Hello and welcome to How to Take Over the World, this is Ben Wilson. Today we are going to be talking about the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.  And why Putin? He's absolutely fascinating to me, and the primary reason is this. If you go back 22 years, Putin was nobody go look at Vladimir Putin in 1995 and you'll see a 43 year old unemployed bureaucrat, he had a totally unremarkable career, a pretty unremarkable family.

He even looked unremarkable. He was trim and standing about five foot seven and slightly balding.  And then skip forward four years. And he was the president of Russia.  Fast forward to now, and he's been in charge of Russia for 17 years. He exercises absolute control over the entire country. He's reestablished Russia as a geopolitical force to be reckoned with.

And he's a multi billionaire who might be the richest man on the planet.  And so his life is really compelling because he was clearly not born great. Nothing about his early life and career makes you say, man, that guy was destined for greatness. Instead, you look at it. And a voice in the back of your head says Yeah, I think I could do that.

There isn't anything too special or difficult about what he does early in his career.  Throughout his life. You see Putin use some of the same exact tactics and strategies that other people on this podcast have used. Um, he's not nearly the genius that Steve Jobs or Napoleon Bonaparte were, but I love that because in some ways it proves the hypothesis of this podcast, which is that you can learn to be great.

You can implement these strategies and use them effectively without having an IQ of 180 or whatever.  Now, none of that is to say that I think Vladimir Putin is a good or admirable guy. He has taken Russia backwards in terms of human rights and civil liberties, free speech, and all of that. Uh, dissenters and political opponents who criticize him have a way of ending up dead.

And in fact, I originally conceived of this episode as a Halloween episode. So when I say Vladimir Putin has achieved greatness, I mean, he has accumulated power. He's a decisive actor on the global stage. Greatness is not an extension of goodness, at least not in the way we're using the word right now.

Vladimir Putin is unquestionably one of the great men of our time, but that doesn't mean he's a good or a decent one. I think if you look at his biography, he's clearly not  having said all that before we launch into his biography, I want to go over a couple of notes. The first is to note that this podcast is slightly different from the others that I've done in that I am covering a living person.

This is an exception. And my intention is to continue to focus on historical figures. Um, but let me know what you think we could do more of this if you like it. So tweet me at H T T O T W or email me at H T T O T W at gmail. com. Uh, the second note before we get started is I want to note my sources. The two books I relied on most heavily was the first was the new czar, the rise and reign of Vladimir Putin by Stephen Lee Myers.

And the second is called the man without a face, the unlikely rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen.  Okay. So having gotten that out of the way. Let's go back to the beginning.  Vladimir Putin was born in 1952 in St. Petersburg at a time when the city had been totally devastated by World War II. And I think in order to understand Putin, you have to understand the city he came from.

St. Petersburg was a really tough working class city after the war. One quick sidebar, at the time that Putin was born and growing up, and for most of his life, the city was known as Leningrad. That was the name given it back in 1924 by the communist government.  But historically, it had been known as St.

Petersburg, and after the Soviet Union fell, it became known as St. Petersburg again. And for convenience and clarity, I'm going to call it St. Petersburg the entire time. Um, acknowledging that through his childhood and most of growing up,  It was in fact called Leningrad, but I'm not going to call it that just so that we don't have to go through that switch halfway through.

So Putin grew up in St. Petersburg in a middle class family, but the circumstances in which they lived, if they lived in the United States, we would probably think of them, uh, as poor. They shared their apartment with two other families. Vladimir and his parents had just one room to themselves.  But that living arrangement was very normal for the time.

That was how people lived in St. Petersburg at the time. And by the way, how many people still live in Russia? Uh, though conditions have improved considerably,  communal apartments are still lived in widely and definitely not an unknown phenomenon.  Like I said, St. Petersburg was a gritty city and Vladimir Putin was a gritty kid.

He was something of a hooligan. He spent a lot of time on the streets and he got into fights a lot. He was small, even now he's only five foot seven and he's always been fairly thin. And he was probably bullied as a kid. So he developed something of a honey badger syndrome. He didn't care. He'd fight anyone.

If you insulted him in the slightest or made even the smallest threat, Vladimir Putin was ready to throw down. So he got into a lot of fights and made a lot of trouble as a kid.  Early in his life, he was a poor student. He was viewed as decently bright, but he was uninterested and disorganized. One of his teachers complained to Putin's father that little Vladimir wasn't living up to his potential.

And I love his father's response because it sounds so Russian to me. Maybe this is a stereotype, but his father replied, quote, Well, what can I do? Kill him or what?  But no, they didn't kill him. And he did eventually sort of turn his life around. Two things really turned it around for him. The first was he got involved in martial arts, specifically Judo.

Putin really loved martial arts and he was pretty darn good at it. And again, this was a big turning point for him. It introduced order and discipline into his life. The other big turning point for him was the release of a movie called the shield and the sword. It was based on a book of the same name.

And it was about a Soviet secret agent in world war II who goes behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany. And it was a huge hit. It was a total phenomenon in the Soviet Union at the time. People went wild for it. And that included Vladimir Putin. He thought it was awesome. He was obsessed with it.  And when he saw it, Putin decided that he wanted to be like the main character.

So at age 16, he walks into a KGB office. And for those who don't know, the KGB was basically the Soviet equivalent of the CIA. It was their intelligence department, their spy organization. And Putin walks into the KGB office in St. Petersburg and says, Hey, I want to be an agent. And obviously, unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

You can't just go sign up to be a KGB spy any more than you can just go volunteer to be a CIA spy, but they kind of like this plucky kid. So an officer comes out and sits down with him for a few minutes and Putin gets to ask him some questions.  And he tells Putin that they only recruit qualified candidates from universities and from the army.

So Putin says, okay, okay, well, tell me this. If I go to university, what would be the best thing to study to get into the KGB? And the officer tells him he should study law.  So Vladimir Putin has his goal. He has got it all set out for him. He wants to be a secret agent for the KGB and he was going to do everything he could to realize that dream.

So immediately he started taking German classes and preparing to attend university to study law.  And again, this is when his life flips 180 degrees. He goes from being a disorganized disobedient and lazy student to becoming an almost militantly disciplined one. He continues to obsess over martial arts, but now he dedicates almost all the rest of his time to studying for the university entrance exams.

And he pulls it off. He gets into Leningrad state university, which was one of the elite universities in the Soviet union at the time. And like the rest of his early life and career, his time there is Somewhat unremarkable. He's a pretty good student, graduates in four years. The only somewhat remarkable thing is that in his fourth year, he is indeed recruited by the KGB to go work for them.

So he graduates from Leningrad state university and he starts working as a low level spy. He goes to officer training and emerges as a counterintelligence first lieutenant. And counterintelligence meant he would not be going abroad, but rather staying in St. Petersburg. His job was to cultivate relationships with normal people.

And get them to turn in their neighbors and associates who might be saying or doing things that the Soviet union did not approve of, or even potentially, you know, he's trying to catch any secret spies for the capitalist West that might be there in St. Petersburg.  But the Soviet union had a pretty tight grip on the country.

There weren't a ton of people running around plotting revolution or spying for the USA. Especially not in St. Petersburg. In the nine years that Putin was in the KGB in St. Petersburg, there was not one single spy caught. So at this point, Putin is doing some really unremarkable stuff. Uh, he's making reports, he's cultivating relationships, just generally making sure everyone stays in line.

He'd probably like to be seeing more action. You know, he wanted to be this undercover action star that he saw in this movie. Uh, and he's not really getting to live that life, but he's not complaining about it. He's a company man. He's very loyal to the KGB. He's not exactly getting to live his dream, but he's a very loyal guy who believes in order and following the rules.

So that's what he's doing. And he plugs along like that for nine years,  there might've been a personal side to why he wasn't sent to an international post.  The Soviet union didn't like to send unmarried agents abroad because it was thought they could be seduced and then flipped into double agents or blackmailed.

It was a liability to have unmarried agents in the field is what they thought. And at this point, Putin was still unmarried.  He's 30 and for Russia at the time, this is pretty late in life to be unmarried. So that may have been holding him back. Um, but at the age of 30, he finally does get married. And just a year later, he's promoted to major and sent to the school of foreign intelligence in Moscow.

It's basically a bootcamp for foreign spies. And this looks like it's going to be his big break. He's going to get to live his secret agent dream.  Well, while he's studying at this boot camp in Moscow, he comes home for a small break to St. Petersburg. And he gets in a stupid fight with some guys on the Metro.

And in this fight, he breaks his arm. And so he comes back with his broken arm and they know he got in a fight. And this probably altered his trajectory at the KGB.  As one of his friends later said, quote, he has a fault, which is objectively bad for the special services. He takes risks. One should be more cautious and he is not.

To me, this is funny because in most ways he was very calculated and consistent and disciplined, but he kept getting into fights.  And it's the one area in which he doesn't really get his temper under control, kind of reverts to his hooligan ways. I think it's because he shares a common flaw. Uh, With Napoleon who said, quote, the French people need to support me with my flaws.

If they find in me some advantages, my flaw is being unable to bear insults.  I think Putin, because he had grown up little basically, and he had this sort of complex, he was also unable to bear insults. And so he gets in this stupid fight and he had been hoping to be an undercover spy, to go to the capitalist West and with his German skills, uh, be behind enemy lines.

That would mean going to Switzerland, Austria, or West Germany. Remember, at the time, Germany was divided into West Germany, which was free and capitalist, and East Germany, which was communist. Well, he is sent to East Germany, to the city of Dresden. And this is not at all a prestigious post. It's a sideshow.

Dresden just didn't matter. I mean, no one was spying on Dresden. There was no important work to be done. He's really just a paper pusher,  but you know, being the loyal, hardworking guy that he is, he puts his head down and gets to work.  Ironically, he was valued in his office as someone who was solid and unambitious, someone who wasn't gunning for the top job.

He just wanted to be there and get the job done. A colleague described him as quote, a crystal clear person in the nearly five years he was in Dresden. He climbs the ranks and eventually does become one of the commanding officers of this small KGB office there.  But everything changed in 1989. Putin was still in Dresden when the Berlin wall came down.

It was a sign that the Soviet union was breaking apart and losing its grip on East Germany. In Dresden, shortly thereafter, people took to the streets to celebrate and protest. They were thrilled that East Germany was moving toward becoming free and independent. And of course, they're also upset and protesting about Russia's continued meddling.

In East Germany, there was a German security and intelligence apparatus parallel to the KGB. So it's basically the German version of the KGB and it's called the Stasi.  The two worked hand in hand and the Stasi had their offices in Dresden just down the street from the KGB offices because they coordinated so much.

Well, as people are in the street celebrating and protesting, One of the first things they do is break into the Stasi offices and ransack the place. Putin sees this and figures the KGB offices are next, and he's right. The crowd starts moving down the street toward their offices next. And he really doesn't want his office to get ransacked like the Stasi office.

They have top secret confidential files that would be compromising if found and distributed. And he's a loyal company man. He doesn't want to see the indignity of the KGB headquarters being ransacked by a bunch of civilians.  And, you know, also he doesn't want the very real damage that could occur to Russian intelligence and counterintelligence if all their files are taken and made public.

And also it would be disastrous for his career if the Dresden offices were ransacked on his watch. So as more and more protesters continue to gather and they grow more and more raucous, he calls up the Soviet military base in Dresden and says, Hey, We need some backup over here. And the reply is, well, we can't use force without authorization for Moscow.

He says, okay, well then call it in and ask for authorization. But when he calls back a few minutes later, the officer in charge tells him they didn't hear back. Moscow is silent. He says, Putin felt totally betrayed by this. That sentence haunted him. Moscow is silent. He later said, quote, I had the feeling then that the country was no more.

That it had disappeared. It became clear. The union was ailing. It was a deadly incurable disease called paralysis, a paralysis of power.  And from then on, he was committed to doing all he could to ensure that Russia was never paralyzed or powerless again, that will be one of the continuing themes of his life.

Well, the crowd is heating up and getting more and more animated outside the KGB headquarters. Putin is in very real danger. The crowd is obviously feeling upset and vengeful for the years of oppression. They suffered under the thumb of the Soviets, and this is their way to take that out on the KGB.

Things hadn't turned violent yet, but it was very possible that they could.  And besides a locked gate and a few men with pistols, there was no defense at the KGB headquarters. They were basically unarmed.  And so what will you do in this circumstance? There's a big mob gathering, shouting outside of your building.

You have no defenses, disastrous consequences. If they get in, you've got no one to turn to the military has basically said, no, you've got no backup and there's hundreds of them, maybe thousands. And there's just a handful, you know, less than 20 of you.  So this is what Putin does. He walks out of the building slowly and deliberately.

He addresses the people at the head of the crowd. He doesn't shout. He speaks quietly and he says,  this house is strictly guarded. My soldiers have weapons and I gave them orders. If anyone enters the compound, they are to open fire.  Then without another word, He turns around and calmly walks back inside  the crowd thinks better of it.

And they disperse and go elsewhere. It's a really gutsy bluff and it pays off. And I think it's really the first flash of greatness in Putin's life. And to be clear, it's nothing more than a quick flash. The story doesn't get told widely. Initially, the whole incident is lost in the bureaucratic shuffle back in Moscow because the Soviet union is crumbling.

It's about to collapse. They have bigger stuff to worry about. Then some random KGB office in Dresden, Germany. But it's the first time that he shows some real metal and, you know, determination and you get the feeling, okay, well, this might be a guy who's got more grit than, than your average Joe.  Well, after this incident,  the KGB offices in Dresden are not around for much longer.

Uh, they close up shop, destroy the documents that they had there. And then everyone packs up and heads back to Russia.  When Putin gets back, it's a very tough employment environment. The Soviet union is collapsing around them. And he's not the only KGB agent back in town from foreign assignment that is looking for a new job.

You know, all of these KGB offices are getting closed. Everyone is showing back up in Russia saying, okay, well, I need a job. And there's just not enough KGB positions for all of them.  And Putin isn't exactly high on the totem pole. So there's no new position waiting for him. He's just got to go out and look for something.

He ends up back in St. Petersburg and this is the year 1991. And he takes a position at the university there. He's spying on students and recruiting new KGB agents. It's a total dead end in terms of his career at the KGB. There's no one he's working for, no visibility, no chance of promotion. So a dead end, but I mean, he doesn't care.

Who cares about your career in the KGB at a point like this, the Soviet union is falling apart. There's not going to be a KGB for much longer. He's just happy to have a job and get paid, but he's not in that job for very long. This is a time of really rapid transition for Russia. Everything is changing in St.

Petersburg. They're starting to have elections for the very first time. The newly elected mayor is a guy by the name of Anatoly Sobchak. He's a reformer who talks a really good game on democratic and free market reforms, but he also recognized the need to utilize. The old state apparatus to govern. One problem with a lot of revolutions is everyone's excited.

You throw out the old guys and put in new guys, but now you don't have anyone who knows how to do the basic governing to keep the lights on and the trains running and the sewers flowing and all of that. And Sobchak doesn't want to make that mistake. So he's trying to co op the old Soviet state. So he's supposed to be this reformer, but a lot of the people that he employs.

Our old guard, Soviets, KGB guys, and communist bureaucrats. One of the first KGB guys that Sobchak hires is Vladimir Putin, who he wants to act as a liaison between him and the KGB among other duties, his official position is advisor on international affairs. And the next year he gets promoted to head of the committee for external relations.

Now those might sound like important positions, but the truth is.  They really weren't. Um, when Sobchak wrote his memoir of this period of his life, he didn't include a single word about Vladimir Putin. That's how unimportant his position was, but he does slowly rise in Sobchak's administration. And why?

Well, he was known as a brutally hard worker. He was efficient and tireless. And just like in the KGB, he was valued as someone who was reliable because he was not ambitious. He seemed like a loyal, humble, quiet guy who kept his head down. You didn't have to worry about him making a show and then trying to run against you for mayor.

As his boss, you knew you would get all the credit for everything Putin did. So he starts rising within the administration and three years later in 1994, Putin becomes the deputy mayor. But as Putin rises within the administration, he becomes a little bit of a public relations problem. Well, Russia is undergoing massive change.

People have finally shaken off the fetters of communism and they're pretty upset with the people who were complicit in Soviet oppression for all those years. And that obviously includes the KGB. It especially includes the KGB. So it doesn't look good to employ someone who has been a KGB officer for his entire career.

