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since man is a moment in time a transient guest of the earth a Spore of his species a s of his race a composite of body character and mind a member of a family and a community a Believer or doubter of a faith a unit in an economy
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perhaps a citizen in a state or a soldier in an army we may ask under the corresponding heads astronomy geology geography biology olog biography ethnology psychology morality religion economics politics and War what history
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has to say about the nature conduct and Prospects of man it is a precarious Enterprise and only a fool would try to compress a 100 centuries into a 100 pages of hazardous conclusions yet we proceed that was an excerpt in one of my favorite paragraphs in the first chapter of the book that I'm talked about today which is the lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant you and I normally get together and speak about a biography about person
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the way to think about the book that I'm holding my hand is this is a 100 Page biography on the human species and I can't think of more qualified authors to write something like this in will and Ariel Durant because they spent 40 years from 1935 to 1975 writing this 11 volume set called the story of civilization if you read a bunch of biographies of entrepreneurs will and Ariel Durant the story of civilization will pop up over
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and over again in their biographies because these entrepreneurs are reading it people like Larry Ellison and Elon Musk come to mind and part of what makes this book so special is they wrote the lesson of history after they finished
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the story of civilization so you could think of this as like a 100 page synopsis or summary of their 40-year that four decade long journey in trying to catalog the human existence and so let's Jump Right In the first lesson of
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history is to be modest let us Define history as the events or records of the past human history is a brief spot in space and its first lesson is Modesty at any moment a comet may come too close to the Earth and set our little Globe turning Topsy Turvy in a hectic course or choke its men and fleas with fumes or heat or a fragment of The Smiling Sun May slip off tangent and fall Upon Us in a wild Embrace ending all grief and
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pain and then this line hits you right in the chest they have a punch of lines like this throughout the book Generations of men establish a growing Mastery over the Earth but they are destined to become fossils in its soil
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and so I've read and reread this book three four times not including the times I listened to it on Audible as well and so I have a bunch of notes from the last time I read it but what came to mind this time when I read that sentence I
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thought about what Charlie Monger said that what you and I are doing here is when we reading biographies of great people we're becoming friends with the eminent dead and because most of the people that I read about are dead when I get to the end of the book I'm not just getting to the end of the book I'm getting to the end of somebody's life so I am constantly and you are as aprod of listening you are constantly reminded of
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the finiteness of life that generations of men establish a growing Mastery over the Earth but they are destined to become fossils in its soil so what I think about this is It's ruthless it forces ruthless prioritization about how
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I'm spending my time and what I choose to focus on and it's comes down to three FS for me founders family and friends that's all I'm focused on everything else has to round to zero that is one of the main benefits of this Relentless
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pursuit of studying history you understand that you were destined to become fossils in its soil the last time I read the book when I got to this part this is what I wrote reminds me of why Nolan Bushnell said he was Steve Jobs Mentor you he said Steve Jobs only had one speed go and he said that about a 19-year-old Steve Jobs Steve Jobs did not know how limited his time on Earth would be right and you don't get much time don't waste It Go ruthless
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prioritization of how we spend our time is I think is super important now there's going to be a bunch of just they're obviously incredible writers and they have the ability to distill an entire story into one sentence and a few pages later I love this the influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows so they are speaking about the entire sweep of of human history as as time goes forward right the influence of geography factors
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diminishes as technology grows the book that I'm holding my hand was written in 1968 and yet that line is even more true today the influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows go back to when you and I stud Napoleon he spends an unbelievable amount of time talking about physical barriers physical barriers of moving an army somewhere from one place to another this is what you do when you come into a river this
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is what happens with how you handle mountains Napoleon died in 1821 the airplane was not invented yet so the influence of GE graic factors diminishes as technology grows so I was thinking about the own the life of will Durant specifically because he started he wrote like the first half of the story of civilization alone and then his wife joins for the second half and so I looked up when he was alive and I was like okay he was born in
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1885 and he dies in 1981 and a huge theme of this book is the influence of technology and the tools that we invent on the human species and so I went to cat GPT and I asked I like okay can you give me a list of sign ific technological advancements that were created between the periods of 1885 and 1981 listen to what was invented in the life of Wilder so you have the invention of the first automobile the invention of
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the first camera that makes photography accessible to the masses you the invention of radio of the powered airplane of penicillin of the atomic bomb of the transistor of the solar cell the integrated circuit the arpanet which
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of course is the precursor to the internet the microprocessor the mobile phone the personal computer and finally the Walkman which was invented in 1979 and then Will dies 2 years later that is an incredible amount of technological
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progress in one Lifetime and that continues to accelerate today like even the technology I used to to produce that list and to help me with the research of this episode if you're not already using these AI systems like chpt it is
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remarkable I use it multiple multiple times a day in fact I built my own which indexes all my notes all my highlights all my transcripts every single word I've ever uttered on the entire podcast the last8 years I've been testing for a
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few weeks it should be available to all founders not subscribers I would say in the next week or two but let me give you an example I was just on the phone uh I'm going to be speaking at an event with I can't tell you who the company is but it's one of the largest asset managers in the world they have over2 trillion dollar of assets under management and while we were on the phone they wanted me to talk about Leadership Lessons From History's
