The myth of leadership

One idea I keep coming back to — both as an investor and a writer — is our cultural fixation on leadership. Questioning its importance feels almost heretical. After all, aren’t strong leaders essential for innovation, growth, and transformation?

Look a bit closer, and the story gets more complicated. What if leadership is less of a cause and more of an outcome? What if our reverence for leaders distracts us from the systems and conditions that actually shape change?

Historian Moshik Temkin explores this tension in a provocative essay that challenges the mythology of individual greatness. “If we want to understand leadership,” he writes, “should we be looking at the ways the leader changed the world — or the ways in which the world produced, and then constrained, the leader?” It’s a powerful inversion.

Maybe leadership isn’t the spark. Perhaps it’s the smoke.

Key quote: “It is hard to escape this view of leaders and leadership. It is all around us. We still tend to teach, study and celebrate ‘Great Men’. All over the world, people are in search of larger-than-life figures who can lead them past crises and catastrophes, and into a bright future. Perhaps that is why leaders from a supposedly glorious past loom so large in the gloomy present. But how did we get to this dominant view on leadership, with its focus on all-powerful individualism? To answer this question, we must go all the way back to antiquity, where mythology holds the key. We need to revisit the earliest written works in human history and see what kinds of ideas about leadership they implanted in us. And then, we have to see how these early ideas were countered by a new and compelling vision of leadership that remains with us today.”

Maintenance vs. repair

In Noema, the journalist Alex Vuocolo makes a compelling case: the future won’t be built — it’ll be maintained.

His essay, centered on New York’s R32 subway cars and the workers who kept them running decades past their expected life, argues that maintenance is more than upkeep. It’s a philosophy — a form of care.

In an age of climate stress and aging infrastructure, maintenance offers a potential path forward, and a framework to think about progress. It’s not about resisting change, but making the right things last. If we want resilience, we need to start celebrating the people who keep the world from falling apart. “Repair is when you fix something that’s already broken,” Alex writes. “Maintenance is about making something last.”

Key quote: “But how is it that the agency became the steward of the lumbering machines that move millions of people across one of the busiest cities in the world? Behind the decades of underinvestment and political sabotage is a more basic story about maintenance, what motivates it, where it is possible and advisable and where it isn’t. More often than not, maintenance is done only under conditions of austerity; those that can afford brand new things can simply discard what breaks or is no longer useful.”

OUTLAST field notes: The crow knows

Here’s a story that blew my mind: In Seattle, researchers wore masks while capturing wild crows. Years later, those same masks sparked alarm calls from hundreds of birds — many who’d never witnessed the original event.

In other words, the memory had spread. Crows don’t just remember for up to 17 years — they teach. Through calls, posture, and flock behavior, they transmit knowledge across generations. To me, this is culture in action. Not written down, but embodied. If you want something to last, ask yourself: what will people carry forward — not because you told them, but because you showed them?

A few more links I enjoyed:

No Rivals: The Founders Fund Story – via The Generalist

Key quote: “‍No Rivals is a four-part series spanning more than 35,000 words. It will run over the next four weeks. It’s the most comprehensive examination of Silicon Valley’s most controversial venture firm, its extraordinary performance, and its remarkable cultural influence. The series is the product of extensive research, interviews with more than a dozen key figures, and a detailed analysis of Founders Fund’s previously undisclosed returns.”

Very Bad Advice – via Morgan Housel

Key quote: “‍It’s often hard to know what will bring joy but easy to spot what will bring misery. Building a house is complex; destroying one is simple, and I think you’ll find a similar analogy in most areas of life. When trying to get ahead it can be helpful to flip things around, focusing on how to not fall back.”