RIP Queen Elizabeth II

hi everyone i wanted to make a video after the events of yesterday to talk a little bit about queen elizabeth ii we americans always have a difficult time with the british monarchy there was a bit of a conflict not too long ago in world history where we decided to go our own way and it took a little while for america and the uk to become the best of friends again and since that we have grown very close as nation states that said we put in our constitution and we put into the dna of our country an absolute rejection of royal titles we don't have dukes and barons we don't have kings or lords we don't even knight people and we live in a very meritocratic culture and the majority of the world is starting to move in that direction where we're getting rid of monarchs and getting rid of birthright power and moving to a different setting now that's not completely true when we dig a little deeper we notice that there are still dynasties the rockefellers still exist people inherit money i mean steve jobs kids are getting a lot bill gates's kids are getting a lot and the many many others look at the waltons for example who just recently purchased the denver broncos so we have dynasties and royalty of a different sort connected to the greatness of someone and inherited from them this is much more formal in the uk and it's always been a bit of a mystery to me why do people care so much about someone who's born into power they didn't earn it well queen elizabeth was interesting in that she certainly did live a very unique life she served for over 70 years only louis xiv served longer at 74 years died at 96 which meant that she lived the entire arc of history of the 20th century with the exception of world war one everything that came after she was not only around during that time but front and center there are pictures of her with winston churchill her husband lived in nazi germany for a brief period of time during i think the 1930s just to give a sense of the connections of things how deep these things go she met pretty much every world leader dozen plus presidents of the united states even rode in with ronald reagan once on horseback throughout the english countryside and yet had the ability to be part of our modern society she met obama she met trump just gives you a sense of these things a global pandemic her parents had to deal with the prior one she dealt with the coven of today and watched england change from an empire that actually controlled a big chunk of the world to a country that had to have a different path and never once during her lifetime did she ever complain about it never once during her lifetime she say why me or these things and she seemed to have had a grace and dignity that is gone regardless of how you feel about her england what they did and all the certainly the many atrocities during the 20th century no one can deny that there was a certain decorum that we don't have anymore and will be sorely missed i i guess you get that from being in power for 70 years and having a commitment to trying to live life as service in that respect it's probably the last great monarchy of my lifetime and your lifetime and left unless the world regresses the reality is that the institution as a whole is an anachronism we discovered this century and last century it's a really bad idea giving absolute power or an homage to the times of absolute power to individuals and little by little all monarchies are slowly dissolving and chipping away and being replaced with some form of democratic process now countries sometimes do backslide into dictatorships and there are still intergenerational absolute dictatorships like in north korea for example but by and large we're starting to realize that power to the few is a bad idea so in my view the monarchy probably will not survive this century and not only britain but many many other places throughout the world and the people who come after elizabeth are simply going to have to manage its decline until it's an inevitable dissolution because that's human progress we have moved beyond a time where we entrust one person by birth to rule us and lead us and the whole point of the industry i'm in is to build the tools to allow us to govern the many by the many not the many by the few that said there are some great lessons about her life if you really dig deep and look into it england because of the nature of the empire that they led is actually probably the most diverse culture around from china to india to all throughout africa all throughout europe the united states the sun never set on the british empire so there's a lot of languages and a lot of knowledge for her part elizabeth took the time to get to know people and travel throughout the world she really did and you can see the thousands of photos and presentations and periods where she went places as exotic as papua new guinea to saint helena all the way to remote places in patagonia she's basically been everywhere met everybody it's impossible to live a life like that and not develop a sense of empathy and understanding and not understand that this world benefits from diversity at its core getting to know people their problems who they are their lot in life rich poor and everything in between it makes you better as a person now whether that made her a good person or a bad person is beyond the scope of this and any eulogy or reflection but it is a pursuit that i think we all could benefit from myself i've been to 72 countries over the last 10 years i've met everybody from campbell herders in mongolia to heads of state i just recently met with the president of burundi last year in the presidential palace that was a pretty remarkable experience because just a week later i was in kenya in the maasai mara hanging out with people who heard cattle it's pretty incredible to see that completely different