Great_Founder_Theory_by_Samo_Burja_2020_Manuscript - samoburja.com  ## Metadata - Author: **samoburja.com** - Full Title: Great_Founder_Theory_by_Samo_Burja_2020_Manuscript - Category: #articles - URL: https://samoburja.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Great_Founder_Theory_by_Samo_Burja_2020_Manuscript.pdf ## Highlights - What drives social change throughout history and the present? What are the origins of institutional health or sclerosis? My answer is that a small number of functional institutions founded by exceptional individuals form the core of society. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hs487g7p0s45vcb72k7xvc33)) - We can understand the world as a landscape of functional and non-functional institutions. Functional institutions are the exception.3 Creating functional institutions requires a founder who knows how to coordinate people to achieve the institution’s purpose, and who uses this knowledge to build new institutions or dismantle and rebuild existing ones. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hs49b12gwkvhr26agre61eqs)) - If an organization is clearly better, it is possible to imitate it. In a famous Caltech commencement address, Feynman explained the folly of simple-minded imitation, likening such imitation to the notion of the “cargo cult”: just as a lucky hunter-gatherer tribe in the path of cargo airdrops during World War II built imitation airstrips and wooden control towers after the war under the expectation that such forms were the causes of cargo airdrops, so too do we copy the appearances of old functional institutions without understanding or replicating their true nature.6 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hs4anbqxtky62em7da568qr2)) - Michael Sauder et al. define status as the relative respect and patterns of deference accorded to people, groups and organizations by wider society. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hs738qca82fdphkqp51tgjs1)) - Status is a coordination mechanism, and this makes it valuable ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hs739skww8yk2eftqm5sd2de)) - Elon the Organizer. Attention is brought to the achievements of two of Elon Musk’s companies. This reminds them of demonstrated past competence. Because it is his personal car launched into orbit, the credit is cleanly attributed to the individual that brought about the technical outcome of recruiting and organizing engineers, as well as providing them with necessary funding for their work. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hs73jwankyjy3y9srv258ted))