Great Man Theory
Published on 27 May 2025 ⸱ 11 min read ⸱ 18 views
Introduction
The Great Man Theory is a philosophical concept that suggests history is primarily shaped by the actions of exceptional individuals, often referred to as "great men."
This theory posits that leaders are born, not made, and that they possess innate qualities such as superior intellect, heroic courage, and extraordinary leadership abilities that enable them to influence the course of history significantly.
I think about this topic a lot especially because of my line of work. As an early stage investor, I'm always underwriting the founder and their execution capabilities.
I often feel like a fraud to say I underwrite a founder and their capability. Largely because I believe if anyone says they are great at reading people they're frauds. It's tough to know upfront with high conviction/certainty if a founder will build a large business or not. And this holds true whether you're evaluating an early 20's founder or a seasoned executive from the industry.
I digress, but this is an important topic. Does history just get made or do certain individuals make it happen? By extension, do people possess the innate talents required to change the course of history or can it be taught?
Evolution in my thesis on the Great Man Theory
When I first heard of the concept on an Amit Varma's Seen and Unseen podcast, I thought to myself, "that's an overly pompous thought for man to have. With the entire equation of our universe, you mean to tell me that there are some people who are just born to change the course of history?". I used to think, us humans place too much importance on our existence and abilities. We're meaningless little critters in the grand scheme of things.
Over the years though, I've done a 180 on this. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that there are some of us who are just built different and have what it takes to change the course of history.
Obviously there's an element of luck and serendipity, but its merely a catalyst.
This shift in my own thinking illuminated what I now believe is the core of the Great Man Theory: agency. Not just believing you can change things, but having an almost irrational compulsion to act on that belief. These individuals don't wait for permission, perfect conditions, or consensus—they simply begin.
I think my initial thoughts on this topic were because I assumed that it was fate/destiny or whatever word you use. In a way, it was written that certain people will come our way and imapct history. But that's a wrong way to think about it.
Marc Andreessen of a16z puts it best: "The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want and you go for it with maximum energy, drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you think."
There's also this earlier quote from Henry Davis Thoreau: "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
If you're a Shah Rukh Khan fan, there's also this quote: "Kehte hain agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho toh puri kainaat usse tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai". (In English) If you want something with all your heart, then the entire universe works to help you get it.
Entrepreneurial Giants
Whenever I think of the "Greater Man" Theory in the context of entrepreneurship, I can't help think it true. This post will be related to entrepreneurship because it's a field I understand deeply and better than others, but I'm certain the same applies to all other sectors and fields. There are some people who are simply better than anyone else in the field.
Starting a company is no small feat and the challenges of the company only increases with size. Most of us are just not cut out to deal with most of those challenges.
The persistent few are the ones that overcome these challenges and actually make history.
To hear "no" at every single step you take, to ensure follow-ups, to speak to customers and improve the product, to get partnerships done, to still find time to spend with family. All of that takes effort, grit and agency.
Most of us fail miserably to just handle one thing. This is like juggling multiple knives in the air while balancing on a ball and you have to cross an obstacle course.
The mindset of such folks is that they will move every mountain in their way to make their dream a reality, to see their product in the hands of people or to see that users cannot live without their product.
Early in my career, I used to think I'll work hard and people will notice my work and get me great roles. While this is true to an extent, I don't believe it'll get you to do your life's work, especially for an ambitious person.
That view changed and how. I now think I don't have time to wait for people to notice my work and reward me for my work. I'm going to create my own destiny, my own "life's work". But this took an evolution from my side and it's still tough.
With people who change the course of history, their default state is bias for action. They're just... doing things... like mad people. It's eye-opening, annoying, exhilarating and fascinating to see these people do things a minute after they think about it.
Even today, when I learned how these people function and have internalised it for myself, it still takes me time to move from thinking about something to acting on that thing. Such a superpower!
The thing about "great man" people is that they figure out solutions by sheer will power. They're just relentlessly persistent. No matter what you throw at them, you'll find a hole in the wall, the size of these people.
There are so many names of people who come to mind when thinking about this topic. These aren't just successful business people—they're individuals who fundamentally altered the trajectory of entire industries and, by extension, human civilization.
Steve Jobs is perhaps the most obvious example. Yes, he had brilliant teams and yes, timing mattered. But strip away the context and you're left with someone who possessed an almost supernatural ability to see around corners. He didn't just build products; he created entirely new categories of human desire. The iPhone wasn't just a better phone—it was a reimagining of how humans interact with technology. That level of vision, combined with the relentless execution to bring it to life, suggests something beyond learned skills.
Elon Musk represents a different archetype of greatness. Where Jobs had taste, Musk has audacity at a scale that borders on the absurd. He's simultaneously revolutionising space exploration, automotive, and transportation itself. The man literally said he'd make electric cars cool and send humans to Mars—and he's actually doing it. Most of us would struggle to excel in one domain; he's redefining multiple industries concurrently.
