Romans vs. Barbarians
I like Glenn Kelman, the CEO of online real estate startup Redfin. He’s usually a voice of sensibility in a tech blogosphere that is often anything but sensible.
In a guest post on TechCrunch this past weekend entitled “The First-Time CEO’s Recession Survival Guide,” he provided some advice for first-time CEOs grappling with today’s economic environment.
The piece of advice that caught my attention: “Be a Roman.”
Kelman writes:
What disgusted the ancient Romans about barbarians was their lack of discipline. Oxford Professor Peter Heather writes, “As far as a Roman was concerned, you could easily tell a barbarian by how he reacted to fortune. Give him one little stroke of luck, and he would think he had conquered the world. But, equally, the slightest setback would find him in deepest despair…” This is why, 2,000 miles from home, several hundred Romans could slaughter several thousand barbarians.
Startups are founded by barbarians. But to survive the ups and downs, you have to make yourself into a Roman. The most talented entrepreneur I know nearly self-destructs on the 18-month birthday of each of his ventures. By that point a startup isn’t brand-new anymore, and it isn’t Google either. The closer you get to becoming a real company, the less glamorous reality seems: you’re grimy from clawing for money and breathing hard now from exertion, which would be fine if you could convince yourself you’re not the only one struggling. Everyone struggles. Keep fighting.
This is an interesting piece of advice but I largely disagree with it.
Why?
Although the Romans did assimilate the people they conquered, I’d argue that real Romans were born and taught Roman values by the time they were young adults. They didn’t just decide one day to become Romans.
It is true that people can change. At the same time, there are usually very real limits to how much individuals can change.
In my experience, entrepreneurs who are the metaphorical barbarians Kelman writes about don’t become metaphorical Romans. It’s a personality thing. It’s a culture thing.
An entrepreneur who sets out to conquer the world, celebrates before the battle is over, spends like a drunken sailor the minute he gets some booty and despairs when times get tough is probably not doing those things because of a conscious choice. He’s most likely doing them because that’s simply who he is.
Being realistic, maintaining humility, exercising some prudence and fighting smartly when disadvantaged are not things he is capable of doing well. It’s just not in him; he’s not “wired” for it.
Many of the young entrepreneurs that flock to Silicon Valley every year are barbarians. Their focus is on going from $0 to $100 million, not recognizing that most new businesses never even make it from $0 to $100,000.
On the other hand, there are plenty of entrepreneurs who are Romans. They’re strategic, well-equipped and well-trained. They developed discipline and a work ethic at a young age. They are not looking to deliver a massive blow to the market they attack by going from $0 to $100 million in a single strike. Instead, they pick and choose their spots, looking for opportunity and vulnerability.
Most entrepreneurs who are barbarians are eventually slaughtered by cruel and efficient markets that tend to reward those who demonstrate hard work, intelligence, humility and prudent risk-taking.
Romans may not find their companies reviewed on TechCrunch but many deposit five and six-figure checks every month from their “small businesses,” some of which grow into medium and large businesses. Many will take the cash they earn and “compound” it, often by investing wisely in scaling what they know works and/or investing in new businesses they create.
Barbarians have a natural desire to swing for the fences. They want it all and think they’re going to get it. Most strike out. Romans have a natural instinct to build value and wealth one step at a time. They would rather focus on going from $0 to $5,000, $5,000 to $25,000, $25,000 to $100,000, $100,000 to $1 million than try to defeat a “foreign army” in a single battle.
Some of the skills of a Roman can be acquired but I’d argue that the mind-set, when applied to entrepreneurship and wealth, typically can’t.
There’s a reason why families like the Rockefellers have managed to retain their wealth over multiple generations while nouveau riche celebrities will be lucky if their money lasts more than a single generation. Just as there’s a reason why the Camp Cyprus 20 will likely spend the rest of their lives playing with somebody else’s money while other young entrepreneurs are shoring up their SEO skills and building their own bankrolls one Lightspeed Cash affiliate payment at a time.