wakes of life different ways of looking at things and it's made me think differently it's made life different for me so i can only imagine being in her position at such a high level for such a long arc of history how many truly extraordinary conversations and extraordinary events unfolded and i truly hope that that wisdom has been ported somewhere written down somewhere reflected somewhere because it's now a gift to all of us it's now something that everybody could potentially use and benefit from a life of service i'm not entirely sure what the monarchy does for the british people again forgive my american ignorance seems to be the other way around that the british people do a lot for the monarchy but maybe that's why we had that disagreement in the 18th century and we went in a slightly different direction but in principle it's a good idea when you look at people who have a lot they can give a lot and the monarchy of england is a very powerful institution and it certainly has committed a lot of effort to charity from time to time now some of the members of that institution have become truly terrible and deplorable people who have associated with very bad people the epstein's and so forth and history is going to look very unfavorably on those members which is why by and large i believe the monarchy is a dying institution the problem is that for every queen elizabeth that you get you get 10 who aren't her and those will define over the long term the nature of the institution thus you need institutions that are built from the bottom up it's a lesson about founders as much as you love admire respect and care for a particular person leading an organization no matter how long lived they are their time is finite and eventually will come to an end and those who succeed them are seldom as good as the predecessor and this is true for everything from presidents to kings to queens to senators congressmen and it's very important then that we think about different ways to govern these are moments in history where things now have the right to change and for us i think the great lesson is we take the good and we get rid of the bad the good is a life of service at a life of empathy and a life committed to meeting people understanding people and trying to communicate with people from different ways of life and using that to influence your own personal growth and development probably a good idea the bad is that intergenerational power transfer wealth birthright titles these things they tend to increase and create entitlement they tend to create situations where people feel that they're above the law and they feel that they can do whatever they want to do and they don't really have to care about the consequences furthermore there's no incentive for them to grow as people and evolve as people thus the long term is the destruction of the institution because it simply cannot persist and my hope is that what we do here in our industry will eventually work its way into companies and eventually governments on how they think about their relationships with their employees and eventually get rid of the ceo get rid of the executive leadership and allow companies to build a bottom-up structure it'll take years for this to prove itself out but it will happen my hope is then that can go to states counties and eventually whole governments and then it can change the structure so you no longer have people at the top i'm getting pretty tired in the united states of every four years i was having a debate over who the half my country is going to hate it's impossible with the complexity of the united states of america for one person to be the president and know everything and be capable of everything and be invested with all of our hopes and dreams when we look at monarchs it's basically doing that on steroids you're taking it to the next level saying that they're born into it and they have it for their entire life and there's no accountability structure behind it it's crazy we need to move in the other direction go from one to many and no longer play the game of hate the opponent you have to work together in some way so rest in peace clean elizabeth i think you lived up to your namesake and the other queen elizabeth and i'm truly sorry for the british people you lost a good person and you lost a titan that we all just remembered my grandfather was young and he's 90 when elizabeth took rain that just tells you how much history is there and it's going to take a very long time to unpack what happened during all of that history i hope king charles lives up to to her namesake to her reputation and does some good work although unfortunately the prior king's charges didn't do so well in the english history so let's hope he doesn't go down that road and we the americans we can now stop caring i think elizabeth was the last connection point most people in the united states have and there was on our side the pond quite a bit of empathy and love and belief in her it's not really shared by people of my generation or even my dad's generation for her successors not a lot of people seem to care about harry and megan and william and charles they did about her and actually i have some friends in canada who said i don't care about the monarchy anymore you loved elizabeth i was okay with it now i think it's an outdated institution that needs to be abolished so it kind of tells you something about it so i think my prediction will be right where they're just going to manage the decline year after year but that no way diminishes what was accomplished before and in no way excuse the lessons that can be learned so good luck england and i hope it all works out for you and condolences to the windsor family and i guess we now get to close a very long chapter of history and move on i hope we learn great lessons from it and we can continue to grow together