Jeff Bezos exemplifies the Great Man Theory through pure strategic thinking. In 1994, he saw the internet's 2,300% annual growth rate and built Amazon not just as an online bookstore, but as the infrastructure for all commerce. His ability to think in decades rather than quarters, to absorb massive losses while building for an inevitable future—that's not something you typically learn in business school.
It's worth listening to the podcast by the Acquired guys Spotify/Youtube on the Indian Premier League (IPL). It's insane to hear the origin story of the IPL and how Lalit Modi moved mountains (some legit, some shady) to make the IPL a reality. It's nuts to think of the origin story with all the timing context provided in the podcast. Most folks would call it quits much sooner in the process.
I can write so much more about folks like Mark Zuckerberg, Jenson Huang, Sachin and Binny Bansal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Rajan Bajaj, Lalit Keshre, Kunal Shah, Kunal Behl and so many others. We have progressed because these "great" people came by.
What strikes me about all three is their capacity for what I call "productive delusion." They all believed in futures that seemed impossible to everyone else, and then willed those futures into existence through sheer force of execution.
Would our world be the same without these people? Possibly. Maybe it would happen in the same way, maybe it wouldn't. We'd never know. But we do know that because of actions of these people, our world is better for it.
Great Man Theory also works the other direction, by the way. There are some evil people who felt they had the agency to cause harm. Case in point - Adolf Hitler. His actions also massively impacted the course of history. However good triumphed over evil in this case. Many other examples here too.
Born Great or Made Great?
This brings us to the central question: are these qualities innate or can they be developed?
I've come to believe it's both, but the ratio matters enormously.
Certain foundational traits seem to be largely innate. Agency for one is something that's innate, IMO. You just cannot get a person to learn to have a bias for action. If this was learned, they'd be teaching it in school, there'd not be a need for self help books.
Risk tolerance at the extreme levels required for transformational entrepreneurship seems to be more disposition than learned behavior. Most people, no matter how much they study risk management, will never be comfortable betting their life savings on an idea that exists only in their head.
The same applies to what psychologists call "need for achievement" and "locus of control." Great entrepreneurs seem to have an almost pathological belief that they can bend reality to their will. That's not typically something you pick up from a self-help book.
However, the execution skills—domain expertise, team building, capital allocation, strategic thinking—these can absolutely be learned and refined. Even innate pattern recognition becomes more powerful with experience and knowledge in specific domains.
What I've observed in my investing is that the most successful founders typically have the right innate disposition, but they've also been relentless about developing their learnable skills. They're naturally wired for great things, but they also put in the work and are driven by curiosity.
The unfortunate truth for most of us is that you probably need both. Having just the innate traits without the skills leads to interesting ideas poorly executed. Having just the skills without the fundamental disposition leads to competent management but rarely to history-making innovation.
The Implications
If the Great Man Theory holds true in entrepreneurship, it has profound implications for how we think about building companies and investing in founders.
As an investor, it means I should be looking less for perfect resumes and more for evidence of that fundamental disposition - "the productive delusion", the pattern recognition, the willingness to attempt the impossible. The skills can be taught; the disposition probably can't.
In practice, this means I look for founders who:
- Start building before they have all the answers
- Obsess over customer problems others ignore
- Maintain conviction despite consistent rejection
- Demonstrate pattern recognition across domains
- Show evidence of bending reality to their will in smaller ways
The best founders I've backed didn't just have great ideas—they had an almost irrational belief they could execute them, combined with the proof of work.
One such founder told me he's going to build it whether or not I invest. His exact words were: "I'm not here to convince you that God exists. You'll either build your own conviction or not, that's up to you".
For aspiring entrepreneurs, it suggests that honest self-assessment is crucial. Do you have the innate traits required, or are you attracted to entrepreneurship for other reasons? There's no shame in the latter—the world needs great operators, advisors, and team members. But if you're going to attempt to change the world, you should probably have some indication that you're built for it.
Perhaps most importantly, it reminds us that while we can't all be great in the historical sense, we can all strive to maximize whatever combination of innate and learned abilities we possess. History may be made by the few, but it's built by the many.
Conclusion
The Great Man Theory isn't about fatalism or hero worship. It's about recognising that progress often requires individuals willing to attempt the impossible. As investors, operators, and aspiring entrepreneurs, our job is to identify, support, and occasionally become the people audacious enough to believe they can change the world—and persistent enough to actually do it.
History may be shaped by the few, but recognizing and nurturing that potential in ourselves and others might just be how we ensure it continues to bend toward progress.
Note: All blogs posts till 2022 were migrated to this platform (react+next+tailwind). While all efforts were made to migrate wihtout any loss, the migration lost some images and broke a bunch of links in old posts. If you spot anything amiss, please notify me?