At the end of the day, I’d argue that it all boils down to nature and nurture.
Some of our personality characteristics are clearly hard-wired and others are cemented through the values that are instilled in us in childhood.
For those children who grow up into entrepreneurs, some will have started on the path to barbarianism by the time they have received their first allowance. Others will be natural Romans by the time they go out and get their first job in high school.
In short, I disagree not only with Glenn Kelman’s notion that entrepreneurs can turn themselves into Romans, but disagree with the notion that “startups” are founded by barbarians. If your definition of “startup” is a company founded by a hipster who doesn’t have a business model and is sustained by the milk from a VC teat, then I suppose you’d have to agree with Kelman.
But for every 19 year-old kid who thinks that he’s going to start the next Google with somebody else’s $1 million, there are real entrepreneurs of all ages who probably don’t live in Silicon Valley who are starting real companies of all types. These entrepreneurs are often disciplined, hard-working, strategic, realistic and humble.
Perhaps Kelman simply just needs to stop living amongst the barbarians and move to Rome. Hint: Rome isn’t Silicon Valley or Seattle.
I find the Roman vs. Barbarian analogy incredibly flawed and misinformed – both in the commentary of Glenn and Drama.
The irony is, it is the Roman Empire that rotted from the inside because of incredible excesses and inbreeding. In its latter days the top military leadership was made up of Romanized barbarians who were defending the Empire from their foreign brothers, while Romans were busy with bread and circus. In the end the Roman order crumbled, but barbarians won over several centuries, not overnight. Here is how this happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foederati
If anything Camp Cyprus reminds me of degenerate Romans, who partied, while barbarians were sacking their cities and building their kingdoms inch by inch. Romans have grown soft and lost the will to fight. In my view, Silicon Valley is full of these kinds of Romans that rely on imperial structure of what worked in the past (venture capital), while the barbarians are the real business people who have to get by on their street smarts and resourcefulness. They take nothing for granted and are building their kingdoms one check at a time.
A popular depiction of Foederati and Roman vs. Barbarian culture divide in the latter Empire could be found in the “King Arthur” movie with Clive Owen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur_(film)
Are you sure Glenn Kelman just isn’t familiar with the usual tech crunch reader. He seems to be writing for a person who actually thinks with their head.
His article gave me the impression that people act like an employee rather than someone running a business because they aren’t used to it (a Roman acting like a Barbarian?).
Romanized Barbarian: I wouldn’t have thought it necessary, but perhaps the distinction should have been made between Rome at its height and Rome in its decline. Obviously, Glenn Kelman was not discussing metaphorical Romans as the Roman Empire collapsed. That wouldn’t make any sense.
As for the collapse of the Roman Empire, chalking it up to “incredible excesses and inbreeding” is a gross oversimplification. Historians today debate the causes of the fall because there were so many factors that could have contributed and so many ways to analyze the series of events that led to it.
The Roman Empire in its later years faced significant financial problems ironically not too dissimilar from the same ones we see today in many countries including the US (i.e. trade deficits, inflation, unemployment, lower tax revenue, etc.). Militarily, the structure of the Roman army changed in its later years (the army was split) and conquered barbarians were allowed to join, which was not beneficial to the army’s effectiveness.
The list could go on and on, from culture to politics.
Frankly, your mention of foederati is irrelevant. By the time they defeated the Roman army, the Roman army wasn’t the Roman army. It had fallen victim to the decay of the Empire as a whole. A strong military cannot exist without the support of strong government leadership.
I think anyone who looks at the historical record would have to come to the conclusion that at the height of the Empire, when the Roman army had the full support of a strong Emperor, it was arguably the most efficient military force ever. It is the model that today’s strong militaries are founded upon.
Drama, indeed a distinction between Rome at the height and decline needs to be made. But let’s not forget that at the end of the day, it is the barbarians who prevailed. The modern Western civilization was built by their descendants, so they do not deserve to be dissed too much!
