The Cancer Episode

> My diagnosis and prognosis
> What this means for How to Take Over the World
> A few thoughts on death
> See below for links to GoFundMe, etc.

How to Take Over the World: Podcast Review
“Rebuilding Rome”

Host: @BenWilsonTweets

Episodes Listened to: 001-137 (through July 14, 2026 - haven’t listened to today’s Musk episode)
Total time listened: ~150 hours
Total words: ~1.2 million

Style: Ben’s style is part historian and part idea machine; he gives you the stories and focuses heavily there but also isn’t scared to give you his opinion (generally after laying out how different historians think one way or the other). Ben seemingly considers a multitude of sources before doing an episode allowing him to find depth, insights, and character that other podcasts might miss. He recaps his findings in annual episodes which outline his key learnings and references these from episode to episode. The show focuses on conquerors, country leaders, business leaders, and more - it doesn’t shy away from controversial names like Putin, Jesus, and Hitler.

Process: He reads deeply on a topic and builds a strong script of the story and the insights; for premium subscribers he has end notes, more personal opinions, and insights behind a reasonable paywall. 1 person, alone, into the mic.

Side Quests: Ben launched the Classical Society (YPO for people who like Rome) alongside Alex Petkas from The cost of glory podcast, who has joined the show to give the historical perspective of certain ancient figures. Occasionally, Ben will cover a topic that isn’t someone who is taking over the world but the topic is related - from raising kids, to building distributed states, to Neitzsche. Ben also did some side quests into the American revolution, and “takeover guides”, and a random interview with Mr Beast.

Key Themes & Quotes:

- Zeal. Most great people are copying someone else’s playbook. Rockefeller > Amos, Napoleon > Caesar > Alexander, Musk > Edison > Farraday

- Destiny. Whether you call it destiny, god, or providence… the greats believe they are great for a reason. Napoleon after Lodi realizing he was “destined for greatness”

- Maximize X, with Sufficient Y. A formula for success that he has seen over and over. It’s not enough to maximize one variable, you have to satisfice another.

- rebuild Rome. Not the city itself but the idea, the values, the culture and the honor.

- The Light Eaters Hypothesis. Curiously, most obsessive are light eaters with weird habits, Ben chalks it up to obsession

- Speed. There are examples of all kind of successful generals - aggressive, defensive, contemplative, intuitive - but there are no slow, successful generals. The greats march fast and move fast.

- Do the most surprising thing. Through a swamp, over the alps, across the dessert. Split your forces, flank yourself, show up late, show up early early. Never do what is expected. Your beliefs and actions should be shocking.

- charisma is in the eyes. The only hack of the whole podcast… stare at people unblinkingly. It’s the key to charisma.

- one period of intense focus can change your life. Ben launched the podcast after 2 weeks of intense focus and work. It changed his life. Historical figures sprint effectively.

Most unique stories or insights (weighted for originality of topic or idea & strength of episode):
*top episode

006-009 Julius Caesar
020-021 Philip the Great
023 How to Raise a Genius
025-027 Alexander the Great
034, 036-037 Brigham Young*
044-046 Leonardo Da Vinci
049-050 Horatio Nelson*
080-082 Alexander Hamilton
091-094 Jesus, Peter, Constantine, Christianity*
100 Lee Kuan Yew
101 Charlemagne
102 Isaac Newton
112 JS Bach**
113-114 Hannibal Barca***
116 Joan of Arc*
120-122 Neitzsche
124-125 Cleopatra
131-134 Hitler***

It’s also weird to call the cancer episode one of the “top episodes” but after spending 150 hours “with” someone it was one of the most impressive podcast episodes I’ve ever listened to.

If you are a young competent RW guy, consider applying:

* $60K/yr with aggressive raises
* Travel the world
* Plan and execute really cool events
* Great networking opportunities
* Get in early on a quickly growing startup

We’re hiring an Event Coordinator to help run our retreats, dinners, and conferences across the US and abroad.

If you can take a nebulous task and just figure it out, apply: theclassicalsociety.com/jobs

Utah keeps electing Republicans, but the problems they want solved keep getting worse.

They pay exorbitant taxes — among the highest in any “red state” — for neighborhoods where it’s impossible to raise a family, schools that psychologically abuse children, a justice system that with violent criminals, libraries full of leftist trash, parks that are unsafe for their children to play in.

And when they appeal to their Republican leaders for relief, they’re told that doing anything to stem the tide of dysfunction would be contrary to the Constitution and “Utah Values”.

That’s why we started Constitutional Action, to recruit leaders who will treat the Constitution as a mandate for action, rather than an excuse for inaction.