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Greatest entrepreneurs so I just asked Founders notes again this feature that I used while I was on the phone was not is not available to you yet but it should be in a few weeks and within 20 seconds it gives me a list and a summary of ideas on leadership from Ted Turner Charlie Monger Barnett hellberg Barnett hellberg is the guy that sold his family business uh to Warren Buffett and the list continues James Dyson David oovie
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the founder of Trader Joe's Alibaba I haven't done a podcast on jackm in like seven years Warren Buffett Jim Collins I've never done a podcast on Jim Collins but I mentioned something he said about leadership in an episode I did like five
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years ago Jeff Bezos Henry Ford and Steve Jobs and so all that comes to mind from one simple sentence because the influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows what the impact what's fascinating to think about
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that is the influence of what else besides Geographic factors right what other factors are going to diminish as technology grows and so moving on the next chapter is about biology and its effect on History this is really a lot about on competition selection there's just a lot of ideas that pop to mind really the main theme of what I'm about to read you is our job is to make our companies and ourselves better equipped
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to the test of survival and so they're going to draw some lessons from history about that for you and I the laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of History we are subject to the processes and trials of evolution to the struggle
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for existence and the survival of the fittest to survive so the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition competition is not only the life of trade it is the trade of Life they're just fantastic this is
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what makes such a great communicator it's not only that they're able to explain something take something complex and make it simple but they put ideas whatever they want you to understand from their brain to yours it goes right
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in competition is not only the life of trade is the trade of life it is peaceful when food abounds and violent when the mouths outrun the food animals eat one another without qualm civilized men consume one another by due process
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of law cooperation is real and increases with Social Development but mostly because it is a tool to and form of competition we cooperate in our group our family community company he didn't write company but I'm putting it in there our family community company Club Church party race nation in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups so it's impossible for an entrepreneur to read that sentence
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right he's not talking about entrepreneurship and not think of company building that is the group that we operate in the most that is the group that you and I think about the most we are acquisitive group greedy and pugnacious he's talking about the human species right remember let's go back to the very beginning I don't think I elaborated on why I love that that paragraph uh from uh from the first chapter from the introduction it is a
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precarious Enterprise and only a fool would try to compress a 100 centuries into 100 pages is exactly what they're doing they're trying to compress what in a 100 centuries of observation what are we and what can history tell us about
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our nature right we are inquisitive greedy and pugnacious because our blood remembers millennium through which our forebears had to chase and fight and kill in order to survive and had to eat to their gastric capacity for fear they
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soon should not capture another Feast War which she's going to talk about a lot war is a nation's way of eating what a sentence hopefully by the end of this if you don't already have the book I'm going to convince you to buy a copy the
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book and if you have Audible I'm pretty sure I have a subcription audible I don't remember buying the audio book but I have access there's a version of the lessons of History where you actually hear commentary from Will and arel
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Durant and I'm pretty sure it's included in every single audible subscription war is a nation's way of eating it promotes cooperation because it is the ultimate form of competition the second biological lesson of history is that life is selection so the first biological lesson is that of history is that life is competition the second lesson of history is that life is selection in the competition for food our mates our power our customers again
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I'm going to throw in some company things here okay or power some organisms succeed and some fail in the struggle for existence some companies succeed some fail in the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the test of survival that is when I start double underlining that is when I start adding all these exclamation points in the struggle for existence some companies are better
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equipped than others to meet the test of survival our job is to make sure that our companies and ourselves are better equipped to meet the test of survival few pages later it's all about differentiation produces unequal value
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come on this is like screaming to you and I on how to build a valuable company so let's go right to the book inequality is not only natural and inborn it grows with the complexity of civilization again words written in 1968 undoubtedly
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our our our civilization is a lot more complex today than it was then in equality is not only natural and inborn it grows with the complexity of civilization Economic Development Special izes functions it differentiates abilities and makes men unequally valuable to their group the note I left myself I read this book a couple years ago I should read it every year I should remember to read it every year because you can read it you know in a weekend
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differentiation produces unequal value learn and optimize for this so the the heavily there's a Founder named Nal rant he's the founder of angelist I covered the book that my friend Eric Jorgenson wrote with Naval all the way back in episode 19 one if you haven't listened to it highly recommend you listen to that episode after this one and then read the book of course the book is available for free online but my friend
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Eric told me they they even though you can read the book for free online they sold over a million copies of that book and you know it's only been out for a few years but nval has a great way to describe exactly what will and Ariel Durant are saying here Economic Development specializes functions differentiates ability and makes men unequally valuable to their group remember the the more complex a civilization gets the more you'll see
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inequality so economic in inequality right so the way Nal had influence on my thinking about this is he says something like we're living in the age of infinite leverage right and in the age of evident leverage it is more important to be at
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the extreme of your craft to the extreme of your work why because the person that is the he says the person that is the best in the world at what they do gets to do it for everyone in the age of infinite leverage we should see this
