Explore every episode of the podcast Founders
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| #363 Li Lu and Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett | 06 Sep 2024 | 01:24:22 | |
I sent a friend this text: I'm working on another Li Lu episode but this one is about his remarkable investing career. Can be summarized by: 1. Studied Buffett and Munger. 2. Did that. Last episode was about how Li Lu survived one of the most horrific childhoods imaginable. This episode covers how he thinks about investing and entrepreneurship—in his own words. Sources: The forward to the Chinese edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack written by Li Lu Li Lu's Colombia Business School lecture 2006 Li Lu’s San Francisco State University lecture 2012 Graham & Doddsville interview with Li Lu 13th Colombia Business Conference 2021 Li Lu's Reflections On Reaching Fifty ---- Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. ---- Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube (Video coming soon!) ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #362 Li Lu | 26 Aug 2024 | 00:37:54 | |
Charlie Munger said that Li Lu was the only outsider he ever trusted with his money. Decades before Li Lu made Munger half a billion dollars, Li survived one of the most horrific childhoods imaginable: Born into poverty, abandoned, hungry, beaten, surrounded by death. Persistent. Smart. Disciplined. Intensely curious. Obsessed with reading and learning. Determined to escape. This is a story you absolutely cannot miss. What I learned from reading Moving The Mountain: My life in China from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square by Li Lu. ---- Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. ---- Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube (Video coming soon!) ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #353 How To Be Rich by J. Paul Getty | 23 Jun 2024 | 01:04:01 | |
What I learned from reading How To Be Rich by J. Paul Getty. ---- Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event ---- "Learning from history is a form of leverage." — Charlie Munger. Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. You can also ask SAGE (the Founders Notes AI assistant) any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- (2:00) My father was a self-made man who had known extreme poverty in his youth and had a practically limitless capacity for hard work. (6:00) I acted as my own geologist, legal advisor, drilling superintendent, explosives expert, roughneck and roustabout. (8:00) Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) (12:00) Control as much of your business as possible. You don’t want to have to worry about what is going on in the other guy’s shop. (20:00) Optimism is a moral duty. Pessimism aborts opportunity. (21:00) I studied the lives of great men and women. And I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work. (22:00) 98 percent of our attention was devoted to the task at hand. We are believers in Carlyle's Prescription, that the job a man is to do is the job at hand and not see what lies dimly in the distance. — Charlie Munger (27:00) Entrepreneurs want to create their own security. (34:00) Example is the best means to instruct or inspire others. (37:00) Long orders, which require much time to prepare, to read and to understand are the enemies of speed. Napoleon could issue orders of few sentences which clearly expressed his intentions and required little time to issue and to understand. (38:00) A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers From Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Peter Bevelin. (Founders #202) (41:00) Two principles he repeats: Be where the work is happening. Get rid of bureaucracy. (43:00) Years ago, businessmen automatically kept administrative overhead to an absolute minimum. The present day trend is in exactly the opposite direction. The modern business mania is to build greater and ever greater paper shuffling empires. (44:00) Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going!by Les Schwab (Founders #330) (46:00) The primary function of management is to obtain results through people. (50:00) the truly great leader views reverses, calmly and coolly. He is fully aware that they are bound to occur occasionally and he refuses to be unnerved by them. (51:00) There is always something wrong everywhere. (51:00) Don't interrupt the compounding. It’s all about the long term. You should keep a fortress of cash, reinvest in your business, and use debt sparingly. Doing so will help you survive to reap the long-term benefits of your business. (54:00) You’ll go much farther if you stop trying to look and act and think like everyone else. (55:00) The line that divides majority opinion from mass hysteria is often so fine as to be virtually invisible. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #273 Kobe Bryant (Mamba Mentality) | 26 Oct 2022 | 00:31:05 | |
