Olivia: The most powerful thing a leader can do is give away power. Jackson: Okay, hold on. That sounds like a beautiful, poetic recipe for total chaos. It feels like the kind of advice that gets you fired. "Here are the keys to the company, I'm going on vacation!" Olivia: It absolutely feels like a career-ending mistake. But what if it's the secret behind everything from the creation of Wikipedia to the Visa card in your wallet? What if it’s the most potent, underused force in building anything meaningful? Jackson: Alright, you have my attention. That’s a huge claim. Where is this coming from? Olivia: It’s the central idea in a fascinating book called The Power of Giving Away Power by Matthew Barzun. And he’s a really interesting person to be making this argument. This isn't some academic in an ivory tower. Jackson: Oh? Who is he? Olivia: He’s a guy who has seen power from every possible angle. He was a tech executive at CNET during the wild dot-com boom, he was the National Finance Chair for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, and he served as the US Ambassador to both Sweden and the United Kingdom. Jackson: Wow, okay. So he's been inside the corporate pyramid, the political machine, and the diplomatic world. That definitely gives him a unique perspective and explains the wild range of stories in this book. It’s also a book that got a lot of praise for being innovative, though some readers felt its core idea was a bit idealistic. Olivia: Exactly. And Barzun argues this tension between hoarding power and sharing it is literally stamped onto American identity, right on the dollar bill you have in your pocket.

Jackson: The dollar bill? What are you talking about? I just see an eye, a pyramid, and a bunch of Latin I can’t read. Olivia: Well, everyone focuses on the pyramid. But Barzun points out that the pyramid was actually the second choice for America’s national symbol. The original design for the Great Seal of the United States was something completely different. Jackson: It wasn't a pyramid? What was it? Olivia: It was a constellation. After declaring independence, the founders—Franklin, Jefferson, Adams—were on the committee to design a seal. They struggled for years. Finally, a consultant named Francis Hopkinson proposed a crest with thirteen stars in the sky, which he called a "radiant constellation." Jackson: A constellation. I like that. What was the idea behind it? Olivia: It was the perfect symbol for their new nation. Each star is a distinct, brilliant point of light—an individual state—but they form a beautiful, coherent pattern together. No single star is in charge, there's no star at the top of a hierarchy. They are interdependent. It was the visual representation of the motto they also chose: E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Jackson: That makes so much sense. It’s a system of equals. So what happened? Why is there a giant, imposing pyramid on my money and not this elegant star chart? Olivia: Because of a crisis. For over 150 years, the constellation was the primary symbol. But then came the Great Depression. The country was in freefall. And in 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, was looking through a history book and "rediscovered" the pyramid design on the back of the Great Seal. Jackson: It was on the back the whole time? Olivia: The whole time, but rarely used. Wallace showed it to FDR, who fell in love with it. The pyramid symbolized something totally different: strength, duration, top-down, consolidated power. It was a perfect symbol for the New Deal and for a government that needed to take control to fight a national emergency. At FDR's insistence, they put both sides of the seal on the new one-dollar bill in 1935, but he made sure the pyramid side was featured first. Jackson: Whoa. So it wasn't an accident. It was a deliberate choice. When things got scary, we instinctively reached for the Pyramid—for hierarchy and control—and pushed the Constellation aside. Olivia: Precisely. And Barzun’s whole book is a powerful argument that in our complex, modern world, we need to consciously choose the Constellation again. He says we’re surrounded by "Pyramid Propaganda" that tells us success comes from top-down control, but the most innovative and resilient things are built differently.