People remember the disappearances, and the executions, and the neighbors spying on neighbors, and all of that. And they want to move forward away from all of that, not back towards the old regime. Putin gets sort of outed as a former KGB officer. He goes on television and is interviewed about it. And his response is really interesting.

I would call it, at least for me when reading through his biographies, I would call it his second real flash of brilliance.  He doesn't apologize. He says that he was in foreign intelligence, not in domestic repression, which is not entirely true, but whatever. Uh, and he says the KGB became a monster that no longer carried out the tasks for which it was created.

But that, that's not his fault. He was just serving the state and trying to serve its best interests abroad. So the interviewer asks, so you don't repent of your past? And he says, no, I don't repent. I repent of crimes. I did not commit any crimes. He goes on to say that far from disqualifying him for public service, his background in government would be a benefit as he served the people of St.

Petersburg.  It's really bold, even brazen, but it's really effective and it works. The whole scandal blows over.  And I think this is something that people should learn from. Many people try to hide or cover their weaknesses, but it's generally better to lean into them, just own them, flip them into strengths.

Ronald Reagan, when he ran for reelection against Walter Mondale. Was one of the oldest men to ever have run for president. In one debate, he was asked about his age and whether there was any doubt in his mind that he would have the energy to be president at his advanced age. He responded, quote, not at all.

And I want you to know. Also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.  And the response brought the house down. Even his opponent at the debate was dying of laughter. It was brilliant. Not only was it funny, but it shifted one of his biggest weaknesses, His age and frailty into a strength.

Now it was about his wisdom and experience and about his opponent's lack thereof.  And this brilliant tactic was basically the same one Putin is using. Yes, I was a KGB officer. That's going to be a big help to me as I try to help govern this city.  It's not enough to deny and protect your weaknesses. It's much more effective to accept and acknowledge them.

And then use them as strengths. Are you lazy? Recast it as clever. You do a better job by working smart while others slave away to no effect. Do you have a temper? Recast it as passionate. Others might display emotion too, if they cared about the issue as much as you do. In fact, Putin's background as a KGB man who projects strength and wants to preserve Russian power would end up being one of his greatest strengths.

It's some pretty brilliant verbal jujitsu, but for now, he's sort of just scratching the surface of his ability to communicate in this way.  One other thing about his working style at this time, he has an attribute that is similar to the other people I've covered on this podcast. He's insanely good at compartmentalization.

There's an incident where his wife gets in a car accident. And cracks three vertebrae. And he comes to the hospital and barely checks on her. He goes in, sees that she's not going to die, and goes back to work.  It's not that he doesn't care or doesn't love her,  but once he figures out that she's not going to die, she's going to be taken care of, he compartmentalizes  that section of his life.

And it goes back to work.  It reminds me a lot of both Napoleon and Steve jobs, and it is probably a top three important attribute to greatness. This meta focus. Can you compartmentalize your mind and remove distractions? Can you set aside pressing issues? Because this just isn't the time to think about them.

Jobs and Bonaparte were insanely good at that. And it turns out Putin is as well.  Well, Putin's boss Sobchak was this rising star in some ways. He's the anti Putin he's not great at getting things done, but he's a very smooth talker and he's a real people person. He's a classic politician. He becomes the second most famous politician in Russia after the president.

And there's a ton of momentum and excitement around him because he's supposed to be this important reformer.  But it doesn't last. He blows it. I mentioned his policy of using experienced bureaucrats. It's a pretty good idea, but he took it way too far. And the result was an administration with a bunch of ex Soviets and KGB guys that ended up not being very different from the system that preceded it.

It was incredibly corrupt. So in 1996, Sobchak loses re election. This leaves Vladimir Putin once again without a job or any serious prospects.  And he doesn't really have anywhere to go, no natural path to follow. He strongly considers opening up a law practice or even becoming a judo teacher.  He's 43 years old.

And, he's not. You'd think if someone was going to achieve true greatness in their life, they would have already accomplished something by 43 or at least be on track. But here Putin is out of a job, strongly considering becoming a judo teacher,  but he doesn't. Instead, He gets offered a job in Moscow in the federal government.

He's hired as the deputy chief of the presidential property management department.  Why he was extended this offer is a bit of a mystery since he wasn't particularly well connected in Moscow, but he still had a reputation as someone who wasn't corrupt, although that reputation probably wasn't totally deserved and he had a decent resume  plus the deputy chief of the presidential property management department.

Department isn't exactly the limelight. I can barely say it. It's a pretty low level position. I mean, quick question for you. Who is the head of managing presidential property in the United States or in your home country? If you don't live in the States, you probably have no idea. I have no idea. And he's not even the head.

He is the deputy chief. So it's a pretty humble beginning for his career in Moscow. But then we start to see a familiar pattern start to reemerge. He consistently gets promoted, not a huge rising star, not a super fast rise. But he consistently does a good job and gets higher and higher appointments.

Until finally in 1998, he gets appointed to become head of the FSB, which is Russia's new intelligence organization. The KGB had been disbanded and the FSB is the institution that took its place. There were a bunch of old KGB guys in the FSB who resisted the president, Boris Yeltsin.  And some of the reforms he was trying to push through, they wanted to do it the old way.

So at this point, the FSB was sort of a KGB light. It was still Soviet style bureaucracy, bloated and inefficient and very, very corrupt. So the president Boris Yeltsin needed someone who would be loyal. Someone who was disciplined and could resist corruption and someone with an understanding of the intelligence services.

Vladimir Putin seemed like an excellent choice, but Putin was actually reluctant to take the position. He was the guy in the background getting things done. He didn't want to be the face of this big organization. And he was tired of all the secrecy inherent in being involved with a spy agency, but being the loyal employee that he was.

And he was, in fact, a pretty good choice. He gets in there and he follows Yeltsin's orders. He fires a bunch of officers, abolishes outdated departments and replaces them with new and needed ones. And he roots out the worst of the offenders in terms of corruption.  And he's pretty good at all this because he's used to staying out of the fray, keeping his head above the politics and avoiding all those sort of entanglements.

He's a one track guy. He's loyal. He's a company man, and he's there to do his job.  And as head of the FSB, he really starts ingratiating himself with Boris Yeltsin. The first reason is the obvious one. He's doing a good job. There's one other thing he does that's very important to Yeltsin. There's some old regime hardliners who are very upset with Yeltsin, so there are rumors of a coup and a government overthrow.

And Yeltsin needs someone else to go on TV and calm people's nerves and discourage the plotters from turning these grumblings and plans Into an actual coup attempt. So he leans on Putin, Putin goes on TV and in his very straightforward, unemotional, almost robotic manner, gives a summary of the situation and declares in part those who violate the constitution and try to undermine Russia's state system by unconstitutional methods with the use of force.

We'll run up against appropriate resistance. This is something you can be sure of.  This has the effect of restoring confidence in the government and discouraging the plotters and Putin's cool headed and able handling of the situation earns him some more points, some more credit with Yeltsin and  the timing is good because at this point Yeltsin is nearing the end of his second term as president and constitutionally he couldn't run again  now throughout Russian history.

It was very common to see outgoing rulers. Prosecuted and even executed once they're out of power. So Yeltsin was worried about this. And his number one priority when deciding who to support to succeed him as president was, you know, who's going to be loyal to me? Who can I be sure will protect my personal safety and keep me out of jail?

And he felt like that person would be Vladimir Putin, who again, is known for his loyalty.  So he names Putin to be his prime minister. The prime minister spot was the second most important position in Russia.  It would be a highly visible role and give Putin a chance to practice governing and get in front of the Russian voters so that he would be familiar to them.

This appointment not only installs him in a very important position in its own right, but it also gives him the inside track on running for president.  Now Yeltsin keeps the full extent of his plan a secret at first. Of course, he doesn't keep it a secret that he's naming Putin prime minister. You can't keep that under wraps.

He's the prime minister. Everyone knows that. But he keeps it a secret that he wants Putin to succeed him as president. And while in retrospect, it might seem obvious. At the time, it seemed anything but. Remember, Putin had never held elected office at all. He had held some political positions, but they were all appointed, and Putin was not exactly your typical sweet talking, very personable politician.

He did not resemble a politician at all. People thought, even if Putin did run for president, you know, he's not going to be a very formidable opponent because he's not a natural politician.  So he is appointed as prime minister, But Yeltsin doesn't tell anyone that he's going to support Putin to run for president.

Now, when Putin stepped in as prime minister, he was basically running the government. Yeltsin was old and in poor health  and he was still setting the agenda to a large extent, but Putin was functionally in control of the day to day governing process. Of the government in Russia. Now, at the time, Russia was fighting a war within its own borders in a region called Chechnya.

Now, Russia is a majority Christian, specifically Russian Orthodox nation,  but the region of Chechnya is in Russia and is majority Muslim.  And after the fall of the Soviet union, some people decided to rise up there to try to break off and become independent.  Russia was of course not okay with this. So they sent in troops.

There was an insurgency. And so Russia. Was fighting a war to keep Chechnya as a part of Russia.  Remember Putin is someone who believes in law and order. He lamented that Russia had fallen from power so precipitously since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Remember when he was in charge of the KGB office in Dresden and he called for backup and the response was.

Moscow is silent. He was still haunted by that. So the fact that there were these separatists in Chechnya trying to break apart the country enraged him. And what enraged him even further is that the war wasn't going particularly well. It was a counterinsurgency quagmire like Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam.

So the first thing he does as prime minister is go down to the war zone.  It's a really compelling image and sets him apart from Yeltsin, who being the old man that he is, could never don fatigues and go to an active military zone.  Putin declares, quote, we're going to bang the hell out of these bandits.

He decides they're going all in. You know, if we're going to fight, we're going to really fight. The war in Chechnya was deeply unpopular in Russia. Again, it was like Vietnam or Iraq in that way. And so it was assumed at the time that this move. To drop more bombs and send in more troops would be really unpopular.

So why did Putin do this less than a year before he was supposed to run for president? Well, no one took his prospects of becoming president very seriously. And it's likely that he didn't either. He probably made the decision to step up the war in Chechnya because he believed it was the right thing to do.

He wanted to see a strong Russia. He didn't want to see its disillusion and parts of it breaking off.  When he made the decision to step up the forces and number of bombs dropped in Chechnya, he was also highly criticized and questioned by the press. Understandably, with an increase in force comes an increase in casualties, both military and civilian.

Even under the best of circumstances, in the fog of war, there can be a lot of mistakes.  This was not the best of circumstances. There was a lot of hatred and acrimony on both sides of the conflict. The collateral damage from this escalation was creating a really brutal humanitarian nightmare. Schools and hospitals were getting bombed along with military targets.

So the press is really getting after him on this decision. And after a few questions, he finally says, quote, I am tired of answering these questions. Russian aircraft are only striking terrorist camps. We will go after them wherever they are. If pardon me, we find them in the toilet, we will waste them in the outhouse.

And then something surprising starts happening.  Putin's popularity starts skyrocketing.  The war in Chechnya was deeply unpopular, yes, but that was in part because the Russian forces were losing, which was humiliating to everyday Russians. They used to be a part of something special, a global superpower that could go toe to toe with the United States.

Now, it seemed like they couldn't even beat a ragtag group of poorly armed rebels. Putin is promising a real chance at victory, and the early signs were that it was working to a certain degree. And that reflects really well on Putin.  Furthermore, he seemed like a bastion of authority, power, and competence in a time of enormous change and upheaval for Russia, all the old institutions were crumbling and collapsing.

On the one hand, people were happy to see the repressive times of the Soviet union gone. But on the other hand, once the initial thrill of political and economic freedom wore off, people were left in a situation where the economy was still not great. And added to that is a great deal of uncertainty. At least during the Soviet Union, you knew what to expect, even if what you expected was pretty crappy.

Now people have no idea what to expect. Are they going to have the same government in a year? Is there going to be food in the grocery store next week? Everything seemed like it was in flux. And in the middle of this environment, Putin strides in, looks authoritative and says, in effect, Russia will not be defeated.

We're going to bang the hell out of these terrorists and people go wild for it. People love it.  So now things are going great for Yeltsin's plan to have Putin be the new president. His popularity is rising quickly, but Yeltsin had a knack for showmanship and he didn't want to leave anything to chance.

So he pulls off one last brilliant move as president.  In Russia, New Year's is the biggest holiday by far. It's like Christmas, New Year's, Halloween, and the 4th of July all rolled into one big holiday.  And there's a tradition for the president to address the nation in a big televised address that everyone watches.

The address of 1999 is particularly important and anticipated. For one thing, it's the start of a new millennium, the start of the 2000s. Obviously this felt like a big moment.  Secondly, as I said, it was a time of a lot of change for Russia, and this was the end of Yeltsin's presidency. The election was going to be held in June of the next year and Yeltsin couldn't run again.

And so this is going to mark the first democratic peaceful transfer of power in Russia's history. And this would be the last new year's Eve speech of their first president.  So during this big address, Yeltsin gets up and says, quote, I have heard people say more than once that Yeltsin would cling to power as long as possible, that he would never let go.

That is a lie.  Then he goes on to say that he was going to peacefully step down, but that he wasn't going to wait until June. He said, quote, Russia should enter the new millennium with new politicians, new faces, new people who are intelligent, strong, and energetic. While we, those who have been in power for many, many years must leave.

He announces that he's stepping down effective immediately and naming Vladimir Putin as his successor and interim president,  then Putin gets up and gives a short speech. It's not very memorable, but that doesn't really matter. The image of him addressing the nation, a new leader for a new millennium is enough.

It's brilliant. It's absolutely genius propaganda. Putin's popularity had already been rising. But now he gets this big boost from this incredible show. This, this piece of propaganda. Furthermore, this move gives him a few months to be president, to be the incumbent before the election is actually held.

And so Putin's popularity skyrockets even further. When Putin runs for president, he basically has no coherent platform. He doesn't even really campaign. His form of campaigning is to go down to the war zone and be filmed interacting with Russian troops. He stays above the fray and acts presidential. He refuses to go to televised debates saying, quote, these videos are advertising.

I will not be trying to find out in the course of my election, which is more important, Tampax or Snickers.  His only campaign platform is vague promises of a return to Russian greatness and positions on nonpartisan issues, such as raising pensions for veterans of World War II. And coming down hard on crime and corruption  when election day arrives a few months later, it's anti-climactic.

He's elected in a landslide in a free and fair election. In 1995, Vladimir Putin was an unemployed, former bureaucrat who was thinking about becoming a judo teacher at the start of the new millennium. He became the most powerful man in Russia, the head of the second largest military in the world with thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal.

And unbeknownst to the world, he would not be just another president, but a dominating force who loomed large over Russia for decades, the era of Putin had begun.  So let's take a step back and analyze how this came to be. How do we explain Putin's rise?  At first glance, the primary factor that comes to mind is luck.

It kind of just seems like right place, right time. Yeah. He lucked into his positions in the mayor's office in St. Petersburg and the presidential administration in Moscow. And he just happened to be the most solid, loyal seeming guy around when Yeltsin was looking for a successor who would make sure he wasn't prosecuted or harmed.

And definitely there was an element of luck in any story of success. There invariably is an element of luck involved. And this is obviously no different. Furthermore, Vladimir Putin does, in my mind, seem like the kind of guy who, if things had gone just a little bit differently, might have lived a completely normal life.

But that's only a small piece of the puzzle. He was able to take advantage of those fortunate circumstances in a way that few others could have. So what were those attributes, those strategies that enabled his rise?  The first is consistency. Putin is unbelievably consistent. And he has been since Judo pulled him off the streets of St.

Petersburg and turned him into a disciplined person.  You don't get big highs and big lows with Putin. He quietly and efficiently gets the job done. I think consistency is one of the most underrated attributes a human can have. Let me give you an example of two investors. They both start with a hundred thousand dollars.

The first investor is consistent. He grows his money by 10 percent every year without fail. The second investor is a risky superstar. He grows his money by 30%.  But the next year, his risky bets don't pay off and he loses 10%.  And it goes on like this in perpetuity. Now it might seem like these are roughly equal.

Take any two year span in the one has growth of 10 percent for two years, which adds up to 20 percent and the other has growth of 30 percent one year. Minus losses of 10 percent the next year. And that also sort of adds up to 20 percent as well. So they seem relatively equal at first glance, but because of the way that compound interest works, that's not the effect at all over the course of a 50 year career.

