Lee Kuan Yew took a crowded, dirty, poor port town, and turned it into one of the world's great cities. How was he able to lead such an incredible transformation of Singapore? --- Sponsors: https://www.costofglory.com/cog-retreats/texas-retreat - Austin Retreat with the Cost of Glory January 23-26. Use code TAKEOVER for $200 off. https://vanman.shop/discount/TAKEOVER - Use code TAKEOVER for 10% off your order https://www.vesto.com/ - All of your company's financial accounts in one view HTTOTW Premium - For all endnotes, takeaways, and bonus episode, subscribe to How to Take Over the World Premium --- Stay in touch: Twitter/X: @BenWilsonTweets Instagram: @HTTOTW Email me: [email protected] Sources: No Man Is An Island: A Portrait of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew by James Minchin Lee Kuan Yew: The Grandmaster's Insights on China, United States, and the World by Graham Allison, Michael McConnohie, et al. From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew Singapore: A Modern History by Michael D Barr --- Writing, research, and production by Ben Wilson.
Chapter 1: Who is Lee Kuan Yew and why is he significant?
Now it is a gleaming modern metropolis, one of the great cities of the world up there with London, New York and Tokyo. He's one of the great statesmen of the 20th century, respected around the world by presidents, prime ministers, reformers, academics. And I'd like to start off this episode with a quote from his book, From Third World to First.
He says, There are books to teach you how to build a house, how to repair engines, how to write a book. But I have not seen a book on how to build a nation out of a disparate collection of immigrants from China, British India, and the Dutch East Indies, or how to make a living for its people when its former economic role is becoming defunct.
So I think this episode should be of interest to reformers, statesmen, politicians, people who have visions of reform and nation building. But the other interesting thing about Lee Kuan Yew is that he ran his country like a startup, like a company.
And so on a broader level, I think his example and his wisdom can be of benefit to anyone who is a leader in any capacity, whether that's in business or sports or art or anything. So let's get into it. For this episode, I have a few sources. One, The Singapore Story by Lee Kuan Yew, which is autobiographical and recounts the first few years of independence for Singapore.
And then his second autobiographical book called From Third World to First. Also, Lee Kuan Yew, The Grandmaster's Insights on China, the United States, and the World by Graham Allison and Michael McConaughey. And then Singapore, A Modern History by Michael D. Barr and No Man is an Island, A Study of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew by James Minchin.
The first two, like I said, are by Lee Kuan Yew and give his perspective. They're quite good, but they were written for a Singaporean audience and were a little more dense than I anticipated, but still very good. Lee Kuan Yew, The Grandmaster's Insights is a very good book for his thinking on leadership.
I would frankly skip his thoughts on geopolitics and go straight to his thoughts on leadership and management and life, which are the last few chapters. Singapore, A Modern History by Michael D. Barr is essentially the view of a communist who regrets very much that Lee Kuan Yew eliminated communism in Singapore, but its first few chapters are okay for their narrative of the origins of Singapore.
I like that. And then No Man is an Island is a somewhat hostile biography, but it's even handed in many ways. It's pretty good. A little dated. I think it was finished somewhere in the late 1980s or early 1990s. But if you want a more objective biography, that's a good one. So with that said, let's get into it. This is Lee Kuan Yew.
But first, a reminder that we have a retreat coming up in Austin on January 23rd through the 26th with Alex Petkus of The Cost of Glory. We're going to be talking about leadership principles and rhetoric and how to be a better leader and speaker in the style of great leaders of the past. I'm going to be there as are many fans of How to Take Over the World.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Lee Kuan Yew face in transforming Singapore?
that as from today, the ninth day of August in the year 1965, Singapore shall be forever a sovereign, democratic, and independent nation founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare and happiness of her people in a more just and equal society.
At the same time, the Tunku explains to Parliament in Malaysia, quote, in the end, we find that there are only two courses open to us, to take repressive measures against the Singapore government or their leaders for the behavior of some of their leaders,
and the course of action we are taking now to sever with the state government of Singapore that has ceased to give a measure of loyalty to the central government. So they announced at the same time they're separating in his public address, Lee Kuan Yew actually breaks down crying and has to stop for 20 minutes to gather his composure. And this was not posturing.
This is actually not seen as like a impressive thing for Lee Kuan Yew, especially Chinese culture at the time kind of valued machismo manliness. Um, it was not, yeah, it was kind of looked down on to, to cry publicly. But he was crying simply because unification had been what he thought would be his signature issue for his life. And he was the man who got Singapore into Malaysia.
And now that was gone. He felt like his life work was going down the drain. And so he's completely devastated. And in the time, the short time of negotiations, he has tried to take some actions to prepare Singapore for independence. But still, the country is completely unprepared. He writes, some countries are born independent. Some achieve independence. Singapore had independence thrust upon it.