What I learned from rereading The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- Episode outline: If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns and they spread themselves out. That's totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody. Greatness isn't easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time. You can't achieve greatness by walking a straight line. Respect to those who do achieve greatness and respect to those who are chasing that elusive feeling. May you find the power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own. He dedicates a lot of time in this book to the importance of learning from and studying the great people that came before you. Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby (Founders #272) His dissection of the game was at another level. In my entire career, I’ve never seen a player as dedicated to being the best. His determination is unparalleled. He unquestionably worked harder than anyone else I have ever played with. Kobe knew that to be the best you need a different approach from everyone else. If I wanted to implement something new into my game, I'd see it and try incorporating it immediately. I wasn't scared of looking bad or being embarrassed. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me. If something has worked for other greats before you, and if something is working for you, why change it up and embrace some new fad? Stick with what works, even if it's unpopular. Kobe mentions reading: Jackie Robinson’s autobiography Reading is forced meditation. I never thought about my daily preparation. It wasn't a matter of whether it was an option or not. It was, if I want to play, this is what I have to do, so l'd just show up and do it. I always found that short 15 minute cat naps gave me all the energy I would need for peak performance. Your routine can change but your obsession can not. You can find an edge by doing things your competitors are not doing. I revere the players who made the game what it is, and cherish the chances I had to pick their brains. Anything that I was seeing or going to see, any type of defense or offense or player or team—they had already encountered years before. I talked with them to learn how to deal with those challenges. I devoured Bill Russel’s autobiography. There were a lot of valuable lessons in there. If you wanna win championships, you have to let people focus on what they do best, while you focus on what you do best. You train an animal. You teach a person —Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator by Robert E. Price (Founders #107) In our first year together, he (Tex Winter) and I would rewatch every single game together. Preseason, regular season, playoffs. That's a lot of basketball. As I learned time and again, success in business often rests on a minute reading of the regulations that impact your business. —Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. (Founders #188) Coach K is really intense. He and I approach winning and losing the same way in that winning is the goal, and losing is, well, losing isn't even on the table. Coach K in The Redeem Team documentary: Understand the responsibility. I know I’m not going to fucking lose. I am not going to fucking lose. Not when I’m wearing this (team USA jersey) and not at this time in my career. You’re going to have to fucking shoot me. That’s how I want you to play. These greats won't hang around you if you don't display the same passion as they do. They won't share their time and memories with you if you don't display the same effort and drive for excellence that they did. I was accepted so quickly because everyone saw how hard I worked. They saw how badly I wanted to fulfill my destiny. The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. (Founders #255) It is to the point where if you know the basics, you have an advantage on the majority of players. “There are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes- you don’t have to go to business school for two years: high gross margins and cash flow. All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason – they run out of money.” —Don Valentine I felt that my destiny was already written. I felt I knew that my future was undeniable and no one, not a person or a play, could derail it. This is the goal. This is my goal: For almost a decade he did nothing but address weaknesses and add to his game. Now his skill set is completely fleshed out. His game has no weaknesses. He's a nightmare to go up against, and he's worked to achieve that status. That's the money right there: That thirst and quest for information and improvement. Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. (Founders #213) ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #272 Kobe Bryant (The Life) | 19 Oct 2022 | 00:55:52 | |
What I learned from reading Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- [9:15] Notes from The Redeem Team documentary: 30 seconds into the first practice Kobe is diving for loose balls. That set the tone. Players go clubbing. Come back at 5:30am and see Kobe working out. "This motherfucker Kobe was already drenched in sweat. Yeah he’s different"— LeBron James. By the end of the week the whole team was on Kobe’s schedule. Understand the responsibility. I know I’m not going to fucking lose. I am not going to fucking lose. Not when I’m wearing this (team USA jersey) and not at this time in my career. You’re going to have to fucking shoot me. That’s how I want you to play. — Coach K At one point you will have a grandkid on your lap and they will ask you weren’t you in the Olympics ? What did you do? You wanna say: Well son, we lost to that fucking Greek team? —Coach K When you’re in the Olympic village you're around people who are the best in the world at what they do. That is more special that celebrities in LA because this is athlete to athlete — I understand what they put their body through to get here. There’s so much respect and mutual admiration. —Kobe What Kobe told team USA going into the 4th quarter: Just think about the play in