthusiastically, "we can." And this is the punchline. This was exactly what they had in mind for themselves. Cordy inspired us both. He was a real innovator. And so there's no books written on John Cordy. You know, there's no biographies. Most people don't know who he is. But if you read a ton of biographies, you come across these just independent, really interesting characters that can then influence your thinking, just like Cordy influenced George Lucas's and Francis Ford Coppola's thinking. He definitely influenced mine and tons of other people that have discovered his way of thinking. And so the book goes into quite, for quite, I would say like half the book about this

• 42:23David Senra?

  fight that he's having with trying to revenge, what's it called, Persia? Like the 150, the Battle of Persia that happened 150 years before he was born. Imagine being the leader of Persia and it's like, wait a minute, guy, you're seeking retribution for something that happened, you know, 125 years before I was born. So he's going to wind up overthrowing Darius. This part's just incredible because it, this is what I know, to know that myself, this is incredible. Read this part slowly. The Persian king doesn't want to hear the truth. And so there's been all these like skirmishes, but Darius knows that Alexander's coming for him, right? And so Darius is asking advice from this guy who has no reason to lie to him because he doesn't like Alexander. So it says, "Darius turned to the Athenian," his name's, I don't know how to pronounce

• 43:08David Senra?

  this, so I'm going to call him Chad. "He turned to the Athenian Chad, who was an experienced soldier with a grudge against Alexander because of his exile. It was on Alexander's command that he had been expelled from Athens. And he proceeded to ask whether in his opinion," so Darius is asking Chad his opinion, "if he was well enough equipped to crush his enemy. With no thought for his own circumstances and the vanity of royalty, Chad answered, 'Perhaps you do not want to be told the truth. And yet, if I do not tell it to you now, it will serve no purpose to admit it at another time. This magnificent army, this conglomeration of so many nations can strike terror into your neighbors.'" He's describing Darius's army.

• 43:52David Senra?

  "It gleams with purple and gold. It is resplendent with armor and an opulence so great that those who have not witnessed it simply cannot conceive of it." Now he's going to compare what you have, Darius, to what Alexander has. This is not going to go well for you, Darius. "The Macedonian line is certainly coarse and inelegant." So let's think about that. Yes, another weird thought for you. I was struck, I cannot stop thinking about the Dunkin' Donuts book and the fact that

• 44:20David Senra?

  The arrogance of his son. You have, so you have, what is Chad telling us? Like, you're, you know, you're, you're army's great number. You're wearing fancy clothes. You have gold and all this other stuff. And you're growing up against this Macedonia. And they're coarse and they're inelegant, right? But they're skilled. That's the difference here. So you have this 25-year-old son of the Dunkin' Donuts founder, who grew up in a wealthy house, right? Because his dad, his dad, if you haven't listened to that episode, the guy that founded Dunkin' Donuts writes the book when he's 84 years old. Okay? He's been working full-time since he was 14. He had to, he has an eighth-grade education, had to drop out because his dad's business in the depression went under. And so he was forced to learn how to make money from a young age.

• 45:03David Senra?

  Every dollar he made had to turn, in turn, be given to support his family. So over the course, so you take that set of skills that he started to acquire at 14. Now, fast forward, he's 50 years old. He's been making a ton of money for a long time because he's a really good entrepreneur. But he only has an eighth-grade education. He, his son grows up in an environment opposite that he grew up in, right? He grows up, his dad's making money. His dad has enough prestige that he can get into Harvard Business School. Then he comes out at 25 years old, right? So now you have a 25-year-old with a Harvard Business School education and no experience at all, making money. And then you have a 50-year-old entrepreneur with almost 40 years of experience. He's built two amazing businesses. One of them went public, right? Which is Dunkin' Donuts.

• 45:46David Senra?

  That 50-year-old that has all that experience is not twice as smart as a 25-year-old with no experience. He's a thousand times, in terms of entrepreneurship, right? He's a thousand times smarter. And then you, we are proceed, as you read that book, you're proceeded to just hear the story of this arrogant kid, being advised by his dad, right? Your dad loves you more than anybody else in the world. He has all this experience. He's telling you, hey, don't do that. This is a bad idea. This is why, why you shouldn't do that. But he defers to his son. He's like, you shouldn't do this. His dad, he goes, okay, thanks. Or his son goes, thanks for the advice, dad. I'm going to do the opposite. And then he proceeds to run the company into the ground, where they literally had to find a white knight to be bought out or else Dunkin' Donuts is going to have a hostile takeover. And his son was like, he even said it in quotation marks,

• 46:31David Senra?

