the time-tested path to entrepreneurial success
In our current society, we’ve been taught to ask: what’s in it for me?
This is a question that is often asked of religion and religious texts, after which, without much thought or study, religion and its sacred texts are dismissed as irrelevant to modern life. Because there seems to be nothing in it for me.
I’m an entrepreneur and a writer. I’ve always been both. Granted, my entrepreneurial journey has been the dominant one, but throughout the endless hours of trying to build the next great thing, I’ve always scrounged a few minutes here and there to write.
At some point in my twenties, I read Robert Alter’s translation of the Five Books of Moses and his commentary. I read the Bible to learn how to write better fiction. After all, pretty much all Western literature took off in each respective country when the Bible was translated into the local vernacular from Latin. It helped, but I never read it again.
The Bible never played an important role in my life, as I don’t belong to any congregation or engaged in religious study. It never occurred to me that the Bible had something to teach me about entrepreneurship.
But it did. I first realized it while running one of my previous companies, Tonic. We were running out of money, unable to raise a series A. And then a miracle happened. My co-founder and I secured a reseller partnership with a huge company, and as part of the deal, the company gave us a large seven-figure non-refundable advance. This was non-dilutive capital. Securing it at such a time was the equivalent of parting the Red Sea. That’s how my cofounder and I felt after we signed the deal. But our team members didn’t share our enthusiasm. They kvetched. About everything.
I felt a bit betrayed by our team’s kvetchers. Suddenly, I understood how Moses felt. I questioned my leadership and wondered if the personal sacrifice was worth it.
That episode stayed with me. It made me wonder if the Bible has something else to teach me about entrepreneurship — things I had yet to learn. While pondering this, I saw Abraham, Moses, and David in a new light. Wasn’t Abraham, a founder of our religion, and wasn’t the story of his struggle like the story of any founder who was going from 0 to 1? And what about Moses? Wasn’t he the master of the turnaround? It takes vision and character to take a people enslaved and create out of them a free nation. And David — wasn’t his story a cautionary tale of a Wunderkind, who couldn’t patiently wait for his turn for the throne, but starts a civil war to gain power?
Once I saw the Torah in this light, I couldn’t unsee it. I had an urge, a strong desire to see what the wisdom of my ancestors forged thousands of years ago could teach me about my vocation in the twenty-first century.
I told Zack Bodner about it and he gifted me Rabbi Sacks’ Lessons in Leadership, which was an inspiration. Sacks framed his views of the Torah from the perspective of Leadership. I found this lens immensely productive and wanted to try on the entrepreneurship lens. Shortly after, I met Rabbi Joey of JSN. When I told him about my idea, he immediately volunteered to study with me and look at the stories of the patriarchs from this perspective. And then, I got accepted into the Wexner Heritage Program, where I’ve been studying with my San Francisco cohort since September of 2022.
These notes are a result of all these ongoing hevruta (Torah study partner) conversations.
An Entrepreneur’s Origin Story
After great people have become great, we often try to find the seeds of their greatness in the years before. Destiny is a powerful concept, and many of us believe in it. And because we believe in destiny, we look for signs that would have portended the future greatness of our role models.
But if we look at the story of Abraham, who is the archetype of a founder (as he founded the first major monotheistic religion), we will find an origin story that is uniquely modern and a true reflection of our entrepreneurial reality.
Let’s take a look at what the Bible tells us about Abraham’s origin.
11:26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
11:27 Now this is the line of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot.
11:28 Haran died in the lifetime of his father Terah, in his native land, Ur of the Chaldeans.
11:29 Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves, the name of Abram’s wife being Sarai and that of Nahor’s wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.
11:30 Now Sarai was barren, she had no child.
11:31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there.
11:32 The days of Terah came to 205 years; and Terah died in Haran.
Seems simple enough. Abraham is born. His brother dies. Abraham marries. His wife can’t have kids. His father uproots his family. His father dies. But there is a lot of meaning hidden in these words that are very relevant to our experience as entrepreneurs and the origin stories that drive them.
Let’s take a look at each line in more depth.
11:26 When Terah had lived 70 years, he begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
11:27 Now this is the line of Terah: Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot.
There is nothing magical or special about Abraham’s birth (or Abram’s as he was called then) that is spoken of in the Torah. He is not saved like Moses. Nor is his birth foretold like that of Jesus. He is born and there is nothing special about him.
What is unique about Abraham is never spoken of in the Bible. But it is written about in the Talmud. Terah, his father, was a high priest in Nimrod’s court. He was an idol worshiper and idol maker. Can you imagine what an education that must have been for a budding monotheist?
One of the most well-known approaches to innovation is to do the opposite of what everyone is doing. If you have a restaurant with many items on the many, create a restaurant that has one. It will stand out and if that one dish is good, it will attract clientele.
The other more important fact, often ignored by budding entrepreneurs is that you have to know what you are disrupting. That is the most important trait of a successful entrepreneur and the trait that the story of Abraham highlights: the key to success is insider knowledge coupled with a fresh perspective.
What was Abraham’s fresh perspective? According to the Talmud, one day, Terah left Abraham to mind the store of idols he was selling. Instead of selling idols, Abraham took an ax and destroyed all of them, except for one, the largest idol in the store. Then he stuck the ax into the statue’s hand and waited for his father’s return.
