Alexander

"“At X.com we had this philosophy: frameworks are good,” remembered Alexander. “Today, everybody uses frameworks. But back then, X.com said, instead of writing everything yourself, we should use frameworks. You can get a lot more done in little time.” Musk supported the decision because it swapped flexibility for efficiency. “If you fast forward like ten or twelve years, now Linux has a lot of tools,” Musk said. “But not then.” With Microsoft’s prewritten software libraries, he noted, three X.com engineers could do the work of dozens."

"“At X.com we had this philosophy: frameworks are good,” remembered Alexander. “Today, everybody uses frameworks. But back then, X.com said, instead of writing everything yourself, we should use frameworks. You can get a lot more done in little time.” Musk supported the decision because it swapped flexibility for efficiency. “If you fast forward like ten or twelve years, now Linux has a lot of tools,” Musk said. “But not then.” With Microsoft’s prewritten software libraries, he noted, three X.com engineers could do the work of dozens."

"For of the lords he had despoiled he killed as many as he could reach, and very few saved themselves; the Roman gentlemen had been won over to himself; in the College he had a very large party; and as to new acquisition, he had planned to become lord over Tuscany, he already possessed Perugia and Piombino, and he had taken Pisa under his protection. And, as soon as he did not have to pay regard to France (which he did not have to do any longer, since the French had already been stripped of the kingdom by the Spanish, so that each of them was forced of necessity to buy his friendship), he would have jumped on Pisa. After this, Lucca and Siena would have quickly yielded, in part through envy of the Florentines, in part through fear; the Florentines had no remedy. If he had succeeded in this (as he was succeeding the same year that Alexander died), he would have acquired such force and reputation that he would have stood by himself and would no longer have depended on the fortune and force of someone else, but on his own power12 and virtue. But Alexander died five years after he13 had begun to draw his sword. He left the duke with only the state of Romagna consolidated, with all the others in the air, between two very powerful enemy armies, and sick to death. And there was such ferocity and such virtue in the duke, and he knew so well how men have to be won over or lost, and so sound were the foundations that he had laid in so little time, that if he had not had these armies on his back or if he had been healthy, he would have been equal to every difficulty. And that his foundations were good one may see: Romagna waited for him for more than a month; in Rome, though he was half-alive, he remained secure; and although the Baglioni, Vitelli, and Orsini came to Rome, none followed them against him; if he could not make pope whomever he wanted, at least it would not be someone he did not want."

"Soon after his arrival at the Tuileries, Napoleon collected twenty-two statues of his heroes for the grand gallery, starting, inevitably, with Alexander and Julius Caesar but also featuring Hannibal, Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Frederick the Great, George Washington, Mirabeau and the revolutionary general the Marquis de Dampierre. The Duke of Marlborough, renowned for his victory at the battle of Bleinheim, was included, as was General Dugommier, whose presence alongside such genuine military giants as Gustavus Adolphus and Marshal Saxe must have been based on his perspicacity in spotting Napoleon’s worth at Toulon. Joubert was there too, since he was now safely dead."

"‘If I had stayed in the East, I would have founded an empire, like Alexander.’ Napoleon to General Gourgaud on St Helena"