#337 Napoleon's Maxims and Strategy

25:13Public opinion is invisible and mysterious. I mean, think about this. I'm going to interrupt my own self. Last week, Sam Insull, how much, right? His customer base, he wanted the customer base to literally be every single citizen. He thought he could sell electrical service to every single citizen in Chicago. Remember on that episode, how crazy, this is, I was talking to my friend about this the other day. It's like, it like pops open my own brain, right? Because even the most optimistic people in Chicago, in the electrical and early days in the electricity industry, they're like, why are you spending so much money, Sam?

25:47At best, you might be able to get 25 ,000 paying customers. That was the optimistic projection of the total adjustable market. And Sam's response was like, well, how many people live in Chicago? And like a million people. He's like, okay, so I'm going to get a million people. And then, so it was at 40 times what the most optimistic version of that. And then somehow he even undershoots that because he winds up getting one eighth of the entire, his customer base winds up being one eighth of the entire population of America. But he talked about the importance of public opinion. He says everything that a business does is public relations.

26:23So again, we have here Napoleon. Public opinion is invisible and mysterious. Before nothing stands. And with it, everything becomes easy. Tell your own story. I'm pretty sure in that book, The Mind of Napoleon, Napoleon talks about it. I was like, he bought the two French main newspapers, and he got to the point where he didn't have to read them because he knew what was in them. He knew the importance of telling your own story. And this next line is even better. I think this next line just says what I said, but even better and in less words. 10 people who yell make more noise than 10 ,000 who keep silent.

26:57Tell your own story. 10 people who yell make more noise than 10 ,000 who keep silent. This one I already repeated, but I think it's super important. And they all, depending on when the book is printed, you know, the language slightly changes. So it says, at the beginning of a campaign, to advance or not to advance is a matter for grave consideration. But once the offensive has been assumed, it must be maintained to the last extremity there. Think about what you want to do, but once you engage, there is no turning back. A commander -in -chief should several times a day ask himself, if the enemy appears to the front or on my right or on my left, what should I do?

27:32if he finds himself embarrassed as to his reply his dispositions are faulty and he should correct them now i know i repeated that because some of these maxims i also they also jumped out to me when i read the roots of strategy even though you know the two readings were several months apart but my interpretation of them also changes and so i think this interpretation is better than the first one if you think about what he's saying here it's like you're you're running these these scenarios in your head about your company like if this happens what do i do if this happens what i I do. And when you do that, that is a great way to find weaknesses in your company and then fix them.

28:05And it's a lot more profitable to fix them before somebody else exposes them. So I love that. I love using Maxim's as prompt for my own thinking. The strength of an army is the product of the mass by the velocity. So what he calls speed of action, right? The strength of the army is the product of the mass by the velocity. A rapid march augments the morale of an army and increases its means of victory. Now, obviously, Napoleon's going to repeat rapid movement, rapidity, speed over and over again. But for some reason, when I read that, I heard little Jeff Bezos in my head because I've read, you know, Jeff's shareholder letters three times.

28:43I think I've done, I don't know, six, eight podcasts on Jeff. I'll probably do 20 more over the lifetime of this podcast. And so So you read so much about him and you listen to him speak and you read transcripts of his speeches and everything else. And so I have this little Jeff Bezos on my shoulder that I hear. And Jeff says, you can drive great people away by making the speed of decision making slow. Why would great people stay in an organization where they can't get things done? So a rapid march augments the morale of your employees, of your team. Napoleon was a master of speed. He was quick to get started on a campaign, kept moving right along, and struck hard as soon as he was in contact with the enemy's main force.

29:21He never let up until he had accomplished his mission. And then I love this because under this explanation, it's like, what do you do so you know how to go fast? But one way to go fast is by removing things that make you slow. One way to go fast is by removing things that make you go slow. And so he's saying not long orders, right? He hates pen pushers. He hates administrators. There's no work about work, just work, right? Long orders, which require much time to prepare, to read, and to understand are the enemies of speed. Napoleon could issue orders of a few sentences, which clearly expressed his intentions and required little time to issue and to understand.

