Why Read Biographies?
Why read biographies?
It isn't because somebody has the same problems. History does not repeat, so this as a skill would be useless. Indeed, it is because the subject has a few frameworks on how they go about things, and reading is a way to get a miniture version of them on your shoulder.
For example- Elon Musk has a framework for engineering. Perhaps he is somebody to listen to, since he has successfully built facinating and relentlessly useful engineering organizations. He has taken this framework and applied it over and over and over again, to much success.
And to think, he talks about this formula multiple times, and you can therefore learn about its effectiveness and get a miniture Elon on your shoulder for $30!
Now, you can go and apply these same lessons to scenarios you might face.
This continues to beg the question - why biographies? Can you not get similar results from learning about organizational profiles or about historical events?
I think not.
Events and organizations have too many variables. Namely, people. Both internal to the subject and also external. There are so many variables going on, and it's difficult to tell if the result was a fluke, or perhaps there was something more to be gleaned. There are too many false-positives, and not enough intimacy to truly uncover insights.
We are too determenistic, and it's difficult to parse out why something succeeded or failed. Yes, we have shraed narratives. But there are so many factors and it's impossible to extract and apply them elsewhere. The point of having somebody on your shoulder, whispering pretty nothings into your ear, is so you can take what they did and repeat it elsewhere. Think about it from a scientific perspective. Will this work in other contexts?