#4: Ben Wilson - How to take over the world, Vladimir Putin, and why The Art of War sucks

Hey, welcome to Jason Levin's Brain Blast, episode number 4. Today we've got Ben Wilson, the host of How to Take Over the World. You might also know him from My First Million, where he's a producer. In his series How to Take Over the World, he studies leaders like Vladimir Putin, Alexander the Great, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney. We talk about Russia today, plus history, strategy, and much more.

You, you listen to My First Million, right?

Yeah, of course.

Um, we always, as soon as a guest joins, we just hit them straight with the record, like it's going right away. And then, you know, we'll roll into it and do whatever, but we don't want to miss anything good. So it's like we just, we keep it rolling from the top.

So yeah, understood. How'd you, how'd you get set up with My First Million?

Uh, Sam heard heard my podcast for How to Take Over the World and then he liked it. And then when he heard that, like, I also did other stuff with podcast production, he was like, oh, just come do that for us. So the rest is history, as they say.

Nice. Are you enjoying the experience there?

Yeah, it's great to work with them. I love it.

Yeah, seems like a good time. I guess it leads into a good question. How do you take over the world?

Look, if I knew, I probably wouldn't be talking to you. I'd have better things to do with my time, Jason Levin. No offense, but I, no, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of good stuff that I have learned from the podcast. And one of the main things I have learned is that like taking the world isn't for everyone, you know, like you gotta find out what that means for you and you gotta do whatever's gonna be fulfilling for you. And for most people, that's not gonna be like grinding every day and making it to the top. And that's totally fine. Right. You just gotta find what you want, what works for you.

Got you. So what does take over the world look like to you?

I have a set of goals that I would like to accomplish. Some of those I don't share cuz they seem like a little outlandish, right? But it's not, it's not becoming president of the United States and it's not becoming emperor of the Roman Empire or anything like that. In the near term, the stuff I'm working on right now is that I want How to Take Over the World to be a top 100 podcast in the world across all categories. And I'd like to have some video component to it. I would love to like do a get it big enough where I can have a deal with someone like a Netflix or Hulu to make some video content out of it. And yeah, just turn that into an amazing media property that people love and inspires people to think bigger and do more. That's what I'm focused on right now.

That's amazing. I believe in you. I think you got it. So yeah, I guess another question I have. So I was listening to your Steve Jobs one, a while ago, and you mentioned something about a tribe of maniacs, and I've thought about that since then, like maybe probably once a week, once or twice a week. And I kind of have my tribe of maniacs, the hedge fund managers, the creators, the people with 40K followers on TikToks, we're like building and like, you know, I have my maniacs and it's weird. How have you built your tribe of maniacs? How do you recommend people do that?

Yeah. So, um, uh, there, there's like two answers to that. Okay. So one answer is you do it organically. So like my homies that I grew up with in Danville, California, like those are always gonna be my guys no matter what. Right. And they're doing, and luckily, like I come from a place where I met people that like I've just been best friends with, and I love those guys and they're all doing well for themselves cuz we're all similar. And so that's great that we can be in a similar stage of life. You know, one of 'em's in finance, one of 'em's a doctor, one of 'em's an attorney, but like all doing cool stuff. But that is to say, like, if one of us rises, all of us are gonna rise. Does that make sense? Like if I make it big, they're all going to make it big, right? So they're, they're coming with me wherever I go. And then the other answer is, one of the ways I've been able to build my tribe is through this experience of having Sam Parr of My First Million discover the podcast, get in touch with me. And then I kind of got plugged into their network. And it's amazing, like every month I meet a new billionaire, right, which is like kind of a wild thing. And So the other thing I would say for people is if you're looking to build your tribe of people who are helping you get where you're going is create content, you know, whether that's a podcast or a blog, like it's a way to put out there to the world how you think, what you stand for, all that type of stuff. And that's a great way to make connections with like-minded people.

