Marcus Tullius Cicero did not have a LinkedIn profile. He did not attend leadership seminars. He never posted an inspirational quote over a sunrise photo, though he certainly produced enough quotes to fill a lifetime of them. What he did have was a front row seat to the slow, spectacular collapse of the Roman Republic. […]
Cicero’s Guide to Surviving a Toxic Workplace (or a Dying Republic) Read More »
In 1977, Richard Nelson asked a question so simple it was almost embarrassing. If we can put a man on the moon, why can we not fix the ghetto? The question was not rhetorical. Nelson, an economist at Columbia, genuinely wanted to understand why a society capable of extraordinary technical feats seemed incapable of solving
The Moon and the Ghetto Paradox: Why Tech Advances While Society Stagnates Read More »
Somewhere right now, in a conference room with bad lighting and worse coffee, someone is saying the phrase “let us leverage our synergies to move the needle on our core competencies.” And somewhere in that same room, someone else is nodding along while having absolutely no idea what was just said. This is not a
Beyond the Buzzwords: How Wittgenstein Can Save Your Office from “Meaningless” Jargon Read More »
There is a book written 2,400 years ago that most business leaders have never read. It is not about business. It contains no frameworks, no case studies, no actionable takeaways. And yet it remains the most accurate diagnosis of why powerful organizations destroy themselves ever put to paper. The book is The History of the
Thucydides for CEOs: The High Cost of Corporate Hubris Read More »
In 1784, Immanuel Kant wrote a short essay that would become one of the most quoted texts in Western philosophy. “What is Enlightenment?” he asked, and then answered with a phrase that still echoes through university hallways and coffee shop arguments: Sapere aude. Dare to know. Have the courage to use your own understanding. Two
Why Conspiracy Theories Are the Ultimate Failure of Enlightenment Read More »
There is a strange moment in every finance textbook where the author quietly asks you to believe in something you cannot see, touch, or verify. It usually arrives around chapter three. You are told that markets are efficient, that prices reflect all available information, and that rational agents make optimal decisions under uncertainty. No evidence
Is Modern Finance a Branch of Metaphysics? Alfred North Whitehead Makes the Case Read More »
You work hard. You show up on time, hit your targets, maybe even skip lunch. And yet, when you ask for a raise, something strange happens. Your boss looks at you with genuine sympathy, sighs deeply, and explains that the budget just is not there. You walk away frustrated, convinced it is personal. But what
There is a man who died in 1626 from stuffing a chicken with snow. He was trying to see if cold could preserve meat. He caught pneumonia and that was the end of him. His name was Francis Bacon, and he might be the most important person in the technology industry today, even though he
The Tech War Is a Philosophy War: Bacon vs. Everyone Else Read More »
Two thousand years before Twitter threads and TED talks, a Roman lawyer figured out something most of us still have not learned: you can win every argument and still lose everything that matters. His name was Marcus Tullius Cicero, and he was so good at persuasion that the people who killed him cut off his
Cicero’s 5 Rules for Winning an Argument Without Losing Your Soul Read More »
There is a phrase so deeply embedded in political language that most people never stop to examine it. “Public servant.” Say it slowly. Let it sit. Now ask yourself a simple question: when was the last time you felt served by the Department of Motor Vehicles? Murray Rothbard, the American economist and libertarian thinker who
The Myth of the “Public Servant”: Why Bureaucrats Only Serve Their Own Expansion Read More »