Names like The Rothschild´s, Medici and Astor carry a cache representative of domineering success not only influencing conventional culture but even popular culture. In 1996 two inner city teenagers announced their intentions by naming their business after a man who had been born nearly two hundred years ago. That business was “Roc-A-Fella Records” (after John D Rockefeller).
It was launched from the boot of a car. Apart from its clever play on words (they were in the music business) the name chosen represented “thinking big,” and megalomaniac intentions. John D Rockefeller is one of those iconic entrepreneurs that helped give America her self-confidence. He reinforced in American a sense of economic and entrepreneurial might.
Damon Dash and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter understood the devil-may-care attitude so prevalent in the USA and ran with it. They now dominate their genre amassing hundreds of millions of dollars to boot.
However, the two have never stopped with the entrepreneurial adventures. STUART ELLIOTT published an article on February 8 2008 reporting, Grammy-winning rapper Jay Z , (club owner, a clothier, hotelier, basketball team owner) linking up with Steve Stoute, to open Translation Advertising. Their aim? To help marketers reach multicultural consumers, is the answer. Client list include mainstream advertisers like General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, McDonald’s and Reebok.
Stoute, sold Translation Consultation last for an estimated $10 million to $15 million to the Interpublic Group of Companies. Interpublic, the third-largest agency company (behind the Omnicom Group and the WPP Group). Interpublic will own 49 percent of Translation Advertising. The majority stake will be owned by Mr. Stoute, 37, and Jay-Z, 38, who will be the co-chairmen.
The deal is driven by the growing African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American populations in the United States, accounting circa $2 trillion in consumer buying power.
"His-story” began in the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn. “He came from nothing and turned it into something before our eyes.” said Stoute. Bedford-Stuyvesant, more commonly known as Bed-Stuy, is a neighbourhood not long ago it was known as the largest ghetto in the US. Mary H. Monomi opened her 1973 book on Bed-Stuy asking: “Why would anyone want to live there?”
Jay Z lived in the housing estate in the deprived Bedford-Stuyvesant district. His early entrepreneurial involved some success a drug dealer. He simply hunted in an environment he was 'suit-able' to. When Hip Hop exploded into a billion dollar business he was again 'suited' to the terrain.
Richard Dawkins writes in his book The Selfish Gene “If we were told that a man had lived a long and prosperous life in the world of Chicago gangsters, we would be entitled to make some guesses as to the sort of man he was, We might expect that he would have qualities such as toughness, a quick trigger finger, and the ability to attract loyal friends. These would not be infallible deductions, but you can make some inferences about a man's character if you know something about the conditions in which he has survived and prospered. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes, early exp have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes…”
Dawkins, refers to the biological body as the ‘survival suit’. William D. Hamilton (generally referred to as Bill Hamilton1936 – 2000) was a British evolutionary biologist and is recognised as one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th Century. He became famous through his work on a gene-centric view of evolution. In essence he attempted to look at man’s development and behaviour from a gene eye level. Genes produce hosts either suitable or unsuitable to an environment to varying degrees. Suit borrows from Dawkins’ term survival-suit. A suit is a generic term and there are different types of suits. Sartorially we have business suits, Black Tie suits, a suit ‘suitable’ for a wedding and informal or casual suits. You also have a suit of armour, a wet suit and so forth. The many suits are all designed for specialist undertakings or environments. The suit you wear influences your chance of success in given environments. Think of a scuba diver dressed in a suit of armour or a jousting knight competing, dressed in scuba diving gear and the results are predictably disastrous. Or how about an eagle hunting on the surface of a river and the crocodile hunting by launching itself from nearby trees. All scenarios demonstrate ‘ill suitedness’ to compete in their chosen environment. But switch them around their probability of success increase immeasurably.
Dawkin’s Chicagoan gangster had genes that gave Jay Z a peculiar phenotype. As part of a ‘peculiar species’ he was in the right place (Bed-Stuy just like the late award winning artist and entrepreneur Christopher Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997).An aggressive, yet creative and innovative 'phenotype' gene at a particular point in time or history, may end up in a prison cell or running a large music label.
Whilst writing my first book The History of the World's Greatest entrepreneurrs I learned somthing pretty amazing. It led to me writing a follow up book called Predator. This blog represents all I learned. Here are some extracts from th second book. Let me know your thoughts...
