Friends,

How often do you think about the Mongolian Empire?

For Mercury CEO, Immad Akhund, the answer seems to be “surprisingly often.” For our final interview of the year, I asked the founder of one of my very favorite products to share his latest obsessions, contrarian opinions, and favorite reads.

As well as outlining the historical factors that gave rise to Genghis Khan, Immad shares the critical trait that has helped him scale as a CEO, how he studies excellence across fields, the importance of finding a “river of ideas” to situate yourself in, and the contemporary American monument he believes surpasses the Pyramids of Giza.

This is part of our “Modern Meditations” series, which asks some of the world’s most interesting people unusual questions that surface new aspects of their personality. If you like today’s edition, you might enjoy our interviews with Tyler Cowen, Bryan Johnson, Chris Miller, and many others.

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Modern Meditations: Immad Akhund

What would you be doing if you didn’t work in tech?

I don’t think of myself as working in tech, necessarily. To me, it’s more about building companies and trying to deliver value to humanity in that way. Maybe this is an overly positive view of capitalism, but I think it’s hard to make something successful as a company without delivering value. The only reason a startup is able to beat an incumbent is because you’re creating value – through a