100%. I find just putting my ideas out there on Twitter, I've made So many amazing friends. Just went to a conference in Denver where I knew no one except for via Twitter, ETHDenver, and had the best 4 days of my life. Just people who believe in the same ideas or similar ideas or a lot of creators and whatnot. But yeah, I guess referencing one of the podcasts, you were talking about a billionaire who wanted you to consult essentially on strategy and history. Have you started doing that? And what's kind of your thought process around that?

Um, no, I haven't started doing it yet. Um, I'm planning on it, but I'm still kind of, uh, working on figuring out the backend infrastructure to make all that happen. Um, my thought process around it, I mean, if you listen to that podcast, I don't know that I have a ton to add beyond what Sam and Sean said, but I found their advice really valuable. Especially something that Sean said, which is like, you know, I'm not sure that my time is worth $1,000 an hour or whatever. And Sean was like, yeah, you might be right. But how many times are you kind of getting screwed in the deal? You know, like how many times in life are you paying more than what something is worth? And like, this is your one chance in life. How many times and how many times in life are you getting underpaid for what you are worth? Which I feel like happens all the time. Like, this is your one chance to get overpaid. Like, all right. I can buy that. I can get behind that. Right. Of like, yeah, if I am getting overpaid, I mean, I'm gonna work because I feel that some of that imposter syndrome and work really hard to make sure that this is worth people's time if they book it. And just putting in that legwork is It helps make me feel better. But the other thing is just like, if it doesn't add exactly that amount of value, even after I give my best effort, all right, well, I'll let other people make that evaluation afterwards and maybe I can adjust accordingly, but it's better to kind of be bold and see what you can do and course correct if it doesn't work out.

100%. Yeah. I think, uh, The market will tell for itself. I feel like there's a low supply of people with deep history knowledge and also business knowledge. So the combo is definitely valuable. And going forward with that question, I've been thinking similar about that with creators and podcasters and writers and strategy. How do you think podcasters, writers, creators can build a lasting audience and a valuable business, if there's any history lessons that show it, or even just, you know, off the dome.

Yeah. So how can they build an audience and a valuable business?

Yeah.

So I'll start with audience and I'll start with, I'll start with my personal experience and then I'll start with some things that I've learned because the series I'm working on right now is about Walt Disney. And that's actually a great, I've learned a lot from him about how to build an audience, right? Who better to learn from? So one of the things I have learned from in podcasting is that like most podcasts are not like, no one wants to listen to your podcast. I'm not speaking to you personally, right? But like to most people, most people do not wanna listen to most podcasts, right? And most podcasts don't need to exist. And what I like always trying to tell people is just like, please do something different. Right. The podcast I went for was like Tim Ferriss meets Hardcore History, right. Of like, and I, no one was doing that. And even so it took me a long time to break through and to find an audience. And so just think about things differently. There's 4 dimensions on which you can be unique. So those 4 dimensions are what your podcast is about, the way in which the story is told, who it's for, and who, who it's by, who, who produces the, the show or hosts it. And most people only think about what it's about so that, for example, they're like, all right, I'm gonna make a podcast about orangutans and no one has a podcast about orangutans. It's like, that's a good start, but you actually should be unique on, on 2 of those 4 things. So if it's a podcast about orangutans and who it's by, and it's by orangutans too, then like, dude, I don't even care about orangutans. I would listen to that. Like, oh wait, you're telling me orangutans, they're hosting the podcast? Like, well, let's, let's listen to what that's like. Or if you told me, The format is different, so it's not by orangutans, but it's actually in the jungle and the hosts are watching orangutans as they're talking about them. Okay. Again, that's like a different unique way of having a podcast. I don't care about orangutans, but I'd probably listen to it. Or who it's for. Like, it's a podcast about orangutans for orangutans. I don't know what that means, but immediately I'm intrigued. I'm like, oh wait, you're telling me this podcast, it's a podcast for orangutans. I'm not an orangutan, but I will listen to that. I want to, I want to know what you're talking about. Right. And so I think people need to think about getting unique on some of those other dimensions of who's it for, who's it by, and how's the story told rather than just what is the content about.