The consistent investor will have grown his 100, 000 to nearly 12 million.  While the inconsistent flashy investor will have grown his 100, 000 to less than half of that. This is the reason that Warren Buffett's rules for investing are rule number one, never lose money. And rule number two, don't forget rule number one,  just showing up and being reliable over a very long period of time is surprisingly difficult.

And when you pull it off, it's extremely valuable. Putin is evidence of that. So when you evaluate habits, routines, jobs, opportunities, coworkers, whatever, ask yourself. What's sustainable, what am I going to be able to do consistently and reliably over a long period of time, because consistency is what will lead to big results.

The second thing I'll point out is his willingness to stay out of the spotlight and make others look good.  Obviously, this is a podcast for ambitious people. And ambitious people, unsurprisingly, are often anxious to receive credit for the things they do. But drawing attention to yourself often hurts you in the long run.

Those who achieve great things are often those who are willing to toil in secret and deflect the credit to someone else. You're playing the long game. It all bounces back to you in the end.  Putin made the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, look good as he took on much of the grunt work and stayed in the background.

Letting the mayor take credit for the things that he was accomplishing.  Putin did it again for the president of the federal government, quietly carrying out needed reforms and difficult initiatives all the while staying out of the spotlight and letting president Yeltsin get the credit. This all came back to him in the end as Sobchak was able to recommend and endorse him for service in the federal government.

And Yeltsin promoted him through the ranks, eventually appointing him prime minister and then interim president.  So if you want to find success and achieve greatness, often a good place to start is to ask yourself who you can make look good, not who you can suck up to. Putin was never much of a suck up, but who you can actually make look good through your hard work.

As Harry Truman said, it's amazing what you can accomplish. If you do not care who gets the credit. Putin worried more about his accomplishments than his position. And ironically, he ended up in the top position because of it.  Okay. Well, this is the end for part one on Vladimir Putin, but it's not the end for our friend, Vladimir.

We have yet to see how it is that he consolidates power, elevates Russia to a first rate geopolitical power and acquires billions of dollars, making himself one of the wealthiest people in the entire world. Next episode, you'll get to see Putin go dark as he starts having political opponents and dissidents jailed, tortured, and assassinated.

As always, you can find links, show notes, and more at HTTOTW.  com. And again, that's just short for how to take over the world, HTTOTW,  or follow me on Twitter at  HTTOTW. I hope you'll join me next time for part two of the life of Vladimir Putin on how to take over the world I'm gonna show you how great I am! This is how tiny I am. I just wanna say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody! Hello and welcome to How to Take Over the

World. This is Ben Wilson. This episode is part two of the life of Vladimir Putin. If you have not yet listened to part one, you'll want to go back to the last episode and do that.  Before we jump into his biography, I want to take care of a couple housekeeping items. The first is a huge thank you to my listeners.

Uh, I just found out this week that we cracked the top 100 for history podcasts on iTunes and that might not seem like a huge accomplishment, but there are literally thousands of podcasts just about history and of the top 100 most of them have major backers like NPR or associated with major radio or tv personalities and yet we made it all the way up to 88  is where it peaked and this is just from me posting about it one time on Facebook and one time on Instagram.

Uh, no advertising, no marketing, no publicity. Everything has just been word of mouth from you guys. And we're just barely getting started. So, thank you so much for everything you guys are doing to share it. Uh, we're only going higher, we're going straight to the top. Um, but thanks and keep it up, keep sharing.

Uh, last thing is I wanted to let you guys know that I'm putting out a weekly newsletter. It's a roundup of the news that matters every week. I try and skip over the clickbait in the short term crises and highlight the longterm trends that are actually changing the world around us. It's only once a week.

I think you guys will love it. So if you go to HTTOTW. com, the first thing you will see is a sign up for the newsletter. So just go put your email there and you'll be signed up and it comes every Wednesday. So I hope you will. And with that onto the life of Vladimir Putin. Last episode, we left off with Putin being named president by Boris Yeltsin, and then winning election as president three months later.

Now I'm going to backtrack slightly to talk about one of the craziest incidents in the rise of Vladimir Putin.  It's something of a mystery and something a lot of people don't want to talk about, but I think it reveals a lot about the ruthlessness of Vladimir Putin.  Remember, I talked about the war in Chechnya.

Well, that started as a low level conflict in Chechnya, not a full scale war. You've got some separatists, and they're making some noise, and the Russians are trying to keep a lid on it. But then these separatists leave Chechnya and invade a different region of Russia called Dagestan.  Well, Russia responds and starts bombing them, and this is August 1999.

Boris Yeltsin is still president, but he's pretty old and frail, so he delegates responsibility for the conflict to his prime minister. A guy by the name of Sergei Stepashin.  At this point, Putin is still head of the FSB.  So president Yeltsin says the actions undertaken by his prime minister Um aren't good enough.

He hasn't been aggressive enough in coming after the rebels So he fires that prime minister and names vladimir putin as prime minister and putin is really aggressive in his tactics And it doesn't take long before he has the rebels on the run out of dagestan and back in chechnya now to putin it was paramount To totally destroy the rebels.

He was afraid the country would come apart like yugoslavia Uh, he thought if they didn't put an immediate and emphatic end to all this, people would be emboldened by it and Russia would come apart piece by piece and eventually cease to exist. So he favored going into Chechnya and stamping out this rebellion at its source.

But the public wasn't so sure. They didn't like the war at all. They didn't want to see it escalate. So Putin was hamstrung. But then, he seemingly got a gift from the Chechen rebels.  In the early morning of September 4th, 1999, there was an enormous explosion that leveled an apartment building in the Russian town of Bunaksk.

Probably getting that wrong. Uh, in Dagestan. It killed 64 people and injured 133 others.  Five days later on September 9th, there was a similar bombing in an apartment building in Moscow, which killed 94 people and injured 249.  On September 13th, there was another bombing in Moscow and this one killed 118.

Then on September 16th, there was a bombing in Volgodonsk, which killed 18 people and injured 288.  Now, remember, these were Muslim separatists who were fighting in Dagestan and Chechnya and these bombings are kind of, well, I mean,  it's not unheard of for Islamic terrorists to bomb civilians, right? So we have our culprit open and shut.

It was the Chechens. And that's exactly what the Russian government is saying. This was carried out by. Chechen Islamic terrorists. The public is in a full blown panic, as you can imagine. They're also in a rage. Uh, they're really, really upset. Countries tend to rally around when they're being attacked. And so support for the war in Chechnya is actually increasing.

Three days later, after the, the bombing on Volgodonsk, on September 23rd, Something very strange happens in the early hours of the morning, a bus driver in a city called Riazon, which is Southeast of Moscow, noticed a white car parked outside his apartment building. There was a young woman standing outside the car, a man inside the car, and another man who had apparently been taking something inside the apartment building.

And he was on edge because of the previous bombings. And so he called the local police. And when the police showed up and investigated, they found The car was gone, but they found a massive bomb in the basement of the apartment building. The apartment building was evacuated, the local bomb squad was called in, and they were able to defuse the bomb before it blew up, thankfully.

Public officials commended the citizens of Riazan on their vigilance. They had been on the lookout and by so doing they had stopped a terrorist attack, they had caught these people. The man who saw the car and the would be terrorists was able to give a detailed description of what they looked like. And then good luck struck again when a local telephone operator overheard a caller telling someone you need, you should split up and do your best to get out of the city undetected.

And that sounds pretty incriminating, right? That sounds like that's, that's probably the bombers.  So they think that we have our terrorists, they're able to trace the call and they show up to arrest them.  They find three people, they match the description provided by the bus driver. But there's one problem.

They aren't Chechen rebels. They aren't even Chechen. They're ethnic Russians. And furthermore, they are badge carrying FSB agents.  Once word of this gets out,  the director of the FSB talks to some reporters and tells them, Oh, actually, the whole thing was a training exercise to make sure everyone was prepared for bombings like this.

And they passed. They did a great job. Good job, everyone. Nothing to see here.  But no one seemed to know about this. Not the local mayor, not the governor, not the local police, not the bomb squad. In fact, the local bomb squad that had been called in to defuse the bomb undercut this whole story. They swore that they had tested the chemicals and it truly was a live bomb.

And not only that, but the chemical that they tested positive in this bomb was RDX, also known as hexogen, which is a chemical produced by the Russian military and it's extremely difficult to acquire on the black market.  So all in all this government explanation of  this was just a test That's why it was carried out by fsb agents Doesn't seem to add up at all.

And so you have to ask yourself. Is it possible? That putin had been orchestrating these bombings in order to boost his popularity And give him cover for an all out war in chechnya.  I don't think it's only possible. I think it's likely  I don't i'm not the kind of guy who believes in conspiracy theories.

I don't believe 9 11 was an inside job I think there was only one shooter who killed jfk You  But to me, the evidence seems to indicate that the Russian government was behind the bombings of late 1999.  There are some people who suggest that, okay, maybe it was the FSB, but Putin himself wasn't directly involved in the planning.

Maybe it was rogue elements within the FSB. That also seems pretty unlikely to me. The bombings didn't occur before Putin became prime minister and no one benefited from it more than he did. I think in all likelihood, Putin bombed hundreds of Russians in order to legitimize military actions in Chechnya that he thought were necessary to preserve Russia.

That is how ruthless Vladimir Putin is.  If you want to achieve what others are not or have not been able to achieve, you either have to do things that others can't to do by being extremely smart or talented.  Or you can do what others won't do by being ruthless and scrupulous.  And Putin is an example of the latter.

Nevertheless, this incident did not have serious repercussions for Putin. People didn't really want to believe that their government had been involved with something like this. Putin's former finance minister, Mikhail Kazyanov, summed it up pretty well. When asked if the Russian government was behind the attacks, he said, quote, I don't know, I don't know, and I don't want to believe that it could be true.

And that was the attitude basically everyone took. They didn't want to believe, so they didn't. Well, anyway, after this, as discussed previously,  he rolls into Chechnya with the full force of the Russian military and wages an all out war. And at first, it's popular. He rides this wave of popularity and wins election as president of Russia in March of 2000.

Now, he's a complete political novice. He's just been elected for the first time to anything. He had never won an election. He hadn't won an election as dog catcher. He had always been appointed. He was never really the head boss. So from someone like that, you might expect a tepid, hesitant, modest agenda starting out.

And. You'd be wrong. His inauguration sets the tone.  The previous  inaugurations of the only other president, Boris Yeltsin, had been held in a hideous Soviet era legislative building in the Kremlin. If you've ever seen Soviet architecture, it is uniformly very, very ugly. And Yeltsin had chosen this because the only alternative is to reach back and hold the inauguration In a royal palace from the pre Soviet era.

And that's a problem because you don't want to seem aristocratic or corrupt. It didn't seem democratic to hold your inauguration in a royal palace, but Putin doesn't care. He holds his inauguration in a beautiful palace built for Tsar Nicholas, the first in the Kremlin. And afterwards for good measure, he has a giant military parade.

And that was a risky move, but it's a good one. It turns out the Russian people don't care about all this history. Putin looks powerful and they like that.  And this is something Putin does well for his entire career. It's not just the rich trappings of power, the palaces and such, but he also goes out of his way to appear physically strong.

You've probably seen some of the pictures. He's gone to nature reserves to play with tigers, and there was a staged photo op where he went diving in the Black Sea and discovered some ancient Greek urns, which obviously had been placed there before for him to discover. He's also had himself filmed doing judo, which he's pretty good at.

And there's some great unintentional comedy out there, too. And there, with all these pictures of him riding around on horses without his shirt on and the like. And something I think people take for granted is this very ancient, tribal, very basic desire we have to follow strong, powerful men.  In the developed Western world, we laugh when we see stuff like this.

We think we're better than that. We laugh when we see Um, you know, Kim Jong un claiming that he shot 34 under par in his first round ever playing golf.  And yet, really, we're not much different.  The presidential motorcade has 25 vehicles in it. Do you think those are all really necessary? I mean, they all have an official function, I'm sure.

But really, a part of having a motorcade that big is projecting power, seeming powerful.  Also, every president I can remember in the United States has had pieces written about them in which they show off and embellish their physical strength and prowess. George Bush made sure reporters knew how often he went mountain biking and how much he could bench press.

Barack Obama also made sure to leak how much he could bench press, which was apparently over 200 pounds. I mean, think about this. This is the position of President of the United States of America. And the men who inhabit the position Want us to know how much they can lift.  We truly are just slightly smarter cavemen.

Another example, uh, before the most recent presidential election, Donald Trump's doctor said that if he were elected, he would be the healthiest person ever elected president. And so, no, we're not much better than Russia or North Korea in that way. And it's worth keeping in mind as sad as it is, making yourself look powerful can lend you a huge advantage.

I mean, look at Jeff Bezos. Go ahead and Google the words Jeff Bezos glow up.  If you don't understand what that means, it's okay, it's a Twitter thing. But Google those words. Jeff Bezos glow up.  If you do, you'll see this photo of Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon,  back when he founded Amazon. And he's this pencil necked balding nerd.

And then next to it, it has a photo of him now. His biceps are huge. His neck is huge. He's wearing this tight fitting shirt and a vest over it. You could honestly cast him in a movie to be like a ruthless Eastern European mercenary or Putin. You could cast him in a movie to be Putin.  And that tells you something.

So again, this sort of crude appeal to basic human nature matters, even today.  It's important to seem powerful. And I should mention, I think this goes for women as well. You might not be as physically large as men, but you can still wrap yourself in the trappings of power and do everything you can to project that.

Okay, but back to Putin. So his agenda was as ambitious as his inauguration was. First thing he does is take over the press. There are these TV channels that mock him mercilessly. They create caricatures of this tiny little bald man who is too small and too weak to run Russia. And obviously that stands in total contrast to this image he's presenting of himself, which is a big problem for him.

So he sends in the police, make some arrests, cooks up some charges, and in very short order, the Russian state takes control of all three major television networks in Russia.  Now, I should note, these charges that he's making are technically true. The 90s in Russia were wild. Communism was collapsing, and the new economic order was still struggling to find its footing, and it was totally chaotic.

I mean, think if you can about, you know the type of guy or girl who grows up in a very, very tightly controlled house, and is never allowed to do much, or experience or explore much, Never does anything wrong and they go to college for the first time and no more chains, no more leash and they just go wild, right?

They party all the time. They become alcoholics and it's totally unhealthy. Well, that was the, that was Russia in the nineties. They had been in the Soviet Union. They hadn't known anything about the world. Everything had been censored. Uh, they didn't have foreign music, foreign TV, foreign movies. And they weren't able to engage in commerce and all of a sudden leash is gone, go wild, do whatever you want.

And people did. It was chaotic. It was anarchy. You took what you could get. And so everyone who was involved in business was guilty of tax evasion, bribery, and a handful of other crimes as well. And I mean everyone. So yes, these men are guilty of crimes, but so is everyone else. And that's not why they're being arrested.

They're being arrested  Pissing off Putin for broadcasting things that he didn't like.  One of the reasons though, that he's able to do this. Is because he has proof on everyone.  When he was head of the FSB, he headed up an effort to make sure that the FSB had total access to financial information throughout the economy.

At the time, no one thought much of it, but now that he's president, Putin has the proof to prosecute whomever he wants. That is planning. Knowledge really is power. It's not just a cliche and Putin was a spy, so he understood that better than most people and he's one of the best ever at leveraging knowledge asymmetries.

He knows everything about everyone. He's always gathering intelligence. That's why he places so much emphasis on hacking. Uh, now in, in 2018. And he's really good at keeping enemies and opponents from knowing too much about him. He's very secretive, and that has really benefited him. Again, knowledge asymmetry.

Knowing as much as you can about everyone else and not letting them know anything about you. Another thing Putin does early on is build a political team out of a circle of people he could trust. To him, trust is as important as your ability, your capabilities. He keeps his friends extremely close to him.

His government becomes known as the Petersburg clan, which was sort of an epithet from the political elite in Moscow, who were used to holding all the power. Now they have this upstart who comes in who's bringing in all his friends from St. Petersburg. Who more often than not are not bureaucrats, they're like judo teachers and people that he just knew,  but he wants to be surrounded by people who he knows he can trust.

So he brings all his St. Petersburg people with him.  He also begins to modernize the military. This also, you know, ticks off some people from the old guard in Moscow because he's eliminating corruption and firing people, but he's doing so in order to create a more efficient, more streamlined, more modern military.

