Andrew Huberman interviews Jared Diamond, author of Prophets, Coaches, and Kings, about what makes leaders matter. Diamond uses Hitler's near-deaths in 1930 (a car crash) and 1944 (the Stauffenberg bomb) to show why biography can't settle the question, and why he turns to natural experiments. He also covers religious founders, his three careers, his 13 languages, and his plans at 89.
Diamond says leaders differ too much for personality generalizations: charisma is only one of about 37 ways to lead, and followers matter, as with Jim Jones. Jesus succeeded through timing, a universal message, and the organizer St. Paul. Of 22 postwar leaders he tabulated, only Mandela and Lee Kuan Yew left voluntarily. Coaches and CEOs explain roughly a third of outcomes, so firings often just regress to the mean. His advice: do what you enjoy, are good at, and that helps the world.