29:59This is excellent. Do not let your company engage in paper warfare. Another combination with Winston Churchill. It is slothful not to compress your thoughts. And then David Ogilvie, believe in the dogmatism of brevity. This happens over and over and over again. Our time is limited. Compress it. Give me what I need. I think there's another thing. oh and I was reading Churchill's maxims this week too and he insults this guy this guy because he's like you use so many words for so little thoughts that's like the opposite of that long orders require time to make time to read time to understand and they are the enemies of speed they are the enemies of speed with an army inferior in numbers back to Napoleon with an army inferior numbers a commander must avoid a general action he must make up the deficiency in numbers by rapidity of movements.

30:46In such circumstances, the morale of the soldier is a great factor. He talks about morale over and over again. It is magic, this weird thing, how our moods affect our performance. But really, the main point of that maxim is smaller must be faster. If you are smaller and slower, you're going to lose. It's just not going to happen. Excellent, excellent maxim here by Napoleon. A great leader will resort to audacity. A great leader will resort to audacity. when I hear that. I think one of my favorite Winston Churchill maxims, always more audacity. He would repeat that out loud to himself when he was younger, not just in his head, not just write it down.

31:20He would, it's like a mantra, always more audacity. A great leader will resort to audacity. Another version of this is by Jeff Bezos in his shared letters. It's the same thing. We will be bold. A great leader will resort to audacity from Napoleon, always more audacity by Winston Churchill. We will be bold by Jeff Bezos. Same idea. expressed three different ways. A commander must quickly assemble his forces and threaten the enemy by an offensive movement. Why do you have to be quick? Why are you always on the offense? This reminds me of this fantastic quote from the book Heroes by Paul Johnson.

31:51He, this is, I did this back on 226. I would recommend buying that book because it's like short little biographies of like 30, maybe 20 or 30 different heroes throughout history. But he says this about Alexander the Great, which is going to be, of course, Napoleon studied. Of course, Napoleon talked about Alexander over and over again. And so Paul Johnson writes, Alexander the Great thought, decided, and above all, moved swiftly. He appreciated the importance of speed and the terrifying surprises speed made possible. His enemies were always stunned and shocked by his arrival. He invented the blitzkrieg.

32:26This has happened to me over and over again, and I did not understand this before I started reading all these biographies like a madman and making this podcast, where I told you before. I'd read all about Steve Jobs, right? Which makes sense because he's one of the most gifted entrepreneurs of our lifetime. We all use his products and you have all these ideas like, oh my God, those are great ideas. And then he mentions, oh yeah, I love this guy named Edwin Land. And then you go read Edwin Land. Oh my God, those aren't even Steve Jobs ideas. He learned that from somebody else and applied them to his own work.

32:57This is what happens when you read Napoleon. Like he's taught all these ideas that are tumbling out of his mouth, which obviously are enhanced and augmented to his own experience came from alexander the great that is inspiring to me that means i can do the exact same thing that's why i bring it up it fills me with energy a general should be audacious strike hard blows and maneuver upon the flanks of the enemy napoleon wrote this comment based upon a study of the campaigns of frederick the great i love that idea like again be audacious strike hard blows one of my favorite things charlie munger said he says don't be too timid go at life with a little courage and if you really think about this for our purposes.

33:33Maneuvering upon flanks, that's what a startup does. A startup notices an opportunity left open by bigger competitors. When a commander intends to give battle, he should collect all his forces and overlook none. A battalion sometimes decides the day. The last time I read this to you, the words were slightly different. I said, hey, Rynesmith LBJ, if you do everything, you will win. This time I read it and I just, I have a post -it note on my desk. I have two things written to myself on my desk. Do one thing relentlessly. And the second one is a post -it note that asks me, what assets do I have that I'm not using?

34:10And I think that's very similar to what Napoleon is saying. When a commander tends to give battle, he should collect all his forces and overlook none. A battalion sometime decides the day. A battalion is just an asset that a commander has in battle. It is no harm to be too strong. It may be fatal to be too weak. If you are opposed by a great captain, so if you're going up against a very talented person, give yourself all the chances of success. Reminds me of Rockefeller on episode 324. He wrote, an enterprise is like a battlefield, and the purpose of strategic goals is to create the most beneficial state for oneself.

