What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz

What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz

Author:Ben Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00


That was the Mongol way. When Temujin was eight or nine, his father took him along as he rode out to seek a wife for the boy. During their search among nearby clans, they stayed with a family who had a daughter named Borte. The children liked each other and the fathers agreed to betroth them. Temujin would remain with Borte’s family as a herder while his father raised the bride price, and then they would marry.

Three years later, Yesugei ate a meal with the Tatars, the tribe of Temujin Uge, the warrior he had killed. Apparently he failed to sufficiently hide his identity, and they poisoned him. As he was dying, Yesugei sent for Temujin, who was forced to leave Borte and her family and return home—to a family that now consisted of two widows and seven small children.

Unwilling to support so many hungry mouths, the Tayichiud abandoned the family and stole their animals, essentially condemning them to death on the harsh steppe. Hoelun kept her family going through sheer will: they wore the skins of the dogs and mice that they ate to keep from starving.

Temujin chafed under the bullying of his older half brother Begter, now the family’s eldest male. Not only did Begter eat the fish that Temujin had caught, but he seemed eager to begin sleeping with his widowed stepmother, Hoelun, as was traditional. Temujin’s solution to the problem was extremely direct: he and his younger brother Khasar took their bows and shot Begter full of arrows. Kids, let that be a lesson to you: don’t pick on your younger brother, as he may turn out to be Genghis Khan.

Hoelun was furious. How could the boys hope to build alliances and avenge themselves on their tribe if they couldn’t even refrain from murdering their half brother? “You are like wolves,” she said, “like mad dogs that tear their own flesh.”

To punish this killing, the Tayichiud captured Temujin and made him a slave, working him hard. Temujin soon escaped and was taken in by a poor family that hid him under fleeces when his captors came in search of him. This kindness from strangers, contrasted with his treatment by his rich kin the Tayichiud, made a strong impression. In Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford observes that the experience gave Temujin “the conviction that some people, even those outside his clan, could indeed be trusted as if they were family. In later life, he would judge others primarily by their actions toward him and not according to their kinship bonds, a revolutionary concept in steppe society.” As we shall see, judging others primarily by their actions is also a revolutionary concept in many of today’s corporate cultures.

In 1178, Temujin turned sixteen. Though he had not seen his intended wife, Borte, since his father died, he felt confident enough to seek her out again. He was pleased to discover that she had waited for him. By custom a new bride brought a gift for the groom’s parents.



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