One quick thing about all these people that he's, you know, pissing off in his first year in office. It reminds me of when I was a teacher's assistant in college. In the first few weeks, the professor that I was TAing for gave me a stack of essays and said, Grade these.  And I bring them back. She looks at a few and says, I want you to take all of these essays and mark down every single one by at least a letter grade.

And I protested. I said, look, they're just getting their feet under them. They don't really know what our expectations are yet. Doesn't this seem a little bit harsh? Maybe we should show some leniency.  And she says, Oh, what? And go hard on them later.  She said, if you show them leniency now, when you do finally raise the standards, they'll feel confused and betrayed.

But if you are hard on them now, and maybe a little more lenient later on, they'll be grateful. And she was right. And she was a really good, really successful. And surprisingly well liked professor considering, you know, how hard she was on her students. So if you have to take care of any unpleasantness, It's best to do it early.

And anytime you come into a new position, start out as tough, demanding and uncompromising. You can always show leniency later and people will show more gratitude for it rather than starting lenient and having to get tough later and really confusing people and having them feel betrayed. And Putin is doing here.

He's starting out as the hard ass. He's taking care of the uncomfortable stuff first.  Not all of his initial projects are so tough. His biggest accomplishment is to pass some economic reforms, which were cheered by a lot of people, including big business, he institutes a flat income tax of 13 percent and cuts corporate tax rates from 35 to 24%.

This very flat tax rate has very few loopholes. It's fairer. It's easier to hold people accountable and make sure that they're actually paying their taxes. He also creates stable rules around buying and selling land, and he passes some common sense employment legislation. And this is some pretty deft management of the economy.

Add to that the fact that oil prices were rapidly rising, and Russia has a ton of oil, and you have a really good scenario for economic development for, in Russia, uh, And by extension, a really good scenario for Vladimir Putin. In 1999, the year before he took office,  GDP in Russia grew by 5%. In 2000, his first year actually in office, GDP doubled.

Unemployment goes down, income goes up. The Russian government is able to pay off its debt ahead of schedule. Things seem to be going really well. At the same time that he's doing all this, Russia is still trying to figure out its identity. Do we use Soviet era symbols? Do we use pre Soviet symbols? And when I say symbols, I mean very basic stuff.

This is a new country. It's not the Soviet Union anymore. It's Russia for the first time. So What is our flag? What are our colors? What's our national anthem? What kind of uniforms do our soldiers wear that kind of stuff and this is a tough decision communism has been horrible and ended in disaster But before the soviet union they had the czars who were like emperors and they were pretty horrible, too There was a ton of inequality.

The russian aristocracy was fabulously wealthy While the peasantry was horribly impoverished and oppressed. It was basically like slavery You So looking back to then does not seem like a great option either. So where do you turn? Do you just come up with entirely new symbols? Well, Putin makes the wise decision to just sort of embrace all of it.

It might seem contradictory to embrace the stylings, both of the czars and the people who brutally murdered the czars and their whole czars But it actually made sense to a lot of people. It was all part of Russian history. He was saying these divisions don't matter. We're not czarist. We're not Soviet.

We're Russians. And he was embracing Russia and saying we can be proud of our history. And that's huge. Russians felt really pessimistic. They had been part of something big in the Soviet Union and it had collapsed. Now they were thrust into a global market economy. And that was new and uncomfortable for them.

And they were clearly far behind the rest of the world. Add to that, everyone was telling them they were evil. You know, they're for the first time getting exposed to Western media and seeing all this stuff that says Russians are the bad guys. And in the midst of all that, Putin comes in and says, we're going to be proud of our history and who we are.

So he embraces the double Eagle. Which is a pre Soviet symbol, but also the red banner, which is Soviet. He embraces the Soviet national anthem, but he chooses to give it new words. It's this hodgepodge of symbolism that has no clear ideological lines. Other than to say, it's all Russian and we embrace Russia.

People have an innate desire to believe that they belong to something greater than themselves. Before Putin, Yeltsin had been embarrassed by both their Soviet and their pre Soviet past. He didn't want to embrace any of it, but Putin embraces all of it. And in so doing, he allows people to believe in themselves and believe in Russia.

On a few occasions, he uses the phrase, anyone who does not regret the collapse of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who wants to see it recreated in its former shape has no brain.  It's clever. It's a little strange to basically be saying we love our past, but we have no desire to go back to it.

But it's a message that really resonates. People like to believe that they are inherently important because of their identity and he's giving them that. Well, all of this makes him immensely popular, but the good times don't last forever. In 2003, the economy is no longer growing quite as quickly as it used to.

And there's an increasing number of terrorist attacks.  These attacks start with a terrorist attack at a theater in Moscow in late 2002. 130 people die in the incident, and the government made some major blunders during it.  There are further terrorist attacks throughout 2013. And between the terrorism, the war in Chechnya, which was no longer going as well, and the economy, which was no longer growing as quickly as it used to, some people start to think that Putin might be somewhat vulnerable.

Not vulnerable enough to actually lose re election, but maybe they could put some checks on him. There's a Russian billionaire named Khodorkovsky, and he has this vision of a first world democratic open Russia. And his plan is to fund opposition parties in Russia's parliament. Which is called the Duma.

He figures that they can put a check on Putin and he can use them to help craft this open Russia that he's envisioning, envisioning. There was going to be a parliamentary election in 2003. So Putin wouldn't be up for your reelection, but there would be an election to see if his party would win in the Duma  and Khodorkovsky figures, this is his chance to make a splash.

So he's funding candidates and flying around, attending events and giving speeches. Well, that's not a good idea. It turns out Putin was not open to the idea of being challenged and having meaningful opposition. So he has Khodorkovsky jailed. And he seizes his business. The Russian people actually love this.

They don't get too caught up in the details. They just think, Hey, he's sticking it to the oligarchs, which they like. They didn't like these guys who had in their view. Gotten unfairly rich and we're now billionaires. So jailing Khodorkovsky actually bumps Putin's popularity before the parliamentary election.

He doesn't want to leave anything to chance. So he also rigs the election and unsurprisingly his party wins handily. The writing is on the wall. Now, no one is the challenge Putin.  The election in 2004 for the presidency is another snooze fest. The opposition can barely find someone to run against Putin.

It's never going to be close, but again, Putin rigs it just to be sure, in some cases telling district officials exactly what the vote total is to be in their area. Now despite re election, everything isn't gravy in 2004. The economy is still just kind of fine, good, not great. And terrorist attacks are still going on.

And for Putin, things were about to get worse. In Russia, September 1st is the traditional first day of school. It's called Day of Knowledge, and it's sort of a holiday. Parents and grandparents join their children at the first day of school. Everyone dresses in nice clothes and students bring flowers or other gifts for their teachers.

Beslan is a majority Christian town in southern Russia, pretty close to Chechnya. On the morning of September 1st, 2004, the local school was full of new students and parents who had come with them.  The day started out as normal with teachers, students, and parents meeting and celebrating. And then at 9am, about 40 masked men suddenly ran onto the school grounds, firing AK 47s in the air and herded 800 people into the school gymnasium, which they wired with homemade bombs.

They made demands that Russian troops pull out of Chechnya and grant it complete independence.  Of course, that was never going to happen. The Russian military sets up a perimeter around the school, and for three days they besieged the school while they tried to negotiate with the terrorists. These terrorists were not messing around.

On the first day, they started killing people one by one, and throwing their bodies out of the gymnasium. And for these three days, the negotiations are really tense.  The Russian military would intermittently hear gunfire and explosions go off inside the gymnasium, but not wanting to make the situation worse, they weren't moving, and the negotiations aren't really going anywhere.

And then finally, on the third day,  It's hard to know exactly what happened. The official count is this. Unexpectedly and out of nowhere, there were two massive explosions inside the gymnasium. Hostages started trying to escape through the holes in the walls created by these explosions, and then the terrorists started firing at the escaping hostages.

Government forces returned fire, and it devolved into a 10 hour gunfight. When the smoke cleared,  334 hostages were dead. 186 of them children.  10 Russian commandos were also killed. 30 terrorists were dead, but it was believed that some of them had escaped. I said that was the official account of what happened.

This is disputed by some first hand witnesses who say that Russian soldiers actually fired first. It's impossible to know exactly what went down, but in any case, it was a debacle by the Russian government, and it appeared to be a political disaster for Putin. So what would you do in a moment like this?

I mean, imagine this could be your lowest point as a leader. If you were the president of Russia.  It's like, if you combine the governmental ineptitude of Katrina with the consequences of a miniature nine 11,  do you apologize for the loss of so many Russian citizens? And just hope that the political hit you take isn't too severe.

Would you hunker down and just wait it out? Well, Putin actually manages to turn the situation into an advantage. He flies down to Beslan. He gives a speech televised to the whole country. In it, he doesn't apologize or accept responsibility. He just reflects on the nature of Russia as a whole. I'll quote part of what he says, quote,  there have been many tragic pages and difficult trials in the history of Russia.

Today we are living in conditions formed after the disintegration of a huge, great country.  The country which unfortunately turned out to be non viable in the conditions of a rapidly changing world.  Today, however, despite all difficulties, we managed to preserve the nucleus of that giant, the Soviet Union.

We called the new country the Russian Federation.  We all expected changes for the better, but found ourselves absolutely unprepared for much that changed in our lives. The question is why? We live in conditions of a transitional economy and a political system that do not correspond to the development of society.

We live in conditions of aggravated internal conflicts and ethnic conflicts that before were harshly suppressed by the governing ideology. We stopped paying due attention to issues of defense and security. We allowed corruption to affect the judiciary and law enforcement systems. In addition to that, our country, which once had one of the mightiest systems of protecting its borders, suddenly found itself unprotected.

We demonstrated weakness. And the weak are beaten. So now Putin has reframed the whole situation. He's basically saying, Hey, this kind of crap didn't happen when we were young and Russia was strong. If Russia is strong again, we won't have to deal with this anymore. And I'm going to make us strong again.

People accept this. And rather than the Beslan debacle dragging him down, Putin's popularity once again goes up. So you might be wondering, okay, well then, what are these reforms that are going to strengthen Russia? Is he going to beef up the military, improve intelligence services?  The solution was to remove the last semblances of representative democracy in Russia.

Ten days after the Beslan siege, Putin abolished elections for governors and mayors. He would now be appointing all of them. And he also changed the composition of the parliament in such a way that it would be easier for him to control going forward. 2004 marked the end of democratic rule in Russia and the beginning of Putin's complete control.

However, we still haven't reached the peak of Putin's power and influence. While there were no longer major media outlets that dared to be too critical of him, there were still individuals who could investigate, report, and become whistleblowers, usually doing so to non Russian media. That changed on October 7th, 2006.

When Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist who had been highly critical of Putin, was shot dead in her apartment building. About six weeks later, Aleksandr Litvinenko, a Russian emigre to London who was friends with Anna, died of a mysterious illness. An investigation soon thereafter revealed that he had been poisoned with a rare and very deadly radioactive isotope.

Litvinenko had fled from Russia in 2000 after attempting to expose corruption in the FSB. Over the years, he had accused Putin of corruption, funding terrorism, and, most recently, of authorizing the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.  These were not the only mysterious deaths with a link to Putin, not even close.

However, these murders are when people start to piece together that Putin might be behind them. He vigorously denied any involvement, as you might expect, arguing that the charges that he conspired to have them murdered caused him more headaches than either of them had caused him in life. He's saying, I have no incentive to murder these people.

They weren't causing me any real problems. In fact, they're causing me more problems now that they're dead, because people think I did it.  I don't think that that's a very compelling argument. The fact is, Putin did have something to gain from their assassinations. Taking control of television stations only gets you so far in terms of controlling the national conversation.

Yes, maybe the deaths did cause him some short term problems. But they also created an environment where individuals are afraid to speak out against Putin for fear of what might happen to them. It made his control over the national conversation in Russia complete. While Putin's grip on information in Russia was reaching new heights, his official political control was about to end.

In Russia's constitution, presidents were limited to two terms, and so he wouldn't be able to run again in 2008. He had to pick a successor.  The successor he ended up choosing was a very mild mannered bureaucrat and confidant by the name of Dmitry Medvedev. He had been serving as the first deputy prime minister.

He was in his early forties, a committed Democrat who enjoyed American music and a pretty gentle and open guy. So at the party convention, Putin announces that Medvedev will take over as president in 2008.  I mean, okay, technically he was just announcing that he would be the party nominee for president.

But at this point, everyone knows what that means. So Medvedev gets up and surprises everyone by saying that for continuity's sake, he is nominating Vladimir Putin as prime minister.  There are some mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Medvedev legitimately seemed like a new kind of leader. One that could usher in real progress in Russia in terms of ending corruption, allowing a free and open press, and extending friendly relations to the West.

So it seemed like Putin might lose his grip, lose power. On the other hand, with Putin taking the second most powerful position in the country, and watching Medvedev's every move, maybe nothing would really change. And people were anxious to see.  Well, Medvedev is elected president in 2008 and Putin becomes prime minister.

And early on, it seems like there's a glimmer of hope that Medvedev might be truly independent of Putin and be able to act on his own,  but then those hopes were squashed in just a matter of months. The turning point occurred in summer of 2008, when the country of Georgia commenced an attack on the region of South Ossetia.

South Ossetia is a region of Georgia. So this is the Georgian military. invading another region of Georgia, kind of like the Russians going into Chechnya.  The big difference is South Ossetia is a province that is mostly ethnically Russian and had sought to distance itself from Georgia and to strengthen ties with Russia.

So the Georgian government feels, hey, we're losing control of this region. They might be trying to actually leave and join Russia, so they send in the military. Well, when Georgia finally does attack, the Russian commander near the area calls Medvedev and says what do you want me to do? After all, Medvedev is the president and what does Medvedev do when he gets this call?

He calls Putin.  Putin was at the Beijing Olympics at the time and couldn't be reached. And Medvedev just keeps trying to reach him. And finally, after four hours, he can't get a hold of Putin, so he's got to make a decision. And so he says, uh, yeah, go ahead. Send the troops into Georgia, into South Ossetia.

Well, when Putin finally finds out about this, he's enraged by Medvedev's indecisiveness and lack of resolve.  Putin was the first one to actually make a statement, which he made in China at the Olympics, stating that Russia would respond with force. He claimed that Russian citizens who were living in Georgia needed to be protected.

And so, they do. The Russian military responds with force. They send in more troops and invade and control South Ossetia. Obviously, Russia doesn't have a lot of trouble with the Georgian military, so they easily push out the Georgian troops and seize control. And to this day, South Ossetia is a semi autonomous region that Georgia claims is still theirs, but Russia actually governs, as is another province, uh, where the same thing was happening called Abkhazia.

After that, Putin publicly maintained the charade that Medvedev was the commander in chief, at least somewhat, but privately, he ridiculed him, and he took full control of the country.  At that point, Putin decided that handing over power was basically a failed experiment. So he orchestrated the writing of a change to the constitution that would extend presidential terms to six years and allow him to serve for more terms in office.

So in 2012, Putin returned to the presidency. And he's been serving in that capacity ever since. And in all likelihood, he's going to win reelection for a fourth term that will keep him serving until 2024.  And so that's basically it. That's the end of the road in terms of Putin's political control in Russia.

It's likely that he will never give up control until he's extremely old and frail, or possibly until he dies. Some protests have bubbled up from time to time, but nothing has, with any seriousness, challenged his rule, and it seems like nothing will, at least for the foreseeable future.  Now, before we get to the analysis portion of all this, you know, his tactics, habits, and strategies, let's take a look at two other things.

His personal wealth, and how he's been able to shape international events.  Putin uses knowledge asymmetry. He's a spy at heart. He gets as much information as he can, and at the same time, he's as secretive as possible about his own life.  I bring this up because when it comes to Putin's personal assets, no one really has any idea.

Some say he's the richest man in Europe with over $40 billion. I've seen some say he's the richest man in the world with over a hundred billion dollars. In 2012, an official documentation, Putin claimed his own income at about $113,000. Uh, I've seen estimates of 2 billion and a few hundred million. The truth is  no one knows.

And also the truth is it doesn't matter. And why not? Well, let me give you an example. Putin has constructed a massive residence on the black sea. It's beautiful. It looks like a Royal palace that could have been built 300 years ago, except presumably, you know, with wifi and such. It's a massive complex.