Got you. Got you. Yeah. That's definitely something I've been thinking about as well. I don't have any crazy uniqueifiers with my podcast. I just, It's me talking to people. And so I saw that tweet that you put out, or was it, there's a trade between easy to do and easy to distinguish yourself. Example, interview podcasts are very easy to do, but incredibly difficult to distinguish yourself. Scripted shows are the opposite. If you're willing to put in the sweat, you can have an audience. And I've been thinking about that a lot. And yeah, definitely hard to distinguish yourself. So I'm going to keep thinking on that, on what I can do.

That's different, by the way, on that tweet, Sean Pory, he drives me crazy cuz he's, he's so good at like these little turns, turn of phrases, you know? So I like, you just read my whole tweet. It was like a little long-winded and he replies to it. Maybe you have the tweet right there, but he replies to it. I think what he replied is easy to play, hard to win. And I was just like, dang it. That's such a good succinct summary of what I was trying to say. He's really good at that. And I think that's something to keep in mind is like, if it's easy to play, it's hard to win. And so a lot of people are like, oh, I'll just do an interview style show, but I'm really funny and engaging. And so it'll be great. I'm like, okay, so are you more funny and engaging than Joe Rogan or Marc Maron? Like, you know, that's really difficult to compete on. Whereas I'm not competing with anyone. On how to take over the world. No one else. There's a few people a little bit adjacent, but not anyone's trying to do what I'm trying to do. So I don't have to be as intelligent or as funny as someone who's trying to compete in that space.

Got you. That's, that's really, that's really cool to think about. Yeah, I was just reading an essay last night about, I forget who it was, but just how Sometimes like competition is good, it breeds success, but no competition is better. Like Peter Thiel, it was about Peter Thiel and how like he invests in, like he went down the lawyer path and then realized that he could just invest where there's less competition. And yeah, definitely something to think about. Yeah. Are there any strategy books that you really recommend? You know, it could be military strategy. It could be a little bit of everything.

Strategy books, books specifically about strategy. So first, the first one I'll mention is Art of War as being overrated. I think like people read Art of War and they're like, oh yes, I am very deep. Look at me. I think about strategy. But like, I've read Art of War and I did not find a lot to benefit from. So I will say no, I can't think, you know, Clausewitz is like the classic strategy book. It's like pretty technical military strategy, but I think there's a lot you can learn from it. I do think on some level strategy in any field applies strategy in every other field. But for me, I, you know, the reason I do what my podcast, what I do with my podcast is that I think, you know, Napoleon said study the campaigns of Alexander, Charlemagne, Caesar, who else did he mention? Frederick the Great, and study them over and over again, like get them through your skull. And I think that's true too, of like, study the stories of the people who did what you wanna do. Mm-hmm.

Got you. Got you. What are some podcasts that you listen to?

Let me just pull open my feed and just tell you some of them. So, but a couple, like, cuz I'll just go some of my favorites. If you like history, you really like getting immersed in history, follow Civilizations Podcast is an incredible history podcast. Hardcore History is my other favorite history podcast. I like still am subscribed to Tim Ferriss Show, but I find it, I don't listen to it that much anymore, to be honest. Bill Simmons podcast. I think he's one of the best interviewers out there. Joe Rogan. Stratechery, I listen to in podcast form rather than reading usually. And then I actually like, I don't love Malcolm Gladwell. Like I don't love what he has to say a lot of times. But as a practitioner of the art of podcasting, and specifically when it comes to scripting, Malcolm Gladwell is the best in the business, I think, by like a pretty wide margin. Like, there's some people at NPR who do it really well as well, but like, just, just go listen to Revisionist History and notice the way that he draws you in with the first sentence and then The second sentence links into it and draws you in further. Like, he is just— once you start listening, you can't put it down. And so I listen to that almost just as like a— not for pleasure, but I'm just taking notes on how he does it because he's just so incredible. One more I'll plug. I don't like— I don't agree with these people at all politically. They're communists and I'm not a communist, but the podcast True Anon. It's like kind of a conspiracy, uh, podcast. And I don't know if they're right about everything, but it's, again, it's extremely well done. And, um, and I enjoy it a lot. I think it's fun.

