In 1692, England's King William III, seeking to gain control of trade along West Africa's coast, ordered Thomas Tew, who commanded a privateer, to attack France's colonial base in Senegal and to wipe out the notorious pirate William Kidd. How much did Tew struggle between obedience and mutiny? Sailing the warship Amity along West Africa's coast, Tew decided to rebel near the Cape of Good Hope. He persuaded his crew to become pirates.
Turning the wheel toward the Indian Ocean, Tew captured the Mughal Empire's treasure ship Dhow, bound for the Ottoman Empire, in the Red Sea in July 1693, seizing treasure worth 100,000 pounds (14 billion won). As tales spread of how 46 pirates easily overpowered more than 300 naval personnel aboard the Dhow, pirates flocked in and a pirate route emerged. This was The Pirate Round, running from the Atlantic around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean. Piracy, which had involved European nations plundering one another, began targeting even the pilgrimage ships of Islamic nations.
Why did Tew dare to rebel? It appears that attacking the Senegal base under the king's orders carried high risk and little reward. At the time, privateers had to hand over more than half of their spoils to the government and investors. There was no particular compensation for death or injury. The crew unanimously agreed to the distribution method Tew proposed. From the single plunder of the Dhow, each crew member appears to have pocketed about 4 billion won, while Tew took 10 billion won. With just one act of piracy, they secured enough money to live on for the rest of their lives.
Thomas Tew left several milestones in pirate history. Beyond introducing a democratic method of running a pirate ship and pioneering The Pirate Round, attempting a large-scale joint pirate operation was also among his achievements. In 1695, Tew, together with "Long Ben" Henry Every, carried out what was then the largest joint operation, attacking the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb's luxury trading ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In this operation, he was hit by cannon shrapnel and died instantly. He was 46.
The democratic leadership of Thomas Tew, who opened a new door to the pirate world, resembles the open leadership of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The co-founders judged that internet portals of the time, which centered on directories and advertising, provided inaccurate information and low search efficiency, and developed a search engine that offered objective and accurate information based on web page links. Like Tew, they rebelled against the existing system.
When the co-founders launched the company in 1998, they offered employees stock options. This was just like Tew promising distribution to the crew who were "in the same boat" as he rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Google's stock, listed at 85 dollars per share in 2004, surpassed 100 dollars on its first day and kept setting record highs day after day. As the number of employees holding more than 1 million dollars in stock grew, the term "Google Millionaires" even emerged. This sparked a stock-option-centered compensation culture in Silicon Valley.
Google's organizational culture spread along with it. Google's organizational culture, which emphasized autonomy and openness, kept producing innovative results. For example, the "20% Project," in which 20% of daily work hours are devoted to creative work, gave birth to services such as Gmail, with its increased capacity and faster speed, and AdSense, which connects supply and demand in online advertising. Google also became the first to chart courses to "digital new continents" such as YouTube, Android, artificial intelligence, and self-driving cars.
In the waters off the Cape of Good Hope, did the crew of the Amity hesitate at the danger of an enemy attack, or were they swayed by the rewards of piracy? How far can an organization be led by the simple sweet talk of "I'll make you set for life with one big score"? In response to Thomas Tew's proposal, the 46 crew members shouted in unison: "A gold chain or a wooden leg, we'll stand with you!" Without presenting a vision and solidifying trust, only pirates who covet the "gold chain" will multiply.