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idea that Economic Development specializes functions differentiates ability and makes men unequally valuable to their group we should see that only continue to expand and become more important that's why few years ago I wrote to my own self learn and optimize for this that also ties to what I told you earlier about this this reminder for history from history that our time is finite that is why it's Founders family
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friends the opportunity cost is too high to waste not only is my time is limited but I'm heavily incentivized to become the best in the world at what I do because Economic Development specializes functions differenti abilities and makes
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men unequally valuable to their group back to this for freedom and equality are sworn in Everlasting enemies and when one prevails the other dies if you leave men free and their natural inequalities will multiply almost
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geometrically leave men free and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically only the man who is below average in economic ability desires equality those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom and
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in the end Superior ability has its way and in the end Superior ability has its way Talent is the best asset class Utopias of equality are biologically doomed that sentence particularly hits me right in the heart Utopias of
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equality are biologically doomed I am the son of a human immigrant I grew up meeting people that pit their children on rafts and sent them 90 miles across shark infested waters to flee communism since I was a child I met people that
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did this and then I remember getting older and actually running into people that think communism is a good idea I'm sweating thinking about this and I used to even getting these debates now I'm just like whatever you can believe
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whatever you want but I think the the key here is it's very simple okay how many people have put their children on rafts and hope that they make it across 90 Mi of shark infested waters to flee free market capitalism do you see a line that go down to Key West or the or Miami Beach and put their American Kids on rafts and hope that they make it to Cuba and the crazy thing is if you just study history you understand that of course
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that's not going to work utopians of equality are biologically doomed and so look at the difference and growth between Cuba and America and this next sentence a society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival Advantage so let's move on to character and history I'm telling you my my palms are sweaty right now all right let's let's move on uh to character and history human nature does not change
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this part is just so so good we talk about it all over and over again history doesn't repeat human nature does history shows little alteration in the conduct of mankind the Greeks of Plato's time behave very much like the French of
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modern centuries and the Romans behave like the English means and instrumentalities change motives and ends remain the same to act or rest to acquire or give to fight or Retreat to seek Association or privacy to mate or
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to reject to offer or resent parental care nor does human nature alter as between classes but this is another double underlined sentence here nor does human nature alter between classes by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich with only less opportunity or skill to implement them nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed that's
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obvious in history that's also obvious in if you've ever read uh the book Animal Farm they just gave you a one sentence summary in there the adoption by successful Rebels rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn and the forces they deposed new situations however do arise requiring novel unstereotype responses hence development and this development requires a capacity for experimentation and Innovation here the initiative
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individual so this is applies to you and I because this is what we we study right we he's going to call the initiative individual the great man the hero the genius regains his place as a formative force in history he grows out of his
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time he's talking about the fact that the reappearance of these kind of personalities are entirely predictable and usually what environment is required for them to appear he grows out of his time and land and is the product and
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symbol of events as well as their agent and Voice without some situation requiring a new response his new ideas would be untimely and impractical I would pause right there I would really think of Churchill in this case right if there wasn't his whole life you know I've done multiple part series on Church covered when he was a young kid covered when he was an old man and everything in between and the whole thing was he he
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believed in his Destiny he was just waiting for the right time and yet if it wasn't for the invasion of Britain by Hitler and the Nazis we are likely not speaking about Churchill today even though he'd be the same person when he
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is a hero of action right you need some situation requiring a new response so Churchill needed that response The Invasion really the World War II in its entire its entirety so you need some situation requiring a new response his
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new ideas would be untimely and impractical when he is a hero of action the demands of his position and the exhaustion of Crisis develop and inflate him to such magnitude and Powers as would in normal times have remained potential untapped and just listen to this writing events take place through him as well as around him his ideas and decisions enter vitally into the course of history oh that's hilarious I was thinking about Churchill
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and I forgot that they were going to mention him here at times his eloquence like Churchill's may be worth a thousand regiments his foresight in strategy and tactics like Napoleon's may win battles and campaigns and establish States and then this is just what a sentence what a sentence the imitating majority follows the innovating minority and this follows the original individual in adapting new responses to the demands of environmental
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survival and then they go into detail on why time tested ideas are usually more valuable than new ideas but that is not always the case out of every hundred new ideas 99 or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses
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which they propose to replace no one man however ever brilliant or well-informed can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the Customs or institutions of his Society for these
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are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history and then there's just a few lines in the chapter on morals and history and the weird thoughts that come to mind when I read stuff like this I guess let me just jump right to the point what I wrote myself if you can identify an enduring human need you can build a business around that and I'm not casting judgment on what any businesses that other people
