What Do Jeff Bezos, Shakespeare and Genghis Khan Have in Common?

17:38 5 September, 2026

What does it take to become great? Being in the right place at the right time? Possessing extraordinary genius? Or does true greatness require something more? Daily Mail explores the question.

In March 1930, a young and relatively unknown German politician was driving through an intersection in Munich when a huge truck slammed into his car. The truck stopped at the very last moment, narrowly avoiding killing everyone inside.

That politician was Adolf Hitler. Three years later, he would become Chancellor of Germany and go on to unleash the Second World War and the Holocaust, in which tens of millions of people would die.

But would any of it have happened if Hitler had been killed in that crash?

For some, the answer is obvious: without his personal ambitions and hunger for power, history would have unfolded very differently. For others, the harsh conditions imposed on Germany after the First World War were already pushing Europe toward another conflict. And the antisemitism that became one of the driving forces behind the Holocaust had existed in Germany long before Hitler came to power.

So can individual people really change the course of history? And how could we possibly determine that?

In his new book, American scientist, historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond examines a vast body of historical evidence in an attempt to answer these questions.

On one side is the so-called “Great Man theory” — the idea that history is shaped by exceptional individuals, from Oliver Cromwell to Jeff Bezos.

On the other is the opposing view: that leaders have only limited influence over events because their actions are ultimately dictated by circumstances.

Diamond takes a middle ground: sometimes an individual really does change history — and sometimes they don’t.

The “Hamlet Test”

To explore this paradox, Diamond proposes his own thought experiment: the “Hamlet test.”

Imagine that William Shakespeare had died of smallpox at the age of 10. Would another playwright have emerged who could have written a play as profound and complex as Hamlet?

By 1599, Shakespeare had already written more than 20 plays, including several masterpieces. Could one of his contemporaries — perhaps Ben Jonson or Christopher Marlowe — have produced something equally extraordinary?

Their works are performed far less frequently today. Diamond therefore argues that Hamlet could only have been written by Shakespeare. His talent was unique.

He applies the same principle to other extraordinary individuals.

For example, social media existed both before and after Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004. It would therefore be impossible to argue that social media would never have existed without Zuckerberg.

But it is reasonable to say that Zuckerberg — a man with a very particular personality and set of characteristics — helped determine what social media ultimately became.

Why Did Bezos Become the King of Online Retail?

Shopping online is completely unremarkable today. But why was Jeff Bezos the person who managed to turn Amazon into one of the most powerful companies on Earth?

In 1988, a Columbia University computer science professor founded a new type of hedge fund, D. E. Shaw. He recruited computer specialists, recognizing that the mathematical modeling made possible by advances in computing could be ideally suited to financial markets.

One of the early employees was 26-year-old Jeff Bezos.

One of his first assignments was to investigate the emerging opportunities presented by the internet. Bezos was stunned to discover that use of the World Wide Web had grown by an extraordinary 2,300 percent in 1993.

What fascinated him most was the idea of an “everything store” — a company that would manufacture nothing itself but act as an intermediary between consumers and producers, capable of delivering almost any product to almost anyone, anywhere in the world.

Bezos left D. E. Shaw and founded Amazon.

The company began with $10,000 of Bezos’s own money and $1.25 million provided by his parents and investors. Today, it is valued at roughly $2.8 trillion.

So what drove Amazon’s extraordinary success — circumstances or Bezos’s leadership qualities?

According to Diamond, it was an unusual combination of Bezos’s personal characteristics.

He displayed an almost obsessive attention to detail, placing customer satisfaction — including delivery speed and ease of ordering — above short-term profits and share prices.

He was extraordinarily persistent, unafraid of risk and managed to retain control of Amazon, avoiding the fate of many startup founders who are eventually pushed out by investors.

Millions of Americans possessed some of these qualities. But only Bezos happened to be in the right place at the right time — and was able to seize the opportunity.

Genghis Khan Had the Rain on His Side

But what if the success of history’s greatest leaders also depended on where and when they were born?

Surprisingly, in the case of history’s greatest conqueror, Diamond’s answer is yes.

In the 13th century, Mongol ruler Genghis Khan created the largest contiguous land empire in human history.

He was an exceptional military strategist and administrator. But the steppes of Central Asia also produced other talented leaders — Attila, for example.

Was Genghis Khan simply more brilliant than they were?

Not necessarily.

He had the rain on his side.

The decades during which his extraordinary rise took place were among the wettest periods the Central Asian steppes had experienced in centuries.

More rain meant more grass. More grass meant more animals. More sheep meant more food. More horses meant greater mobility. And ultimately, more Mongolian children who could grow up to become skilled horsemen.

Genghis Khan was an extraordinary individual. But had he been born 20 years earlier, his abilities might have proved almost useless.

The Man Who Made Botswana Rich

In one of the most fascinating sections of his book, Diamond turns to the story of Seretse Khama, the first president of independent Botswana — a small African nation that had once been considered one of the poorest countries in the world.

Khama was a brilliant administrator, a talented athlete and an Oxford graduate. He possessed a rare ability to operate comfortably in two worlds — the modern Western world and traditional African society.

In 1967, some of the world’s largest diamond deposits were discovered in Botswana. Khama used his influence and authority to ensure that the wealth that followed would benefit the country as a whole.

Rather than simply spending the diamond revenues, he established a long-term investment fund.

He also built an effective civil service and exercised caution in dealing with corrupt and authoritarian governments in neighboring African countries.

Khama turned out to be exactly the kind of person who could find himself in the right place at the right time — and transform natural wealth into the foundation for an entire nation’s prosperity.

Why Did Christianity Become a Global Religion?

Diamond’s writing is accessible, making it possible to grapple with extraordinarily complex questions.

For example, he asks why a small Jewish sect that emerged around a charismatic preacher in the Holy Land eventually became the world’s dominant religion.

Part of the answer lies with Jesus himself — an eloquent reformer who focused primarily on human behavior rather than religious laws and rituals.

His teachings appealed to a wide range of people, including the poor, the sick and women.

But much of the credit for Christianity’s expansion belongs to the apostle Paul — an exceptional organizer of the early Church who traveled throughout the Roman Empire.

He insisted that Christianity should be a religion not only for Jews but also for Gentiles.

The relatively high level of literacy across the Roman Empire also played a role: converts were able to read the emerging New Testament.

Christianity later attracted the attention of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made the religion part of the imperial state system.

Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings is both a gripping and thought-provoking book. Diamond remains a serious scholar, yet he brings an astonishingly broad perspective to the question of how history is shaped.