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From spiritual innovators to technological revolutionaries, entrepreneurship has shaped civilization in countless ways. Join us as we explore the visionaries who dared to reimagine humanity's path! We'll examine how the fundamental traits of entrepreneurship—vision, risk-taking, and persistence—have manifested throughout history in surprising forms.
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00:00My name is William Randolph Hearst. I'm sure you know the Hearst family quite well.
00:04I reinvented the newspaper world.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking the types of entrepreneurs that have existed throughout human history,
00:12influencing it each step of the way.
00:14For this list, we're looking at how the fundamental traits of entrepreneurship,
00:17vision, risk-taking, persistence, and the ability to sell an idea,
00:20have manifested over time in ways you might never have considered.
00:23To have your whole music library with you at all times is a quantum leap in listening to music.
00:32Number 10, the prophets.
00:34This was one of the first religions to believe in a single omnipresent god.
00:39They believed their prophet, Zoroaster, was born of a virgin mother in what is now Afghanistan.
00:44Satan, heaven, and hell were all Zoroastrian concepts, later embraced by Christianity and Islam.
00:55Thousands of years ago, there were prophets standing on mountaintops trying to convince the masses to embrace their revolutionary vision for how humanity should live.
01:03These spiritual entrepreneurs identified fundamental problems in how societies functioned and created entirely new belief systems to address them.
01:10Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
01:20Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
01:25Take Zoroaster, who around 600 BCE essentially disrupted the polytheistic market by introducing monotheism,
01:32influencing every major religion that followed.
01:34Moses didn't just lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
01:55He created the world's first comprehensive legal and moral framework with the Ten Commandments,
01:59essentially building a startup civilization with revolutionary principles.
02:04These visionary leaders had no venture capital and no market research.
02:07Instead, they had pure conviction that their ideas would change the world.
02:10Honor thy father and thy mother.
02:20Thou shalt not kill.
02:23Number 9, the kings.
02:24There, in the crack of the Persian line, will go for the head.
02:31Kill Darius?
02:33The gods have brought him to us at last.
02:36If I die, it's one Macedonian.
02:39But the Persians, they cannot move without Darius' command.
02:42Long before anyone talked about scaling up, ambitious rulers were building kingdoms from nothing through sheer entrepreneurial will.
02:48Alexander the Great didn't inherit a world empire.
02:51He built one through strategic vision, calculated risk-taking, and an incredible ability to inspire loyalty in his subjects.
02:57Look at those we've conquered.
02:59They leave their dead unburied.
03:02They smash their enemy's skulls and drink them as dust.
03:05They made him public.
03:07What can they think or sing or write when none can read?
03:11What is Alexander's army?
03:13They can go where they never thought possible.
03:16Charlemagne essentially created the concept of medieval Europe by combining military conquest with administrative innovation, proving that successful entrepreneurs know when to fight and when to build systems.
03:26Charlemagne had been successful.
03:28From that point on, he was allowed to style himself Rex Francorum et Langobardorum, King of the Franks and the Lombards.
03:36As a result, he controlled the whole of Western Europe.
03:39But he was still a far cry from peace.
03:42Royal entrepreneurs understood that sustainable success required more than taking territory.
03:47They had to create lasting institutions, legal frameworks, and cultural identities.
03:51Like modern startup founders, they often died young, worked insane hours, and bet everything on their vision of what the world could become.
03:58Saragossa will be unabhängig.
03:59Saragossa will be unabhängig.
03:59Saragossa will be unabhängig.
04:05The citykeeper will open the city doors for me, and I will drive the battle against the victory.
04:10Number 8.
04:11The Explorers
04:12Inconsistent maps made calculating routes difficult.
04:16Columbus finally charted a southwestern course he believed was short enough to keep him and his men from dying of starvation and thirst.
04:23Spain's Queen Isabella, eager to expand her empire, agreed to roll the dice on Columbus' route.
04:30Christopher Columbus was history's most successful pitch deck presenter, convincing multiple royal courts to fund what everyone thought was a mission toward certain death to find a new route to Asia.
04:39These maritime entrepreneurs combined wonderlust with hardcore business acumen, understanding that geographic discovery meant economic opportunity.
04:47Look at Marco Polo, who opened up entirely new trade markets between East and West.
04:51In Italy, we have a saying.