  that you're, you are, you and your dad, you and your like crew, like your executives are not sophisticated. That is a line in the book. That is insane. And he said it's not sophisticated because you don't do reports and sit in meetings like we do. It's insane. You can't believe that this is true. You just cannot. Like, you're reading that book, and you're like, what the hell? And I think if you listen to that podcast, I start dropping F-bombs because I'm so... I'm incredulous at the arrogance, the undeserved arrogance that's coming from his son and the focus on the absolute wrong thing. So, we're gonna see that here. So, it says, "Okay, you guys are great. You're in gold." Okay, that's nice. "The Macedonia line is certainly coarse and elegant, but it protects behind its shields

• 47:13David Senra?

  and lances, immovable wedges of tough, densely-packed soldiers. The Macedonians call it a phalanx, an infantry column that holds its ground. They stand man next to man, arms interlocked with arms. They wait eagerly for their commander's signal, and they are trained to follow the standards and not break ranks. To a man, they obey their orders." So, what is he saying? "You may think they're elegant, you may think they're coarse, but they're disciplined and they're skilled, and they're not going down without a fight. And from top to bottom, this organization is much more formidable than yours." So, it says, "The common soldier is no less skilled than the officer. And don't think what motivates them is desire for gold and silver." This is exactly what the Duncan Donner says.

• 47:58David Senra?

  "Until now, such strict discipline has been due to poverty's schooling." That is a crazy line. He's like, "You guys have been rich for generations. These guys grew up poor, and their discipline is due to the school... The education that you learn from poverty. When they are tired, the earth is their bed. They don't need the fancy tents that you guys have and all the gold and all this other stuff, and the fancy food. They are satisfied with food, they can prepare while they work. Their sleeping time is of shorter duration than the darkness." So, this goes on for some while. Imagine if you're some spoiled, rich king. You're not gonna like people talking to you like that, right? Which is exactly the opposite of what we just learned from Alexander. Dionysius, or whatever the guy's name is, I can't pronounce it, was like, "Get out of

• 48:43David Senra?

  my son." And he thought it was funny. "What you need is strength like theirs. You must look for help in the land that produced those men." He's talking about the unique environment molded them, like a sculpture. "Send off that silver and gold that you have and hire soldiers." That is a hell... He's like, "You don't even have soldiers. You have an army, but you don't have soldiers." And it says, "Darius had Chad dragged off and executed." And he did this at a time when Chad was making very useful recommendations. And so the lesson there that's tied to us, like, we're obviously not going to be conquering the world, but I can't help but think of what the founder of UPS told us. He's like, I don't want to get my information from my executives. Their incentives is to give me good information, to flatter me so they can make more money.

• 49:26David Senra?

  He's like, when I'm driving around the city and I see a UPS driver, a truck, I immediately stop and I get out and I talk to the driver, because that driver is the endpoint. He's the connection to my customer. He's the foundation upon which my empire rests. He will tell me the truth, the day-to-day of like, what do we need to do better? What are we doing well? What can we improve at? My executives will not. So you need people that will tell you the truth. A main, like, I would say the supporting character in this story is difficulty. He talks about the importance of difficulty over and over again. He seeks things out, and I'm just going to give you one example. The fact that it is difficult makes it more important. That is something Alexander believed.

• 50:11David Senra?

  Once he arrived to the city, Alexander gave orders for the siege to be put together, only to be advised by his engineers that the steepness of the hill would make it impossible to take the city by force. Alexander believed that these difficulties actually made the capture of the city even more essential, as such unexpected success would strike terrible fear into his enemies, whereas failure would bring disgrace upon him. And then, you know, some of his, not some, almost all of his behaviors is unapologetically extreme because he believed, and like, he was a descendant of the God, he believed his fate was to rule the entire world. So, you know, this is why he's talked about, you know, 2,500 years later, whatever the case is. The scope of his ambition is just, it's limitless. So he's talking to the priests.

• 50:56David Senra?

  He says, "The oldest of the priests," Alexander proceeded to ask whether he was fated to rule over the entire world. The priest answered that he was going to rule over all of the earth. And that he added, the priest added, "that Alexander would remain undefeated until he went to join the gods." And then this is a hell of a line. A hell of a line, considering that this was written 2,000 years ago. It's a description of Alexander, but really of human nature. "Fortune generally makes those whom she has compelled to put their trust in her alone more thirsty for glory than capable of coping with it."

• 51:37David Senra?

  Alexander was more thirsty for glory than capable of coping with it. I think the lesson for us there, like, be careful what you wish for. Humans are terribly, terrible at predicting what they actually want. Another trait for you here, it's interesting, because my wife asked me this morning, she's like, "What did you learn about Alexander the Great?" The first thing that came out of my mouth was like, "He had a high tolerance for pain." And again, I didn't have that prepared, that's what stumbled out immediately. This is an example of that. "For besides all of his other hardships, he had recently been wounded below the knee by an arrow, which had splintered his shin bone. On another occasion, he had received such a violent blow on the neck from a stone that his vision became clouded.