front of you. [12:07] At every turn his declarations of future greatness have been met with head shaking and raised eyebrows. [14:33] It's almost like Kobe's insane level of dedication was like compensation for the bad decision making of his father. [15:15] 4 parts to Kobe’s blueprint: Master the fundamentals Improve your weaknesses Study the greats Concentrate [15:12] Listening to Founders is like watching game tape of history's greatest entrepreneurs. [15:40] I used to watch their moves and then I'd add them to my game. It was the beginning of a career-long focus on studying game recordings. [15:48] He would invest long hours each day in breaking down his own performances and those of opponents— far more than what any other NBA player would ever contemplate undertaking. [17:08] Jay Z’ autobiography: Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238) [21:22] If you’re not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out. And if you’re good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground. —The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) [21:58] If you're breaking down tape of Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan and so many other greats, you come to consider them your teachers. [22:39] Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. (Founders #186) [23:00] Jordan and Knight certainly shared a competitive nature that bordered on insanity, Moore added. "If you think Jordan and Kobe are competitive, go meet Phil Knight. He's a no bullshit competitor. It's, 'You play for me or I can't stand you, I will kill you.' That's Phil Knight, full stop. And he's not shy about it.” [29:30] He studied the game harder than anyone else has ever studied the game. [30:00] One day just before practice, the team was informed that it couldn't have the gym due to flooding. “This is bullshit!” he screamed, slamming a ball off the floor. “This is bullshit! We got practice, I want to practice. This is ridiculous!" (He was in high school) [31:10] Kobe had a closet at home filled with critical research. It held all these VHS tapes of Michael's games. [32:00] Kobe on Michael Jordan: What you get from me— is from him. I don't get five championships without him because he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice. [32:22] Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator by Robert E. Price. (Founders #107) [35:22] Bryant's workout had been so impressive that for Jerry West, it had revealed his heart. It was there in the skill set alone, in some ways, just the amount of work that a player would have to have done to possess such immaculate moves, the footwork and fakes and execution, the hours that must have been put into that kind of perfection. [37:55] Part of his strategy for keeping his disappointment at bay was to focus on others who had faced far more difficult circumstances. "I read the autobiography of Jackie Robinson," Bryant said. “I was thinking about all the hard times I'd go through this year, and that it'd never compare to what he went through. That just kind of helped put things in perspective." [38:50] Kobe’s favorite book was Enders Game by Orson Scott Card. [39:00] The only way he could keep the whole dream going was to work harder and harder and harder, to spin his fantasies around and around until they wrapped him tight in a new reality. [39:45] Estée Lauder: A Success Storyby Estée Lauder. (Founders #217) [41:00] I think that game was vital to how good he became. That level of embarrassment to happen to somebody like him? The next year he came out like a fucking maniac. [41:15] Leading By Design: The Ikea Story by Bertil Torekull. (Founders #104) [46:03] Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) [47:00] The best book on the emotional toll entrepreneurs experience: Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [54:15] Highly competitive personalities like Jordan and Bryant could absolutely kill a team atmosphere with displays of ruthlessness or selfishness. [55:22] He stands up, points around the room and says, You motherfuckers don't belong in the same court with me.You're all shit. And he walked out of the locker room. [56:07] 4 ideas from Kobe: Search for your limits Extreme personal practice Resourcefullness—find a way. Study the greats [57:39] He was one of the rare few who simply cared far more about the game than anyone else. [1:02:24] The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #271 Vannevar Bush (Engineer of the American Century) | 12 Oct 2022 | 00:53:24 | |
What I learned from reading Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- [7:31] Acts of importance were the measure of his life and they are the reason that his life deserves study today. [8:10] Suspicious of big institutions Bush objected to the pernicious effects of an increasingly bureaucratic society and the potential for mass mediocrity. [8:20] He believed the individual was still of paramount importance. "The individual to me is everything," he wrote "I would restrict him just as little as possible." He never lost his faith in the power of one. [8:57] Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush (Founders #270) [9:32] Dee Hock — founder of VISA episodes: One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock (Founders #260) Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock. (Founders #261) [9:55] Edwin Land episodes: Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264) Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263) [10:00] Vannevar Bush and