Fascinating take on why public intellectuals have short shelf lives:

https://scholars-stage.org/public-intellectuals-have-short-shelf-lives-but-why/

This is a big part of why I intentionally try to keep "doing foot-soldier things" (notably, coding, and exploring the world regular-person-style rather than entourage-and-limousine-style)

The humble leader spending 1 week/year living very simply with only a horse, some bread and water is a nice archetype. 

But the Friedman arc was always going to be the same. Success has inertia, and the high-risk strategy that brought him initial praise was not economically rational to continue once globally renowned.