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build but you see that there's businesses around us that will endure no matter what some legal some not right and so it says sin has flourished in every age men and women have gambled in every age I think that line is particularly interesting right now because you just see the the the change of regulations and laws and these really gigantic businesses built around gambling and I have friends that ask me like why don't you got on Sports and I
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just quote Ed Dorp I was like I don't invest anywhere I don't have an edge the only place I have an edge is in my actual business and it's actually surprised me recently like how prevalent and just GI like big these businesses
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get and it shouldn't have surprised me though because I had read this book I had previously underlined this line men and women have gambled in every age I just forgot it and then this next sentence I think everybody will agree
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with uh is my favorite sentence in this entire section in every age men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt in every age of human history what does that tell you governments have been corrupt men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt but I think the top level lesson or the metal lesson around that is identifying an enduring human need and building a business around that and then one
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enduring and repeating need has an entire of the human species has an entire chapter based on it it is religion and history it says even the skeptical historian develops a humble respect for religion since he sees it
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functioning and seemingly indispensable in every land in in every age to the unhappy the Suffering The bereaved the old it has brought Supernatural Comforts valued by millions of souls as more and as more precious than any natural aid
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and I just spent three days this past week with a 150 uh very inspiring and ambitious and successful entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast and this is something that actually came up I wish I I we didn't record anything on purpose I want these events to be very special and it's like you have to be there and a lot and when you're not recording people tend to speak you know more honestly and and more freely and something that came
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up where I was like man I I wish I had recorded myself saying this was I actually think there's a lot that companies can learn uh by studying religions because religions if if you think about what what will and area to
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are saying here like they've last longer than companies do they last longer than countries do and the reason this came to mind is because somebody want one time uh described Founders podcast as church for entrepreneurs and I think there's a
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lot of lessons here for you as you're leading your company because my friend Patrick from invest like the best I always say like repetition is persuasive he put it maybe even better he says that repetition does not spoil the prayer and
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I think one of the main lessons that entrepreneurs and Company Builders can learn from religions is if you think about all the major religions in the world right usually based on some kind of book I grew up Christian so I'll just
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use that as an example you know we don't read the Bible once and they like all right I got it we're good no we revisit it we go back to it then we gather right we repeat lessons from it over and over and over again repetition is perspective of repetition does not spoil the prayer We Gather at specific intervals you know every Wednesday or every Sunday or whatever you know whatever time in your religion religions have different days
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of the week or or time periods but they're you'll see them consistently they gather together sometimes it's every day and they gather together with people that believe in the same thing that they that they do and they repeat
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the lessons that they agree upon and they want to guide their actions and and guide like their path in life that is very similar like if you go back and read any of the shareholders like I the the example I used a couple days ago was
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Jeff Bezos there's ideas and phrases and and mindsets that are in his very first shareholder in 97 that are in his last one 20 years later and you see this over and over again these bio biographies of entrepreneurs they repeat the same lessons decade after decade after decade the same way that the religions do and then they go back to the importance that history optimizes for survival history remains at bottom a natural selection of the fittest
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individuals the fittest companies and groups in a struggle wherein goodness receives no favors misfortunes abound and the final test is the ability to survive nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad they Define good as that which survives and bad as that which goes under now it's insane really like remarkable I guess is a better word than insane how much of this book is about the importance of
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surv right nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad they Define good as that which survives and bad as which goes under how many times do you and I talk about and repeat the quotes and the ideas of of
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History greatest Founders on the importance of survival one of my favorite lines on this it actually came from uh Steve Jobs he says victory in our industry is spelled survival victory in our industry is spelled survival a
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few years ago I read a 700 page biography on on Charles the G and everybody around him Churchill FDR they just could not understand why the guy just refused to quit and you could almost summarize his entire philosophy around you know fighting H Hitler and making sure that that France remains free to his fantastic quote he says all that matters is to survive the rest is just words in a more business context
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think about if you read Warren Buffett's shareholder letters I think this is episode 227 Warren Buffett's essays which is Warren's shareholder letters but organized saided by year it's organized by by topic which is excellent and he talks about that we that they play offense While others Scramble for survival let me read from his shareholder letters I think this was this is after 2008 I don't have the exact year but I'm going to read this to
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you and really the the again the reason I'm bringing this up is because a strong financial Foundation is what allows you to survive right to not ever take risks of you know I'm going to risk the remote chance that my business goes out of that my company goes under my business dies to you know make a little bit of extra money Warren and Charlie would smack you in the face if you did that so Warren says by being so cautious in respect to
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leverage we penalize our returns by a minor amount having loads of liquidity loads of cash right having loads of cash lets us sleep well moreover during the episodes of financial chaos that occasionally erupt in our economy we
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will be equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense While others Scramble for survival what a line we play offense While others Scramble for survival that's what allowed us to invest 15.6 billion in 25 days of panic