34:49He says, the purpose of your goals is to create the most beneficial state for oneself. Napoleon says, give yourself all the chances of success. It's the same idea.

35:04So he's using fortresses. We would use moats from the book, A Few Lessons from Warren Buffett. Moats, a metaphor for the superiorities a business possesses that make life difficult for their competitors. Fortresses make life difficult for an invading army. Now, Napoleon also says, Fortresses are not necessarily permanent. Warren Buffett says, business history is filled with Roman candles. Companies whose motes proved illusory and were soon crossed. I don't know if I pronounced that correct. Proved an illusion. Companies whose motes were proved to be an illusion and were soon crossed. Napoleon noticed the same thing in battle.

35:43Fortresses are not necessarily permanent. Napoleon says, nothing is absolute in war. Peter Thiel says, there is no formula for success. the paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula cannot exist because every innovation is new and unique and no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative. This is why I've gone on other podcasts and say, it's like, I view reading biographies like watching game tape on somebody's life, right? Same way that a basketball player would watch game tape. It doesn't mean like you're learning the tendencies of your competitors, maybe learning some good ideas that you could also copy, but it doesn't mean you're going to be presented with those same opportunities to act on that information in an actual game.

36:22You just have to have it in the back of your mind for one day it might. Nothing is absolute in war. Napoleon may have only used 20%, 30%, 5%, who knows of what he actually studied, but he still found value in that studying. It is your duty to follow up the victory and prevent the beaten enemy from rallying. You know the weird idea I had when I read that? Buying up your competitors that you're outperforming. This came top of mind because I just read Sam Insull's biography. It's in Rockefeller's biography. It's in Henry. So Sam Insull did this. Rockefeller did this. Henry Clay Frick did this. Why are you buying?

36:53You're already beating them. Why are you buying up? And in Rockefeller and Sam Insull's case, they would pay more than the assets are actually worth. And they talked about that there's a line that Sam has where it's like, listen, money can't buy friends, but it can prevent people becoming your enemies. But there's a strategic commercial application of this, which is it prevents them from regaining strength and threatening your position in the future. Napoleon's telling you it's your duty you're winning prevent the beaten enemy from rallying you go to sleep on a win you'll wake up with a loss Napoleon also talks about the dangers of excessive luxury of things being too easy for everybody and so the description of this is Napoleon seems to have in mind the dangers of having troops concentrated in your home area where they might be exposed to a loss of discipline to the pleasures of living among friendly people he preferred to have his troops far from such locations where a harder life would better prepare them for the vicissitudes of war.

37:43A lot of money and success will make your company sloppy and soft. We see this over and over again. It's just part of human nature. And when that happens, a younger, hungrier competitor will soon overtake you. You have to avoid excessive luxury. There's a great illustration of this point in David Ogilvie's autobiography, Confessions of an Advertising Man, which I think he wrote in like 1965. And really, when I read this the first time, I was like, oh, this is why there's always opportunity for new businesses, because this is just part of human nature. Like me and you can study this, we can learn this, highly likely towards the end of our career, it's going to happen to us too.

38:14And so this is what David Ogilvie says about this. Once every few years, a great new agency is born. It is ambitious, hardworking, full of dynamite. It gets old accounts, or excuse me, it gets accounts from soft old agencies. It does great work. The years pass, the founders get rich and tired. Their creative fires go out. They become extinct volcanoes. The agency may continue to prosper. Its original momentum is not yet spent. It has powerful context, but it has grown too big. It produces dull, routine campaigns based on the echo of old victories. Dry rot sets in. At this stage, it begins losing accounts to vital new agencies, ruthless upstarts who work hard and put all their dynamite into their advertisements or into their product.

39:00We can all name famous agencies which are moribund. You hear demoralizing whispers in their corridors long before the truth dawns on their clients. Back to Napoleon. A good general, a good corps of officers, a good organization, good training, rigid discipline makes good troops independently of the cause for which they fight. Nevertheless, fanaticism, love of country, national glory may also inspire young troops to advantage. He goes back to talking about morale, right? You can make good troops by having a good founder, good support staff, good executives, good organization, good training, discipline, everything else.