When Terah returned, he confronted Abraham accusing him of destroying the idols. Abraham denied everything, blaming the destruction on the one remaining idol in the shop. Terah didn’t believe him. And that’s what Abraham wanted — he wanted Terah to admit that the gods he worshipped were no gods at all.
11:28 Haran died in the lifetime of his father Terah, in his native land, Ur of the Chaldeans.
This passage too requires an expansion from the Talmud to assess the relevance this has to the origin story of an entrepreneur.
Abraham’s destruction of the idols angered Nimrod, the king of Ur. Kings collected tax on idols and this was a good source of revenue they intended to keep. Nimrod ordered Terah and his sons to appear before the king and confronted Abraham. When Abraham refused to back down, he threw him into a burning furnace. Abraham survived. When Abraham came out unharmed, Haran declared himself on Abraham’s side and chose to be likewise thrown into the furnace. Only problem was that he died in that furnace.
The problem that this part of the story touches on is that many entrepreneurs may have to go against their own families (as Abraham did with Terah) to pursue their dreams. And the consequences of those choices are something they will have to carry for the rest of their lives (as I’m sure Abraham did as it related to the death of Haran). These consequences may nowadays be as banal as doing the friends and family round in your venture. Every setback or failure will have real-world consequences.
11:29 Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves, the name of Abram’s wife being Sarai and that of Nahor’s wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.
To fully understand the meaning of this verse, we need to once again rely on the Talmud. Iscah is Sarai. The meanings of their names are similar as they both reference princely dignity and an allusion to ruling.
We can spend a ton of time analyzing why Abraham married the daughter of the brother who had died because of Abraham’s beliefs. But that will tell us more about human psychology and less about being an entrepreneur.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, what’s happening here is that Abraham is assembling his team. Sarai, as his wife, will be his most important spiritual partner in his enterprise. And the person he chooses is not only a relative (which I don’t necessarily recommend in a business) but most importantly the daughter of a person who shared Abraham’s beliefs. What we must learn from here is who to partner with. It is not the richest or the most powerful (Sarai wasn’t either), it is the person with a shares ideological belief.
Many teams fail not because their idea wouldn’t work, but because the team never learned how to work with a team. If you look at some of the most successful entrepreneurs, they all had cofounders at the beginning, but have parted along the way. And those are the successful ones. It’s very rare to see a company that’s been operating for twenty or thirty years with the same cofounders in the same roles. And that’s what Abraham was optimizing for — he wanted to create a foundation that would create a partnership for life.
11:30 Now Sarai was barren, she had no child.
This detail that Sarai was barren drives most of Abraham’s story moving forward. It is a hole in his life that he works hard to fill.
The truth is, most entrepreneurs have a hole they are trying to fill. If they didn’t, they would be fully content with their life. Why would a person who is perfectly happy with who they are and what they have, go through the brain damage of building a company that never existed before? Or risk all their wealth, reputation, and opportunity costs when they are content?
Entrepreneurs are not content. They are the opposite of content. And Abraham is the epitome of a discontented entrepreneur. He is childless (and children were the most important asset that a person possessed at that ancient time.) Children were power. They were the basis for a clan and the survival of a family.
There is another aspect of this circumstance that is very important to note. Most radically successful entrepreneurs start young and childless. This leaves them free from family obligations and with a much lower expense base. It looks like the ancients understood that, too: to take on the maximum risk, you need maximum time and minimum carrying cost.
11:31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan; but when they had come as far as Haran, they settled there.
What’s interesting to note is that it’s Terah who sets out on the journey that will ultimately lead Abraham to the land of Canaan.
According to the Talmud, Terah planned to restart his idol-making business in Canaan, because idol worshiping there was at its peak. But I’d like to think that Terah may have learned a thing or two from what Abraham had to teach him. And what this part of the story is meant to teach us is that Abraham, even though he was rebelling against his father, he and his father were actually in the same business, trying to solve the same problem. They had radically different approaches to doing so, but Abraham was actually continuing his father’s work. And that’s another important reminder to entrepreneurs: we are never in a vacuum and we are just following in the footsteps of those before us. We just think we can do it better than all those that came before us.
11:32 The days of Terah came to 205 years; and Terah died in Haran.
What’s interesting about Biblical text is how it deals with chronology. It is not written chronologically but it cuts across time to enhance the meaning it wants to convey. Abraham is 75 years old when God speaks to him and he leaves Haran to go to Canaan (something that happens in the next chapter of Genesis). Terah begot Abraham when Terah was 70 years old. Since Terah lives to be 205 years, Abraham departs on his entrepreneurial journey when Terah is 145 years old. But Terah is never mentioned again in the subsequent story.
Why?
When you start a transformational journey, and for all successful entrepreneurs their entrepreneurial journey is the transformative journey of their physical and often spiritual life, you kill your past. Our past pushes us to start our journey, it may help guide us somewhat along the way, but we are firmly alone in the journey we take. And that’s what this last verse of Chapter 11 is telling us. The moment you set out on the journey, you bury your past.
So, according to the Torah, what every great entrepreneur will have as part of their origin story is:
- Insider knowledge of the industry they are trying to disrupt
- A willingness to carry on work started before them
- A burning desire (for something they lack) that drives them
- Ample free time
- Low living cost
- A committed team of believers
- The willingness to leave their past behind, no matter the pain it may cause
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