Annotations (29)
“In Thebes, Philip saw the besetting weaknesses of a democratic city-state: constant party intrigue, lack of a strong executive power, the inability to force quick decisions, the unpredictable vagaries of the assembly at voting time, the system of annual elections which made any serious long-term planning almost impossible. He began to understand how Macedonia's outdated institutions, so despised by the rest of Greece, might prove a source of strength when dealing with such opponents.”— Will Durant / Peter Green
Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics · Leadership & Management
DUR_ENDURING
Autocracy's speed advantage
“In the ancient world, the punishments for having your innovation fail are massive. In a situation where most wars are decided with one or two battles, having your innovation go sideways and costing you the battle could easily cost you the war. So the penalty for failure is huge and the incentives to be conservative are overriding. So when a guy like Epaminondas throws the dice on something like breaking all the rules of Greek warfare, you gotta admire his moxie.”— Dan Carlin
Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics · Creativity & Innovation
DUR_ENDURING
Winner-take-all kills innovation
“For Philip, war was first and foremost an instrument of state policy with which to achieve specific strategic objectives. It was always the continuation of policy by other means, in the genuine Clausewitzian sense. Philip achieved no less through conversation than through battle, and by Zeus he prided himself more on what he acquired through words than on what he acquired through arms. This Clausewitzian view of war led Philip to become the greatest strategist of his time.”— Richard A. Gabriel
Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management · History & Geopolitics
DUR_ENDURING
War as policy tool
“Philip's willingness to throw bribe money all over the place in large amounts seems to almost tie directly into one of the tragic flaws of the Greek city-state experience during this time, and that's that bribes were really effective. Diodorus is supposedly quoting Philip as saying that the expansion of his kingdom owed far more to money than to arms. There was such a crop of traitors at that time in Greece that it was impossible to check the impulse of Greek cities towards treachery.”— Philip II (via Diodorus)
Strategy & Decision Making · Economics & Markets · Psychology & Behavior
DUR_ENDURING
Cash as siege weapon
“Epaminondas goes wild, makes the formation 50 ranks deep. He's going to face off against a Spartan hoplite force that's probably about 12 ranks deep. Think about the difference if we're talking about the physics of human mass and movement and weight and depth, the difference between a 50-rank closed formation running into a 12-rank closed formation. The sledgehammer head of the Thebans ran into the Spartans, killed 400 of the 700 irreplaceable Spartiates and the Spartan king.”— Dan Carlin
Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution · Psychology & Behavior
DUR_ENDURING
Mass concentration breaks equilibrium
“What if when Icarus's hubris gets the best of him and the sun melts his beeswax holding the wings together and he falls, what if he falls on a crowd of people? What if it isn't just about Icarus anymore? What if the area where you seek fame and success and distinction involves the lives and destinies of lots and lots of people? That's when this question of this virtue of ambition or desire to be the best can become ultimately at times genocidal.”— Dan Carlin
Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics
DUR_ENDURING
When ambition falls on crowds
“Philip creates the pike phalanx, and then he adds all sorts of other elements to his army. He's often credited with the first European combined arms force. To this Macedonian cavalry that's great and the Macedonian phalanx that's a missing ingredient, he adds mercenaries, extra important during this time period. He also starts employing large numbers of allies. He uses a lot of Thracians, employs light troops and skirmishers.”— Dan Carlin
Operations & Execution · Strategy & Decision Making · Creativity & Innovation
DUR_ENDURING
Modularity creates flexibility
“When he needs money, he goes out there and takes silver and gold mines from other people. Then all of a sudden, the money, which comes right out of the earth like an ATM machine, goes right into his hands. One historian said that neither Philip nor Alexander were anything like economists, and they had a sort of a pirate mentality when it came to cash. When you needed more cash, you just took something.”— Dan Carlin