In 2009 Professors George A Akerlof and Robert Shiller wrote a book titled Animal Spirits – How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why it Matters for Global Capitalism. One of the five aspects of their book focuses on is “our sense of reality, who we are and what we are doing”. This is the key to understanding this book. Writers like Shiller, Nassim Taleb and Malcolm Gladwell have been writing in an attempt to help us make sense of ourselves and our behaviour. I’m interested in what the implications of their theories are on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. I find what they have to say doves tails with all I come to understand about success and the pursuit of improving one’s odds of it (triggered whilst my first book The History of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs). My hypothesis of Evolutionary Entrepreneurship:
Just as specie’s evolution is rewarded or penalised by an environment, the same dynamic accounts for the success of great/successful entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur likelihood of success follows the same precepts of a successful species - fortuitously better ‘biologically’ adapted (and/or skilled) and/or circumstantially placed to take advantage of his or her local changing environment in a struggle for success. Thus the successful entrepreneurs appears often to be (like a successful species) fortuitously ‘Suited’ to the landscape in which great opportunity is being offered. All things being equal when such conditions are met nature will assist in improving the entrepreneur’s chances of rising successfully as naturally as it does yeast in an oven.
No holds barred means making no distinctions being made between civilisation and the wild. Eminent biologist and ethnologist, Richard Dawkins writes in his book The Selfish Gene “If we were told that a man had lived a long and prosperous life in the world of Chicago gangsters, we would be entitled to make some guesses as to the sort of man he was, We might expect that he would have qualities such as toughness, a quick trigger finger, and the ability to attract loyal friends. These would not be infallible deductions, but you can make some inferences about a man's character if you know something about the conditions in which he has survived and prospered. The argument of this book [referring to his book but equally applying to this one] is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes…” Here's an examination these selfish genes in gangstersor and other 'machines'ywhere else genes and peculiarity play a role in successful entrepreneurship.
Wednesday 20th of April 1966, to all intents and purposes, started as a normal day in a normal run of the mill kind of week. Bob Hope had presented an Oscar to the producer of The Sound of Music, and a plot to kill President Nasser was uncovered in Egypt. All of this, however, was far removed from Sam Garrett in his inner-city world of downtown Cleveland. Unbeknown to Sam, Wednesday was to become singularly the most important day in his life.
The recent removal of his left kidney and the TB eating away at his lungs, failed to dissuade him from taking a drink or further abusing his body with drugs. That afternoon was the wrong day and the wrong time to stop for a drink. He took it at his usual haunt, the Manhattan Tap Room. It was a place he often frequented to relax and conduct business as a ‘Numbers’ runner.
The Numbers was a lottery game with a six hundred-to-one chance of winning. The idea was to guess the combination of numbers the New York stock market close would be that day. The game was popular among poor African Americans and as such became sardonically known as the ‘nigger pool’. Bets were customarily placed at semi private venues commonly known as taverns. Runners carried money and betting slips between the various betting parlours and the headquarters of Sam's boss was New Corner Tavern at seventy and eighth Cedar. A Runner’s business operated on credit and Sam had not been to the HQ for a while. His debts remained unpaid.
As Sam relaxed at the bar a man walked in, a big man, 6 ft two and broad. An argument over money quickly developed between Sam and his six foot two creditor with a seven stone advantage. The commotion spilled into the street but there was to be no fight. Lightweights don’t fight heavyweights they plead with them. And that’s what Sam did. Blows rained down on Sam as he begged for mercy. But there was no let up. A crowd formed around the two, but the gun being used to pistol whip Sam was persuasive in keeping everyone at bay. Their pleas for leniency fell on the deaf ears of the goliath stomping on Sam’s head. He stomped so hard he left shoe prints on Sam’s cheeks. It was only the eventual arrival of routine patrolling, plain clothed policemen with guns drawn, that brought the beating to a halt. With the assailant’s gun safely out of reach on the boot of a car and his extra large hands in hand-cuffs, the officers felt they had their man under control. But even the handcuffs and two arresting officers, didn’t stop the big man giving poor Sam one last parting kick to the head. His Semi-conscious victim groaned “I’ll pay you back...”
But Sam would never pay back the debt he owed because on 25th of April at 11:15 Sam Garrett died on a hospital bed. His skull and brains had been shattered. The public beating had achieved its end. The signal was out on the grapevine and the message was clear ‘this is the second man I’ve killed so pay your debts to me or else’. The ‘big’ man would go from being the central banker for Cleveland’s Numbers racket, to one day taking-over a sports based business (boxing) known for aggression both inside the ring and out. His name was Don King and his destiny was to become the most successful boxing promoter in history bar none. Why? Because he had the right ‘phenotype’ suited to the landscape in which he hunted.
Boxing in America, a sport run by hard aggressive men was perceived to be milking the talents of poor African Americans. But there was great change taking place America. Now the sport was ready to demonstrate it had yielded to the new civil rights paradigm of equal opportunity. It would need someone smart, tough and entrepreneurial, and more importantly ‘African American’, to fit the bill. King’s timing couldn’t have been better. His beginnings in boxing not only coincided with the heights of the civil rights struggle but was also on the cusp of the golden age of heavyweight boxing.