39:38But you cannot discount. It goes back to never discounting the power of enthusiasm. But the fanaticism is one of my favorite words because it's what Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett talk about. You're looking for intelligent fanatics. And the new version of Poor Charlie's Dominic, which you and I just covered a few weeks ago. I love that idea where he breaks down the entire career of Sam Walton. And I think he does this for Les Schwab too, but he has a line in that book that I love, that scale and fanaticism combined can be very powerful. And some examples of that would be Warren Buffett, Sam Walton, Les Schwab.

40:12You know, these are fanatics, intelligent fanatics that also achieve scale. And then that combination made them even more powerful. Troops soon discover whether their officers are competent or not. They will not follow with confidence or enthusiasm those who they believe to be incompetent. And then we get to the maxim where I think this is the only one where I had the same interpretation, that nothing is more important in war than unity of command. Nothing is more important in war than unity of command. Thus, when war is waged, there must be one army acting on one line and led by one chief. Remember, Robert Baratheon, what is the bigger number, five or one?

40:46The answer is one. One army, a real army, united behind one leader with one purpose. A fist instead of five fingers. One is larger than five, more powerful than five. uh once this is a napoleon on single threaded leadership once a campaign has been decided upon there should be no hesitation in appointing one in appointing one commander to assure its success when authority is divided opinions and actions differ and confusion and delay arises a single chief proceeds with vigor he is not delayed by the necessity to confer and so again he's going to use different words, general, chief, leader, it's all the same thing.

41:26We think about it as like the founder or the CEO of the company. In war, the chief alone understands the importance of certain things, and he alone by his will and superior knowledge can conquer and overcome all difficulties. That made me think of one of my all -time favorite quotes from any of the books that you and I talk about, and it comes from The Fish That Ate the Whale. Sam Zemuri said that if you know your business from A to Z, there is no problem you cannot solve. If you know your business from A to Z, there is no problem we cannot solve. Another great line by Napoleon that gets me fired up.

41:55Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary resolutions. How many things have appeared impossible, which nevertheless have been done by resolute men who had no other recourse than death? Possess obstinate will. And then Napoleon talks about the fact that emotions blur judgment. The first quality for a commander in chief is a cool head. He should not allow himself to be confused by either good or bad news. Commanders -in -chief are guided by their own experience and by their genius. The knowledge of grand tactics is gained only by experience and by the study of history of the campaigns of the great captains.

42:29This is one I already repeated. Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar have all followed the same principles. Keep your forces united. Don't be vulnerable at any point and move rapidly on important points. These are the principles which assure victory. Again, learning from history is a form of advantage. Pay attention to the principles that are repeatedly used by the formidable is a way to summarize that. Read and then reread campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Frederick, all these people. Model yourself upon them. This is the only way to become a great captain and to discover the secrets of the art of war.

43:01Your genius, enlightened by this study, will reject the maxims opposed to those of these great men. Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others. That could be a tagline for Founders Podcast. That could be a tagline for Founders Notes. experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others. And if you really think about the importance of using history as a form of leverage, it's like time is the best filter.

43:32You have to go through billions of people to get, you know, a few thousand or whatever the number is that actually stand out. In fact, in the book, it talks about like how rare great generals are. And so he says in the Civil War, there was about 2 million combatants and only about half a dozen really great generals arose out of that entire time period in war. So you got four years, two million people fighting, and there's really, you know, six, ten really, really supremely, you know, power law level talented people. They say the same thing in World War I. There's 20 million fighting men, and there's only been around six or a dozen that have been considered worthy of a permanent place in history.

44:10Great people are rare and always will be. Another tagline for reading biographies, It is profitable to study the campaigns of the great masters. It is exceptional and difficult to find in one man all the qualities necessary for a great general. That which is most desirable and which instantly sets a man apart. Now, this is very fascinating. This is Napoleon talking about, okay, one, it's so hard to find one person. He's like power. My friend Sam Hinckley has this great quote where he says, people are power law and the best ones change everything. And there's this guy named Graham Duncan that has another great line that's similar to this.