Edwin Land both had a profound belief in the individual capacity for greatness. [12:15] Bush came from an American line of can do engineers and tinkerers, a line beginning with Franklin, and including Eli Whitney, Alexander, Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and the Wright Brothers The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. (Founders #62) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #115) Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251) Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bellby Charlotte Gray. (Founders #138) Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson. (Founders #268) The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. (Founders #239) [13:35] The Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush by Vannevar Bush and G. Pascal Zachary [16:30] My whole philosophy is very simple. If I have any doubt as to whether I am supposed to do a job or not, I do it, and if someone socks me, I lay off. [18:00] The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach (Founders #103) [19:00] What Bush learned from reading old whaling logs I’m learning 120 years later reading biographies of founders. [19:45] Books by Sebastian Mallaby: The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future and More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite [21:20] He admired men of action, despised rules, and felt that merit meant everything. [22:32] If something is going to take two years he wants to figure out how to do it in six months or a year. This kind of the mentality he applied to everything. [24:45] Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (Founders #265) [25:45] I lose my shit when thinking about how all these ideas connnect. [30:45] He remained susceptible to bouts of nervous tension throughout his prime years. [31:50] Advice he gave his sons: Justify the space you occupy. [32:30] Do not emulate the ostrich: For better or worse we are destined to live in a world devoted to modern science and engineering. If the road we are on is slippery, we cannot avoid a catastrophe by putting on the brakes, closing our eyes or taking our hands off the wheel. What is the sane attitude of a scientist or layman? Absence of wishful thinking. No emulation of the ostrich. [35:00] He insisted that discipline must be self applied or will be externally imposed. [33:36] He found romance in adversity and solace in hard work. [36:00] Vannevar Bush on Leonardo da Vinci and Ben Franklin [42:33] It is being realized with a thud that the world is going to be ruled by those who know how, in the fullest sense, to apply science. [44:45] We want an inventive company rather than an orderly company. [45:38] Tolerate genius. There are very few men of genius. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don't destroy them. They lay golden eggs. —Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #89) [48:34] David Ogilvy episodes: The Unpublished David Ogilvy by David Ogilvy. (Founders #189) The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertisingby Kenneth Roman. (Founders #169) Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #89) Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy. (Founders #82) [49:00] Bush’s personal motto: Don’t let the bastards get you down. [51:50] The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215) [55:15] The more resourceful entrepreneurs are the ones that are going to win. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #270: Vannevar Bush (Pieces of the Action) | 06 Oct 2022 | 01:05:15 | |
What I learned from reading Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- Outline: Pieces of the Action offers his hard-won lessons on how to operate and manage effectively within complex organizations and drive ambitious, unprecedented programs to fruition. Stripe Press Books: The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993 by Jordan Mechner.] Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary — Any exploration of the institutions that shape how we do research, generate discoveries, create inventions, and turn ideas into innovations inevitably leads back to Vannevar Bush. — No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush. — That’s why I'm going to encourage you to order this book —because when you pick it up and you read it —you're reading the words of an 80 year old genius. One of the most formidable and accomplished people that has ever lived— laying out what he learned over his six decade long career. — A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95) — Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini — I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug Engelbart’s ideas. — The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #157) — Bush points out that tipping points often rest with far-seeing, energetic individuals. We can be those individuals. — I went into this book with little more than a name and came out with the closest thing to a mentor someone you've never met can be. — We are not the first to face problems, and as we face them we can hold our heads high. In such spirit was this book written. The essence of civilization is the transmission of the findings of each generation to the next. This is not a call for optimism, it is a call for determination. It is pleasant to turn to situations where conservatism or lethargy were overcome by farseeing, energetic individuals. People are really a power law and that the best ones can change everything. —Sam Hinkie There should never be, throughout an organization, any doubt as to where authority for making decisions resides, or any doubt that they will be promptly made. You can drive great people by making the speed of decision making really slow. Why would great people stay in an organization where they can't get things done? They look around after a while, and they're, like, "Look, I love the mission, but I can't get my job done because our speed of decision making is too slow." — Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos by Jeff Bezos and Walter Isaacson.