I have a tremendous amount of respect for Yuval Noah Harari. His book 'Sapiens' was a triumph, and his new release, 'Nexus', offers a sweeping, bird’s-eye view of how information networks shape human history. But when I read his recent comments diagnosing the "core delusions deranging our politics" and criticizing the so-called mistakes that global strongmen keep making, I couldn't help but sigh into my sparkling water.
It is so easy for academics to sit in their ivory towers and lob stones at the men doing the hard, messy work of unilaterally governing millions of people without their consent. But if Yuval had spent half as much time in the VIP lounges of Doha, Riyadh, or Singapore as he has studying ancient hunter-gatherers, he would know that today's autocrats are some of the most mindful, solutions-oriented executives on the planet.
Just last month, I found myself sharing a platter of ethically sourced figs on a superyacht moored off the coast of a nation I will not name, but which recently restructured its parliament into a high-security parking garage. My host, the Supreme Protector of the Realm, was not "deranged" by power, as Harari might suggest. He was actively seeking feedback. He asked me probing, intelligent questions about artificial intelligence, blockchain logistics, and the most efficient ways to monitor private group chats. Is that the behavior of a delusional strongman? Or is that the behavior of a lifelong learner?
Harari argues that strongmen are fundamentally flawed because their systems of absolute power prevent them from receiving accurate information. He claims that when you execute anyone who brings you bad news, you eventually lose touch with reality. This is a classic western-centric bias. It assumes that bad news is somehow necessary for growth.
In my experience, eliminating negative feedback loops actually streamlines the decision-making process. Think of the bureaucratic red tape in Washington or London. Then compare it to the frictionless agility of a leader who can simply declare a new megacity into existence and instantly silence anyone who points out there is no water supply. That isn't a delusion; that is a bias toward action.
We are actually very open to constructive criticism, provided it is submitted through the proper channels and does not imply that our leader is anything less than a living god.
I recently brought a galley copy of 'Nexus' to a closed-door roundtable in a sovereign wealth fund's private alpine retreat. The room was filled with men who, according to Harari, are suffering from the core delusions deranging our politics. Yet, as I unpacked Harari’s thesis—that historical networks of information are fundamentally flawed and prone to collapse when centralized—the room did not erupt in deranged, tyrannical fury.
Instead, His Excellency, the Life-President of a rapidly expanding equatorial republic, simply leaned forward, stroked his chin, and said, "Fascinating. So, if I am understanding this 'nexus' correctly, we should be routing all the domestic fiber-optic cables through a single chokepoint in the basement of the Ministry of Truth?"
I had to smile. Here was a man engaging directly with the text, synthesizing complex academic theory, and immediately applying it to his own local context. Harari calls this a dangerous centralization of power. I call it an agile implementation strategy.
When Harari talks about the "mistakes" strongmen make, he misses the forest for the trees. Yes, occasionally an autocrat will launch a disastrous land war that isolates their economy for a generation. We all have bad quarters. Who among us hasn't launched a product that failed to find market fit, or accidentally imprisoned the entire political opposition? To define these leaders by their geopolitical blunders is to ignore their incredible commitment to infrastructure.
I have sat next to these men at Davos. I have moderated their panels at the Milken Institute. Let me tell you: they love 'Sapiens'. They all have copies of it prominently displayed in their mahogany-paneled libraries, right between Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs and whatever Malcolm Gladwell published last. They nod thoughtfully when you talk about the cognitive revolution. They are deeply invested in the narrative of human progress, specifically the part where one dominant tribe violently subjugates the others to establish a unified agricultural order.
Furthermore, Harari’s concern about the mistake strongmen make in regulating artificial intelligence is woefully misplaced. He argues that dictators will inevitably mishandle AI because they fear any intelligence they cannot control. This completely ignores the robust, dynamic partnerships these leaders are forging with the private sector.
During a recent panel I moderated at the Global Future Forum in Dubai, I watched a prominent tech billionaire and a sanctioned military junta leader bond over their shared frustration with European privacy laws. It was a beautiful moment of cross-cultural synergy. The tech CEO needed a vast, unregulated population to train his new facial recognition models; the junta leader needed a way to automatically identify dissidents in crowded marketplaces. They didn't let Harari's core delusions get in the way of a mutually beneficial memorandum of understanding. They didn't worry about the philosophical implications of algorithmic determinism. They just did the deal. That is the kind of decisive leadership the global economy relies on.
If there is a mistake that strongmen keep making, it is a failure of personal branding. They are too humble to share their philanthropic wins. They get bogged down in the optics of state-sanctioned violence and forget to highlight their investments in green hydrogen. When you are busy indefinitely detaining dissidents, you sometimes forget to update your LinkedIn, and that is a gap that bad-faith critics like Harari are all too happy to exploit.
We need to move past this outdated binary of democracy versus authoritarianism. The global economy is a complex, multi-stakeholder ecosystem. If we are going to solve the grand challenges of our time—climate change, AI regulation, the optimization of global supply chains—we cannot afford to alienate the visionaries who currently control forty percent of the world’s rare earth minerals.
I strongly suggest Harari step out of the library and join me at the next Global Synergy Summit. I would be more than happy to introduce him to a few of these so-called strongmen. He might be surprised to find that behind the mirrored sunglasses and the heavily armed security details, they are just ordinary billionaires, looking for a little validation, a favorable regulatory environment, and a bespoke macro-historical framework that justifies their absolute rule.