Ben Wilson and I believe that Utahns are ready for something better. — but as long as the median Utah voter gets their news from KSL, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, and the Daily Herald, we will never reach them.

So now we’ve created Constitutional Action News. We want Utahns to know what is really going on in their state, and to catch the vision that they do not have to live like this.

There is nothing inevitable about Utah falling into the same dysfunction as California, Minnesota, or Colorado: it is a decision being made over and over again, every day, by weak and cowardly political leaders wearing GOP lapel pins.

This weekly show will focus on Utah issues as we build momentum here — but these stories will be relevant no matter where you live, because what is happening in Utah is happening everywhere. We are facing a national crisis, and it will require a national movement.

In this first episode, we explain how the project began, our plans to field candidates in Utah, and why outrage has become such a dependable business model for the conservative movement.

Do you want Constitutional Action

There is a narrow way through

Constitutional Action News: Sunday Oct 25

Ben Wilson⁠ & ⁠Kevin Dolan⁠ host
00:00 - What is ⁠Constitutional Action⁠?
03:30 - Outrage as a business model
06:00 - Origins of Constitutional Action
14:30 - Housing prices & disparate impact
26:00 - Should the far left be allowed to partiKirk & the right to a speedy trial
41:35 - LEAD STORY: Creeping Third-Worldification

I got a McDouble the other night because so many of you have been saying this and it was borderline inedible.

David Chappell is the Democrat candidate for Utah HD 62, including downtown Provo

He is a member of the violent leftist group POPAI that was recently exposed discussing the murder of children

He donated $200 to Hector Mujica, a Venezuelan national who was arrested & remanded to ICE ination of the President

Was listening to the @davidsenra @BenWilsonTweets episode.

I think the most important idea was complete belief.

You can’t be half in. You have to be all in, 100% pure identity alignment.

Complete belief internally transfers to complete evangelism externally.

It’s infectious.

And it creates a lightning rod where the outside world wants you to succeed—the people and resources necessary to your ultimate success seek you out.

Pat McAfee explains someone throwing a Book of Mormon at him 😂

J’ai entendu dire que la France était finie, qu’il était trop tard pour la sauver.

Mais la France est toujours aussi belle, enviable même. Sa grandeur n’a pas disparu, elle ne demande qu’à renaître.

Nous avons surmonté en un an un problème cent fois plus grave, sans avoir les moyens dont dispose la France.

La France pourrait y arriver en une semaine.

Kurt MacAlpine’s company manages $525 billion and it didn’t even exist six years ago. At 39, he set his sights on the ultra-high-net-worth wealth management industry and decided to take it over as if he were a Canadian Genghis Khan. He went into debt to fund acquisitions, and urned against his strategy he kept buying back shares and eventually took the company private. This is a fascinating conversation about incentives, conviction, and building a business that can compound for generations.

0:00 Building Corient and managing $525 billion
5:32 Why wealth management’s incentives are broken
11:42 Bringing the partnership model to wealth management
22:15 Sharing the benefits of scale with clients
24:25 One compensation plan, one P&L, no exceptions
27:58 Why independent wealth managers join Corient
39:21 Staying the course when the stock market disagrees
48:25 Betting on the business through share buybacks
51:52 Taking CI Financial private with Mubadala Capital
59:08 Acquiring great partners and building one company
1:04:43 Giving employees a voice in building the brand
1:12:39 Building a business that lasts for generations

Includes paid partnerships.

I told my daisy-picking three-year-old daughter who hasn’t scored a goal in four games that I would give her a dollar for each goal she scored today.

It released a demon from within her. I am never going to financially recover from this.

Napoleon, Steve Jobs, Vladimir Putin and Joan of Arc all had one strange thing in common: they barely ate.

@BenWilsonTweets says the pattern isn’t about food. It’s about obsession.

Napoleon used to say, “If you want to dine quickly, dine with me,” because he would eat dinner in to work.

“Steve Jobs had all these weird diets. He ate almost nothing. He'd go on diets where he only ate apples for months at a time.”

“Vladimir Putin would eat like a boiled egg a day as his entire diet.”

“Joan of Arc fasted all the time and barely ate anything.”

“I think food is a good test for if you're obsessed with something.”

“Do you find yourself skipping meals? Do you find yourself forgetting to eat? That is a really good litmus test for whether you are truly obsessed with something or not, and all these people are obsessives.”

.@elonmusk might be Thomas Edison reincarnated:

“Their lives are linked in really remarkable ways. Musk himself pointed this out. He said, ‘The car company is called Tesla, but in many ways I'm more similar to Thomas Edison than I am to Nikola Tesla.’”

