Courage, Not Genius
I love Succession.
For those still subscribed to HBO, its Season 2 premiere was last night.
Much like Game of Thrones, it is a show about power.
Corporate power, which influences the economy, politics, and society.
For about half a century, corporations have spawned oligarchs in the United States.
The patriarchy of the series is not likable but its musical score by Nicholas Britell is hypnotic:
“After attending the pre-college division of Juilliard, Britell studied psychology at Harvard — alongside Natalie Portman, with whom he’s worked since — where he wrote music for and toured with a hip-hop band called the Witness Protection Program. (‘The WPP,’ he said, laughing.) He spent hours making beats each day, cementing a love for the genre that, before ‘Succession,’ manifested in the chopped-and-screwed elements of the score to Barry Jenkins’s best-picture winner ‘Moonlight,’ for which Britell earned his first Oscar nomination. (Jenkins’s next film, ‘If Beale Street Could Talk,’ earned Britell his second.)”
The show’s plot borrows from the lives of the Murdoch family ($NWSA).
Or maybe it’s from the Redstone family ($CBS, $VIA).
Or maybe it’s from the Dolan family ($MSG).
Maybe all of the above and more.
Steve Jobs ($AAPL) once said, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”
Boardroom decisions sometimes go unnoticed.
Other times, boardroom decisions change how the world revolves.
David Perell wrote a long-read mainly on the philosophy of Peter Thiel but also touches upon how many go about climbing the corporate ladder:
“When we pursue optionality, we avoid bold decisions. Like anything meaningful, venturing into the unknown is an act of faith. It demands responsibility. You’ll have to take a stand, trust your decision, and ignore the taunts of outside dissent. But a life without conviction is a life controlled by the futile winds of fashion. Or worse, the hollow echoes of the crowd.
By brainwashing us into thinking that prosperity is inevitable, privilege can have a numbing effect. Among my friends in the upper echelons of society — the ones with the means to pursue transcendent dreams — I wonder if they’re too comfortable. Nobody believes in destiny. Social events revolve around binge drinking and conversations so superficial a robot could automate them. They’re dozing off in an intellectual slumber. Rather than rising to the level of their dreams, they fall to the average of their environment. In my college classes, where the annual education costs $40,000 per year, the vast majority of students wasted time away on Facebook. Office hours were an afterthought. ‘Try hards’ were mocked and made-fun-of and nobody had a vision for their future.
We lack courage, not genius. We’re swimming in money, but starving for ambition. Every venture capitalist I meet says there’s too much money and not enough good ideas.”
There are few good guys and gals in Succession.
Much like Game of Thrones, you hope that the masses of mediocrity fall by the wayside with each passing episode.
But even those to whom we give our love and support, there is always room for disappointment… much like the last couple of seasons of Game of Thrones.