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following the Layman bankruptcy in 2008 they invested 15.6 billion in 25 days of panic and so what does this all have to do with religion this is really a one- sentence summary which again will and Ariel Durant are gifted at one lesson of
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history is that religion has many lives and a habit of Resurrection in other words religion survives through throughout history all right now we got into economics and the we the the lessons are even more obvious for you
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and I history reports that men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things and the men who can manage money manage all so think about that the way this is a note out of myself that I think is a a good summary of that the strong rule the weak the wise rule the strong and incentives rule all then he goes into the fact that history is inflationary so the bankers watching the trends in agricultural history trade
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inviting and directing the flow of capital putting our money doubly and to work controlling loans and interest in Enterprise running great risks to make great great great gains rise to the top of the economic period And this is you
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know if you read that sentence now you're like yeah it's obvious like look at I read this is many many years ago but like Financial Services was something like 8% of GDP by size but like 40% by profit I forgot what the the
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exact stat was but that that's how I remember it and we think oh this is like unique to our time and then he goes back and he's like well this isn't unique to your time he's describing the michis the fugar I've done I've done a bunch of podcasts on I did podcast on Jacob fuger uh if you just search on your podcast player it's the richest I think it says like the richest man in history uh the rild did two episodes two or three
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episodes on them uh the Morgans and so over and over again these are the people that rise to the top of the economic P pyramid they're not the only ones obviously the company Builders too uh Perhaps it is one secret of their power
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that having studied the fluctuations of prices they know that history is inflationary and that money is the last thing A wise man would hoard the experience of the past leaves little doubt that every economic system must
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sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity and then they reintroduced something they introduced earlier the fact that humans are are inherently inequal the more complex the more technologically advanced a society gets the more you're going to see this the differences in these in this human ability expand since practical ability differs from person to person the
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majority of such abilities is gathered in the minority of men the concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability and regularly reoccurs in history the rate of concentration varies with the economic freedom permitted deism May for a Time the concentration democracy democracy allowing the most Liberty accelerates it and so even though this reappears over and over over again it does need alleviation really
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concentration of wealth does not seem to be tenable we conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable and is periodically alleviated by violent or Peaceable partial redistribution in this view all
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economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism I like that they use the heartbeat metaphor there and so what is interesting is right after the chapter on economics they talk about government and if we just went through you know
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usually the most prosperous is when you have freedom people can acting their own interests their incentives are more aligned than if you have the centrally controlled system but yet if you study uh human history essentially every single government uh is going to default into an oligarchy olig I didn't say that word correctly oligarchy is what I meant to say so uh this is fascinating if we were to judge forms of government from
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their prevalence and duration in history we should have to give the Palm to monarchy democracies by contrast have been hectic interludes so what are they saying monarchy is the longest lasting and most common form of government in history
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democracies by contrast have been hectic interludes now this is there is a a statement or a reoccurring theme um in history called the iron law of oligarchy and they go into detail about that here and it has to do with this inherent
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difference in the abilities of human beings most governments have been oligarchies ruled by a minority chosen either by birth or by a religious organization or by wealth we it is unnatural for a majority to rule for a majority can seldom be organized and United and into specific action and a minority can if the majority of abilities is contained in a minority of men minority government is as inevitable as the concentration of wealth see how
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they tied everything they been like the the past few themes together if the majority of abilities is contained in a minority of men minority government is as inevitable as the concentration of wealth the majority can do no more than periodically throw out one minority and set up another and so the summary there is the iron law of oligarchy and so a few pages later it goes back to this idea that you and I keep talking about
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this is why you should spend so much of your time learning and practicing so you can be better at your craft every advance in the complexity of the economy puts an added premium upon Superior ability every advance in the complexity
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of the economy puts an added premium upon Superior ability and so a lot earlier in the book we went over the fact that in the biology and history chapter that war is a nation's way of eating it promotes cooperation because
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it's the ultimate form of competition and that the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition and so this next sentence although provocative will not be surprising war is one of the constants of history and has not diminished with civilization or democracy in the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war war or competition is the father of all things the potent source of ideas inventions institutions
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and states and that idea that war I've I've done a couple podcasts on this that war is a potent source of ideas when it is literally life and death you will see human Ingenuity at the maybe at the Apex I mean if you think about the the
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general and the genius that book I did many many years ago on the partnership between J Robert Oppenheimer and general lesle Grove but there's actually an excellent book uh that speaks about this heroic effort for the United States
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industrial complex to turn on a dime in World War II and go from manufacturing things for consumers to manufacturing things to help the Allies in the war it's called freedoms Forge I read it I did a podcast on a long time ago I think I deleted the podcast I can't find it but I'm going to reread that book um because I think it's fasing it's really it's it's on Ingenuity and but really leadership and how large groups of people can get
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things done in inedibly fast I think is the the main lesson uh the same causes of War are the same as the causes of competition among individuals acquisitiveness pugnacity and pride the desire for food Land materials fuels and