44:45He says talent is the best asset class. And I think this is very similar to what Napoleon is trying to teach us here. And he's talking about the balance of these, like one, are you even going to have all these qualities? Yeah. Okay. So out of the mass of humanity, the presence of all these qualities in one person is unbelievably rare, but what's even more rare than that is the balance of them. This is fascinating. So, uh, what instantly sets a man apart is his intelligence or talent and they're balanced by his character or courage. So intelligence or talent and character or courage. If his courage is greater, a general heedlessly undertakes things beyond his ability.

45:27So his courage is greater than his talent or his intelligence. If on the contrary, his character or courage is less than his intelligence, he does not carry out any plans. He's a smart but ineffectual person. His point is you need the balance. Your intelligence and talents have to be balanced in perfect harmony with your character or courage. If you're more courageous and smart, you're going to do dumb shit is the way that Napoleon is telling us. But if you're smarter and you have no courage, then you're brilliant but ineffectual. You don't do anything. So you need them all. Napoleon, something he says over and over again in the mind of Napoleon, is he believes in destiny.

46:06He's like the fulfillment of destiny. He believes in cause and effect. And so he'll say stuff like this. the importance of actions of a great general are not the results of chance or destiny. They are always arise from planning and from genius. And so related to that is a general above all needs good judgment and common sense. And then again, Napoleon on make sure you're planning, but once you plan, go all in to the last extremity, he says hesitation and half measures lose all in war.

46:56He's talking about focus, right? There's a lesson from Peter Thiel that I love. And he says, do not divide your attention. That focusing on one thing yields increasing returns for each unit of effort. It sounds very similar to what Napoleon said, you know, 200 years ago. In the last few weeks, you and I have talked about this idea over and over again that business is problems. The best companies are just effective problem solving machines. War is composed of nothing but surprises. While a general should adhere to general principles, he should never lose the opportunity to profit by these surprises.

47:28It is the essence of genius. In war, there is only one favorable moment. Genius seizes it. Think about that. Business is composed of nothing but surprises, and profiting from those surprises is the essence of genius. And then we get to this short story that I mentioned earlier, that Napoleon was also gifted at psychological warfare, and that we see this again, like an understanding of human nature helps you rise to the top of your profession. And so he says, praises from enemies are to be suspected, right? Do not believe them. They can flatter a man of honor only when they are given after the cessation of hostility.

48:04So if you beat your enemy and then he wants to praise you, maybe you can believe it then, but do not believe it until the war is already over, right? And so this is, I love what he did here, or it just surprised me. It says, Napoleon was thinking of the Austrian general who opposed him in 1796. Provera was a very poor general with a view to To having the Austrian government maintain him at his post, Napoleon made great reports extolling the wisdom and efficiency of Provera. The Austrian government, believing that Provera must be indeed good to gain praise from Napoleon, kept him at his post, where he remained as incompetent as ever.

48:46This was really a ruse and an excellent illustration of Napoleon's knowledge of psychology. And then the last one, this is a great place for you and I to close. he's again going back to the importance of studying history and identifying and analyzing the principles that the greats used all great captains have accomplished great things only by conforming to the rules and natural principles of the art of war whatever may have been the audacity of their enterprises and the extent of their success they succeeded only by conforming to rules and principles it is only for this reason that they are great models they are are great models, and it is only by imitating them that we may hope to approach them.

49:26All great captains have been diligent students. Histories of wars must be critically analyzed to discover why successes were obtained and why defeats were inflicted. The teaching of strategy is built around history. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Highly recommend buying both of the books. So if you buy the books using the link that's shown in your podcast player, or by going to founderspodcast .com and using the links there, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. I'd buy both of them. I'd buy, I'd keep The Maximus of Napoleon, like I said, on your desk, just along with like the towel of Charlie Munger.

50:01And I would buy Roots of Strategy because Roots of Strategy has all these other books contained in them. They're excellent. They're fun to read. And more importantly, they will prompt your own thinking. That is 337 books down, 1 ,000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon. Okay, before you go real quick, I just want to go through a couple ideas that I had and thoughts that popped in my mind as I was making this episode, reading all these books on Napoleon, rereading my past highlights. And this has to do with why I think it's really in your best interest. If you are already running a successful company, I need to preface all the comments I'm about to make.