Economics & Markets · Strategy & Decision Making
DUR_ENDURING
Expansion pays for expansion
“Traditionally, Philip II is seen as a guy who brings Macedonia to power from nothing. That is probably not true considering the newfangled histories about him, because one of the great things that revisionist historians have figured out in a lot of these cases is that anytime the history portrays someone as creating something from nothing, it probably wasn't true.”— Dan Carlin
History & Geopolitics · Business & Entrepreneurship · Philosophy & Reasoning
DUR_ENDURING
No creation from nothing
“Marriage for Philip was Clausewitzian. Royal marriages for diplomatic reasons isn't just common, it's almost the norm. But the Macedonian ruler has a huge advantage over a lot of these other royal families. If you're Henry VIII of England and you're marrying for diplomatic reasons, it's kind of a limitation if you can just marry one wife. Philip didn't have any sort of limitation like that at all. Philip could marry as many wives as he wanted to, to cement his diplomatic and political goals.”— Dan Carlin
Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics · Culture & Society
DUR_CONTEXTUAL
Polygamy as diplomatic force multiplier
“Did you know that when you get two lines of hoplites facing off against one another, when they're all lined up shoulder to shoulder with a spear in the right hand and a shield in the left hand, the formation drifts to the right? And it's so reliable, the Greeks count on it. Men in these sorts of situations tend to move a little to the right because to the right is where the shield of the guy next to them is.”— Dan Carlin
Operations & Execution · Psychology & Behavior · Biology, Ecology & Systems
DUR_CONTEXTUAL
Self-protection creates system drift
“The tradition holds that Philip learned things in Thebes because he's in Thebes at a very specific time in history, the time where Thebes is for a short period the kings of the Greek scene because they've recently in 371 BCE defeated and broken Spartan power at a famous battle called Leuctra. Philip is housed with one of Epaminondas' generals, and so he's learning things, things that he will build off of.”— Dan Carlin
Creativity & Innovation · Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making
DUR_ENDURING
Learning from temporary winners
“Philip and Alexander are going to bring the first really awesome siege troops in Greek history. A lot of times when you hide yourself behind the walls in Greece, the enemy army just ravages your fields and loots and pillages and then leaves, or maybe surrounds you and tries to wait you out. Philip and Alexander go through your walls and they come and get you, and that changes things too. There are going to be years in Philip's timeline where he'll take 3 Greek city-states in a year.”— Dan Carlin
Technology & Engineering · Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution
DUR_ENDURING
Killing safe havens changes everything
“One of the reasons that Philip is so able to exploit these maneuvers done by some of his predecessors is the stability he brings to the leadership question. That's the key issue, if you look at it in hindsight, that's keeping Macedonia from doing better. They can't keep competent leaders on the throne for very long. At one point before Philip takes over, Macedonia is going to have 5 kings in 6 years, and most of them die violently.”— Dan Carlin
Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics
DUR_ENDURING
Stability prerequisite for advantage
“Philip's training for power was proceeding along useful if unorthodox lines. His experience as a member of the Macedonian royal household had given him an understandably cynical view of human nature. In this world, murder, adultery, and usurpation were commonplace. In later life, Philip took it as axiomatic that all diplomacy was based on self-interest and every man had his price. Events seldom proved him wrong.”— Will Durant
Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management
DUR_ENDURING
Cynical realism from chaos
“The question of ambition is an equally interesting one. It's a very Goldilocks-type concept, this golden mean. This porridge is too hot. This porridge is too cold. This porridge is just right. Well, if you're dealing with ambition and not porridge, where is the just right point? It's not easy to pin down, is it? The right amount of courage is a virtue. If you have too little of it, it's cowardice, and that's a vice. But if you have too much of it, it's recklessness, and that's a vice too.”— Dan Carlin
Philosophy & Reasoning · Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior
DUR_ENDURING