“Their personalities are r backgrounds are extremely similar. Their physiognomy—they look very similar. They both have these massive heads that people would comment on.”

“Their fathers are very similar. They're both entrepreneurial but kind of crazy and don't have a great relationship with them.”

“Both of them were considered actually kind of dumb as kids. In Elon's case, it's probably because he's a little autistic and has trouble communicating with people and emoting with them. In Edison's case, it was because he was mostly deaf and had trouble communicating with people.”

“They were not shepherded towards greatness as children. They had to fight for it because people didn’t think they were bright initially.”

— @BenWilsonTweets

I listen to a lot of podcasts

Founders by David Senra and How to Take Over the World (HTTOTW) by Ben Wilson are two of my absolute favorites. They are both 100% listens (meaning if a new pod comes out, it immediately goes on the list, no matter the topic)

They both are in the biography genre
Founders mainly covers entrepreneurs and businesses
HTTOTW covers historical leaders

Where they overlap, they are often complementary and it is always worth it to hear both

What I like about them is they are able to capture unique insights into the lives of the people they cover.
They are just so inspiring.

I have even read the books they recommend, but never get the same insights they do.
They are both fantastic at what they do.

Earlier this year, Ben Wilson, the founder of HTTOTW, announced that he has metastatic cancer.

Based on his description, it sounds like he has a metastatic pulmonary carcinoid tumor that has transformed into a higher grade cancer, which makes it extra rare

Thankfully, it sounds like he did well with chemo and is now on tarlatamab, which is a very effective immune therapy normally used for small cell lung cancer, a related cancer. It sounds like this is controlling his disease right now, which is awesome, especially because quality of life can be very good on this. Listening to his voice on the pod, below, he sounds like his normal self.

Today, Senra released an interview between the two of them on his podcast. The two became friends through their mutual love for biographies and podcasting

Enjoy the interview, and I highly recommend cnghecki out some of their other pods if you are inclined

And if you feel it, make a donation for Ben; I did earlier this year, and likely will again. Ben is a young guy with a young family and I am sure can use the help.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dav…

gofundme.com/f/help-ben-fig…

@DavidSenra
@FoundersPodcast

@BenWilsonTweets
@HTTOTW

These are two very important men. It is worth a listen and I know @BenWilsonTweets personally - he is a great man.

He cares deeply about the world, about the future, and about teaching. Please listen!

Life is weird. I was listening to my podcast with Ben literally last night and wrote this in my notes app:

"Reflecting on Ben
I always get something from the podcast I filmed with Ben Wilson. I go back and listen to it all the time. It’s so whole, and right, and evergreen. Especially evergreen. I feel like this episode was truly a gift from Destiny. Everything leading up to the interview was a mess. The camera didn’t arrive in time. The set didn’t look right. The cameras and mic kept turning off. I couldn’t sleep the night before. I slept like 3 hours, and you can see bags under my eyes in the episode. I tried so hard and eventually I had to give up my fate to Destiny. And now that podcast is almost at half a million views. I am so amazed at this episode. I am so grateful for the wisdom of Ben. And I’m glad the episode did well and is continuing to inspire people. I want to do more of this. Stuff I’m actually passionate about. Where I really have to try. That are completely out of my zone. Where things go wrong and give me an opportunity to stretch my innate God given gifts. I think streaming is that next step. During the episode Ben told me “you don’t want to fight the same enemy too many times” because they will learn your tactics and use them. I think I’m done with YouTube. I want to play a new game. I want to be Nic Munoz. And as long I continue to trust in my Star, streaming will allow me to walk with Destiny."

Destiny is weird.

There is no one who has had more of an impact on my life than Ben. He is the inspiration behind my podcast. He is my inspiration behind why I love biographies. And he is the inspiration for me taking religion more seriously. Even months after we talked, I still listen to the conversation we had and learn something new from him to apply in my life.

David said "Ben caught a raw deal: He’s a good guy." I can't think of anything more true. He is a good guy with a raw deal.

Please watch this ep. and support him in anyway you can. I could write about how Great of a person Ben is for days, but honestly I think you should just listen to this podcast on David Senra's show and find out for yourself. x.com/davidsenra/sta…

Ben exemplifies one of my favorite quotes from Charlie Munger:

“The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.”

Sometimes great people are dealt terrible hands in life, but I’m happy Ben has spent his first 38 years on Earth studying the greats of history and sharing what he’s learned with millions of people.

I hope a miracle happens and we get to have him around for a little while longer.

Love you, Ben 🏴‍☠️