Napoleon's military maxims applied to building a company

Executive overview

Most founders look for new frameworks. Napoleon's insight — studied by every great general after him — is that timeless principles already exist and just need to be learned and applied. The same few principles that won battles for Alexander and Caesar won them for Napoleon too.

Read history obsessively, plan deliberately, then commit completely. Speed, unity of command, and full deployment of resources decide outcomes.

The founder who studies history gains leverage that no competitor who ignores it can match.

Core principles Napoleon repeats

• Plan thoroughly before acting; once committed, go to the last extremity — burn the boats
• Speed is a force multiplier: a rapid move raises morale and multiplies effective strength
• Never fight on ground your competitor has chosen or fortified — find a game where you have the edge
• Smaller forces must be more clever and resourceful than larger ones; outthink, don't outmuscle
• Unity of command is non-negotiable: one army, one line, one leader — a fist beats five fingers
• Deploy all resources; a single unused battalion can decide the day
• War (and business) is composed of nothing but surprises — genius is profiting from them

On preparation and scenario planning

• A general should ask himself many times a day: if the enemy appeared on my front, right, or left, what would I do?
• Embarrassment at that question means arrangements are faulty — fix them before someone else exposes them
• Two-thirds of everything must be calculated; one third is left to chance — expect to improvise
• Keep a fortress of cash; like Rockefeller and Buffett, the ability to act instantly on opportunity requires liquidity already in place

On speed and simplicity

• Long orders are enemies of speed — they take time to write, read, and understand
• Napoleon issued orders of a few sentences that clearly expressed intent
• Do not let your company engage in paper warfare; compress all communication
• Smaller must be faster — if you are smaller and slower, you will lose

On audacity and offense

• A great leader resorts to audacity; Napoleon, Churchill ("always more audacity"), and Bezos ("we will be bold") express the same idea
• An extraordinary situation requires extraordinary resolution
• Once a campaign has been decided upon, appoint one commander without hesitation; divided authority creates confusion and delay
• Hesitation and half measures lose everything in war

On morale and people

• No one should believe more in your business than you do — if that is not the case, you are in the wrong business
• Troops quickly discover whether their officers are competent; they will not follow those they believe incompetent
• Enthusiasm and fanaticism are force multipliers on top of good organisation and discipline
• A good founder, good executives, good organisation, good training, and discipline make good teams — but never discount enthusiasm
• Intelligence and courage must be balanced: more courage than intelligence leads to reckless action; more intelligence than courage produces brilliance without execution

On public opinion and storytelling

• Public opinion is invisible and mysterious — before it, nothing stands; with it, everything becomes easy
• Ten people who yell make more noise than ten thousand who keep silent
• Tell your own story; Julius Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon all understood this
• Everything a business does is public relations

On studying history as leverage

• Napoleon studied Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar the same way founders should study great founders before them
• Read the campaigns of the great captains over and over again — not once and move on
• Experience must be supplemented by study; no one's personal experience is inclusive enough to warrant ignoring the experience of others
• Great people are rare — two million combatants in the Civil War produced around six great generals; study those who surface to the top
• All great captains accomplished great things only by conforming to rules and principles; they are the models precisely because of this

On fortresses, moats, and complacency

• Fortresses are useful but not permanent; moats can be crossed — never treat a competitive advantage as guaranteed
• Excessive luxury makes troops sloppy and soft; a younger, hungrier competitor will overtake a company that grows too comfortable
• It is your duty to prevent a beaten competitor from rallying — buying outperformed competitors denies them the chance to regain strength
• Nothing is absolute; there is no formula, only principles applied with judgment