Golden mean framework for virtues
“In an era where you actually have to kill people by shoving a knife into their throat or something like that, the way you're brought up can influence how well you're able to do that. There's a big difference between somebody raised on a ranch like a cowhand who slaughters and drives cattle, and a kid growing up in Los Angeles playing Dungeons Dragons. The Macedonians wanted their wine straight and unmixed.”— Dan Carlin
Culture & Society · Psychology & Behavior · Operations & Execution
DUR_CONTEXTUAL
Culture as combat preparation
“Neither Philip nor Alexander were anything like economists, and they had a sort of a pirate mentality when it came to cash. When you needed more cash, you just took something. You racked up credit card debt, maxed out all of the credit lines, and then when you conquered some new territory, you paid off the credit cards and got right with the bank and started all over again.”— Dan Carlin
Economics & Markets · Strategy & Decision Making
DUR_ENDURING
Conquest as debt payoff cycle
“Philip is a guy who took the field with his army every single year of his 23-year reign except one. And the one where he didn't, it was because he was recovering from wounds. The man, by the end of his life, is crippled. He loses an eye. He has a collarbone broken. His hand is completely mangled. He takes a spear through his thigh, his lower leg, both bones broken at the same time. He walked by the end of his life with a pronounced limp. But he took part in 28 campaigns, 11 sieges.”— Dan Carlin
Leadership & Management · Operations & Execution
DUR_ENDURING
Leadership through physical sacrifice
“Macedonia's got quite a bit of arable land. They've got wonderful areas to farm and to graze cattle and horses. They control important mineral and precious metal mines. The best timber comes from Macedonia. When he needs money, he goes out there and takes silver and gold mines from other people, takes it from the Thracians. And then all of a sudden, the money, which comes right out of the earth like an ATM machine, goes right into his hands.”— Dan Carlin
Strategy & Decision Making · Economics & Markets · History & Geopolitics
DUR_ENDURING
Natural resources as ATM
Frameworks (3)
The Golden Mean Calibration Framework
Assessing Whether a Virtue Has Become a Vice
A structured approach to determining whether a character trait or organizational capability exists at optimal levels or has shifted into excess (vice of too much) or deficiency (vice of too little). Based on Aristotelian ethics.
Components
- Identify the Trait
- Define the Extremes
- Assess Current State
- Identify Adjustment Mechanisms
The Innovation Risk Assessment Framework
When the Cost of Failure Makes Experimentation Prohibitive
A decision framework for evaluating whether the penalty for failed innovation is so high that conservatism is the rational strategy, versus contexts where the cost of not innovating outweighs the risk of failure.
Components
- Identify the Stakes
- Assess Opportunity to Iterate
- Evaluate the Cost of Not Innovating
- Consider Asymmetric Bets
The Structural Advantage Assessment
Identifying When Your Weakness Is Actually Strength
A framework for identifying when organizational or systemic features that appear to be disadvantages relative to competitors are actually sources of competitive advantage when facing certain types of opponents or contexts.
Components
- List Your 'Weaknesses'
- Identify Competitor Constraints
- Find the Inversion
- Design Strategy Around Inverted Advantages
Connective Tissue (4)
Hoplite formation drift: micro-behavior creating system-level drift
When Greek hoplite formations advanced, each soldier would unconsciously shift slightly to the right. This individual micro-behavior, repeated across hundreds of men, caused the entire formation to drift predictably rightward.
Explanation of ancient battle physics
Clausewitz principle: war as continuation of policy by other means
Philip II approach to warfare embodied Clausewitz famous principle centuries before Clausewitz articulated it.
Discussion of Philip strategic philosophy
Viking drinking culture and warfare preparation
Macedonian culture shared similarities with Viking culture in its emphasis on physical hardiness, heavy drinking, and direct combat preparation.
Comparison between Athenian and Macedonian cultures
Icarus flying too close to the sun
The myth of Icarus and Daedalus serves as a cautionary tale about ambition. The challenge is finding the golden mean that drives achievement without causing catastrophic failure.
Introduction comparing Icarus myth to the dangers of unchecked ambition in leaders like Alexander