Yeah. I actually, um, I do have a question. Uh, this is this perfect time. I'm having dinner tonight, having sushi with a friend who identifies as communist, and I am, I'm very capitalist, and him and I we send each other memes. We like, you know, screw around a lot with each other. And I've been trying to like convert him or not even convert him. He's in the dogma of it. Do you have any— how would you explain it with a historical background or whatever? How does one show the bad ways of thinking? Yeah.

You know, politically, I don't, I don't do much really to try and persuade people. I think there are some people who are gifted at that. I'm not super gifted at getting people to come around to my way of thinking politically. I also think that politics is sort of an outgrowth of your personal experience, right? And so, like, you have probably had some success making money online, or at least like making friends online and like being involved in this world of content and entrepreneurship, right? And so like communism just doesn't make any sense to you, you know? Yeah. Because of your personal experience. And I've seen so many people who've had political views that I found abhorrent, who like get in shape, get a girlfriend, get a job, and then like their political views come around to something a little more normal and well-adjusted. And so I think just like focusing, especially if it's your like family and friends, just focusing on getting them in a happy and healthy place is probably the best thing to do. And Hopefully good politics follows a good life.

I like it. I like it. So I think this leads perfect into, you did a special on him, Vladimir Putin. Any thoughts on the current crisis going down?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I want to share them because I have scrupulously remained apolitical on my podcast. I try not to be a political person at all. Um, but I will just say this, um, anytime the US is even tangentially involved in a conflict, the, the propaganda machine starts whirring, right? And, um, and that's on Twitter, and that's on, uh, cable news and on the, on the networks and everything you see in here, on the radio. On podcasts, in newspapers. And that's not to say that like the United States is wrong and that Russia's right. It's just that you get into this hypercharged environment where you, where you feel so emotional about it and you feel so, uh, charged up about what's going on because there's just like all this noise and all of this, um, momentum to get you not only thinking a certain way, but feeling a certain way. And I think whenever a conflict like this starts, it's best to just try and remain emotionally detached from what's happening. Even, you know, it's tough when you're seeing images of— I mean, people are dying, right? And so there's a lot of stuff that pulls on your heartstrings, but especially it's early days in this conflict and like there's a lot of misinformation. Not just misinformation, but just bad information, you know, just fog of war stuff comes out that turns out to not be true later. So I would say be careful out there. And then the other thing I would say is, I remember when we got into the Iraq War, I was like 15 years old, something like that, 16 years old. How old was I? Yeah, like 14 or 15. And people would raise issues with the validity of what we were doing. And a common response was, well, you may be right, but who cares? Saddam Hussein's a bad guy. And who's going to argue with that? Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? And you hear the same thing today of like, Well, have you considered XYZ? And yeah, but who cares? Putin's a bad guy. Do you really side with Russia? And fair enough. I mean, I kind of get what you're saying. Like, no, I don't, I don't favor the invasion of Ukraine, right? I wish that wasn't happening. But I think we found out the hard way from the Iraq War that it would have behooved us, would have been better for us if we had understood Saddam Hussein better and understood what he actually wanted, rather than just saying, well, he's a bad guy, so it doesn't matter, so we're just going to knock him out anyway. In the same way, I think even if you feel very strongly that you oppose this war in Ukraine, you oppose Vladimir Putin, you oppose what he's doing, that's, that's fine, you probably should. But I think more people should understand where he's actually coming from and the actual grievances that are leading him to do this, because that will, you know, essentially we're a democracy and so wisdom flows from the people. And so if we're better informed about why he's doing things he's doing, I think that will lead us to better responses and, um, and better policies as a nation.

Got you, understood. So not to push further, but why do you think he is invading Ukraine.