50:34If you're already running a successful company, I would definitely heavily encourage you to invest in a subscription to Founders Notes. Founders Notes is every single one of my highlights and notes that I've been compiling for the last eight years and for the last since 2018, putting into this app Readwise. So you actually it's an app that I use every day. And what Founders Notes is, it allows you to see what I see. So it's a direct mirror to my notebook that I use to make the podcast, but not more important than that. One, I couldn't make the podcast without it, but I also stay in it every day.

51:07I read in it every day. I search through it every day. I do think it's the most valuable notebook in the world for founders. And the reason this came up is because it's very obvious. Like, I could say I've now read, what, three? I think it's the third or fourth, third podcast I've done on Napoleon. It is very obvious that if you listen to his own words, without a doubt, he would endorse not only Founders Podcast, obviously, but Founders Notes as well. He says, read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great. Make them your models. It is the only way to become a great general and to master secrets of the art of war with your own genius enlightened by this study.

51:43I feel if you use founder notes, if you read it every day. So I've been getting a bunch of messages from people about how they're using it. Because, you know, I put this thing out into the world. I'll tell you how I use it. But it's very fascinating. Somebody told me yesterday that they're using it as if they used to read the newspaper or check the news every day. And instead of that, they're reading founders notes and they're reading a different book every day or reading the highlights. from a different book every day. So that line, with your own genius enlightened by this study, I love that.

52:13You will reject maxims opposed to those of these great commanders. And then the other tagline that jumps out at me, which I think is Napoleon describing why you and I should invest time in this, doing this, experience must be supplemented by study. You're getting your experience in your day, during your day, building the business that you're building, right? Experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others. So I just want to run through a couple ideas on how to use it. So you go to foundersnotes .com and you sign up.

52:49Once you sign up, it'll drop you on this page and you'll see a series of options on how to read and search through all the highlights. So the very top, there's this big box at the top. It's actually blue right now. I should turn it black though, since the colors of founders is black and white. So I'll make that change. But it says search highlights. This I use every day. I keep it up in my browser. And, you know, any term, any person, anything that comes to mind, I just try to search and see what I can find. Any issue I'm having, any idea that pops to mind, I use this. And now it is a keyword search.

53:21We have so many crazy AI features coming. And so one thing that we're going to add is not just the ability to search by keyword, but then search by inference and meaning which then opens up a whole new set of highlights but i guess i don't want to confuse you but i've been testing as since last week i got access to uh i'm calling it founders gpt i don't know if that's the the the name that i'll put on the actual feature but uh i i got access at like 9 45 at night uh because that's when it was released and we're obviously he's still beta testing this on the back end because the guys from readwise are helping me do this and i had to go meet my trainer the next morning at like six in the morning and i was late and very tired he's like what is wrong with you i was like well i was playing with this thing all night because it's like it's like a history nerd history business history nerds like dream and so let me give an example uh this you it shows right now because we're testing it it shows like everything it pulls so i was like hey give me a list i was using it to help me make this podcast and to help me think about everything Napoleon's telling me.

54:30And so I was like, give me a list of Napoleon's best ideas. And so this Founders GPT is essentially like an AI coach to help you brainstorm and give feedback on business ideas. And it's powered by the encyclopedia of all my notes and highlights. And I'm adding a bunch of crazy stuff, which I won't talk about yet. And so I was like, give me a list of Napoleon's best ideas. And then I can see what it is pulling because it's going to give me a list of 10 ideas. But it pulled like 50 different highlights. And it's not just from the three different books that I've done on Napoleon. There's stuff from Aristotle Onassis in here.

55:03He had a very—essentially, it's matching the way Napoleon thought with other of, like, the people that you and I have studied. Some examples of, like, other ideas and tactics and tendencies of history's greatest entrepreneurs. So it pulls things from like Aristotle Onassis, Henry Ford, Mozart, Bernard Arnault, David Ogilvie, Elon Musk, Billy Durant, the founder of General Motors, Larry Ellison, and of course, Alexander the Great. And it does all this super fast. And so what we're left with is, you know, maybe a 200 word summary of Napoleon and the way his ideas are similar to some of the other examples of the people that you and I have studied in the past.

