Another Founder.
A new nation.
Danny Hillis is an inventor and engineer of complex machines. He has designed some of the fastest computers in the world and one of the slowest mechanical devices: the 10,000-year Clock of the Long Now.
What follows is adapted and expanded from “The Rise and Fall of ‘Petty Tyrants,’” published in Noema Magazine (April 2026). This is Danny’s second piece for News Items and Political News Items.
By Danny Hillis.
A country’s first leader can shape its future. July Fourth is America’s celebration of its decision not to be ruled by a king, yet the moment that reportedly astounded King George III was when victorious General Washington handed his sword back to the Continental Congress, establishing a pattern of leadership that has shaped the nation ever since.
Another leader who set a pattern for his nation was Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. In many ways the two were very different. Washington voluntarily stepped down after two terms; Lee held on for decades, initially with fragile support. Yet what they shared was an insistence on honesty and an eye for the future — traits that enabled both to build nations that thrived against long odds.
After Singapore was expelled from Malaysia in 1965, Lee faced the challenge of uniting a population that was multicultural, multilingual and mostly poor. The new nation had deep ethnic divisions and scarce resources. Leading a coalition he did not fully control, Lee needed to establish a sense of national identity and to construct governance structures independent of colonial rule.
His goal was to build a nation that could survive beyond him. He was firm, even authoritarian, but not self-indulgent. Where other strongmen built golden palaces, Lee lived in the same simple colonial bungalow from 1945 until his death in 2015. Even after Singapore’s skyline grew to modern splendor, he refused to move.
Lee treated government like an engineering project, and he encouraged disagreement. Praising one of his cabinet ministers, he once said: “When he held a contrary view, he would challenge my decisions and make me re-examine the premises on which they were made. As a result, we reached better decisions for Singapore.”
He built systems that institutionalized truth-telling within his government. Every ministry responsible for policy was required to produce postmortem reports analyzing its own failures. He publicly released embarrassing data, such as pollution and corruption indices, to signal transparency. Whistleblowers were protected.
Lee handpicked civil servants through rigorous merit exams, paid them generously — like corporate executives — to prevent corruption, and held them to uncompromising standards. The system was tested in late 1986, when Singapore’s anti-corruption bureau brought Lee evidence that Teh Cheang Wan, his minister for national development, had accepted bribes. Within weeks, Lee approved an investigation. Before charges could be filed, the minister killed himself. He left a final note to Lee: “I feel it is only right that I should pay the highest penalty for my mistake.”
Lee’s response was telling. He sent a condolence letter to Teh’s widow. But on Jan. 26, 1987, he read the suicide note aloud in Parliament and revealed for the first time that Teh had been under investigation. His statement was uncompromising: “There is no way a minister can avoid investigations, and a trial, if there is evidence to support one.” He later explained his reasoning further: “The purpose is not just to be righteous. The purpose is to create a system which will carry on because it has not been compromised. I didn’t do that just to be righteous about Teh Cheang Wan. But if I had compromised, that is the end of the system.”
Lee detested personality cults. During his time in office, he declined requests to display his portraits or busts in public settings. The government wanted to preserve his house as a national monument after his death, but he left explicit instructions not to do so. “The house should not be left as a kind of relic,” he said. “Demolish it after I am gone.” He did not want to be adored. He wanted to be respected for what he had built.
Lee was not universally liked. Although he tolerated internal dissent and encouraged critical debate within government, he did not extend this principle to his political opponents. He suppressed freedom of the press and jailed critics for holding even small demonstrations. He seemed to trust his systems more than his citizens, and was not interested in the free speech of those he regarded as harmful, dishonest or ignorant.
Lee carefully prepared multiple successors and established mandatory retirement ages — including for himself. He stepped down in 1990. When he died at 91, more than 450,000 of the nation’s 5.5 million people queued for hours to pay their respects. This was not by government order. It was spontaneous grief.
His system continues beyond him. Appointments are based on merit, the bureaucracy functions independently of politics, and economic planning continues across decades. Singapore’s honest government gave it a competitive advantage over other small nations; honesty was good for business. “A clean, efficient, rational, and predictable government,” Lee observed, “is a competitive advantage.” Its level of corruption is among the lowest in the world, and as of 2026 its GDP per capita of more than $90,000 is among the world’s highest. Today, a Singapore passport gets you visa-free entry into more countries than any other.
Lee built something that outlasted him because he kept reality as his ally rather than an annoyance to explain away. He was an authoritarian who insisted on hearing the truth. His power did not depend on creating an illusion of infallibility. It depended on systems that worked, run by people who were free to tell him when they didn’t. As he once described his own method: “My life is not guided by philosophy or theories. I get things done and leave others to extract the principles from my successful solutions. I do not work on a theory. Instead, I ask: what will make this work?”
Guided by reason and reality, Lee built a nation that works.