Jackson: Okay, so choosing the Constellation sounds nice in theory. But does it actually work in the real world, especially in business? It seems like you need a boss, a plan, a hierarchy. Olivia: That’s the conventional wisdom. But Barzun gives these incredible examples of "Constellation Makers" who defied that logic and changed the world. Let’s start with the encyclopedia wars. Jackson: The encyclopedia wars? That sounds like the most polite war in history. Olivia: (laughs) It was brutal! For 200 years, Encyclopedia Britannica was the undisputed king. It was the ultimate Pyramid of knowledge. You had a small group of paid experts at the top, writing definitive articles that were printed in expensive, heavy volumes and sold by a door-to-door sales force. Jackson: I remember those! My parents felt guilty for not buying them. Olivia: Exactly! Then in the 90s, Microsoft came along with Encarta on CD-ROM. It was a smarter, faster Pyramid. Still top-down, still expert-driven, but they used technology to make it cheaper and add multimedia. They crushed Britannica. In fact, at one point, a desperate Britannica actually offered to sell itself to Microsoft. Jackson: No way. What did Microsoft do? Olivia: They said no. They thought they had already won the war. But they were fighting the last war. Because a third model was emerging, one that made no sense at all. Jackson: Let me guess. Wikipedia. Olivia: Wikipedia. In 2001, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched it with a completely insane premise. They gave away all the power. Anyone, anywhere, with or without credentials, could write or edit an article. It was pure Constellation thinking. Jackson: That sounds like a recipe for disaster. How does that not just become a cesspool of errors, vandalism, and conspiracy theories? How do you get quality from that kind of chaos? Olivia: Because it wasn't just chaos. It was a Constellation. There was a shared purpose: "let's build a free encyclopedia for everyone." There were a few simple, guiding principles. And most importantly, there was a deep trust that the community, the network of individuals, would care enough to contribute, correct, and improve the work. They gave away the power, and in return, they unleashed the collective energy of millions. Years later, the science journal Nature did a study and found Wikipedia was just as accurate as Britannica. Jackson: That is mind-blowing. They built one of the greatest intellectual achievements in human history by letting go of control completely. Olivia: And this mindset isn't just for non-profits or passion projects. Barzun tells another incredible story about how this same logic built one of the biggest for-profit platforms on Earth: Visa. Jackson: The credit card company? I always assumed that was run by some giant bank. Olivia: That was the problem! In the 1960s, Bank of America tried to create a national credit card, BankAmericard, by licensing it to other banks. But it was a disaster. The banks didn't trust each other. They were all competing, trying to game the system. It was a Pyramid trying to manage a network, and it was failing. Jackson: So how did they fix it? Olivia: A mid-level banker named Dee Hock stepped up. He saw that the command-and-control model was the problem. He proposed something radical. He convinced Bank of America to give up ownership and control of its own product. Jackson: Wait, he convinced them to give away their own invention? To their competitors? That has to be the hardest sales pitch in history. Olivia: It was! But Hock’s vision was a Constellation. He created a new entity, owned by all the member banks, with no single institution in charge. It was, in his words, "chaordic"—a blend of chaos and order. There were shared principles and rules that everyone agreed to, but within that framework, every bank was free to compete and innovate. He gave away the power, and in doing so, created a system of trust that allowed value to flow freely. That system became Visa, which now processes trillions of dollars a year. Jackson: So in both cases, with Wikipedia and Visa, the breakthrough came when the founder gave up trying to control the outcome and instead focused on creating the conditions for everyone else to contribute. They gave away power over the product to gain power in the platform. Olivia: That's a perfect way to put it. They stopped building a thing and started nurturing a system. They chose the Constellation.

Jackson: Okay, these are amazing, world-changing stories. But they also feel like lightning-in-a-bottle moments. You know, Barzun's critics sometimes say this is all a bit idealistic. How does a regular person—a manager at a normal company, or just someone on a team—actually do this? We can't all go out and start a Wikipedia. Olivia: That's the million-dollar question, and Barzun brings it back to a forgotten thinker from the 1920s, a woman named Mary Parker Follett. She was a management consultant way ahead of her time, and she argued that the real shift doesn't happen in grand organizational structures. It happens in the tone of our everyday interactions. Jackson: The tone? What does that mean? Olivia: Follett made this brilliant distinction between "power-over," which is the Pyramid's way of dominating and controlling, and "power-with," which is the Constellation's way of co-creating. She said the goal of any meeting or collaboration shouldn't be for one side to win, or even to compromise. The goal should be integration—to create something new that nobody had thought of before. Jackson: That requires a totally different mindset going in. Olivia: It does. And Barzun, inspired by Follett, offers this simple but profound framework. He says to build a Constellation, you just need to bring three expectations to every interaction. First, expect to need others. Second, expect to be needed. And third—this is the hardest one—expect to be changed. Jackson: Expect to be changed. Wow. That means you can't walk into a room with your mind already made up, just waiting to convince everyone else. You have to give up the power of being 'right.' Olivia: Exactly. That is the fundamental act of giving away power. It’s not about delegating tasks or flattening an org chart. It's about relinquishing the certainty and security of the Pyramid for the unknown potential of the Constellation. It’s a leap of faith. Jackson: But as the stories of Wikipedia and Visa show, it’s a leap that can create unimaginable value. It’s a different kind of might. Olivia: It really is. So maybe the one thing to try this week is, in your next team meeting, or even just in a conversation with a friend or partner, go in with that one thought: "I expect to be changed by this conversation." And just see what happens. Jackson: I love that. It’s a small shift with huge implications. And we'd love to hear how it goes. Find us on our socials and tell us about your own experiences with Pyramids and Constellations in your life. We're always curious to hear your stories. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.