I think you need to understand that this is someone who worked for the KGB, for the Soviet spy service, near the— you know, empires come crashing down very quickly, right? So this is someone who was with the KGB near the apex of their power and then saw it all crumble around him. And then there's— this is a scary time in Soviet Russia. And many people put their trust in capitalism in the West, and that country was absolutely pillaged in the '90s. What happened to Russia is a travesty, and, um, we should not feel good about the way that we handled the decommunization of of Russia. And so Vladimir Putin is someone who saw, um, saw Russia go from an apex world power to not only a backwater and a nobody, but like felt very betrayed by the West and the United States. And, and, uh, and yeah, and all these Western-aligned countries. And so now you've got a situation in Ukraine where the West is trying to exert a lot of influence, pull them into our, our sphere of influence, and potentially trying to make them a part of NATO. And you've got Putin, who's been burned by the West, who's just thinking, no way, no how, like these people, if they become a part of NATO, you know, you could have the United States putting nukes just a couple hundred miles away from Moscow, and he's just never going to let that happen. And so, um, I think you need to understand that this is someone who doesn't trust us, um, doesn't trust our promises, and is willing to do anything to keep himself out of a position where he needs to be reliant on the West and our goodwill, because he's felt in the past that he hasn't been able to rely on that goodwill. So it's, um, that's obviously just like his side of it. I'm not saying that's the correct perspective, but I wish more people understood. I see a lot of people out there saying like, well, he's just a dictator and he just wants more territory, and if we don't stop him here, he's going to gobble up more territory. And I very well could see him invading other countries because of what I just outlined, right? He very well might, um, be concerned because the Baltic countries are a part of NATO. Um, but Vladimir Putin does not see the world like a risk board. Some people want to act like he's just a megalomaniac and he just wants to gobble up territory because, uh, because, because, um Yeah. Of some insane desire for power. And I don't think that's quite correct.

Got you. Got you. That makes sense. That's, I guess, a better understanding of it. I've also been thinking about where does China play a role in it? If Russia and US are fighting, does China take advantage of the beef and hop in?

Well, yeah, this is a larger kind of geostrategic issue, but yes, Putin mentioned in his speech the other day that he talked to Bill Clinton about joining NATO in, I think he said in 2000, and was completely rebuffed. And by imposing these sanctions, we're pushing Russia and China closer to one another. Now, at this point, I mean, I don't know what we could have done. I don't know that there's a world in which we could not sanction Russia for invading Ukraine, but if we could rewind 10 years or more and redo this, this whole thing from a number of years ago, um, I think the smart thing would have been to try to bring Russia into our orbit. I know that's difficult when you've got someone like Putin at the head of, of the country, but Not impossible. It's not like the United States never works with dictators, right? And, um, hey, all good? Yeah, my, uh, my Wi-Fi just shut down, so, um, but I think, I think we're back.

Yeah, yeah, all good, man. No worries. Where, where are you out of?

Uh, Washington, D.C. area, Northern Virginia.

Okay, all right. I'm in Jersey. Not too bad.

Oh, cool, sweet.

Yeah, man. If we could jump back a little bit to the podcasting conversation, I'm curious, your mic sounds good. What kind of mic do you use?

It's a Rode, what's it called? NT1-A.

Okay. All right, cool.

Everyone uses the, oh gosh, The, the microphone that Joe Rogan uses, the Shure SM7. Everyone uses the SM7 these days, which is a good microphone, but I like the Rode NTU, NT7, one, what is it? NT1-A. Because I think it's, it gets you a little bit of a richer sound. So got you.

Yeah. And thinking back on, I guess, making an interview podcast unique, I was thinking back to Greg Eisenberg's and Sahil Bloom's podcast, if you've heard that. They do it a little different. It's all in person and they bring them in and are talking in person beforehand and they're doing well with it. I'm curious Any ideas there? I might just have to start brainstorming.

Yeah. Any ideas? I'm sorry, with what?

Yeah, I guess like, how do you think MFM has made themselves unique? You know, it's just at the end of the day, it's two guys talking to each other.

Yeah. So when I— so thinking about those, those kind of four things, when I pitch My First Million to other people, why they should listen, it's always two things. It's the who and it's the what. So it's, it's about business ideas and it's from guys who each have at least one successful exit under their belt and are really funny together. And so I think that's what makes them unique is both their chemistry. I do think they're pretty close to world-class in terms of how funny and engaging they are. And also the credibility that comes from having exited, like they're not just talking about business ideas, a couple of Yahoos, but they're guys who've done it.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Understood. Have you, do you write as well? Is there a How to Take Over the World newsletter that I haven't seen or blog posts or anything?

