The Richest Person To Ever Live

Tl;Dr. A profile of the wealthiest person on Earth, the great communication canyon between young and older employees, why your clothes are trash, and archived interviews with famous founders.

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” — Ayn Rand

Dear Reader,

We all think about money. The loop plays in our heads like a broken record: How can I make more? We should spend less. Why don’t we save more? I should budget better…

Whether it’s as a business owner or an investor, for your job, or in our personal lives, money is on our minds a lot.

Even for millionaires, billionaires, and people like Jeff Bezos (who, with a net worth of 110.2 billion dollars, is the richest man alive), money is a resource that must be managed.

But let us tell you a story about one man for whom money was nothing but an afterthought. His name is Mansa Musa. And he’s the richest man in history.

During the 14th Century, Mansa Musa ruled the kingdom of Mali in West Africa. Under his control, the kingdom grew significantly, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean 2,000 miles East to nowadays Niger. His land was rich in many high-demand resources, including gold and salt. In fact, his empire held half of all the Old World’s gold.

Perhaps one of the best demonstrations of Mansa’s immense wealth is his pilgrimage to Mecca. To make the 4,000-mile trek across the desert, he brought an entourage of 60,000 people. The group consisted of his royal court, advisors, soldiers, entertainers, slaves… all dressed head to toe in the finest silk and gold-threaded clothing. He also had camels carrying thousands of pounds of pure gold.

Along the journey, Mansa was very generous with his riches. So much so that after he had made his way through Egypt, his spending had wreaked havoc on their economy. The value of gold shot down and it took a decade for Egypt to finally recover. Even today, if Jeff Bezos spent massive amounts of his wealth while traveling, it couldn’t have nearly as disastrous of an effect as Mansa’s journey.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how wealthy Mansa was. Today, his assets in gold, land, and other resources are predicted to be worth over $400 billion. But it’s impossible to know exactly how much his net worth is in today’s terms.

While Mansa’s true wealth may never be known, what is very clear is that no one has ever (and likely while ever) hold comparable amounts of riches. 💸

For more on Mansa’s life:
BBC’s Take
Thoughts from Investopedia
Insights in Business Insider

Mission News 🗞

This section features the best of what the team at Mission HQ is reading, watching, listening to, playing, doing, and meditating on.

Reading 📚

🗣 Feel that communication divide between your younger and older employees and coworkers? You aren’t alone.

“A recent survey from writing software company Grammarly found workers under 35 were 50% more likely than older workers to be told their tone was too informal, even though more younger workers said they spent time agonizing over meaning, tone and grammar in their emails.

Miscommunication between different age groups is hardly a new phenomenon, said Bob McCann, a management communications professor at University of California, Los Angeles. But the fast pace of technological change is deepening the divide between generations.”

Listening 🎧

👕 What’s the cost of throwing away that old t-shirt? Tune in to the Make Me Smart podcast.

“What happens to our clothes when we’re done with them, they go out of style or just lose a button? Maybe we donate them, or sell them, but too often we throw them away. And that’s to say nothing about how they’re produced — The clothes we wear are tied to climate change as what we eat or how we get around. And in recent years, the impact of clothing on the environment has drastically increased.”

Watching 📺

🙌 What were founders like in the early days of their businesses? Check out founderrewind.com to watch interviews with the young Marissa Mayers, Elon Musks, and Marc Benioffs of the world.

Sign Off 👋

Comments, questions, concerns? Holla at us on the social @TheMissionHQ, or hit us up by replying to this email. Catch ya back here on the ‘morrow!

This was the October 25th edition of the Mission Daily newsletter. If you like what you read, join us on our mission.