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Mastery war is the final Arbiter a nation must be ready just like a company must be ready at any moment to defend itself and when its essential interests are involved it must be allowed to use any means it considers necessary to its
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survival so you know this goes on from many pages and really you can again another one sentence summary what the lesson that they derive through studying hundred centuries of human history The Ten Commandments must be silent when self-preservation is at stake man is a competitive animal and his states must be like himself and then if you have the book I think you're especially going to be interested in the growth and Decay
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chapter they're talking about civilizations I think with you and I obviously the the lessons for companies uh jumps off the page this is really why there's always more opportunity you know there's always room for a new company a
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new startup because on all on one point we are all agreed civilizations begin flourish Decline and disappear companies begin flourish Decline and disappear so what determines if this challenge will be met if we put the problem further
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back and ask what determines whether a challenge will or will not be met the answer is that this depends upon the presence of creative individuals what you and I call Founders right of creative individuals with Clarity of mind and energy of will capable of effective responses to new situations that and they're talking about civilizations they're talking about all kinds of things it holds precisely true with founders of companies too will this
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new challenge be met well the answer is that this depends upon the presence of a creative individual with Clarity of mind and energy of will capable of effective responses to new situations and so we see not only the death of
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individuals but the death of entire civilizations and they're like well it's just depressing and really this is on the idea as being Immortal whether in individuals or in States Death is natural and if it comes in due time it
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is forgivable and useful and the mature mind will take no offense from its coming but do civilizations die again not quite Greek civilization is not really dead only its frame is gone and its habitat has changed it survives in the memory and in such abundance that no one life however full and long could absorb it all and this is a great again they do a great job of summarizing in one sentence what they mean Homer has
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more readers now than in his own day and land the Greek poets and philosophers are in every Library in College at this moment Plato is being studied by a 100,000 discoverers of the dear Delight of philosophy overspreading life with understanding thought meaning that 100,000 people discovering Plato for the very first time right now this selective survival of creative minds is the most real and beneficiary of immortality going back to this if you
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can find an enduring need you can build a business around that all technological advances will have to be written off as merely new means of achieving old ends we are driven by the same desires the same proclivities we just find different ways to satisfy them now we get into the mind of humans you and I do that I do this I'm sure you do too our capacity for fretting is endless and no matter how many difficulties we surmount how many ideals
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we realize we shall always find an excuse for being magnificently miserable the study of history allows you to stand outside yourself and realize hey these feelings that what I'm going through what I desire the things I love the things that bring joy the things that bring sadness they are not unique to me and I think it's so important to get control over our minds because we have this one one shot I love what de Hawk said the founder of visa
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when he said life is a magnificent mysterious Odyssey to be experienced we do not want our minds to make this one magnificent Odyssey miserable we must control our capacity for fretting since we know in nature in human nature it is
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endless and then as expected they find the perfect way to end a book on the lessons of History some precious achievements have survived all the visites of rising and falling States the making of five and light of the wheel
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and other basic tools language writing art and song agriculture the family social organization morality and charity and the use of teaching to transmit the lore of the family and the human race it's exactly what's happening now we're reading words of somebody that's no longer with us who's been dead you know for almost 50 years these are the elements of civilization and they have been tenaciously maintained through the
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perilous passage from one civilization to the next they are the connective tissue of human history if education is the transmission of civilization we are unquestionably progressing civilization is not inherited it has to be learned
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and earned by each generation a new if the transmission should be interrupted for one century civilization would die and we should be Savages again if progress is real it is not because we are born any better or wiser than
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infants were in the past but because we are born to a richer Heritage born on a higher level of that pedestal which the accumulation of knowledge raises as the ground and support of our being the Heritage Rises and man rises in proportion as he receives it to those of us who study history not merely as a warning and a reminder of man's Follies and crimes but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative Souls the past
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SE es to be a depressing chamber of Horrors it becomes a Celestial City a spacious country of the Mind wherein thousands Saints Statesmen inventors scientists poets artists musicians lovers and philosophers will still live
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and speak teach and carve and sing the historian will not mourn because he can see no meaning in human existence except that which man puts into it let it be our pride that we ourselves may put meaning into our lives and sometimes a
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significance that transcends death if a man is fortunate he will before he dies gather up as much as he can of his civilized Heritage and transmit it to his children and to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible
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Legacy knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life that is incredible will and Ariel Durant can write they can teach and they can Inspire for the full story highly highly highly recommend getting the book
41:08
if you buy the book using the link and the show notes and your podcast player you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time that is 342 books down 1,000 AO and I'll talk to you again soon okay so just one quick update for you uh before you go so this feature that I mentioned in this episode where I was on the phone with one of the world's largest asset managers and within 20 seconds I had an overview going back you know eight years of how