04:53La vera dolcezza del vino è un gusto.
04:58The true sweetness of wine is one flavor.
05:02Ernest Shackleton's failed Antarctic expedition became one of history's greatest leadership case studies,
05:07showing how true entrepreneurs turned disasters into legends.
05:11These adventurers risked everything on the ultimate unknown market,
05:14undiscovered lands that could contain unimaginable wealth or impending doom.
05:19The British expedition plans to sail through the Weddell Sea to the Antarctic.
05:24Their goal is to be the first to achieve an overland crossing of the continent.
05:29Ernest Shackleton was already a famed explorer.
05:32He was a rival of Sir Robert Scott's in the race to reach the South Pole.
05:36Number seven, the artists.
05:37Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, and architect.
05:42A scientist, iconoclast, and a genius.
05:46What we now refer to as a Renaissance man.
05:51One of his works would become the icon of an entire era.
05:54Sure, you might be familiar with the Sistine Chapel ceiling,
05:57but what you might not know is that Michelangelo was running a Renaissance multimedia empire,
06:02negotiating contracts with popes and managing teams of apprentices like a modern creative agency.
06:07You won't find a single artwork of the Renaissance that simply copies an ancient one.
06:12The crucial thing is that the Renaissance didn't just rediscover the critical spirit of the Greeks, for example.
06:18It didn't just grapple with the science and scholarship of antiquity.
06:21It developed everything further.
06:23Leonardo da Vinci epitomized the entrepreneur-inventor hybrid,
06:26constantly pitching new ideas from flying machines to military engineering
06:30while funding his research through commissioned artwork.
06:33The great names in art suddenly became world famous.
06:36A hundred years earlier, it would have been unthinkable.
06:40The towering figures of Renaissance art, first and foremost Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo,
06:47were fated, invited to court, and paid handsomely.
06:50Pablo Picasso didn't accidentally stumble into cubism.
06:53He deliberately disrupted the art market by creating a completely new visual language,
06:58then brilliantly marketed himself as the face of modern art.
07:01The artist reveals that artistic vision means nothing without the ability to find patrons,
07:05manage projects, and build personal brands that could sustain lifelong careers.
07:10In the months of August and September 1957,
07:13Picasso created a series of 58 variations inspired by this absolute masterpiece
07:18painted by the Spanish artist Velázquez, which now hangs in the Prado Museum.
07:23Picasso consumed the world to produce Picassos.
07:26He represented himself here as a painter who's looking back at the old masters of the Spanish golden age.
07:32Number six, the inventors.
07:33The things that Edison invented are so omnipresent in our society.
07:39They've touched the lives of millions and millions of people and totally changed them.
07:44We live in a world that Edison invented.
07:47All good ideas have to come from somewhere.
07:57Thomas Edison was the world's first innovation entrepreneur,
08:00creating the concept of the Research and Development Lab while holding over a thousand patents.
08:04There were other great inventors.
08:08Then there was Edison.
08:10He understood that inventing is not just having an idea.
08:15And so he made Edison a name to be reckoned with.
08:19The Wright brothers combined mechanical genius with business savvy,
08:23not only achieving powered flight but immediately recognizing the commercial potential in founding the Wright company.
08:29Nikola Tesla represented the classic dilemma of the entrepreneur.
08:32Brilliant innovation coupled with poor business skills,
08:35showing why technical genius alone isn't enough for commercial success.
08:39Forward-thinking inventors saw problems that others accepted as permanent limitations
08:43and dedicated their lives to creating solutions,
08:46often facing years of ridicule before achieving breakthrough moments that changed civilization.
08:51The key is the motor rotates by virtue of induction, a rotating magnetic field.
08:57I've eliminated the commutator which distributes electricity to the rotor.
09:00So you've eliminated the need for the commutator.
09:03The brushes, the sparks, amazing.
09:05There are no sparks.
09:07The sparks are bad.
09:08They're just unnecessary.
09:09Number 5. The scientists.
09:11Some researchers were already talking about an evolution of the species,
09:15but the British naturalist was the first to explain with evidence how evolution might occur.
09:20By natural selection.
09:22His theory radically changed biology,
09:24offering a new explanation of the origin of human beings.
09:27It also made him one of the most influential scientists and intellectuals in history.
