Venture has become so obsessed with producing world-historic individuals that it's forgotten history's purpose and the purpose of the world. This has in turn created hollowed out founders building hollowed out companies for a country and a world that increasingly sees Silicon Valley as an emperor with no clothes: visionaries without visions. This stems from a cultural shift, where "ruling the world" for its own sake has become encouraged. No commitment to country, faith, freedom, or any other ideal, duty, or calling needed. The critique isn't to produce fewer of these individuals but to remember what they are for.

Long ago, Plato offered a solution. When designing the optimal city in the Republic, Plato argued that the only rulers fit to rule are philosophers who become kings or kings who become philosophers. These are Philosopher-Kings. The theory offers venture an alternative to Hegel's world-historic individuals – and a model for winning in an age of noise.

For Plato, a philosopher is truth-obsessed and iconoclastic – someone who convinces others that their beliefs are only shadowy refractions of reality. And a king worries about influence and control today – cleaning the streets, fortifying the gates, and conquering new lands. The Philosopher-King thus combines truth-seeking and idealism with the pragmatic tools of power to give society "rest from their evils." Their gaze is fixed on good quests, argues Plato, as their motivation stems from obligation not raw ambition.

There are problems in appropriating this model. Do we want kings? Do we abandon ambition? Does pontificating alone create companies? Probably not. But I think some takeaways are informative.

Dario Amodei fits the mold of a modern day philosopher-king. He began his career as a biophysics PhD researching neural circuits before developing what hardly anyone thought possible – artificial intelligence. He then left OpenAI to found Anthropic, when he realized we "needed something in addition to just scaling the models up, which is alignment or safety." He followed this same "good conscience" in turning down Pete Hegseth's demands because "in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values." Whatever one thinks of the decision, it is clear that obligation checked ambition and cost Dario hundreds of millions of dollars. And yet, this consistency of purpose has enabled Anthropic to communicate a vision of the world that resonates more with people than that of its competitor.

I don't think Dario is alone. One could make similar arguments for Patrick Collison, Laurene Powell Jobs, Max Hodak, or Alex Karp (a literal philosopher turned founder). It depends on your conception of Truth and Good, or even what counts as philosophy and kingship. We will see more philosopher-kings win as it becomes easier for more people to build more things. I argue the point here.

I'm more interested now in the question of development. How do we produce more philosopher-kings? We've invested tremendous time and energy into helping people create companies. There's been far less attention paid to cultivating their why.

The problem is cultural and multi-pronged. To simplify, the high-school-to-college-to-good-job pipeline has turned idealistic teenagers into execution machines who get very good at jumping through hoops without asking why. And as some dismissed the humanities and others shunned spirituality, we've shielded these excellent sheep from the foundational texts, communities and conversations that might illuminate a calling.

The antidote is surprisingly simple. Create ways to expose founders to ancient wisdom. I'm interested in Benjamin Franklin's Junto salon as one model, which brought together intellectuals and businessmen to discuss philosophy and society. Another attempt is the Palantir Fellowship's curriculum, which explores "fundamental questions" with leading scholars, philosophers, and technologists, or even the mechina model, where high school graduates engage with peers on foundational national and religious texts. I think meditation retreats go a far way (Jack Dorsey agrees), as do sustained religious practices. I'm curious about the texts, stories, rituals and practices that inspire those I'd most readily categorize as "philosopher-kings."

Drawing out a complete answer is not just important for venture. It's a question our society must answer. We need more heroes.