The 5 Most Overrated Personalities on The Planet
There’s a joke about Alexander The Great.
What made him so much better than all the other conquerors wasn’t the size of his empire. It wasn’t his strength or intelligence. It’s that he gave his enemies a chance to surrender before he massacred them and sold their women and children into slavery. It gave him a reputation for being a relatively enlightened guy.
Our heroes don’t carry swords anymore. We don’t compose epic poems about their glorious battles.
We write listicles.
If you want to go viral like Homer did circa 800 B.C.E., you write something about one of the world’s mega-billionaires. You explain some little secret about their success, like how they learn incredibly fast — or how good they are with people (even if they’re incredible assholes in real life). Write it in just the right way, and you have a hit.
People love reading these articles for one simple reason: They want to be like the person they’re reading about, and these articles make it look immensely doable. I…