55:44So that's just something I've been messing around this week. If you already have a subscription to Founders Notes or if you sign up, everything that I add, there's like every new feature, there's no like, I'm not charging anymore. I'm going to keep making this better, keep adding features. And as I add more features, obviously the price will go up. So that's why you're heavily incentivized to get in now. And obviously do that at foundersnotes .com. So anyways, that's just one thing that I was obsessed with this week that I'm super excited about. But I want to go back to if you sign up now, you're landed on this page.

56:12this is what I would do right after listening to the episode you just listened to. You log into Founders Notes, right? And you can search highlights, but I would go to books. And then once you click on books, you see all the books that I have, all the highlights that I have. And then you can search there too. And I would just type in Napoleon. And once you do that, you see the three books that I've done. Napoleon and the Modern War, which is the one I just covered. Napoleon, a Concise Biography by David Bell. And then The Mind of Napoleon. So The Mind of Napoleon, this is why, you know, I just mentioned it half a dozen times in the episode that you just listened to.

56:47I think this is a very, very special book. And what I would try to do, I really would try to get a copy if you can, because it's 300 pages of Napoleon's own words, essentially speaking directly to you. It is so much more detailed than just maxims. Right now, I just clicked on the link, the copy that I have, which was first published in 1955. there's only one copy available on all of Amazon. It's $1 ,500. That's in the United States Amazon store. I've heard from a bunch of listeners that if you have access, if you either use a VPN or if you have a friend in Canada, if you go to the Canadian version of Amazon, I think you can get the book for like $40.

57:24So highly recommend you get that. But I like this idea of using this as like in substitute for like the newspaper, reading the news every morning. Like what if you went into Founders Notes and you just picked a new book? And like you did that tomorrow when you woke up and you started your day by reading, it probably takes you 10 minutes to read all of my highlights and notes on the mind of Napoleon. That is a better use of your time than just reading the highlights for the current events, most of which that you're reading is not going to stand the test of time. And the reason I bring this up to you and the reason I'm telling you all this is like, well, don't even take my word for this.

57:59Now, obviously I spend my life doing this, right? What would Napoleon do? What would Napoleon do? What, like, really, I'm asking you, like, can you answer that? What would he do? Of course, he would do this. If he had access to Founders Notes, he'd be reading it constantly. So that's just one idea. There's a million ideas. I'm going to keep, at the end of the episodes, I'll keep, like, introducing ways to use this. But I think I can leave it there for now, just as simple as that. It's like, hey, sign up, read the highlights from one book a day, and you have a year. Like, you can sign up right now.

58:32you do an annual subscription, right? Which means not only do you have access to every single thing I've done so far, but in that year, I'm going to read another, you know, 40, 50 book, now probably 50 books, add a couple thousand more highlights. So the product actually gets better every day. And I can recommend this with my whole heart because I made it. I use it every day. And I love, and when I hear things about like what Napoleon says, like experience must be supplemented by study. No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others. Like that just, every indication, the more biographies I read, the more time I spend rereading this, it's just every single, when I get to meet people like Charlie Munger and Sam Zell, who are seeped, they are seeped in history, just like Napoleon was.

59:15When Napoleon was like, hey, when you read his words, he was like, hey, you know, in 300 AD, this guy did this, and in 1645, this guy did this, and look, he was trying to cross the river here, or 1755, this guy did this. I got the chance to talk to both before they passed away, two hours of Sam Zell and three hours of Charlie Munger. They were exactly like that. That is my goal. And you know, like I'm much younger than they are. But like when I get there to be seeped in history where everything that you're seeing, you're just you're just analyzing everything through the ideas and all like the giant game tape of history's greatest entrepreneurs.

59:49I believe with my whole heart, I will have a better life. I will have a better career because of this relentless studying that I'm doing than if I didn't do that. Again, read over and over again. He says that. That's a literally line from Napoleon. Not read once and then move on. No, read over and over and over again. So I love that idea. I wanted to combine that idea from Napoleon with one of the subscribers to Founders Notes. He says, like, man, this has replaced my, instead of reading the newspaper, instead of reading the news, I'm just reading this every morning. I think you'll like it. It gets better every day.

1:00:24I have a ton of new features coming. That is foundersnotes .com, foundersnotes .com. As always, thank you very much for listening.