It's got a theater, a church, swimming pools, heliports, parks, apartments for his bodyguards and staff and more. We can see it all with satellite photos and the estimated cost to construct it Was a billion dollars.  So Putin must have at least a billion dollars if he built himself a billion dollar home, right?

Well, no. Technically, he didn't build it, and technically he doesn't own it. It's owned by an oligarch, a billionaire, who is very close to Putin and depends on him for his fortune.  Some of the construction was funded with government funds, and yet by all accounts it is Putin's private residence, one of 20 that he owns.

But he doesn't need to technically own it on paper in order for it to be his.  I think it's likely that Putin's official net worth, if you were able to see it, might be quite low. It's possibly less than a billion dollars. But he doesn't need the money. He basically owns the Russian government. And he's surrounded by billionaire oligarchs who have to do his bidding or risk having their fortunes seized from them, and worse.

Because of his power, Putin basically has as much money as he wants.  Ironically, there's some truth to what Putin said when someone asked him if the reports about his wealth are true. He said, quote,

I believe that is my greatest wealth.  To which you can only respond, Uh, yeah, sure, something like that.  I should mention that in terms of building up this wealth among his friends, that he can now access whenever he wants, he went the slow and secret route. From what people have been able to turn up in official documentation, which is not much, it appears he has been siphoning money off for himself and his friends and associates.

since his days in St. Petersburg.  But rather than starting with a splash and getting a lot of money early, it's been little by little. And it took a while for people to notice, but now there are billions of dollars at his access. Now, in terms of international relations, Putin has improved markedly over time.

In 2004 and 2005, he attempted an intervention in Ukraine in order to install a president there. who would be loyal to Russia, and it backfired terribly. Since then, Putin has done a number of things remarkably well and learned from that experience. The first is to take advantage of international dissatisfaction with the USA's hegemonic place in the international order.

Early in his rule, Putin had a complex relationship with the United States. Uh, he would sometimes seek closer ties and more stable relations with the U. S. And in the wake of September 11th, 2001, he did his best to actually open a friendly hand to the U. S. That changed when president Bush failed to listen to his objections and built anti missile bases in the Czech Republic and Poland, and also when he invaded Iraq.

That animosity has only solidified over the years. As Putin has realized that many countries are dissatisfied with the USA. And intimidated and frightened by the fact that no one can really do anything to stop the U. S. So Putin has set himself up as the U. S. A. 's main opponent. And that has given him a lot of clout.

It's made him really popular both at home and in many places abroad. Obviously not the U. S., but many other places that are dissatisfied with the U. S. now have a very favorable opinion of Vladimir Putin and of Russia. And that gives him better leverage to work with them. The high watermark for Putin's international influence came in Syria in 2011.

Syria is an old ally of Russia's. In 2011, a civil war broke out in Syria. A coalition of rebels, some of them moderate and some of them extreme, including ISIS, was fighting against the Syrian government and sometimes against each other.  The U. S. was covertly supporting the rebels. And Putin decided to strongly support Assad and which was the government that was in charge in Syria.

He not only funded and provided arms to the Syrian government, but he embedded troops with the Syrian troops. And this put the U S in a very difficult situation. If we want to help the rebels by bombing the Syrian government forces. Well, we'd have to watch out because what if we accidentally bomb Russian troops who are with them?

Are we willing to start World War 3 over Syria? So this limited the US involvement and it was effective, you know, the USA was trying to support these rebels, but they failed.  Assad, the guy that that Putin was supporting, Uh, is still in charge today and it's looking like the tides of the civil war has turned and he will continue to lead Syria.

So when people call Vladimir Putin the most powerful man in the world, and more than a few have, this is in part what they are talking about. If he was able to defeat the U. S. in a proxy war and keep his favored regime in charge there, then who could credibly claim to be more powerful than that? Well that's where I'm going to end my narrative and go into analysis.

As in every episode, there are a number of things I haven't covered. Like Russia's seizure of Crimea, Edward Snowden taking refuge in Moscow, the Russian cyber attack on Estonia, the Sochi Olympics, his divorce from his wife, his embrace of religious orthodoxy, and more. But as you know by now, this isn't meant to be a complete summary of Putin's life, but rather an evaluation of what made him great.

Last episode, I talked about a number of elements of his greatness, like focus and more general strategies and work habits. I won't go over those again, but The main thing I want to touch upon this time is his communication strategy. Most people have the wrong model for how you persuade people. The traditional model is basically this.

People look at the world and try to figure out what's true. When they think something is true, because of the evidence, they believe it. I don't think this is Putin's model. His model basically goes like this. If people want to believe something, And they're able to believe something, then they will believe it.

And this definitely isn't exclusive to Vladimir Putin. You see many of the world's great persuaders using this type of model. With this method, you should spend less time convincing people of what is true, and more time getting them to want to believe you. Using this strategy has allowed Putin to get away with a lot.

Has he had journalists murdered? But most people in Russia don't care. Why? Because they don't want to believe it. They believe that Putin is on their side. That he stands for resurgent and strong Russia. So he doesn't need to convince them that the evidence is there. That he didn't murder these people. He just needs to give them the ability to believe he didn't have those journalists murdered.

Okay?  People don't need to actually believe something is true. They need the ability to believe it and the desire to believe it. Putin has used this a number of times. For example, when he said he was arresting media moguls and seizing their television stations because of tax evasion and fraud. Or how he has maintained that he is democratically elected despite clear evidence of election rigging since 2004.

Or his claims that all of these journalists who investigate him who have ended up dead, he had nothing to do with it and bears no responsibility. The next obvious question is, well then, why do the Russian people want to believe him?  As I have said, you have to want to believe someone and be able to believe them.

So why do they want to believe him? And the ability to get people to want to believe you, Is more of an art than a science, but there are a few keys to how Putin has done it  The first is to project power We've already talked a little bit about this But he seems powerful and people have an innate desire to follow that and so they do The second is that he inspires pride.

Putin has made people proud to be russian again I think of the way steve jobs inspired pride by creating a lifestyle brand If you had a mac you were someone who thought different and appreciated aesthetic beauty You So you need to inspire pride. I'm sure my Android user listeners will be happy that I just compared Vladimir Putin to Steve jobs.

A third element of it is be a trusted advocate. People will want to believe you if they believe you have their best interests at heart and will do everything in your power to fight for those interests.  Putin's pitch to the Russian people has never been, I will do the right thing, the moral thing. It's always been, I will do what is best for you.

So three things to get people to want to believe you project power, inspire pride, and be a trusted advocate. After that. You just have to give them the ability to believe you in your story and they will.  Okay. Well, that's basically it. I know this story doesn't have a great ending and that's because, um,  Putin's still alive and he's still working and there's more of this story to be told and we'll see how it plays out.

Um, just to close up one last story. I want to tell a story about Vladimir Putin's father. Remember his father grew up in St. Petersburg, relatively poor, and he lived that way basically his whole life.  He was just an average Russian man with little ambition. Yeah.  When his son became president for the first time, he was already old and frail and on his deathbed.

And as he lay close to death, he saw the news that his son had just become president. And with what were close to his last words, he said, My son is like a czar.  That does it for this week's episode. And by the way, that word that Putin's father used, czar. You know where that comes from?  The Russian word, czar, which is actually pronounced more like kazar in Russian, Means emperor and it was derived from the gothic Caesar, which was derived from the latin word Caesar  So the word czar is literally derived from the word for Caesar.

Isn't that fascinating? Isn't it amazing that a man who lived 2, 000 years ago? Julius Caesar his name still means emperor  if you haven't figured it out yet I'm trying to tease my next episode which is going to be about the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar  I hope you'll join me as we discuss his life until then You Thanks for listening.

‍

Hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. Today's episode is about Vladimir Putin. And it's a re-release of an episode I did about three years ago. And for future reference, I'm recording this in may of 2022. So Russia has recently invaded Ukraine. It's on a lot of people's minds right now. Um, and so that's, what's coloring this rerecording. That's why I wanted to do this.

I wanted to do it in part, because of a conversation that I had with a friend where we were talking about this and he said, isn't it crazy that all of this can happen this whole war, just because one person has gone completely insane.  And I said, do you think that's, what's actually happening here? Do you think that we have this war because one person went insane.

And he said, no. I mean, I guess I know that's not true. That's an oversimplification. And I see a lot of people saying and thinking this.  Uh, this war is happening because flatter and Putin is off his rocker and it's totally unexplainable.  And, um,  

And there's no accounting for it. And that's not true. It reminds me a little bit of.  

It reminds me a little bit of the week of September 11th, 2001, when the twin towers were bombed and sure. And George W. Bush delivered an address to Congress in which he said. Uh, the Al Qaeda hates us because of our freedom. And wants to kill all Christians and Jews. And that was a monumental misstatement of their motivations and their aims.  

And at the time, of course, who's going to contradict him. Who's going to say, you know, actually. The people who bombed us, who just blew up the twin towers. That's not actually what they want and what they're about. Right. Because no one wants to sound like they're on the side of Al-Qaeda. Well, similarly, I think you have the same thing going on here.

Which is no one wants to say, well, you know, actually Putin's not crazy. Um,  

And that's not.  

And I think you have the same thing going on here. And now in both cases, as you look at it,  Like, I'm not saying that we should have understood what Al-Qaeda wanted on September 11th, because we should have given it to them. Um,  Or because their concerns or their desires were legitimate.  But I just do, but I do think when it came to responding,

Uh, to what the United States chose to do in terms of subsequent wars, that our decisions probably would have been better and more effective if we had understood them more. And I think the same is true of. Putin and of Russia.  That understanding him and wanting to understand. What he, and what Russia wants to get out of this doesn't mean that we have to agree with them.

It doesn't mean that their concerns are legitimate, but it does mean we should have a better understanding than just pretending like, oh, he's crazy. He's off his rocker. I, because I don't think that's true at all. So I hope that this episode will help. Some people understand who Putin is a little bit better and a little bit more of his.

Uh, psychology, the things that motivate him and, um, And the other thing I'll say about it is that. Vladimir Putin is a very effective leader.  

Uh, doesn't mean he's a good leader. Doesn't mean he's a good guy, but he wields geopolitical power, probably unlike anyone else in the world right now, you know, he is much more in charge of the government of Russia. Than any us president has been in, I don't know, 80 years. Um,  

He's more in charge of Russia than any president or prime minister of any major country outside of China is of their country. And I think it is interesting. You know, I think it would be a good thing to have someone who is able to wield that sort of power and influence. Um,  

Who maybe has some better objectives, right? Who wants better things? Uh, who I agree with more. And, uh, so I don't think that we should.  

And so I think that if we can study Putin's life and understand how it is that he acquired power. And how he holds on to power and wields power. Um, that's a good thing for more people to understand, so that hopefully.  People who want better things for the world are able to, you know, acquire power.

Um, Maybe not in a similar way, but, um,  

Are able to be similarly effective, but with better goals and objectives than, than Vladimir Putin has.  

Now having said that, I mean, I'm kind of coloring in a negative way. Uh, kind of assuming that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy. Um, That's how I've been talking. Understandably so, but I will say this isn't a character assassination. I'm not going in to scare you and tell you that. Putin. I'm not.  I'm not going in in trying to show you every way in which he is evil and bad. I just don't find that interesting.

I find it interesting too. Walk in his shoes and try to understand him and.  Truly, um,  

And truly understand the full experience of his life. I think that's true of anyone. It's just more interesting and more helpful to look at their life that way. And that doesn't matter if it's mother Teresa or if it's Hitler, right. Um, I think we do ourselves a disservice. Whenever we just write off anyone.

Um, because even if it's someone that we've decided is our enemy and we want to fight, which is try and understand them.  

And Vladimir Putin has a very interesting story. If you go back.  You know,  

And the story of Latimer Putin is objectively speaking a fascinating story. One of the reasons that he's so interesting to me is.  

If you go back 25 years and look at the life of Vladimir Putin. He was a nobody.  He was.  An unemployed bureaucrat, um, was unremarkable in every way, even looked unremarkable, had an unremarkable career and unremarkable family. Five seven slightly balding.  And. There was no indication that this was someone that forget being a great actor on the world stage. Like this was someone who looked like for the rest of his life.

Might end up running like a seven 11 in St. Petersburg, Russia.  

I kid you not. And you'll see that as the story unfolds. That this is someone whose life could have gone in two completely different. Directions instead. You know, you look at that crossroads where he was unemployed and, and almost was, was.  

And was on the path to becoming a, nobody.  But things turned out a little bit different and instead. He is. The president of Russia has been the president of Russia. For more than 20 years. He exercises absolute control over the country. He's re-established Russia as a major geopolitical force to be reckoned with he's a multi-billionaire who some people think might be the richest man on the planet.

And so his life is extremely compelling. Because he was clearly not born great because it could have turned out so differently. And it's interesting to go through and think about how things could have turned out differently, how things.  How things could have been different.  

So let's get into it. Let's hear this very fascinating story. Um, but first a few notes on my sources. Uh, I'm pulling mainly from three books on this one is called the news are the rise and reign of Latimer Putin by Steven Lee Myers. Another is called the man without a face, the unlikely rise of Latimer Putin by Masha Gessen, which I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but, um, there's an interesting viewpoint. And then another one is Putin's people by Catherine Belton.  

And, um,  

And if I had to recommend one of those books, You know, people often ask me which biography I'd recommend. I'd probably say the Steven Lee Myers, a book. The news are the rise and reign of Bladimir Putin. Um, so.  

So I know that was a long preface, but obviously this is a touchy subject and, um, I don't want to get canceled and I do want to provide full.  I know that was a long introduction, but obviously this is very touchy right now for a lot of people. Understandably so, so I hope I set the proper context for why I wanted to study Vladimir Putin in the first place and why I think it's timely to redo this episode now.

So let's get into it. But before we do a quick word from our sponsors,  

When you study the past, especially the recent past, like the 18 hundreds. One of the things that you find is the writing is just incredible. And not just from great writers, but from average people, you go and read letters from your average civil war soldier in the 1860s. And this guy's got like a third grade education and he was a better writer than your average novelist in 2022.  

So what explains this discrepancy? Why did a guy with.  So what explains this?  So what explains this discrepancy? Why did people with a third grade education? In 1860, right. So much better than people with a PhD in 2022. Well, one of the biggest differences is the way that they learn to write before the 20th century, the most common way of learning, how to write.

I was called copy work and copy work is just a fancy way of saying you copy the writing. I have the best writers of all time.  And you think about it. If you're learning to play the piano. Do you start out by composing your own pieces? No, that would be a very bizarre way to learn. You start out playing Bach and Mozart and Beethoven and all the great composers.

So the idea of copy work is that you're going to learn to write well by just copying great writers until their writing rubs off on you. And it seems really simple, but it works really well. And so that's why I'm proud to be partnering with my friend and mentor Sam Parr to create a copy work course. That's called copy that.

It helps you learn how to write sales copy by learning and copying some of the best writing of all time. It's a 10 day email course where you learn the basics of copy work learning to be a great writer is one of the most important facets of learning to be a great leader. It's one of the things that you see.

From Julius Caesar to Napoleon, to Steve jobs to the current day. It is a common attribute that these great leaders are great writers. So take your.  So take your writing skills to the next level. Go check it out, learn more and sign up at try. Copy that.com. And use code takeover to get $20 off. Again, that is, try, copy that.com and use code takeover for $20 off make today. The day you become a better writer. Go try. Copy that.com.  

Make the day, the day you become a better writer. Go to try. Copy that.com.  

Let's go back to the beginning.  

Let's start at the beginning. Vladimir Putin was born in 1952 in St. Petersburg at a time when the city had been absolutely devastated by world war II.  In order to understand Putin, you have to understand the city. He came up from.  

In order. In order to understand Putin, you have to understand the city that he was born and raised in. St. Petersburg was a really tough working class city after the war. And, um, one quick sidebar at the time that Putin was born and grew up, the city was known as Leningrad. That was the name given to it in 1924 by the communist government. But historically it had been known as St. Petersburg and after the Soviet union fell, it became known as St. Petersburg. Again.

And for convenience and clarity, I'll just call it St. Petersburg the whole time. Even though during Putin's lifetime, it was known as Leningrad up until 1991, but Putin grew up in a middle-class family, but the circumstances in the city were such that. Most people listening to this podcast would probably identify his upbringing as poor. Um, they lived in a communal apartment that they shared with two other families, Vladimir and his parents had just one room to themselves.