09:32They were challenged, laughed at, and in some cases even ostracized,
09:36until they were proven right by history.
09:38Charles Darwin spent decades building the case for evolution,
09:40understanding that revolutionary scientific ideas require the same marketing and persuasion skills
09:45as any startup trying to disrupt an established market.
09:48Darwin put human beings on the same evolutionary level as all the creatures on the planet.
09:53Scientific advances have confirmed his theory,
09:57and even the Catholic Church ended up accepting, decades later,
10:00that evolution is compatible with faith.
10:03Marie Curie broke through multiple barriers, scientific, institutional, and gender-based,
10:07to build a research empire that won her two Nobel Prizes in different fields.
10:11So imagine a grape crushes itself, ferments itself, changes its very being.
10:16And what if I told you that as the grape turns itself into wine,
10:19it can release a powerful surge of energy, power that can make things happen.
10:24Galileo faced the ultimate hostile takeover attempt
10:26when the Catholic Church tried to shut down his heliocentric model,
10:30but his scientific entrepreneurship eventually won out over institutional resistance.
10:34These game-changers promoted theories that challenged conventional wisdom,
10:37knowing that paradigm shifts require both brilliant insights and relentless advocacy.
10:43You'd be excited, am I right?
10:45I think so, yes, I would.
10:46So, science is changing,
10:48and the very people who are running science are the people who believe the world is flat,
10:53and I'm going to prove them wrong, just as Newton did.
10:55Number four, the business people.
10:57With their money, the Medici turned Florence into one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
11:03They were the first great modern art collectors.
11:05But their relationship with art was anything but straightforward.
11:09All kinds of complicated emotions were involved.
11:12Guilt, the lust for power.
11:14The capital that brings history's greatest art to life has to come from somewhere.
11:18The Medici family created the Renaissance by strategically investing in art, architecture,
11:23and human capital across multiple generations,
11:25essentially becoming history's most successful venture capitalists.
11:28The Medici weren't just great patrons.
11:30They created a culture that revolutionized the nature of art itself.
11:35The neat and tidy columns of their bookkeeping were reflected everywhere in the art and architecture of Florence.
11:41Theirs was a world where calculation was all.
11:44Cornelius Vanderbilt built his railroad empire through ruthless competition and strategic vision,
11:49understanding that transportation infrastructure was the key to unlocking America's economic potential.
11:54Vanderbilt was so successful that sometimes people think he planned everything in advance.
11:59In fact, one of his great strengths was his ability to seize upon opportunities that appeared unexpectedly and make the most of them.
12:08John D. Rockefeller pioneered vertical integration and aggressive market consolidation,
12:13creating business strategies that modern entrepreneurs still study and emulate.
12:17So what do we have to learn from their business school?
12:19That traditional business success requires the same visionary thinking and calculated risk-taking
12:24that drives any revolutionary movement, focused on profit rather than social change.
12:28The most powerful of all, oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, the world's first billionaire.
12:37His company, Standard Oil, savages and then swallows up its competitors
12:43and ends up controlling 90% of the American oil industry.
12:48Number three, the media barons.
12:50I reinvented the newspaper world.
12:51My philosophy is that there is an opportunity in every obstacle.
12:56Conflict is a good thing because it makes someone think on their feet.
13:00It's like a chess game in that sense.
13:03I think what it takes to be a genius is you have to see beyond the present situation.
13:07You have to make the connections.
13:08Control the flow of information and you control everything.
13:12William Randolph Hearst didn't simply own newspapers.
13:14He created the template for media empires by understanding that influencing public opinion
13:19and even political outcomes.
13:21I invented a new form of journalism, one that just didn't wait around for the world to happen.
13:27There's a story, there's a human story in every story that I think is the real element
13:32of a great story.
13:35If I didn't invent that, I cleared out all the other stuff and got to the heart of what
13:39a real story is about.
13:39Rupert Murdoch built a global media conglomerate by recognizing that news is both product and
13:45platform, creating synergies between traditional journalism and entertainment that redefine the
13:49industry.
13:50Mr. Murdoch, what's the size of your holding in the news of the world now and what will
13:53it be eventually?
13:55Right now it's only 3.5%, but eventually it'll be approximately 40% of the voting shares.
14:02That'll make you the largest single shareholder and give you effective control.
