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.

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.

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?

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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?).

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)