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some of History gra entrepreneurs thought about leadership uh I've talked about that I'm constantly updating uh well first of all for Founders notes you know every week I'm adding more notes and highlights so what's been taking
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place lately is a lot of people have asked for an ability to have like a one-time payment option for Founders notes where that means not only if you sign up now you get access to every single highlight and note uh that I've
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ever done for the podcast but you'll get access to every single highlight and note I ever will do for the podcast which I think is a crazy value but also you get all the new features that I add for free and essentially what I'm building what I'm externalizing to the world is this is my own internal tool to keep track of every single thing that I'm learning on this crazy journey to try to really document really condense
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and clarify the collective knowledge of History's Greatest entrepreneurs so I I've said over the past few weeks if you've been listening to these past episodes that I've been doing using this it's it's like an AI assistant I it it's
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trained on all every single transcript so every single word I've ever uttered on the podcast all of my notes all of my highlights and I have over 20,000 notes and highlights in this notebook that I've been adding uh through this app
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called readwise since 2018 right and so Reed Wiis is who I've partnered with to to start building Founders notes and we've been working on it you know maybe for half a year something like that so far but the more I use the AI assistant it becomes the feature that I use the most and I'm sitting here thinking I was like I don't know what the hell to call this thing it's not Founders GPT that's not good it's I was like is it a chat
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well I don't chat with it I ask it questions but it's not a conversation and so just some of the questions that I've been asking or other users have been asking send it sending it to me cuz I've been asking people as like hey when
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you asked whatever I'm going to call this thing we're calling it chat right now but that's not going to be the name I like whenever you ask chat something that you find is interesting and you like the answer send it back to me
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because what I'm going to do is crowdsource the best questions and answers and eventually you won't even have to search I mean you can you'll always be able to search but eventually I'm just going to have like a library of you know the top 100 top 200 questions and answers it's like this really targeted curriculum for entrepreneurs so I've been asking stuff like I need some unique ideas on how to find new customers what advice do you have for me
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what is the best way to fire a bad employee how did Andrew Carnegie know what to focus on how did Edwin L find new employees to hire did he find any unusual sources to find Talent can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's
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best ideas what are the most important Leadership Lessons From History's Greatest entrepreneurs it just goes on and on and on and so when you ask this AI assistant these questions it goes and searches I mean it does this relatively
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fast although I want to make it even faster so it goes and searches every single transcript every single note every single highlight and you have to keep in mind uh you know I would say I don't know I I don't know the percentage but 70% of my notes and highlights are NE never even make it into the podcast and so it searches all this and then it grabs and essentially makes a summary of all these different ideas and so it's
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like oh it's not a chat it's like a synthesizer because the definition of synthesize is to make something by combining different things and so a few existing subscribers have emailed me asking hey can I test this I was calling
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it super search for a while this new feature that I can't come up with the name of right I was like it's maybe it's Founders chat maybe it's Founders GPT maybe it's super search maybe it's synthesizer and I was emailing back and
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forth with one of them who's testing this out for me and he's is like oh it doesn't do the these names don't do it justice to what you're actually creating and he suggested that you should call it sage and it was fascinating because then he listed the why he thought that did he defined the word sage so there's two main definitions one's a noun and one's an adjective the first one is a profoundly wise person this I'm reading
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this I'll tell you what what popped immediately to mind and it's not going to surprise you if You' listen to a bunch of these podcasts I think of Charlie Munger I think of him as my like personal Sage I think he's the wisest person I've ever come across and so it says a profoundly wise person this refers to someone with a deep understanding of Life accumulated knowledge and sound judgment that is every single person that you and I have
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covered on the podcast so the reason I think this tool is going to be the one I use all the time why I think it's super powerful I've been telling you for a while hey don't sign up for Founders notes it is made for people with already
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existing like successful uh companies successful careers that is still true I think Sage brings it to if to a different level in the sense that I've already you see how I'm already referring it to Sage I said I was going
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to sleep on this and I still could change the name but I think this is it uh for for for because if you listen to look at the definition but uh I'll get back to that in one second but what I really think is just like oh no it it's going to be for if you're going to invest and many people invest you know hundreds of hours you know even if listening to Founders podcast it this tool just makes perfect sense because it is the accumulated knowledge of
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everything that you've ever heard on the podcast and in some cases there's no way you're going to remember all this stuff because I said I think earlier in this episode you know I was asking questions on Leadership Lessons and it was pulling from podcasts I did seven years ago there's no way that I I could remember like this has a perfect memory I don't um so let me go back to this Sage as a noun it's a profound profoundly wise
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person this refers to someone with a deep understanding of Life ACC cumulated knowledge and sound judgment they're often looked to for guidance and advice that is exactly the way I'm using it I'm not chatting with with them you know I'm
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asking this question it's like can you combine these ideas I need to know something I need to make an important decision in my business will this tool improve my decision-making yes or no of course come on it's the accumulated
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knowledge of History's Greatest entrepreneurs condensed and clarified and you can have it on demand of course that's going to make your decision- making over the life of your career better and so that's the the noun version the adjective it's a wise Discerning or prudent this describes someone who shows good judgment and makes well-considered decisions you can't be so good at your job and so remarkable at your work that somebody