So in 1965, Lee Kuan Yew finds himself the prime minister of an independent nation, one with no military, no hinterland, no way of feeding itself, no independent access to fresh water. And to make matters worse, they were now surrounded by larger neighbors who were upset at them and wanted to punish them for their insolence.
So he and his colleagues were going to have to figure out everything, the nuts and bolts of the government from the bottom to the top, just going to have to solve everything for themselves. Before we see how Lee Kuan Yew would manage this newfound independence, let's take a minute to hear about Vanman, one of my favorite brands in the world.
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Chapter 4: What were the key strategies of Lee Kuan Yew's leadership?
And so if they couldn't trust him, then it was all gonna fall apart. And I would say another feature of their economic progress has been flexibility. So yes, consistency, but add to that flexibility because he didn't have this all worked out in advance. He didn't know all these various transitions the economy was going to make.
He says, quote, looking back, I cannot claim that our economic development and industrialization worked out as we had planned. The early plans before separation were made on the assumption of a common market with Malaysia. He doesn't see all this stuff from the beginning. They just kind of have to accept opportunities as they come and pivot when they have to.
As Steve Jobs says, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. You don't want to make complicated multi-step plans. You just want to accept opportunities as they come. And then the other thing I will say about all these transitions and succeeding economically is that, um, it wasn't like it was just all smooth from 1965 until the present.
There have been a number of economic crises, difficulties. However, if you communicate and get buy-in, then crises benefit you rather than destroying you. Okay, here's what Lee Kuan Yew writes. The deep sense of crisis that prevailed made it possible for me to turn around union attitudes in a few years.
The dangers of an economic collapse because British forces were about to leave altered people's mood and attitudes. They realized that unless we made a U-turn from strikes and violence towards stability and economic growth, we would perish. Okay.
And so it's because he has this vision for economic growth, stability, you know, a different kind of economy that this crisis strengthens him rather than weakens him, you know, for most reasons. politicians, a crisis weakens you. A crisis makes it more difficult to lead and you're more likely to get voted out.
But when you have a plan, when you have vision, crises are actually an opportunity to consolidate, to build power. As Napoleon says, imagination rules the world. As Steve Jobs says, the most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision values and agenda. Okay, so that's all one big bucket is there's a ton of economic progress under Lee Kuan Yew.
It goes from, you know, I do think it's maybe talking himself up a little bit to say from third world to first. Certainly that's GDP per capita. If you look at that, it tells that story. Having said that. you know, it was a relatively prosperous British colony before that. They had left it in a pretty good place for him.
Anyway, yes, economically, Singapore develops and does extremely well over the decades under Lee Kuan Yew. Okay, number two, social progress, okay? The administration of Lee Kuan Yew and his successors sees the virtual elimination of severe poverty from Singapore, which had been very common. You know, think of it as like a little fishing village.
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Chapter 5: How did Lee Kuan Yew handle political opposition?
Chapter 6: What lasting impact did Lee Kuan Yew have on Singapore?
And let there be no mistakes about this. Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him or give it up. This is not a game of cards. This is your life and mine. I've spent a whole lifetime building this. And as long as I'm in charge, nobody's going to knock it down. I'm going to show you how great I am. This was our tiny tower.
I just want to say from the bottom of my 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. Today we are talking about Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore. Singapore is a very small island off the southern coast of Malaysia. When Lee Kuan Yew took over as prime minister, it was a small, dirty backwater port town.
Now it is a gleaming modern metropolis, one of the great cities of the world up there with London, New York and Tokyo. He's one of the great statesmen of the 20th century, respected around the world by presidents, prime ministers, reformers, academics. And I'd like to start off this episode with a quote from his book, From Third World to First.
He says, There are books to teach you how to build a house, how to repair engines, how to write a book. But I have not seen a book on how to build a nation out of a disparate collection of immigrants from China, British India, and the Dutch East Indies, or how to make a living for its people when its former economic role is becoming defunct.
So I think this episode should be of interest to reformers, statesmen, politicians, people who have visions of reform and nation building. But the other interesting thing about Lee Kuan Yew is that he ran his country like a startup, like a company.
And so on a broader level, I think his example and his wisdom can be of benefit to anyone who is a leader in any capacity, whether that's in business or sports or art or anything. So let's get into it. For this episode, I have a few sources. One, The Singapore Story by Lee Kuan Yew, which is autobiographical and recounts the first few years of independence for Singapore.
And then his second autobiographical book called From Third World to First. Also, Lee Kuan Yew, The Grandmaster's Insights on China, the United States, and the World by Graham Allison and Michael McConaughey. And then Singapore, A Modern History by Michael D. Barr and No Man is an Island, A Study of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew by James Minchin.
The first two, like I said, are by Lee Kuan Yew and give his perspective. They're quite good, but they were written for a Singaporean audience and were a little more dense than I anticipated, but still very good. Lee Kuan Yew, The Grandmaster's Insights is a very good book for his thinking on leadership.
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