Lee Kuan Yew (Video Version)

How to Take Over the World

Benjamin Wilson

Self-improvement, Education, History

5.0 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2025

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lee Kuan Yew took a crowded, dirty, poor port town, and turned it into one of the world's great cities. How was he able to lead such an incredible transformation of Singapore? 00:00 Introduction 03:50 Early Life and Education 12:00 The Japanese Occupation and Its Impact 17:30 Post-War Singapore and the Road to Independence 24:45 The People's Action Party and Early Governance 37:30 Operation Coldstore and the Fight Against Communism 40:00 Ethnic Tensions and Operation Cold Store 41:15 Formation of Malaysia and Rising Tensions 42:30 Singapore's Expulsion and Independence 43:50 Lee Kuan Yew's Emotional Address 46:40 Building a Defense Strategy 51:20 Lee Kuan Yew's Ideology and Governance 59:00 Economic Growth and Development 01:06:20 Social Progress and Urban Development 01:15:00 Conclusion and Legacy --- Sponsors: ⁠⁠Zashi⁠⁠ for Z Cash ⁠HTTOTW Premium⁠ - For all endnotes, takeaways, and bonus episode, subscribe to How to Take Over the World Premium GainsInBulk.com/ben⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Use code Ben for 20% off instantized creatine and more⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Speechify.com/ben⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Use code Ben for 15% off Speechify premium ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Founders Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Coaching --- Stay in touch: Twitter/X: ⁠@BenWilsonTweets⁠ Instagram: ⁠@HTTOTW⁠ Email me: Ben@takeoverpod.com Sources: ⁠No Man Is An Island: A Portrait of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew by James Minchin⁠ ⁠Lee Kuan Yew: The Grandmaster's Insights on China, United States, and the World by Graham Allison, Michael McConnohie, et al.⁠ ⁠From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew⁠ ⁠Singapore: A Modern History by Michael D Barr⁠ --- Writing, research, and production by Ben Wilson. * This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Go to HelixSleep.com/TakeOverPod for 20% off your purchase. * This episode is brought to you by Incogni. Go to Incogni.com/takeover for 60% off. ----- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And let that be no mistakes about this.
0:03.0	Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him or give it up.
0:09.0	This is not a game of cards.
0:11.0	This is your life and mine.
0:13.0	I've spent a whole lifetime building this.
0:16.0	And as long as I'm in charge, nobody's going to knock it down.
0:25.6	I'm going to show you how great I am. This would have tiny power.
0:28.6	I just want to say from the bottom of me heart,
0:31.6	I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.
0:45.9	Hello and welcome to How to Take Over the World.
0:47.0	This is Ben Wilson.
0:50.5	Today we are talking about Li Kuan Yu, the founder of modern Singapore.
0:54.0	Singapore is a very small island off the southern coast of Malaysia. When Likuan
0:55.3	Yu took over as Prime Minister, it was a small dirty backwater port town. Now it is a gleaming
1:01.1	modern metropolis, one of the great cities of the world up there with London, New York, and
1:04.5	Tokyo. You may have noticed that we started doing video episodes for how to take over the world
1:09.0	recently. And one of the last episodes we
1:11.3	did before we started moving over to video was Lee Kuan Yew. And so this episode is a re-release
1:17.7	of the Lee Kuan Yew episode this time with video. Video has allowed us to reach an entirely
1:22.6	new audience. And so I wanted to make sure that we were able to get this episode in front of that audience as well because I think this story is so important
1:30.7	Lee Kuan use a really interesting figure one of the reasons I like his story so much is that it's applicable to everyone
1:36.3	Right if if you're an entrepreneur an investor an executive a coach whatever
	...

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