Guns, Germs, and SteelWhy the world ended up this way, and why "they were smarter" is never the answer.Buy on Amazon
Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings
利润、先知、教练与国王：领导者（何时）重要？
One question, asked of prime ministers, founders, coaches, and prophets: would it have gone differently without them?
Why I recommend it
The book behind today's episode
Everything Huberman asks Diamond about leaders comes from here. The book takes the oldest argument in history writing, great individuals versus deep forces, and refuses to pick a side. Instead it asks when a single person changes the outcome, and checks the answer in four places where leaders are easy to compare: nations, companies, teams, and religions.
The test he keeps returning to is simple. Take the leader away and replay events. Sometimes nothing changes. Sometimes everything does, and the book is at its best when it shows what those cases have in common, including the uncomfortable ones.
Read it alongside the episode and the conversation gets sharper: the Truman and Jim Jones passages, the praise for John Wooden and Yvon Chouinard, and Diamond's own view of what a leader owes the people who follow, all have their longer argument here.
Read this if
- You lead anything and want to know which parts of the job actually move the outcome.
- You liked the episode's argument that most leaders are replaceable, and want to see the evidence.
- You read Guns, Germs, and Steel and want to see Diamond turn the same method on individuals.