• 52:19David Senra?

  In spite of all this, he continued to expose himself unsparingly to danger. He had crossed the river, routed some other tribe, and pursued them for 12 miles, even though all the while he was suffering from an attack of dysentery." And so this is very closely in the book, this is his apex. This is a description of the chapter before you read the chapter. So it says, "Yet even though Alexander is advised that these lands are rich," he's in India at the point, he's trying to overtake India. "Yet even though Alexander is advised that these lands are rich and that the victory should be within his grasp, his men are exhausted, their spirits are broken at last by hardships of the monsoon. Led by an old and respected general, they refuse to continue. Having come so close to complete domination of India, Alexander is forced to give in

• 53:03David Senra?

  to his men and begins his retreat." So that is as far as he gets, that's his apex shortly after is when he's going to die. There's a line in this book that Jeff Bezos would be extremely proud of. "Terrified by the unbelievable boldness of the Macedonians." So bold, I can't tell you how many times he uses that. If you've read Jeff's shareholder letters, it might be his favorite word. So he's having this great war with this, another, like, almost like the version of Alexander, if he was born in India. And it's just remarkable. Look at how Alexander treats and respects genuine excellence, even in an enemy. This part was really surprising to me. This guy has a hell of a, there's all these kinds of crazy stories in the book, but this guy's fighting.

• 53:47David Senra?

  The guy that Alexander's about to defeat has like an army of elephant. He shows up to battle with like 85 elephants and like 30,000 troops and all kinds of crazy things. And Alexander's like just defeated him. It looks like the guy's gonna die, so Alexander's talking to him. He's like, "Why didn't you give up?" Essentially what he's saying. He's like, "You know who I am. You've heard my..." Now he's a decade into his conquests. Like, "Why would you even attempt to fight me and then die for this?" And so let's pick up this conversation, which is just remarkable. "What folly forced you, knowing as you did the fame of my achievements, to try the fortunes of war? Since you ask, replied Porus, I shall answer you with the frankness your inquiry has granted me." And again, there's always another you. You know, you're not the only... I love, let me go back to Tim Urban.

• 54:31David Senra?

  One of my favorite ideas I learned from him is like, he's like, "When I'm writing a post, I just envision 100,000 other Tims." He's like, "There's people out there that are very, we have similar traits, we're interested in the same things." And so what Alexander realizes is like, "This is another me." And so Porus says, "I shall answer you with the frankness your inquiry has granted me. I did not think there was anyone stronger than I. Though I knew my own strength, I had not yet tested yours. And now the outcome of the war has shown you to be the stronger." Alexander questioned him further, asking his opinion on what his victor should do with him. "What this day tells you to do, said Porus, the day on which you have discovered how transitory good fortune is.

• 55:14David Senra?

  Porus's advice did him more good than please would have done. His greatness of spirit," meaning Porus's, "was not cowed or broken, even in adversity." So Alexander's like, "This is another me." And when two people realize, "Okay, this is another me." I always use the example, I've gone back and like, you know, I was obsessed with Michael Jordan when I was a kid. And I've read a lot about Kobe Bryant, listen to him speak because of his mindset, right? I wasn't even a Laker fan, but I really enjoyed his mindset and he realized that too, because there's a ton of examples when, you know, Jordan becomes an older brother to Kobe, because he realizes like Kobe won't back down. So Phil Jackson, there's two stories I want to tell you real quick. Phil Jackson talks about, hey, he's currently coaching Kobe at this time. He's like, hey, Michael, come by to practice, like if you got, if

• 55:59David Senra?

  you got free time. And so he's talking, like he's, you know, kind of trying to test Kobe Bryant. He's like, oh, you know, you can't guard me. They're talking back and forth. And, you know, at this time, people were afraid of Michael and Kobe's like, you can't guard me. And so they go back and forth. And he's like, well, I got shoes. We can do this right now. And so they wind up leaving. Michael walks away with Ahmad Rashad, who was also there. And he turns to him, he goes, man, I love that dude. That dude is a warrior. And Ahmad is now interviewing Kobe, this is what I'm watching. And Ahmad's like, how old were you when that happened? And Kobe's like, 21. And then later on Kobe tells a story. He comes in the league, I think he's like 17. The first time he plays against Jordan, he's like 18 or 19 years old, something like that. And, you know, idolized Jordan

• 56:42David Senra?