King’s mother Hattie was an entrepreneur (his father was killed in an explosion at the steel plant where he worked). Mum and her young children sold homemade pies and roasted peanuts door-to-door. The young Don King benefitted from his mother’s tutelage, he was also an amateur boxer, mathematically gifted, couple these attributes to his six foot two frame, quick hot temper and you get a predator biologically Suit-Able to the environment in which he did so well. Prior to Don King’s reign boxing was heavily influenced by Mafia crime syndicates and white promoters. King’s attributes and timing allowed him to wrestle the lucrative territory of the boxing business from competing predators, namely members of the Italian mafia in the US.
There has never been a study into Don King’s genes but researchers from the Netherlands and the United States studied what became known as “A Curious Case.” In 1780 two Dutch hosts paired together after marriage with explosive results. The combination brought together genes that produced male hosts prone to violence. One male tried to run his employer over after disappointing assessment results. Prior to that there was a rape, two incidents of arson and one can only imagine countless unreported and unrecorded outbursts over the centuries. From the information submitted and deduced (by scientist), the family had buried within them a mutant gene from the pairing in 1780 that predisposes them to aggressive behaviour.
Researchers found a mutation in the structural gene for monoamine oxidase, a neurochemical in the brain, which is associated with aggressive criminal behaviour among a number of males in this particular family. The discovery dubbed the “aggression gene” marks the first time a specific genetic ‘defect’ has ever been linked to violent or aggressive tendencies in humans.
Consider for a moment such as thing as a gene or genes that make you predisposed to aggression. It in itself wouldn’t account for success least all the aggressive people we know would be millionaires or the like. But in the right environment, in the right circumstances aggression or fearlessness may be a tipping point. Consider the contrasting fortunes of John D Rockefeller, his brother William and their father. He was better known as Devil Bill anotorious horse thief, rapist, burglar, arsonist and counterfeiter. He was also known as a con artist selling snake oil remedies for cancer and finally he was a confirmed bigamist. He would say “I cheat my boys every chance I get...I want to make them sharp.” His sons born around in and around 1840 and went on to become very successful. John D became one of the richest entrepreneurs to have lived. His brother William also became very wealthy. Thebestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, describes the times in which they lived saying, “In the 1860s and 1870s the American economy went through perhaps its greatest transformation in its history. This is when [major] railroads were being built and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrialisation started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which traditional economy had functioned were broken and remade”. In Nancy Koehn’s book “Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell” she demonstrates the impact of change, such as the Industrial Revolution and the growth of the middle class on Josiah Wedgewood’s tableware business founded in 1759. She highlights many other examples of opportunities that grew out of the turbulence of the information revolution we are currently experiencing. Howard Schultz’ ability to build his empire coffee retail empire – Starbucks is another example used to demonstrate the opportunities arising out of changing times.
Both John and his brother William Rockefeller commanded great respect from the society in which they lived. Devil Bill in contrast was a lowly criminal. Had he been born in and around 1840 would he have fared better? Clearly we shall never know but John and William were twenty and eighteen respectively in 1860. They benefitted from their father’s tutelage in the art of predation, they had no children, no wife, free to take risks and chance their arm. This is pretty much the same situation Bill Gates (who went on to become the world’s richest man) and Steve Jobs were in one hundred years later. They were all young enough to embraced novelty and change they also got a head start from their ‘pushy parents’. In economic geographic terms they were all well placed to take advantage of the local changing environment. In Gates and Jobs’ case it was the January 1975 “Project Breakthrough” launch of the Altair 8080 accompanied by the headline “World’s First Microcomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models.” It was the launch of the personal computing industry and the beginning of one of the most valuable industries in the world today. They were both twenty years old at the time (similarly the Rockefeller brothers). Dutch Schultz rise occurred during the heights of the prohibition era. His notorious temperament and ambition made him attractive prospect to gansterpreneur and owner of tenement speakeasy, Joey Noe. The duet established themselves after going on to control beer supply to the New York Bronx. Schultz’s temperament combined with the prohibition environment would concoct multi-millionaire dollar fortune for the iconic gangster.
Devil Bill may have had the right stuff as an entrepredator but he may not have had the great fortune of being born in the right time for his ‘peculiar qualities’. Dawkin’s Chicagoan gangster had genes that gave him a peculiar phenotype. As part of a ‘peculiar species’ that gangster was in the right place (Chicago), at the right time (say 1920s). The aggressive gene in a different time and in a different place may be the difference between, being the leader of an ancient warrior tribe, a prison cell or running a team of derivatives traders at JP Morgan bank.
