This Wittgenstein Scholar Built a $16 Billion Startup | Marcus Ryu, Oxford

Marx, Nietzsche, Hegel, Wittgenstein

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Studying Marx made me a much better entrepreneur.

The most vocal critics of a system (Nietzsche to Christianity, Schmitt to Liberalism) are often the best guides. Marx is no different. If you want to master the game of capital, you need to understand his penetrating insights on alienation, primitive accumulation, and fetishization.

My guest Marcus Ryu is one such master. He built a $16 billion startup, Guidewire, in response to Marx’s idea of alienation. The way to have motivated, effective employees is to address the problem of “estranged labor” within capitalism itself. This response represents both a deep agreement and rejection of Marx’s ideas.

Marx was, of course, not his only philosophical guide in his entrepreneurial journey. For the first 25 years of his life, Marcus seemed destined to be a philosophy professor: top of his class at Princeton and Oxford, nerdy, with no interest outside the most theoretical of questions. And yet, after an existential crisis towards the end of his PhD on Wittgenstein Marcus found himself in Silicon Valley.

This interview catalogs the story of that radical transformation and how Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel, and Wittgenstein shaped his approach to building startups.

Topics We Cover:

1:55 How To Unalienate Your Labor

16:38 From Oxford to SF

25:28 Two Founder Types: Messianic Leader vs. The Hyperationalist

30:32 How Philosophy Harms You As a Founder

42:10 The Sociopathic Founder Type

52:38 The Inner Dialogue of a Philosopher

1:02:59 Scholars are not thinkers, employees are not founders

1:36:10 Philosophy as a Monastic Life

1:55:24 Human-Centered vs. Ruthless Leadership