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wrote a book about your life if you didn't make show good judgment and make well-considered decisions that applies to every single person you and I are trying to learn from and so whatever the name of this feature is we're going to I think we're just going to ship it this week we've been testing it internally uh for many weeks I don't maybe two months something like that then we have a bunch it's out in the wild for existing
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subscribers for people are testing it what I'm looking for is like is it can you break break it and what I mean by break it is is it crashing is it getting stuck and so far it has proved reliable so now I am real hesitant so here's the
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thing I'm really excited to get this out because I think this is really cool right and it's only going to get better because I'm going to add more transcripts to it more notes more highlights the underlying uh AI models
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will keep getting better and better this things going be crazy a couple years from now and I got a bunch of ideas and unfair advantages and sense that there's a bunch of AI Founders that listen to this podcast that have been giving me private product demos and saying hey you should grab this feature and you should add it here and I'll show you how to do it so again this is just an unfair advantage that I think you have
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listening to this podcast and then uh hopefully subscribing uh to Founders notes so I have to straddle my excitement for this new feature with I don't want to release to everybody and then you know you it it starts it breaks
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because there's so many more people using it so I think we're pretty sure I was talking to the engineers at rewise the founders of rewise they're the ones helping me build this product they're saying we should ship it this week I've
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been using the version right and that the actual live version that's in Founders Notes too and I can't break it so we're going to do a couple more days of testing if there's nothing going wrong it's going to be live if you run
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into any issues when you use it okay there's a you see the customer support email once you're logged into Founders notes please email me I will be monitoring I have people helping me but I will be looking at the emails as well
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all I ask you is just be cool everybody has been cool we just spent I spent 100 or spent 150 days I spent the last three days at the first Founders only conference uh with 150 super driven successful ambitious inspiring Founders it was incred we didn't record anything on purpose any event I ever do in the future it's not going to be recorded like you have to be there but what I was struck by is you know there's multiple billionaires there there's
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super successful people people have sold their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars there's Capital allocators you know responsible for tens of billions of dollars a capital everybody it's just a group of business nerds
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business nerd nerds that want to get better at their craft and and you know get to the end of our Lives not dancing on a reservoir of untapped potential and the amazing thing other than the inspiration and the learning and the
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relationships that we built is I didn't run into any everybody was cool and so I think I can relate this feature if you run into any issues just email me I will fix it I don't even know if you will run into it but keep in mind this is a tool for me first right I'm building something that I need the cool thing is just by externalizing it to you then it becomes valuable something that's just you know some hidden talent
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or hidden secret that I have and so there's no way I'm going to let stay broken I'm going to constantly fix and I'm on I'm on top of it all the time so that is my current thinking about it I want to obviously I'm always going to talk directly to you like I break the fourth wall there is no fourth wall here right I'm always going to tell you the the thinking I'm I'm having about this the evolution of the thinking and what I
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have planned next because this is going to be you know a full-fledged platform with the north star of the ability to condense and clarify the collective knowledge of History's gra entrepreneurs because I want it on demand so we can
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use it when we're making decisions throughout our entire career so in addition to the AI assistant whatever I'll name it right there's a bunch of different ways you can use it when you sign up you will get an email it's a
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welcome email it goes through I wrote the welcome email it goes through exactly how I use it you know you can still search all my highlights that's the feature before the invention of sage or whatever AI assistant whatever I call
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this thing that was the feature I was using the most so any topic that I was thinking about I would just type it in the search bar sometimes it's a person sometimes it's a it's a topic sometimes it's an idea sometimes I want to read
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about how do they think about patients how do they think about monopolies how do they think about Moes how do they think about incentives and it would perform a keyword search for all my notes and highlights and now we have this new feature with transcripts which has made the search like 10 times better because then you can search every single time I've mentioned it on the podcast so you still have the ability to search my
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highlights I've been getting a bunch of emails and DMS that people are using the Highlight feed like I suggested which is the Highlight feed is just a it presents all my notes and highlights in a random order to you it's almost like a Smart Twitter feed but instead of reading you know the ramblings of some crazy person online you read a note or a highlight from one of the hundreds you know 300 books or whatever I have in uh in
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Founders notes and so multiple people have said hey that idea about replacing search like reading the news for 10 or 15 minutes in the morning I just read uh the Highlight feed and it's actually a lot better think of it as a bunch of
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random ideas from History's Greatest entrepreneurs that you start your morning with and then the last feature I'll talk talk about even though there's two more listed in the welcome email you can just read it uh after you after you
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uh sign up but is the books feature you know go in and you can pick a book like I did this for lessons of History the book that you and I just covered you know I read that book for the first time I don't know years ago and so I had 31 previous highlights from that book you can go in and read all my notes and highlights on a book in 5 10 minutes for most of them and you have a good idea of the key ideas for every single book so
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if you want a tool that you can use for your entire career I highly highly highly recommend you go to Founders notes.com that is Founders notes.com founders with an S just like the podcast Founders notes.com and you can get
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access to what I truly believe is the world's most valuable notebook for Founders it is by far the best way to support the podcast thank you very much for listening thank you very much for the support and I will talk to you again soon