(Founders #155) Rigid lines of authority do not produce the best innovations. Research projects flowered in pockets all around the company, many of them without Steve's blessing or even awareness. They'd come to Steve's attention only if one of his key managers decided that the project or technology showed real potential. In that case, Steve would check it out, and the information he'd glean would go into the learning machine that was his brain. Sometimes that's where it would sit, and nothing would happen. Sometimes, on the other hand, he'd concoct a way to combine it with something else he'd seen, or perhaps to twist it in a way to benefit an entirely different project altogether. This was one of his great talents, the ability to synthesize separate developments and technologies into something previously unimaginable. —Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (Founders #265) He was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work. —Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. (Founders #135) Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. (Founders #143) If a man is a good judge of men, he can go far on that skill alone. All the past episodes mentioned by Vannevar Bush in this book: General Leslie Groves: The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215) J. Robert Oppenheimer: The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215) Alfred Lee Loomis: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. (Founders #143) J.P. Morgan: The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. (Founders #139) The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. (Founders #142) Orville Wright: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. (Founders #239) Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone. (Founders #241) Edwin Land: Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. (Founders #263) Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264) Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66) Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd (Founders #125) Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bellby Charlotte Gray. (Founders #138) Difficulties are often encountered in bringing an invention into production and use. An invention has some of the characteristics of a poem.It is said that a poet may derive real joy out of making a poem, even if it is never published, even if he does not recite it to his friends, even if it is not a very good poem. No doubt, one has to be a poet to understand this.In the same way, an inventor can derive real satisfaction out of making an invention, even if he never expects to make a nickel out of it, even if he knows it is a bit foolish, provided he feels it involves ingenuity and insight. An inventor invents because he cannot help it, and also because he gets quiet fun out of doing so. Sometimes he even makes money at it, but not by himself. One has to be an inventor to understand this. One evening in Dayton, I dined alone with Orville Wright. During a long evening, we discussed inventions we had made that had never amounted to anything. He took me up to the attic and showed me models of various weird gadgets. I had plenty of similar efforts to tell him about, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Neither of us would have thus spilled things except to a fellow practitioner, one who had enjoyed the elation of creation and who knew that such elation is, to a true devotee, independent of practical results.So it is also, I understand, with poets. Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this: Pick an industry where the founders of the industry—the founders of the important companies in the industry—are still alive and actively involved. — The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen. (Founders #50) If a company operates only under patents it owns, and infringes on no others, its monopoly should not be disturbed, and the courts so hold. An excellent example is Polaroid Corporation. Founded by Edwin Land, one of the most ingenious men I ever knew (and also one of the wisest), it has grown and prospered because of his inventions and those of his team. I came to the realization that they knew more about the subject than I did. In some ways, this was not strange. They were concentrating on it and I was getting involved in other things. P.T. Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson. (Founders #137) We make progress, lots of progress, in nearly every intellectual field, only to find that the more we probe, the faster our field of ignorance expands. All the books from Stripe Press ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #269 Sam Zell | 29 Sep 2022 | 01:08:09 | |