Yeah, I send out a newsletter very infrequently. You can find it at httt. Otw.com, how to take over the world, HTT OTW. But I don't, I don't know. I haven't made that a huge part of what I'm doing yet. That is sort of my background. You know, I started college as an English major. I love to write. I just, I guess these fingers don't work anymore. I've gotten used to talking.

Yeah, I got you. I was also an English major. Funny enough, but yeah, very cool, man. I mean, that's, that's all the questions I have. I guess if there was one more, I'd say, so after Disney, do you know who you're doing next for specials?

Yeah. So here we go. Walt Disney. I'm probably going to then do like a Putin revisited and just talk about some of the stuff that we were talking about earlier because I think people are interested in that right now. Um, and then Brigham Young, well, uh, Joan of Arc, and then a big World War II series on Winston Churchill, FDR, uh, Stalin, and Hitler, and kind of like comparing, talking about all World War II and comparing and contrasting their styles and why some of them succeeded and why some of them failed and Yeah, just doing, um, that kind of whole time period, looking at the major leaders from World War II. So if you got, uh, if you got more ideas— do you have ideas, Jason? Who would you like to see cover how to take over the world?

Who would I like to see? Uh, probably Kanye West, I think would be pretty cool. Just why is he, uh, lovable in a way and also hateable? Um, Similarly, yeah, that would be one. And then someone like Mark Cuban a little bit also, 'cause he's more than just a business person at this point in his life. And now with this like Cost Plus Drugs thing, he's also doing something like really exciting that isn't just sports and business. Those are two off the top of my head. Uh, there's probably more that I'm just— I'm not thinking of, but yeah. Yeah. Do you, do you ever try to do modern ones as well, or people that are still alive?

Uh, you know, Putin's alive. I think that's the only one. Um, but you know, that's a little different because he's kind of— unless you're Oliver Stone, he's tough to interview. Um, no, I mean, I, I feel like if I was gonna do a series on people who are alive, I'd I'd like to talk to him, you know, I think I'd rather interview him. So, but for sure, I've thought about doing more people who are alive in the 20th century, people who are alive more recently. So, and you know, if Kanye wants to come on the podcast, Kanye, come on How to Take Over the World and we'll do an interview and we'll talk to you and we'll, we'll do your whole story. And I think that would be fun.

Yeah. So question for Kanye and myself, how many, Do you know how many listens, like, you were when you first started taking sponsorships and stuff like that? I'm curious.

Yeah. So I started with a sponsorship with a company that my brother was the CEO of.

Okay.

And so that was for peanuts and I had very few downloads. But it was a good way to kind of prove like, all right, can I engage my listeners and also it's a very cool company. So that's Taft, Taft Shoes, you know, taftclothing.com. So I had very, I had hundreds of downloads per episode, maybe a couple thousand when I did that. And then I, when I started moving into more real sponsorships, that's, you generally need about 10,000 downloads per episode before sponsors are interested or will start engaging you. Got you.

Okay. That's good to know. That's also what it is for newsletters, about 10,000. Funny enough.

Yeah. Something about that extra zero. It just gets people like, yeah. Where are you at? I don't, I don't know how you're allowed to talk about this on your own show, but How's it doing?

Yeah, early, man. I mean, this is the 4th episode, so it's early. My newsletter's been going for like 6 months, so that's a lot more, and I'll send this out with it. But yeah, I was curious. I'm doing another podcast with a guy later today named Jake who does Pot of Jake, and he's had some pretty cool guests on. He waited until the 50th episode, I know, to do, and he's done like Oura Ring and Levels and that kind of stuff. So I'm just going to take my time with it. I really started this podcast just to be able to have an excuse to talk to really smart people like yourself and also refine my thinking and become a better public speaker. So all those things combined, I'm happy if this turns into money-making, that'd be great. So we'll see. Yeah, man. Yeah, I really, uh, I really appreciate you coming on today. We should, uh, stay in contact. Definitely. Uh, yeah, I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.