Um, and that living arrangement was very normal for the time. That was how people lived in St. Petersburg. Back in the fifties and sixties, and by the way, many people still live that way in Russia though, conditions have improved and are continuing to prove. And are continuing to improve. Uh, in, in that regard.

St Petersburg was a really gritty city. You know, it had been wealthy in the past, especially, you know, the late 18 hundreds. Um, but at this time it was, um,  Yeah, I think of it as like a rust belt city that has really fallen on hard times. And, um, it was a gritty city. Vladimir Putin was a greedy kid. He was something of a hooligan. He spent a lot of time on the streets. He got into fights quite often. He was always small. Even now he's only five seven, and has always been fairly thin.

And he was bullied a little bit as a kid. So he developed something of, of what I like to call it a Honeybadger syndrome. He didn't care. He'd fight anyone. If you insulted him in the slightest or made a threat flatten, your Putin was ready to throw down. And he was doing that as a way to compensate, you know, so that he wouldn't be bullied anymore because you knew that if you tried to insult or bully Vladimir Putin, you were going to have to see it through it.

You're going to have to fight him. So he got into lots of fights and made lots of trouble as a kid. Early in his life.  

And because of this early in his life, he was a poor student. He was viewed as decently bright, but he was uninterested in disorganized. One of his teachers complained to Putin's father, that little flat Amir wasn't living up to his potential. And I love his father's response because it sounds so Russian to me, his father replied quote, well, what can I do kill him?

Or what. Um, maybe I'll throw a rationale. I think he probably sounded more like this. Well, what can they do kill him or what. So you imagine your dad saying that too. Uh,  so can you imagine your dad saying that like a parent teacher conference, or do you want me to do kill him? Uh,  

So that's where Putin was as a child. Now, two things turned his life around from his hooliganism and turned him into a more disciplined person. The first was, he got involved in martial arts, specifically, judo Putin, absolutely loved martial arts, and he was pretty darn good at it. And again, this was a big turning point for him.

It introduced order and discipline into his life. He said that it quote.  

He said that quote, it was sports that dragged me off the streets.  

The other turning point was the release of a movie called the shield and the sword. It was based on a book of the same name and it was about a Soviet secret agent in world war II, who goes behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany. It was a huge hit. People went wild for it in Russia. And that included Vladimir Putin. He thought it was awesome and he was obsessed with it. And so when he saw it, Putin decided he wanted to be like the main character. So at age 16,

He walked into a KGB office. And for those who don't know, the KGB was basically the Russian equivalent of the CIA. It was their spy service, um, and Putin walks into a KGB.  And Putin walks into the KGB office in St. Petersburg and says, Hey, I want to be an agent. And obviously it doesn't work that way. You can't just go now into a CIA office and say, Hey, I want to be an agent. I'm a 16 year old kid. Where do I sign up?

And obviously it didn't work that way back then for the KGB. Um, but these KGB officers like this plucky kid, so an officer comes out and sits down with him for a few minutes and he tells Putin that they only recruit qualified candidates from universities and from the army. So Putin says, okay, well tell me this. If I go to university.

What would be the best thing to study for me to get into the KGB someday. And officer tells him he should study law.  

So Vladimir Putin had his goal. He wanted to be a secret agent for the KGB and he was going to do everything he could to realize that dream. You started taking German classes and preparing to attend university to study law.  His life flipped 180 degrees. He goes from being a disorganized disobedient and lazy student to becoming almost militantly disciplined.

He continues to obsess over martial arts, but now he dedicates almost all the rest of his time to studying for the university entrance exam.  Well, Uh, after years of studying, he pulls it off and gets into Leningrad state university. Which was one of the elite universities in Russia at the time, and like the rest of his early life and career, his time.  

And so after enrolling at Leningrad state university, Uh, he's a good student, but again, Um, a little bit unremarkable. He's a. He graduates in four years, like you're supposed to. Uh, the only somewhat remarkable thing about his time there is that in his fourth year, he's indeed recruited by the KGB to go work for them.

So.  

So he graduates from Leningrad state university and goes to work for the KGB as a low level spy to start out. He goes to officer training and emerges as a counter-intelligence first Lieutenant. Counter-intelligence meant he would not be going abroad, but rather staying in St. Petersburg.  His job was to cultivate relationships with normal people and get them to turn in their neighbors and associates who might be saying, or doing things that the Soviet union did not approve of, or might even potentially be secret spies for the capitalist west or, you know,

The, the gold standard, the thing that he.  

You know, the gold, the golden snitch, the thing that he most would like to find would be an American spy in St. Petersburg. Um, but unfortunately,  He didn't really have that opportunity because there isn't a ton of action. The Soviet union for one thing, had a tight grip on the country. There weren't a ton of people running around plotting revolution or spying for the U S.  

But even if there was, they were going to be in Moscow where the capital was and that's where, you know, all the state secrets, where that is, where anything to be learned.  That is where, you know, if you were a spy where you'd want to be, because that's where you could learn state secrets, um, nothing was happening in St. Petersburg. So in the nine years that Putin was in the KGB in St. Petersburg, there was not one single spy cot.

So at this point, Putin is doing some pretty boring stuff. He's making reports, he's cultivating relationships, and generally just making sure everyone stays in line. He would probably like to see more action. Uh, if he could. But.  

He would probably like to see more action if he could, but at the same time, he's not complaining. He's a company, man. He's very loyal to the KGB. Um, he's not exactly getting to live his dream. He wanted to go abroad just like his childhood idol from the sword and shield, but he's a very loyal guy who believes in order and following the rules. So he plugs along like that for nine years.

Nine years in this totally unremarkable role in St. Petersburg.  There might have.  

And, you know, this is another thing that makes this story kind of unique to me amongst the people I've studied. You know, there are no periods of nine years for Julius Caesar where he's spinning his wheels and nothing is happening. Um, there's no nine years for Napoleon where he just.  Is a mid-level bureaucrat somewhere. And I think it tells you something about Putin. You know, people who want to say he's an evil genius.

Um, he's not a genius. I'll say that much. You know, um, maybe he's a evil mediocre guy, but like, he's just not that smart. Um, he's not dumb. I don't want to give that impression, but this is someone who was happy, toiling away.  In the minds, uh,  This is someone who was happy, toiling away in bureaucratic minds, filing paperwork for nine years in St. Petersburg.

Um, there might've been a personal side to why he wasn't sent to an international post. The Soviet union. Didn't like to send unmarried agents abroad because it was thought that they could be seduced and then flipped into double agents or blackmailed. That was actually a huge thing. Soviet union did.

To people in the west is they would hire prostitutes to get them to sleep with people and then secretly film it and then blackmail them and get them to work for the Soviet union with blackmail. So.  They were afraid that America would do the same thing to their agents. And I think we certainly did try to do that. So it was a liability to have unmarried agents in the field because they could be seduced this way.

You know, at this point, Putin was still in married, he's 30 and for Russia at the time, this was very late in life to be unmarried. So that may have been holding him back.  Well, at the age of 30, he finally does get married. And just a year later, he was promoted to major and spent and sent to the school of foreign intelligence in Moscow.

It's basically a bootcamp for foreign spies, and this looks like it's going to be his big break. He's going to get to live his secret agent dream. Finally at last.  

You know, flat, if it was so important to you, he couldn't have got married a couple of years earlier, but I guess he was waiting for his, uh, for his true love. I. I mean, it's, it's, it's a romantic story. Really. That's why I wanted to tell it. Um, so, uh,  

Uh, but I'm, I'm, I'm getting obviously, but, um, so at age 30, you know, it seems like this is break. All right. I gotta go to the west. I gotta go undercover. I gotta be a spy. Well, while he's studying at his bootcamp, he comes home to St. Petersburg during a break, and he gets in a stupid fight with some guys on the Metro.  

That's the kind of fight that he was always getting into as a kid. And in this fight, he breaks his arm. The fact that he got into a fight, probably altered his trajectory at the KGB. As one of his friends later said, quote, he has a fault, which is objective really bad for the special services. He takes risks.

One should be more cautious. And he is not.  It's funny because in most ways, He's very calculated, consistent and disciplined. But he kept getting into fights. And it's because these little insults would really get to him. Um, and that's a thing that he shares funnily enough, with Napoleon. Uh, it reminds me of a quote that Napoleon said, he said, quote, the French people need to support me with my flaws. If they find in me some advantages.

My flaw is being unable to bear insults.  And that is very much. Um, Putin's law as well. Totally unable to bear personal insults. So, you know, he gets insulted on the Metro. He gets in a fight with these guys. He breaks his arm. And he has to come back to bootcamp and they say, why did you break your arm? I got in a fight in the Metro and they start saying, okay, well, is this the guy we can really trust if he's getting into, um, you know, into random fights on the street?

So Putin had been hoping to go to the capitalist west with his German skills and be behind enemy lines, a foreign spy. So I mean, going to Switzerland, Austria, or west Germany. Uh, remember at the time Germany was divided into west Germany, which was free and capitalist and east Germany, which was communist.

Well,  Um, that kind of goes out the window with this fight. So instead he sent to east Germany to the city of Dresden. This is not a prestigious post it's a side show. Dresden didn't matter. No one was spying on Dresden. There was no important work to be done. He's essentially going there to be a paper pusher. So.  

This must have been incredibly disappointing for Putin to be sent here. But a common theme in his, in his career and his rise. He doesn't dwell on it. He doesn't complain. He puts his head down and worked hard. Ironically, while he's in Dresden, uh, at the KGB office there, he was valued as someone who was a solid and unambitious employee, someone who wasn't gunning for the top post, but just wanted to get the job done. A colleague described him as quote.

Uh, crystal clear person. Which is so funny, you know, now he's known as like,  The Uber spy. The most deceptive man in the world. And so it's funny to hear someone from this time, describe him as a crystal clear person.  Um, in the nearly five years, he was in Dresden. He climbed the ranks and eventually became one of the commanding officers at the small KGB office. There.  

Now, uh, he, he gets the top job. He's the Michael Scott, right? He is. One of the heads of this office, but it's this little. It's this little office in, in Nowheresville, but everything changed in.  But everything changed in 1989. Uh, again, this is four or five years that he, uh, that he was interested in.

And Putin was still in Dresden when the Berlin wall came down. It was the Berlin wall, was the wall in Berlin that separated. The communist half of the city from the capitalist half of the city. And so when it came down, it was a sign that the Soviet union was breaking apart. And losing its grip on east Germany.  

In Dresden, shortly thereafter, people took to the streets to celebrate and to protest. Um, they were ready. You know, oh, the Berlin wall is coming down. Communism is ending. And, uh, so east, east Germany was ready to become free and independent.  

And east Germany.  

You know, communism is coming down. And east Germany. Had been under the thumb of the Soviet union. It was a satellite state. It was not really independent. It was completely controlled by the Soviets. And I'm in.  

Completely controlled by the Soviets. And so these protesters, these people who are out there celebrating, protesting, The thing that they're protesting is okay. Well, if the Berlin wall is coming down and things are headed in this direction, We're ready for communism to be over. We're ready for the KGB and the Soviet government to get out of east Germany.  

Um,  And so the first thing they do is go to the offices. And so the first thing that these protesters do is go to the offices of the Staci. And in east Germany, there was a German security and intelligence apparatus, parallel to the KGB called the Staci. Okay. So these are just the east German KGB.

And they go to these offices.  Like, like really. In fact, the two were not that separate. Um, the two worked hand in hand. And the Staci had their offices in Dresden, just down the street from the KGB offices.  And as people are on the streets, celebrating and protesting. They, uh, one of the first things they do is protest outside the Stasi offices because you know, these are the people who have been oppressing them, uh, under Soviet control and.  

And eventually the protestors start getting more Rawkus and eventually they break into the Staci offices and ransack the place and they start taking out government documents and. Um, Just just completely ransack these offices. Now, again, this is a spy service, so.  Pulling out these documents like you're stealing.

Spy secrets. This is a big deal. And Putin sees this and figures. Well, you know, they're basically an extension of us. And our offices are like literally down the street. We're just a couple doors down. So our offices are next. They're coming for the KGB and he's right. The crowd starts moving down the street towards the offices of the KGB.

And Putin really doesn't want this to happen. They have top secret confidential files that would be compromising if found in distributed. Very compromising very bad. You know, I said that Dresden was a backwater where nothing happened and that was true. Nothing happened in Dresden really in terms of spycraft, but.

It was also a place where foreign agents would come to lay low after missions. That included assassins and terrorists. And that was a big thing during the cold war is that there were, um, you might've heard of Carlos Jackal. Um, but there were a lot of them, there were.  Communist assassins who would kill various people who, who they want to kill the in the west.

And so a lot of what Putin was probably doing during this time was debriefing some of these assassins who were taking out people in west Germany. And then, you know, once you assassinate someone you don't want to hang around. So they would get out of Dodge. They would come to east Germany, they would come to Dresden.

And they would meet with Putin who would take the Intel report. Okay. What happened? Did you kill the person? How did you do it? Tell me everything. And then he would get them set up in discrete apartments in Dresden where they could lay low and not be noticed. So even though there wasn't a lot of actual spycraft happening in dressing, you know, most of the time these people were assassinating people in Berlin.

Still.  The state secrets that were held in Dresden. Are really important because they have all the Intel of these assassinations and these terrorist attacks that the Soviet union was doing elsewhere in the world. So.  You know, Putin knows. Okay, I'm the head of this office. They're going to try and ransack it and take these documents. They'd be very compromising to the Soviet union.  

If I'm doing anything here, I cannot let this happen. And, um,  I can not let this office get ransacked. It will be disastrous for the Soviet union.  And obviously disastrous for his career as well.  So as more and more protesters continue to gather and they grow, wrote more and more Rawkus and start to get a little violent. He calls it the Soviet military base in Dresden and says, Hey.

Can we get some backup over here? And their reply is well, we can't use force without authorization from Moscow. So he says, well, call it in, ask for authorization.  So he waits, they say, okay, we'll call and Putin calls them back in a few minutes and says, what did you hear from Moscow? Uh, did they authorize you to use force?  

And the.  The military.  And the military officer who he's talking to. Says Moscow is silent.  And the officer who he's talking to says, I didn't hear back from him. I didn't hear anything. He says, quote, Moscow is silent.  And, um, this sentence, this phrase, Moscow is silent.  This phrase, Moscow was silent.

Really haunted Putin. For, um, probably still handsome and you know, he, um, well, here's what he said about it. I had the feeling then. The country was no more. That it had disappeared. It became clear that union was ailing. It was a deadly incurable disease called paralysis. Uh, paralysis of power.  

And I think that that's interesting to keep in mind. Is that this is something that he was reacting to for the rest of his career. He never wanted to experience again, this paralysis of power. And so maybe you can already make the.  So maybe you can already connect the dots in your head of how that might connect.

To what's going on today. But he was committed to doing all he could to ensure that Russia was never paralyzed or powerless. Again. So.  Uh, sorry, flashback. The crowd is heating up, getting more animated outside the KGB headquarters.  

Um,  Moscow is silent. He's got no backup. Putin is in very real danger at this point. The crowd is very obviously upset. They're vengeful. Um,  Things hadn't turned violent yet, but it was very possible that they could. And that not only would they ransack the office, but at this point, the KGB officers there have to be worrying about their own personal safety as well.  

So, what do you do? They don't have heavy arms. They're not a military installation. If you are a Vladimir Putin and you're seeing this and there are thousands of people out there and there's like eight of you in your office. Um, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I don't think that there were more than 30 people there. Okay.  

And they might have handguns, but that's it. So, what do you do?  Well, here's what he does steal.  He walks out of the building slowly and deliberately. He addresses the people at the head of the crowd. He doesn't shout, he speaks quietly and he says, quote, This house is strictly guarded. My soldiers have weapons and I gave them orders. If anyone enters the compound, they are to open fire.  

And he turns around and calmly walks back inside. That's it.  And now none of this is true. Um, that is basically unguarded. He doesn't have anyone with guns trained on them. They don't have heavy weaponry. But.  You know, the protesters don't know that and the bluff works. The crowd thinks better of it and they disperse and go elsewhere.

It is a brilliant.  