What I learned from reading Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- [6:37] I have an embedded sense of urgency. What I can’t figure out is why so many other people don’t have it. [6:50] I was willing to trade conformity for authenticity. [8:26] Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. —Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66) [9:36] Once I have formed my opinion, I have to trust my perspective enough to act on it. That means putting my own money behind it. My level of commitment is usually high. And I stay with my decision even when everyone is telling me I’m wrong, which happens a lot. [10:37] Long term relationships reflect the most important lesson imparted to me by my father. He taught me simply how to be. He often told me that nothing was more important than a man’s honor. A good name. Reputation is your most important asset. [11:10] When I was younger my career competed with my role as a husband and father and my career often won. [11:37] Childhood does not allow itself to reconquered. — Leading By Design: The Ikea Story (Founders #104) [12:20] The personality types that stay in the game for as long as Sam has —and he's been in the game for 50 years — usually describe entrepreneurship as a calling and an obsession. [12:35] The great thing about entreprenuership is that you get to spend your time building something you enjoy. Most people don’t get to do this. They are stuck in jobs they hate. I had the time of my life. —Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234) [13:29] Business is not a battle to be waged — it’s a puzzle to be solved. [14:33] Optimize for irreverence. [16:54] Swimming Across by Andy S. Grove (Founders #159) [18:11] His family narrowly escapes the Holocaust: His train arrived at 2:00 p.m. It was a ten minute walk home and when he got there he told my mother to pack what she could carry; they were boarding the 4:00 train out that afternoon. [19:21] Every year for the rest of their lives they celebrated the date of their arrival with the toast to America. My sister and I grew up keenly aware of how fortunate we were to be in this country. [15:58] You've got to understand that the world is a hard place. [19:13] My tendency to go against conventional wisdom would later end up defining my career. [26:55] Sam Zell — Strategies for Investing, Dealmaking, and Grave Dancing on The Tim Ferriss Show [27:25] It just never occurred to me that I couldn't do it. [28:42] Indifference to rejection is a fundamental part of being an entrepreneur. [31:59] It was at this point in my career that I fully realized the value of tenacity. I just had to assume there was a way through any obstacle, and that I’d find it. This is perhaps my most fundamental principle of entrepreneurship, and to success in general. [33:44] Difference for the sake of it. —James Dyson Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [35:58] I was going to do what I love doing and I wasn't going to be encumbered by anyone else's rules. [40:35] What I find fascinating is just how many of these ideas that he got from a older, more experienced entrepreneur, that he used for the rest of his life. [41:36] Larry Ellison episodes: Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds (Founders #124) The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the America’s Cup, Twice by Julian Guthrie (Founders #126) The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellisonby Mike Wilson (Founders #127) [41:59] Like most oracles, Wasserman gave an opinion that was simple and sensible (but unambiguously presented, thank goodness). “It is not prudent,” replied Wasserman, “to ask people to change their nightly viewing habits. Once they are used to tuning in a given channel, they find it hard to make the move, no matter how good an alternative is being provided elsewhere.” Was that it? All of our thinking and talking and arguing and agonizing came down to the belief that Americans won’t change the dial? Wasserman’s advice sealed our decision. — Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin. (Founders #183) [43:55] Zeckendorf: The autobiograpy of the man who played a real-life game of Monopoly and won the largest real estate empire in history by William Zeckendorf. [47:27] The captain of a Ludwig ship made the extravagant mistake of mailing in a report of several pages held together by a paper clip. He received a sharp rebuke: "We do not pay to send ironmongery by air mail!" — The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. [51:32] There’s no substitute for limited competition. You can be a genius, but if there’s a lot of competition, it won’t matter. I’ve spent my career trying to avoid its destructive consequences. [52:32] Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux (Founders #268) [55:20] What do you do? I'm a professional opportunist. [59:31] A mantra that I would repeat regularly for decades to come: Liquidity equals value. [1:07:59] I have always believed that every day you choose to hold an asset, you are also choosing to buy it. Would I buy our buildings at the price Blackstone was quoting? Nope. [1:12:29] Fast decision making and autonomy had become like oxygen to him. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #268 John Malone (Cable Cowboy) | 21 Sep 2022 | 01:01:16 | |