As for Rome at its height, I think comparing it to any startup company makes no sense. While Romans had generally superior organization, they also enjoyed overwhelming advantage in manpower, land and money. Many decisive victories took exerting their entire force and not hundreds of legionaries beating thousands of dumb barbarians, like many pro-Roman historians would want us to believe. The numbers were often reversed with barbarians winning against all odds, like here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople
Startup entrepreneurs should not have delusions of grandeur imagining they are running a Roman empire, that should be left for Microsoft and Google. Thinking like a crafty and resourceful barbarian, who often found ways to outwit a superior force makes much more sense. Barbarian caricatures painted by many Roman idealists should not be taken at their face value and foederati were the only force capable of defending Empire in the latter days. Ironically, one of their leaders was called “the last of the Romans”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavius_Aetius
And yes, resemblance of the later Empire to modern day West is eerie.
Romanized Barbarian: the barbarians didn’t defeat the Romans. The Romans defeated themselves.
In any case, I think you’ve read far too much into Kelman’s metaphor and as much as I love discussing history, we’ve probably both wasted more time than is appropriate discussing the fall of the Roman Empire on a technology blog.
Kelman’s point was quite simply that Romans (at their height) were strategic, efficient, disciplined and prudent and that they defeated barbarians who were less strategic, less efficient, less disciplined and less prudent.
I’m simply pointing out the fact that people who are not strategic, efficient and prudent rarely become so at will.
If you want to extend Kelman’s simple metaphor to cover topics such as delusions of grandeur and specific battles fought as the Roman empire collapsed, please contact Glen Kelman.
I read so many blog posts how about it’s a great time to start a company: I don’t think this is how entrepreneurship is nurtured in reality. I see many of the same “Romans” that you do:
“there are plenty of entrepreneurs who are Romans. They’re strategic, well-equipped and well-trained. They developed discipline and a work ethic at a young age. They are not looking to deliver a massive blow to the market they attack by going from $0 to $100 million in a single strike. Instead, they pick and choose their spots, looking for opportunity and vulnerability.”
Still, the Roman analogy is flawed. Entrepreneurs just do not have resources of the Roman Empire at their disposal. If we are to pick a different metaphor from Antiquity to describe a disciplined fighting force with limited resources, I might go with Sparta.
On the other hand, there are examples of purely Barbarian entrepreneurs achieving wild success. Larry Ellison perhaps is the biggest one.
Drama, what is your take on Larry?
Romanized Barbarian: I think the analogy is only flawed if you try to extend it to every facet of entrepreneurship. Once again, Kelman’s point was that at their height Romans were strategic, efficient, disciplined and prudent and that they defeated barbarians who were less strategic, less efficient, less disciplined and less prudent.
As for Larry Ellison, I would point that there were two other founders of Oracle and Ellison has been smart to delegate to others when he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
I guess, metaphors aside, it comes down to this for me: am I going to believe in the entrepreneur who is intelligent, strategic and spends prudently or am I going to believe in the entrepreneur who is unrealistic, overambitious and spends like he’s already the next Larry Ellison.
That’s what this post is about.
What a bunch of drivel. Hm…what made the Romans “Romans?” Could it be that, perhaps, they were…backed by Rome?
If this analogy were even remotely accurate, it would insinuate that Microsoft et. al. would devastate every startup. And you know what? They do, mainly because of massive resources. But sooner or later, this security breeds hubris and complacency.
Give me a barbarian to work with! Not an imbecile, but the type that used to hide in the woods and launch a masterful ambush as soon as the enemy was at its most vulnerable, slaughtering him with inferior technology and manpower. Give me the brave heroes who punished Charlemagne in Saxony for years, forcing him to a truce!
Or, to frame this in a more relevant context, give me the American revolutionaries who fought with their hearts and their stomachs.