You know, I said before, he's not an evil genius. He's certainly not a genius. But this is a pretty brilliant bluff and it paid off it's really, I would say the first flash of greatness in Putin's life. And be clear, it's nothing more than a quick flash, but it is something.  The story doesn't get widely told initially.

Um, it doesn't make him famous within the KGB. The whole incident is lost in the bureaucratic shuffle back in Moscow. Because. You know, they got other stuff to worry about. They got bigger fish to fry. The Soviet union is crumbling and is about to collapse.  And, um,  

And so actually after this incident, the KGB offices and Dresden aren't around much longer. They close up, shop, destroy their documents, and then everyone packs up and heads back to Russia. When Putin gets back, it's a very tough employment environment for former KGB officers. The Soviet union is collapsing.

There's not a lot of money to go around. And so tons of KGB agents who had had foreign assignments are coming back home and looking for new jobs in the KGB. And, uh, there's way more agents than there are jobs and Putin. Isn't exactly high on the totem pole. So there is no job ready and waiting for him. So he's looking for any job that he can get.  

And so it's 1991. He ends up back in St. Petersburg. And the job that he does take is a position at the university there. He spying on students and recruiting new KGB agents.  And this is a total dead end job. Um, but who cares? The Soviet union is dissolving anyway. He's just happy to get paid. Um,  

He's just happy to get paid. He's just happy to have a paycheck.  But he's not at this job for very long. Um, this is a time of rapid trans.  This is a time of rapid transition for Russia. Everything is changing and in St. Petersburg, they're starting to have elections for the first time in the modern.  

Everything is changing. And in St. Petersburg, they're starting to have elections for the first time in modern history. The newly elected mayor is a guy by the name of Anatoly soap check. He's a reformer who talks a good game on democratic. And free market reforms.  But he also recognized the need to utilize the old state apparatus to govern one problem with a lot of revolutions is you throw out the old guys and put a new guys.

But now you don't have anyone who knows how to keep the lights on and trains running and the sewers flowing and all the stuff that needs to be done on a day-to-day basis. And so some Jack wants to avoid that problem. So he is hoping to have, so even though he's trying to reform St. Petersburg, he also wants to bring in some of the old KGB guys, uh, in order to help.

Run things help get things done. And one of the first KGB guys, he hires his Latimer Putin, who he, who he wants to act as a liaison between him and the KGB among other duties. His official position is advisor on international affairs.  And, um, so he does that for a year and he does well the next year he gets promoted to head of the committee for external relations.  

And I say this, um, there are some different perspectives on this. Um, Some people think that soap Jack wanted Putin. Uh, in order to act as a liaison with the KGB, others, think the KGB came to soak Jack and basically forced Putin on him. And, um, basically said, Hey, you know, we're putting someone in your administration to keep an eye on you to make sure you stay in line and he's going to be here, whether you like it or not.  

I, um, I don't find that particularly compelling because Putin does. Rise and gets promoted by subject. Which to me says that. At least on some level, he wanted him there and enjoyed his presence and found him to be a helpful employee. Um, but there is a sort of this relationship that Putin is working for him as a liaison and go between, between soak Jack and this new administration and the KGB.

Please also kind of keeping an eye on, on soap Jack as well for the KGB.  

And like I said, he starts off as a relatively unimportant part of the administration. In fact, when subject writes his memoir of this period of his life, He didn't even include a single word about Vladimir Putin. Uh, that's how important. That's how unimportant he was. And he had no inkling that this junior level.

Administrator. In the mayor's office of the second, most important city in Russia.  Could possibly rise to be the president, you know, that was not in his mind at all. Um,  

You know, Putin.  Like.  You know,  

Uh, this, this would be like, you know,  

What is a America's second city like Chicago is Chicago. So, um, I don't know who who's fourth in line to be mayor of Chicago. Right? I don't know. You don't know. That's who Putin was at this time.  Um, which is amazing because we're only a few years away from him becoming president.  

So, how does he get from. From here to there. Well, Um, by all accounts, Putin was promoted because he was a hard worker and very efficient at getting things done. Uh, he was a tireless worker. The dude was a machine. Uh, it was like, he didn't care about anything else. He just, boom, boom, boom, boom. He had all the KGB connections.

And he was relentless and he got stuff done.  

You know, the other reason that he was valued by soap Jack is that he wasn't ambitious. He seemed like a loyal, humble, quiet guy who kept his head down. You didn't have to worry about him.  You know, stealing the show and trying to steal the limelight. Uh, no, everything that Putin did. He let you take the credit for.

So he starts rising within the administration. And three years later in 1994, Putin becomes the deputy mayor the second in command to subject himself.  

But as Putin rises. He becomes a little bit of a public relations problem. Why? Well, Now we're a few years on the KGB has gone. Uh, has has been.  Replaced by, um, uh,  Has been replaced by an organization called the FSB. And the reason that it got replaced is because. Um, the Soviet union had completely compliant.

The Soviet union had completely collapsed. This was now the Russian Federation and, um,  

And it was transitioning to becoming a democratic country. And so people hated the KGB. You know, this was the spy service that internally had been spying on. People had been jailing, them had been torturing and killing people, you know, secret police who would just abduct people in the middle of the night, you know, like.

Uh, you'd had, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 years of this. And so KGB was not something you wanted to be associated with. So it was embarrassing for soap Jack, but his second in command is a former KGB officer.  

So they realize, all right, well, we need to address this and.  The decision is made, that Putin is going to go on television. And do an interview.  And, um, it is a very interesting interview. Uh, I would call it his second real flash of brilliance. Because when he's asked about his KGB past, he doesn't apologize.

He says that he was in foreign intelligence, not in domestic repression, which is not entirely true by the way, but that's what he says. And he says, uh, that the KGB became a monster that no longer carried out the tasks for which it was created.  And the interviewer is like, kind of taken aback by this and asks, so you don't repent of your past.

And he says, no, I don't repent. I repent of crimes. I did not commit any crimes.  He goes on to say that far from disqualifying him from public service. His background in government would be a benefit as he served the people of St. Petersburg, because he knew how to get things done. So it's bold, even brazen, but it's really effective. Um, it really plays well with the public and they basically accept.

They basically accept this. They, uh, they say, okay. Yeah. Great. And, um, he's no longer a public relations problem for, so check. And I do think that's a major lesson that can be learned from him is you don't, don't try and hide or cover your weaknesses. That's kind of the.  The knee jerk, temptation or reaction.

Um, when, when people point out a flaw is to say, neural, that's not true, but the most powerful thing you do is flip it into a strength, acknowledge your weakness, but say, no, no, no. This is why it's not actually a weakness. You know, one of the most famous examples of this is Ronald Reagan when he ran for reelection against Walter Mondale was, uh, I think the oldest man at the time to ever have run for president.

Um, since then Donald Trump and Joe Biden have surpassed him. But, uh, at the time, he's the oldest man to ever run for president and their concerns about his age. And in one debate, he was asked about his age and whether there were any doubts in his mind that he would have the energy to be president at his advanced age.

And he responded quote. Not at all. And I want you to know that also I will not make.  

Not at all. And I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes. My opponent's youth. And inexperience.  And the response brought down the house, even his opponent at the debate was dying. Laughter it was brilliant. Not only was it funny because it shifted one of his big.  

Not only was it funny because it shifted one of his biggest weaknesses is age into a strength. Now it was.  Oh,  

It was brilliant. Not only was it funny, but it shifted one of his biggest weaknesses, his age into a strength. So he was acknowledging, yeah, I'm old, but you know what. That gives me wisdom and experience. And, um, it was a brilliant tactic and it's basically the same one that Putin is using here. It's not enough to deny and protect your weaknesses. It's much more effective to accept and acknowledge them.

And use them as strengths. Are you lazy? You can recast it as clever. You do a better job by working smart while others slave away to no effect. Do you have a temper recast it as passionate. Others might display emotion too. If they cared about the issue, as much as you do. So, um,  

So Putin has continued to do this, uh, into the.  So Putin has continued to do this to the current day. Uh, Putin's background as a KGB man who projects, strength and wants to preserve Russian power. Would end up being one of his greatest strengths. It's some pretty brilliant verbal jujitsu, but for now he is just scratching the surface of his ability to communicate in this way.  

One other thing about his working style at this time, he has an attribute that is similar to the other people I have covered on this podcast. He's insanely good. At compartmentalizing.  There is an incident where his wife gets in a car accident. And cracks three vertebrae and he comes to the hospital.  

There's an incident where his wife gets in a really bad car accident. And she goes to the hospital where she finds out that she has cracked three vertebrae in her back. And she's in a really bad condition. She's immobilized in the bed. Um, they're in a St. Petersburg hospital.  And Putin comes in. Uh, to check on her.  

And he is. In there. Checks on her looks, ask the doctor. Is she gonna live? Yes, she's going to live. Anything I can do nothing. You can do. Boom. And he's out. It's not that he doesn't care or doesn't love his wife. But once he figures out that she's not going to die. She's going to be taken care of. Um, and there's nothing he can do about it. Boom.

He compartmentalizes that section of his life and goes back to work and focuses on what he can control. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of both Napoleon and Steve jobs. Uh, it's probably a top three important attribute to greatness. This Mehta focus. Can you compartmentalize your mind and remove distractions? Can you set aside pressing issues? Because this just isn't the time to think about them.

And of course the most famous example of this is Napoleon, who said that his mind was like a giant dresser and that he could open and shut cupboards at will. And then when he wanted to sleep, he just shut all the cupboards. He was thinking about nothing and he was asleep. Um, and, and Putin has this ability.

Insanely well as well.  Um, well, Putin's boss.  

Well at this time, Putin's boss sub Jack was this rising star. He's the symbol of democracy and change in Russia. In some ways, he's the anti Putin. He's not great at getting things done. Um, but he's a very smooth talker and he's a great people person. He's a great politician. He's great at projecting this.

Idea of, of change, right? He's like, Um, the mid nineties, Obama of Russia.  He cut me. He quickly becomes the second most famous politician in Russia after the president himself. There's a ton of momentum and excitement around him because he's supposed to be this important reformer.  But the problem is he's actually more famous and more popular in the rest of Russia than he is in St. Petersburg where he's mayor, because in St. Petersburg, people can tell that.

Actually he's talking a big game. But he's actually super corrupt or at least the government around him, a super corrupt, because again, he's not good at getting things done. Uh, he's not good at figuring out even what's actually going on in his own government. So through frankly, negligence. His government had become.  

Really, really corrupt. And in 1996, sub Jack loses reelection. And, um,  

And in 1996. So Jack loses reelection.  As deputy mayor Putin is of course, somewhat involved in all this corruption. Um, but somehow.  

And in fact, there are a number of things that you can look back on. One of them, this famous thing is, um,  St Petersburg got short on food for awhile. And so there was this scheme to sell some of their commodities, like, um, I think it was oil and steel for, for food. Um, And Putin has put in charge of this. And what do you know? Uh, the oil and steel disappears, but not a lot of food shows up. Um, and.  

It's complicated. Putin was probably using the money to pay off some debts and not using a lot of it to enrich himself. But, you know, there was a lot of corruption in St. Petersburg at the time. And Vladimir Putin was certainly. Involved on a certain level. But at the same time,  He leaves the subject administration with this reputation specifically for not being corrupt. He's actually known as like a, a clear cut.

Guy, you can trust, um, uh, someone who's not corrupt. And, um,  

It's um,  It's hard to figure out, but I actually think it's just, it was partly true. Um, but it's only true in comparison to others, like yes, Putin is selling off state assets for money. But maybe he's taking a smaller cut than some other people who are really rapacious and maybe he's more straightforward and transparent about it. Just funny to be thing, which it's funny to think about being transparent about corruption.

Um, but honestly, like if you're trying to do business in St. Petersburg, that might matter. Okay, well you're a little bit corrupt, but you know, If you can just tell me how much I need to pay in, like what the cost of doing businesses is here. Uh, you know, I might appreciate that and consider you a crystal clear, clear cut guy. If you can tell me that.

So, you know, he did get this reputation for not being very corrupt. Um, But saying that you were one of the less corrupt Russian politicians in the nineties is a little bit like saying that you're one of the most virtuous prostitutes on the street. Uh, it's like winning the world's tallest dwarf competition. Um, yes.

He compared to the competition.  He was not all that corrupt. It's a very, very low bar that he was competing on.  

It was a very, very low bar that he was competing with.  When subject loses. This of course leaves Latimer Putin. Once again, without a job or any serious prospects.  

Hm.  

He doesn't really have anywhere to go. There's no natural path to follow. There's no natural path from St. Petersburg politics, which were pretty small time. To Moscow. Where everything was happening and where things actually mattered. So.  Um,  Putin thinks. All right. My time in government has done.

And at this point in his life, in the mid nineties, he strongly considers opening up a law practice or becoming a judo teacher. He is 43 years old. And you think if someone was going to accomplish something in their life, they were going to achieve true greatness. They would have already accomplished something by the time that they are 43 or at least be on track to doing something.

But here's Putin out of a job strongly considering. Becoming a judo teacher. And this is what I wrote. And this is what I was referencing before. It is amazing. I mean,  We are like five years away. From Putin being one of the.  10, most powerful people on planet earth. And.  

If things had gone. A certain way.  Um,  He, you could go to St. Petersburg today and find a judo gym. You know, I'll use a pretty good guy. I bet you, he woulda had a chain of judo gyms. I bet you, he would have had three or four. And would be making a hundred K a year. Like I'm sure Vladimir Putin would be doing fine if he had gone this route, but I that's what he was looking at. But instead.

What happens? Has he gets offered a small time job in Moscow, in the federal government. He is hired as the deputy chief of presidential property.  

He was hired as the deputy chief of the presidential property management department.  Why he was extended. This offer is a bit of a mystery since he wasn't particularly well-connected in Moscow.  But he still had a reputation as someone who wasn't corrupt, he was young and connected to soap Jack. It's likely the president at the time. Boris Yeltsin thought that Putin was a good compromise staffer to bring in.

Two of the main factions at the time where the Democrats and the hardliners.  

Two of the main factions at the time, were these reformers, the Democrats. And the hardliners and the hardliners were old KGB agents who wanted to maintain the old Soviet structure just without the communism.  And, uh, so they didn't like change. Uh, they wanted to maintain the power of the state, especially of the military and intelligence services.  

The reformers, the Democrats wanted to see Western style reforms, including a free press free elections and free markets. And Putin must have seemed like a great compromise. He had worked. For, so Jack, one of the most famous reformers in the country.  But also at the same time, he was an ex KGB agent who clearly had connections there as well.

So his unique.  

So his unique position of having a foot in each camp gets him into the administration, but not at a very high level. He's still a pretty junior level bureaucrat. He's.  

And so once again, you know, you can repeat it with me. Just like in Dresden, just like in St. Petersburg, he starts at a low level. But he consistently works hard. Keeps his head down. Doesn't take the credit. And starts getting promoted. Not a huge rising star, not a super fast rise, but year after year, he is moving just a little bit up.

And an finally.  

Until finally in 1998, he gets appointed to become head of the FSB. Uh, which is Russia's new intelligence organization. Um,  

Which, as I said is Russia's new intelligence organization. So this is like, His dream job, right? He had always wanted to be this big spy. And now he is the head of the Russian spy agency. Um, If you believe the story that Putin told, which I don't know that we should. Um, he said that he actually didn't want to accept this role. Um, he didn't like all the politics of it. He liked being a back office guy who could keep his head down and get things done. So when president Boris Yeltsin comes to him and says,

Um, I want you to be the head of the FSB. He's like, oh, let me think about it. I'm not sure.  

But Yeltsin. You know, according to the story, Yeltsin insists because the KGB. Um, because the FSB was badly in need of reform. And Yeltsin thinks that Putin is the only guy who can do it. Um,  You know, it needed reform because, you know, I mentioned that there were kind of these factions. Well,  You know,  

The KGB faction, but the old hardliners. Are in charge of the FSB. They're in charge of the intelligence service. And they're actively working against Yeltsin, who was a Democrat, who was a reformer. And so this guy's like, man,  I can't operate a government where half of my government is working against me. Uh, I need to get someone in here who can come in.

And reform it. And Yeltsin thought that Putin was the guy for the job was the only person who could do this.  

So Putin comes in with this mandate to root out the corruption. Route out these people who are openly opposing the president. And.  