What I learned from reading Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- Outline: Thread of highlights from Cable Cowboy by @Loadlinefinance Malone was stalwart about building long term value through leveraged cash flow. Earnings didn’t count. He wasn’t constrained by quarterly expectations. Malone built the pipes, then bought the water that flows through them. Malone took spartan operations to another level. Absolutely no bureaucracy. No waste. We don’t believe in staff. Staff are people who second-guess people. Malone averaged one M&A deal every two weeks over 15 years. That’s insane. These guys were slinging billion dollar deals like bowls of breakfast cereal. One of the best parts of the book is Robichaux’s exploration of Malone’s complex personality. It’s not just a fawning glow piece. The beginning of industries are always filled with cowboys, pirates, and misfits. This book— by far — has been the most requested book for me to cover on Founders for years. Founders episodes on Andrew Carnegie: Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73) The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #74) Founders episodes on JP Morgan: The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow (Founders #139) The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield (Founders #142) Mavericks Lecture: John Malone Two Rockefeller podcasts: Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248) John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254) Bob when recruiting John: You've got a great future here. If you can create it. Malone's top executives were rough riders. In 1972 TCI had $19 million in annual revenue and its debt load was an obscene $132 million. Magness learned to listen instead of talk. Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. —Michael Jordan Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil (Founders #213) That $2,500 loan turns into hundreds of millions of dollars for his grandsons. New employees were asked can you walk 10 miles in 10 below zero weather? The cable companies hardly paid any taxes because of the high depreciation on the equipment. He skimmed the company's numbers, looked up at Betsy and blurted out, I'm gonna hire the smartest son of a bitch I can find. Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher (Founders #242) Once you make a guy rich don’t expect him to work hard. Very unusual people do that. You can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is an industry developing parallel to the industry that you know about. Jay Gould saw the importance of the telegraph industry in part because telegraph lines were laid next to railraod tracks. Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson (Founders #267) Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr (Founders #258) 1. You raise money so you can increase production. 2. Use your increased production to get better rates on transportation than other refiners. 3. Use your increased profits —because you have better transportation —to buy your competitors. 4. You continue to find secret sources of income. — John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254) Malone thinks about his industry more than anyone else. He blundered early by suggesting in a meeting that Amazon executives who traveled frequently should be permitted to fly business-class. Jeff slammed his hand on the table and said, “That is not how an owner thinks! That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.” — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179) Our experience has been that the manager of an already high-cost operation frequently is uncommonly resourceful in finding new ways to add to overhead, while the manager of a tightly-run operation usually continues to find additional methods to curtail costs, even when his costs are already well below those of his competitors. — Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders 1965-2018 by Warren Buffett (Founders #88) FedEx was fearful the bank would try to seize the mortgaged planes. The bank had a young officer keeping track of the situation. Every time he showed up at the airport, we would radio the planes not to land. It was all very touchy. — Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble (Founders #151) How John described this point in his career: I'm the head of a little pipsqueak company in debt up to its ass, a couple million dollars in revenue, and not credit worthy to borrow from a bank. We're barely making it. Malone like the mathematics of it. Tax sheltered cash flow could be leveraged to land more loans, to create more tax sheltered cash flow. Stay in the game long enough to get lucky. Bowerman’s response to other coaches: “As a coach, my heart is always divided between pity for the men they wreck and scorn for how easy they are to beat.” —Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore. (Founders #153) "Forget about earnings. That's a priesthood of the accounting profession," he would preach, unrelentingly. "What you're really after is appreciating assets.” If you control distribution you get equity in return. My Life and Work by Henry Ford (Founders #266) Call Me Ted by Ted Turner When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this: Pick an industry where the founders of the industry—the founders of the important companies in the industry—are still alive and actively involved. — The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- — “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #267 Thomas Edison | 14 Sep 2022 | 01:10:27 | |