  growing up, copied his moves, studied him. And so his teammate right before the game's like, hey, you want some advice? He's like, yeah, what's that? He goes, don't look him in the eye. And Kobe's like, what? Excuse me? And so Kobe tells a story. He's like, well, my teammate didn't realize is like, I'm that too. You can't look me in the eye either. And that mutual admiration, even if they're competitors, is like, okay, this is a, this is a very, this guy thinks like me. This is very similar to me. It doesn't, it usually engenders respect. And it's really the only way to deal with a formidable individual, because a lot of these formidable individuals, if we've seen time and time again in these books, they'll run over you. If they think you're weak or you're going to give in, like they, strength respects strength. You cannot, and Kobe realized like, I don't want to look at the guy in the eye. You think I'm going to be able to beat him on the basketball court? Like, that's ridiculous. So let me tie this back to what Alexander does, because

• 57:25David Senra?

  this is insane. He just, he just ran over the guy, almost tried to kill him. And he's going to wind up recruiting him. He's like, I want you on my team. So it says Porus's advice did more good than please would have done. His greatness of spirit was not cowed or broken, even in adversity. And we've seen that Alexander wouldn't cower, break in adversity. And Alexander felt obliged to treat him not only with mercy, but with respect. He tended to his wounds just as if Porus had fought on his side. And when they recovered, contrary to, and when Porus recovered, contrary to everyone's expectations, they thought he was going to die. Alexander made him one of his friends. And shortly afterward bestowed on him an empire larger than Porus had formerly held. That's insane.

• 58:05David Senra?

  In fact, no trait of Alexander's was more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. And so that is what separates, we talk a lot about the naysayers, the negative people. We went over that with Dunkin' Donuts guy last week. He talks about it's just a part of human nature. You've got to ignore these people. The 10% of people that overachieve have positive mental attitudes. That right there separates the losers from the winners. Winners don't go around leaving negative comments about other people winning. There was no trait of Alexander's more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. When a mediocre person is faced with genuine excellence, they retort.

• 58:47David Senra?

  They become negative because they see in themselves everything that they are not. The greatest founders, investors ever. They do not denigrate the past. They build upon it. They go out and seek these people. Let's read that one more time. There was no trait of Alexander's more firmly held or enduring than his admiration for genuine excellence and brilliant achievement. And then now we got to the part where he's facing declining morale and he gives, in my opinion, just a remarkable speech. So it says Macedonian resolve was flagging as the men watched their king pursuing a relentless campaign that was fraught with hardship and danger. Remember, I said that the supporting cast of this book is hardship, right? It's difficulty. He's embracing it.

• 59:31David Senra?

  Within the camp, he gives, this is why I think it's fantastic, because he really synthesizes his worldview and the fact that everything that you want is on the other side of discomfort and danger and uncertainty and terror. Macedonian resolve was flagging as the men watched their king pursue a relentless campaign that was fraught with hardship and danger. Within the camp, meetings were taking place where the more moderate among them complained about their predicament, while others utterly refused to follow any further, even though Alexander was leading them. As soon as Alexander heard what was going on, and before the disorder and despondency among the soldiers could get any worse, he called a meeting and gave the following speech: "Now that I see that you, my Macedonians and allies, no longer have the spirit to follow me into dangers, I have called you together so that I might either persuade

• 1:00:15David Senra?

  you and forge ahead, or let myself be persuaded to turn back. If indeed, there is some cause for reproach regarding the hardship that you have endured up to now, or regarding my leadership," he's taking the opposite path that Darius did earlier, where he didn't want to hear the truth, right? "or regarding my leadership, it is pointless for me to continue addressing you. But the result of the hardship that you have endured, you now occupy," and then he's listing all these places that they conquered. So it's like if you were in, you would, it's like if you had, like, let's say, because I don't know the names of these things, I'm just going to give you an example of like how long this goes on. So imagine that somebody came and you started conquering like individual states in America.

• 1:00:56David Senra?

  It's like, as a result of the hardship you have endured, you now occupy Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oklahoma, North Dakota, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and it just goes on and on. Why then do you shrink from adding Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, it goes on and on, and the peoples behind, and the peoples beyond, like Canada and Mexico, to your Macedonian empire? And then he makes the point, he's like, "I don't have any of these limits. My limit is the entire world." So he says, "As far as I can see, true men need no reward for their labors, aside from those labors themselves, as long as they have noble consequences.

• 1:01:37David Senra?

  Nevertheless, if any of you, if anyone should wish to know what limit is set for our campaign, then let me tell you that it is only the whole of the earth." The boundaries of this empire will be those that God has laid for the entire world. And then he ends by summarizing himself. So stand firm, for it is toil and danger that lead to glorious achievements, while pleasure lies in a life of courage and in a death that brings undying fame. And that is where I'll leave it. For the full story, buy the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time.

• 1:02:22David Senra?

  If you want to buy a friend a gift subscription to Founders, that link is below as well. That is 232 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.