The Bold Ones summary

What does disruption look like? Well, it’s when the rules everyone lives by suddenly seem like they don’t apply anymore. If you’re not among the Bold Ones, you just won’t see it coming. You might even dismiss it.

That’s just what two radio DJs, Ebro and Rosenberg, did in 2016, when they invited an Instagram-famous rapper who no one took very seriously onto their show. The rapper in question was Cardi B. The DJs peppered Cardi with inappropriate questions about her cosmetic surgeries and her former career as a stripper. They dismissively said her rapping “needed work.”

Ever heard of Ching Shih? If you haven’t, now’s the time. She was the most successful pirate – economically and culturally – of all time. Born in 1775 in China’s Guangdong province, she married the notorious pirate Zheng Yi, leader of the Red Flag Fleet, as a young girl. Ching Shih influenced her husband to bring other local pirates to a roundtable negotiating session, where they divided up territories and future fortunes in a mutually beneficial way. After her husband’s death, Ching Shih not only took over his role as commander of this loose confederation of pirates, she actually significantly expanded his empire. At the height of her powers, she commanded roughly 1,800 large vessels and 80,000 men. 

Pirates aren’t organized. Typically, they sneer at concepts like hierarchy and rank. It took a newbie like Ching Shih to realize that imposing systems on this free-for-all would decrease bloodshed and increase profit. But in order to achieve this, she needed to bring the rest of the pirating world with her. She needed a cult following. Once she had that, she could do anything. 

In 1995, Bill Gates went on the David Letterman show to explain a novel technological concept: the internet. The internet, Gates noted, had a lot of different potential functions. It might, for example, help you broadcast a baseball game. Letterman snickered – hadn’t Gates ever heard of the radio? The audience laughed. But Gates pressed on. Thanks to the internet, he said, you wouldn’t need to tune in live. You could listen to that baseball game whenever you wanted. Letterman ridiculed Gates again – perhaps Gates hadn’t ever heard of something called a tape recorder? Cue more laughter from the audience and the late night host.

Fast forward to today. Who’s laughing now?

Hatshepsut should have been a footnote in history. In Egypt, in 1479 BCE, the pharaoh Thutmose II died. His son, Thutmose III was too young to ascend to the throne. So Hatshepsut, the half-sister of Thutmose II, stepped in. 

So far, so conventional. In Egypt at that time, noblewomen often stepped in to act as regent, papering over any gaps in the line of succession. But Hatshepsut wasn’t content to settle for a caretaker role. She changed the rules of the game. She propagated stories that she’d been chosen by the gods to rule Egypt. And though she didn’t declare herself pharaoh until seven years after Thutmose II’s death, she rewrote history on official sculptures and hieroglyphics – backdating her ascension to the day that Thutmose II died. As pharaoh, she led her country through a period of unprecedented peace, expanded trade with Africa and the Middle East, and ordered the construction of some of the era’s greatest monuments.