And it turns out he was the right man for the job. He was a good guy to choose. He gets in there, he follows Yeltsin's orders. He fires a bunch of officers. Abolishes outdated departments and replaces them with new and needed one. He routes out the worst of the offenders in terms of corruption. And he's pretty good.

All this, because again, He's used to staying out of the fray. Uh, and he's used to, you know,  

People try and make all this noise and threatened him. And he's like, look guys, I don't care. This thing is going to get done. Okay. You can get on board. You're either on board or you're on board, but this is happening. And, um, it kind of works because like, everyone is like pretty obviously like, oh yeah, well,  

Putin's right. Why are we going to fascinate Putin for doing this? Like, he's just doing his job. Um,  

You know, He takes this attitude of like, look guys, this isn't a war of egos. I'm not trying to say I'm the man I'm not coming in here. And remaking the FSB in my image. I'm just following orders here, and this has got to happen. You're either onboard.  You're either onboard or you're not you're on the train or you're off the train. Okay. These reforms are happening. Are you on board or not? And more people than not get on board with the reforms. So.

He does a pretty bang up job of, uh,  uh, performing the FSB.  

And so of course, Doing this reform. Ingratiates him with Boris Yeltsin. Um,  

And Yeltsin starts looking at this guy thinking, okay, well, this is someone who.  Good. Good. You know, Play even an even larger role in my administration.  And.  

And so, um, there comes a time, a moment of crisis in the Yeltsin administration. There are some old regime hardliners who are very upset with Yeltsin. So there are rumors of a coup. A government overthrow. And Yeltsin needs someone to go on TV and calm people's nerves and discourage the plotters from turning these grumblings and plans.

Into an actual coup attempt. So he leans on Putin. Putin goes on TV and in his very straightforward on emotional, almost robotic manner. He gives a summary of the situation and says, quote, Those who violate the constitution and try to undermine Russia's state system by unconstitutional methods. With the use of force will run up against appropriate resistance. This is something you can be sure of.  

And, um, this has the effect of restoring confidence in the Yeltsin government and discouraging the plotters and Putin's cool-headed and able handling of the situation earns him some more points with Yeltsin. And the timing is very good for this to happen for, for Vladimir Putin.  

At this point, Yeltsin is nearing the end of his second term as president. And constitutionally, he couldn't run again.  And while he tried to be a pro market pro Western liberal reformer, he was also very, very corrupt. Um, he was selling off state assets left and right. And so he's looking for a successor who is loyal, who he can be sure will not charge him with corruption once he leaves office. The last thing he wants is to stop being president.

And end up in jail.  For, for all this corruption that was going on in his government.  

So he's looking around and he's thinking, okay. Who has proven that they are very loyal to me.  And has shown that they're capable administrator. And I think could, could do the job.  And.  Uh, who comes to mind, but Vladimir Putin. Um, this guy has been a capable administrator. He reformed the FSB and by handling this attempted coup he has proven that he is absolutely loyal to Yeltsin.

So he names Putin to be his prime minister. The second most important position in Russia.  

You know, this is highly visible. It gives Putin a chance to practice governing and getting in front of the Russian voters. So they would be familiar with him.  The point, disappointment not only installs him in a very important position, but in its own. Um,  

And so becoming prime minister not only is a very important position in its own. Right. But it also gives Putin. The inside track on running for president. In fact, when Putin upon.  In fact when Yeltsin appoints him as prime minister, it becomes clear like, okay, I'm blessing this guy. This is who I want to be next in line. This is.

This is who I want to run for president after me.  

And he doesn't come out and say it. Uh, he doesn't make it fully clear, although, um, according to some people, it actually is more or less official at this point. Yeltsin talks to Putin at this point and says, you know, I want you to be president at some point. Um, But he keeps it a secret. Um,  

And actually as time goes on, With Putin as prime minister. Um,  It starts to seem like, oh man, maybe we got the wrong guy for the job because Putin is not at this time. A good politician. Um, he's a good administrator. He is effective. He has an effective way of communicating. Um, In a sort of a different way, but he's not like your classic sweet talking personable politician. Who's going out shaking hands, kissing babies, right. As not Putin at all.  

And so people who were planning on running for president.  Aren't very concerned by him. They don't think that Putin is formidable. And it appears that they're right, that he might prime minister. He might have the inside track, but he doesn't have the charisma.  The name recognition and he doesn't have oomph.

To get him over the, over the.  Over the finish line.  

But this starts to change late in the administration. Um, as Putin takes over. A war. That Russia was fighting at the time. Uh, Russia was fighting war within its own borders in a region called Chechnya. Now Russia is a majority Christian, uh, specifically Russian Orthodox. Country.  

Now Russia is majority Christian, specifically majority Russian Orthodox, but the region of Chechnya is in Russia, but it is majority Muslim. And after the fall of the Soviet union, some people decided to rise up there to try and break off. And become independent. And Russia was of course not okay with this. So they sent in troops, there was an insurgency. And so Russia was fighting a war to keep catching the, uh, as a part of Russia.  

Now remember Putin is someone who believes in law and order. He lamented that Russia had fallen from power. So precipitously.  He lamented that Russia had fallen from power. So precipitously, since the collapse of the Soviet union. Uh, remember when he was in charge of the KGB office in Dresden and he called for backup and the response was.

Moscow is silent. And he was so haunted by that. Right? Well, Um, He never wanted that to happen again. So like this hits a nerve for Putin. Right. Like, oh, you Chechens, you think you can tear apart the Soviet union. You think Moscow is going to be silent again. That is not going to happen. And, um,  

So he comes into a situation where the war was not going well. It was a quagmire. Uh, there was a counterinsurgency situation like Afghanistan.  Like what the United States faced in Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam.  And so the first thing that Putin does is prime minister. As he goes down to the war zone.

And it's a really compelling image that sets him apart from Yeltsin who was old and obese and frail and a drunkard. And.  Who was old and obese and frail and drunk more often than not. And, um, so he couldn't strike the same image that Putin is striking, which is to Dawn fatigues, you know, wear a uniform, go down to an active military zone and he declares quote, we're going to bang the hell out of these bandits.

He decides they're going all in. You know, if we're going to fight, we're going to really fight. We're not going to hold anything back.  The war in Chechnya was deeply unpopular in Russia. And again, you know, like Vietnam or Iraq, it seems like a quagmire. So it was assumed at the time. That it'd be really unpopular. You know, this is not a war that you want to take over.

Um,  

In fact, it seemed like. You know, some people probably thought, okay, well this is going to tank Putin's popularity. He's supposed to run for president in a year. And now he's taking over this extremely unpopular unwinnable war.  Um,  

And so Putin says. You know what. I'm going all in.  

Were, you know, And so.  Putin realizes his only chance at winning the war becoming popular.  Becoming president. Is to just. Bomb the hell out of them. Um, throw everything at these rebels.  

And so, um,  

And so the bombing. Takes on like apocalyptic levels. Um, if you want, you can go Google. Grozny destroyed. Um, or like Grozny after war. So Grozny was the capital there in Chechnya.  And you should look at these images. I mean, I was just basically like,  Flattened. There's nothing there. They, they bombed it to smithereens. They bombed it to the stone age.

And that was Putin's decision. Like, all right, well, if we're gonna fight, we're gonna fight. And, um, we're gonna do whatever it takes to win. And even if we have to level this whole freaking city, and that is what they do.  

The collateral damage is awful. It's terrible. It's a brutal humanitarian nightmare. Schools and hospitals were getting bombed along with military targets. So the press is really getting after him for this. Um, But he's.  Yes.  I am tired of these.  

So the press is getting after him. Like how can you just kill all these people and just destroy the city? And he doesn't want to hear it. He says, quote, I'm tired of answering these questions. Russian aircraft are only striking terrorist camps. We will go after them wherever they are. If pardon me, we find them in the toilet. We will waste them in the outhouse.  

And, um, you know, this shocks the journalists who are asking these questions. But something shocking happens. Putin's Papa lit. Putin's popularity starts to skyrocket. The Chechen war was deeply unpopular. Yes. But that was in part because the Russian forces were losing, which was humiliating to everyday Russians, who in the space of like 10 years, see their country go from being a global superpower.

You know, it's like United States and Russia. The two powers, the two. The only two powers that matter in the world to, okay. We can't even deal with these rebels. In our own borders. And, um, it made them lose confidence in.  

In themselves and their country. And so this guy comes in and is like, no, you know what, actually, we can win and we're going to win. And people like that. Um, and so his popularity starts to skyrocket.  

So now things are going great for Yeltsin's plan to have Putin be the new president. Uh, his popularity is rising quickly. But Yeltsin had a knack for showmanship and he didn't want to leave anything to chance. So he pulls off one last brilliant move.  In Russia, new year's is the biggest holiday by far.

It's like Christmas, new year's Halloween and the 4th of July all rolled into one. And there's a tradition for the president to address the nation in a big televised address that everyone watches.  And the address of 1999 is particularly important in anticipated. For one thing, it's the start of a new millennium. Let's start with the two thousands. Obviously felt like a big moment.

And secondly, as I said, it was a time of a lot of change for Russia. It was the end.  And, um, it was the, you know, 2000, the end of the year, 2000, it was a year away from the election for the new president.  

Secondly, as I said, it was a time for a lot of change for Russia. They were six months away from the election of a new president. This is going to mark the first democratic peaceful transfer of power in Russia's entire history. And this would be the last new year's Eve speech of their first president. So during this big address, Yeltsin gets up and says, quote,  

I have heard people say more than once that Yeltsin would clean to power as long as possible. That he would never let go.  That is a lie.  He then goes on to say that he was going to peacefully step down. But that he wasn't going to wait until June. He said, quote, Russia should enter the new millennium with new politicians, new faces, new people who are intelligent, strong, and energetic. While we, those who have been in power for many years must leave.  

He announces that he's stepping down immediately.  And naming Vladimir Putin as his successor and interim precedent.  Then Putin gets up and gives a short speech. It's not very memorable, but the image of him addressing the nation, a new leader for a new millennium is enough. It's brilliant. It's genius.

Putin's popularity had already been rising, but now he gets this big boost from this incredible piece of propaganda. Furthermore, this gives him a few months to actually be president, to be the incumbent before election is actually held Putin's popularity, skyrockets even further in those months. And so, um,  

And so in those six months, He basically doesn't even need the campaign. He has no coherent platform. Um, he doesn't go to campaign stops. He doesn't participate in debates. Uh, instead, his form of campaigning is to go down to the war zone and be filmed interacting with the Russian troops. He stays above the fray and acts presidential. He refuses to go to televise the Bates saying, quote, these videos are advertising. I will not be trying to find out in the course of my election, which is more important Tampax or Snickers.  

He's only campaign platform. Is, you know, various vague promises to return Russia to greatness. And he has some positions on bipartisan issues, such as raising pensions for veterans of world war II and coming down hard on crime and corruption. Um, but he refuses to really even address some of the more controversial issues.

So when election day arrives a few months later, it's anticlimactic, he's elected president of the Russian Federation in a landslide. In a free and fair election.  

You know, obviously there would be question.  You know, obviously there would be questions about the validity of some of his elections later on. But for this one, there essentially is none. Uh, he's wildly popular.  

Remember in 1995. Vladimir Putin was an unemployed, former bureaucrat who was thinking about becoming a judo teacher.  At the start of the new millennium. Just five years later. He was the most powerful man in Russia, the head of the second largest military in the world with thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal.  

The head of the second largest military in the world with thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal. And unbeknownst to the world. He would not be just another president of Russia, but a dominating force who loomed large over Russia for decades. The era of Putin had begun.  

So let's take a step back and analyze, how do we explain Putin's rise. At first glance, the primary factor that comes to mind is frankly luck. It just kind of seems like he was a guy who was in the right place at the right time. He lucked into his position in the mayor's office in St. Petersburg and the presidential administration in Moscow.

And he just happened to be the most solid, loyal seeming guy around when Yeltsin was looking for a successor who would make sure he wasn't prosecuted or harmed.  And definitely. There was an element of luck in any story of success. There, invariably is an element of luck. And, um, and this is no different.  

But I do think that's definitely only one piece of the puzzle. Uh, he was able to take advantage of those fortunate circumstances in a way that few others could have. So what were those attributes and strategies that enabled him to take advantage of those moments of good luck? The first is consistency. Putin is unbelievably consistent and has been since judo pulled him off the streets and turned him into a disciplined person.  

You don't get big highs. And you don't get big lows with Putin. He, uh, if you watch him speak, it's very rare to see him express. A lot of emotion or ever lose control of himself, he just consistent and he quietly and efficiently gets the job done. And so I think consistency is one of the most underrated attributes that a person can have. And it's one that Putin has in spades.  

The second thing I'll point out is his willingness. The second thing I'll point out is his willingness to stay out of the spotlight and make others look good. Obviously, this is a podcast for ambitious people and ambitious people on surprisingly are often anxious to receive credit for the things that they do.

But drawing attention to yourself often hurts you in the long run. Uh, those who achieve great things are often those who are willing to toil and secret. And deflect the credit to someone else you're playing the long game. It all bounces back to you in the end. And Putin made the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly soap, Jack look good. Um, uh,  

And.  

Putin made the mayor of St. Petersburg Anatoly subject looked good as he took on much of the grunt work and stayed in the background. And he did it again for the federal government quietly carrying out needed reforms and difficult initiatives. All the while staying out of the spotlight while Boris Yeltsin took most of the credit.  

But, you know, in the end. So Jack was able to recommend him to Moscow as someone who'd be a good employee. And Yeltsin was able to promote him through the ranks. Eventually appointing him prime minister and an interim president.  

So I do think that's one thing that you can do is a.  

So I do think that's one thing you can do is ask yourself who can I make? Look good.  Who can I. Promote. Uh, Who can I boost? Um, and know that it will come back to you in the end.  Um, The other thing I wanted to point out is a couple of things about Putin's mindset.  The first is this idea that look.

He's a career man. And to him, the KGB represented. The power of the Russian state.  And the FSB is a successor to the KGB, but he really. You know, this is not someone who was handsome, athletic, intelligent, popular. You know, he got a lot of self validation. And a lot of self-worth out of being attached.

Two. This organization, the KGB that was so powerful.  

That's where he did a lot. That's where he derived a lot of his self-worth from, and that's why it was so, um, almost traumatic for him that moment when he heard Moscow was silent. You know, they're not coming. The cavalry's not coming to help you address.  'cause it's like, oh, this thing that I have attached myself to this thing that I get all my self worth from.  

Is is actually not.  As powerful as I thought. And, um, And so you can see that in Putin, in like to him, the most important thing is the power of the Russian state. And, um,  

Is the power of. The Russian state and, uh, that, that will always be true for him. Uh, and.  I think that's a uniquely true of him. Like he, he.  

You know, I think that is. Sort of uniquely true of him. Uh, the other thing I would say is, look, this is someone who was.  Very consistent. Who's a good communicator who did the right thing at the right time.  But it's not brilliant. It's not a genius. And, um, you know,  I think.  At the beginning of the Ukraine invasion, um,  

And I think that there are sometimes people. Exaggerate a little bit and get a little over anxious and say, oh, you know, this is the guy.  Uh, the puppet master, pulling all the strings behind American politics. Uh, he controls everything. He's deceiving everyone, you know, he controls what we see in here and in social media. And can you believe he's a manipulating our elections these ways?  

And we'll get into that, all of that in another episode, but this is to say, I think sometimes people. Give him too much credit. This is someone who was.  Uh, backroom bureaucrat for most of his career for a reason. Yes, he's intelligent. He's a good worker. He's a hard worker. It was not someone who's a genius.

This is not someone who's playing 10 D chess, right? This is, um, uh, a company man of the KGB and the Russian state. And so I think people should.  Orient their mind towards that.  Okay, well, we'll get into that.  Okay. We'll get into more of that though. Uh, in part two and part three of this series.

So, uh, this is where we'll end part one. Um, But obviously if it's not the end for our friend, Vladimir, We have yet to see how it is that he consolidates power elevates Russia to a first rate, geopolitical power and acquires billions of dollars making himself one of the wealthiest people in the entire world.

Next episode. You'll obviously also start to see Putin go dark. As he starts having political opponents and dissidents jailed, tortured, and killed. So. Join me next time for part two of the life of Latimer Putin on how to take over the world. Thanks for listening.  

‍

‍