14:06It wouldn't give us complete control by any means.
14:08It'll be the largest shareholding.
14:10Towering figures like Hearst and Murdoch understood something that modern social media moguls are
14:14just rediscovering.
14:16That content creation, distribution, and audience engagement are all part of the same entrepreneurial
14:20equation.
14:21They built massive fortunes by recognizing that information itself could be packaged, marketed,
14:27and sold like any other commodity, fundamentally changing how societies communicate and make
14:31decisions.
14:32Mr. Murdoch, IPC announced last July that the Sun and its predecessor, the Herald, had lost
14:3712 million pounds in every eight years.
14:39How in effect would you change the newspaper and its format to make it pay?
14:44Well, we'll change it in several ways, but we're not going to disclose exactly what our
14:48plans are at the moment.
14:50But it'll be a straightforward, honest newspaper.
14:52Number two, the technologists.
14:54His printing machine was the most revolutionary advance in technology since the invention of
14:59the wheel.
15:01And we're still living with its consequences today, as you can see here in the basement
15:05of the British Library, where they hold a copy of every book published in English.
15:11Johann Gutenberg's printing press was a disruptive technology platform that democratized knowledge
15:16and essentially created the information aged 500 years before the Internet.
15:19Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak combined technical genius with design thinking and marketing savvy
15:24to create Apple, proving that successful technology entrepreneurship requires both engineering
15:29excellence and deep understanding of human needs.
15:31What if somebody built a device that could take advantage of knowing all about those iApps
15:36and get a level of integration that no one's ever achieved before?
15:39And we decided to do it.
15:42And the field that we decided to do it in, the choice we made, was music.
15:48Bill Gates showed how software could become more valuable than hardware, building Microsoft
15:52by recognizing that intellectual property and scalable systems would dominate the digital
15:56economy.
15:57These technological entrepreneurs understood that breakthrough innovations mean nothing
16:01without the ability to manufacture, distribute, and convince people to adopt new ways of working
16:07and living.
16:07It was the invention of the printing press which started all this, making mass production
16:12of books possible for the first time in history.
16:15Within a few years, there were millions of them in circulation.
16:20And as they traveled, they carried their precious cargo of new ideas or theories,
16:25philosophy or propaganda to every part of Europe and beyond.
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16:43There were a lot of competing poems about the Trojan War, but Homer's were by far the most famous,
16:52and they are now the most famous because they were also the only ones to survive the burning
16:56of the library at Alexandria.
16:58So the Iliad and the Odyssey are epic poems, and we define an epic as a long narrative poem
17:04on a serious subject written in a grand or elevated style centered on a larger-than-life hero.
17:10It could be argued that storytellers are the ultimate entrepreneurs whose products reshape
17:14how entire civilizations see themselves and their possibilities.
17:18Homer created the entire Western literary tradition with the Iliad and Odyssey, essentially building
17:22the world's first multimedia franchise that has been generating content, adaptations, and
17:27derivative works for over 2,500 years.
17:29So Odysseus is a trickster and a liar and a pirate and a serial adulterer, and he's responsible
17:34for the death of a lot of people, and he also has probably the worst sense of direction
17:39in all of Greek literature.
17:40But is he a hero?
17:41Yes.
17:42To the Greeks, heroism didn't mean perfection.
17:44It meant that you had an extraordinary attribute or ability, and Odysseus definitely does.
17:50Walt Disney built an entertainment empire by understanding that stories could be packaged
17:54across multiple platforms, creating the modern concept of intellectual property licensing.
17:59William Shakespeare demonstrated that artistic integrity and commercial success aren't
18:03mutually exclusive when you truly understand your market.
18:06Homer, Disney, Shakespeare, and more realized something crucial.
18:09Humans are driven by stories, and whoever controls the stories controls culture itself.
18:14There would have been a time for such a word.
18:17Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last
18:29syllable of recorded time.
18:31Think we missed any game-changing entrepreneur types?
18:33Let us know in the comments below.
18:35Pulitzer, I think, will be remembered as a good newspaper guy, a good businessman who ran successful
18:40papers for a while, but in that sense, he will be a footnote in the world of journalism.
18:47Will the dupl Arkham as a another?
18:54Let us know again in the comments below.
19:04Leave this into the discussion ram.
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