What I learned from reading Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- Outline: He had known how to gather interest, faith, and hope in the success of his projects. I think of this episode as part 5 in a 5 part series that started on episode 263: #263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. #264 Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. #265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli #266 My Life and Work by Henry Ford. Follow your natural drift. —Charlie Munger Warren Buffett: “Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.’ And Bill said the same thing.” —Focus and Finding Your Favorite Problems by Frederik Gieschen Focus! A simple thing to say and a nearly impossible thing to do over the long term. We have a picture of the boy receiving blow after blow and learning that there was inexplicable cruelty and pain in this world. He is working from the time the sun rises till 10 or 11 at night. He is 11 years old. He reads the entire library. Every book. All of them. At this point in history the telegraph is the leading edge of communication technology in the world. My refuge was a Detroit public library. I started with the first book on the bottom shelf and went through the lot one by one. I did not read a few books. I read the library. Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley Blake Robbins Notes on Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love Greatness isn't random. It is earned. If you're going to research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet — that's the good news. The bad news is that you now have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable in any subject you want because it's right there at your fingertips. Why his work on the telegraph was so important to everything that happened later in his life: The germs of many ideas and stratagems perfected by him in later years were implanted in his mind when he worked at the telegraph. He described this phase of his life afterward, his mind was in a tumult, besieged by all sorts of ideas and schemes. All the future potentialities of electricity obsessed him night and day. It was then that he dared to hope that he would become an inventor. Edison’s insane schedule: Though he had worked up to an early hour of the morning at the telegraph office, Edison began reading the Experimental Researches In Electricity (Faraday’s book) when he returned to his room at 4 A.M. and continued throughout the day that followed, so that he went back to his telegraph without having slept. He was filled with determination to learn all he could. All the Thomas Edison episodes: The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross (Founders #3) Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes. (Founders #83) The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Tripby Jeff Guinn. (Founders #190) Having one's own shop, working on projects of one’s own choosing, making enough money today so one could do the same tomorrow: These were the modest goals of Thomas Edison when he struck out on his own as full-time inventor and manufacturer. The grand goal was nothing other than enjoying the autonomy of entrepreneur and forestalling a return to the servitude of employee. —The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258) It's this idea where you can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is an industry developing parallel to the industry that you know about. Jay Gould saw the importance of the telegraph industry in part because telegraph lines were laid next to railraod tracks. Edison describes the fights between the robber barons as strange financial warfare. You should build a company that you actually enjoy working in. Don’t make this mistake: John Ott who served under Edison for half a century, at the end of his life described the "sacrifices" some of Edison's old co-workers had made, and he commented on their reasons for so doing. "My children grew up without knowing their father," he said. "When I did get home at night, which was seldom, they were in bed." "Why did you do it?" he was asked. "Because Edison made your work interesting. He made me feel that I was making something with him. I wasn't just a workman. And then in those days, we all hoped to get rich with him.” Don’t try to sell a new technology to an exisiting monopoly. Western Union was a telegraphy monopoly: He approached Western union people with the idea of reproducing and recording the human voice, but they saw no conceivable use for it! Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) Passion is infectious. No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin. (Founders #24) For more detail on the War of the Currents listen to episode 83 Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes. From the book Empire of Light: And so it was that J. Pierpont, Morgan, whose house had been the first in New York to be wired for electricity by Edison but a decade earlier, now erased Edison's name out of corporate existence without even the courtesy of a telegram or a phone call to the great inventor. Edison biographer Matthew Josephson wrote, "To Morgan it made little difference so long as it all resulted in a big trustification for which he would be the banker." Edison had been, in the vocabulary of the times, Morganized. One of Thomas Edison’s favorite books: Toilers of The Sea by Victor Hugo “The trouble with other inventors is that they try a few things and quit. I never quit until I get what I want.” —Thomas Edison “Remember, nothing that's good works by itself. You've gotta make the damn thing work.” —Thomas Edison The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana Kingby Rich Cohen. (Founders #255) He (Steve Jobs) was always easy to understand. He would either approve a demo, or he would request to see something different next time. Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity, what he wanted to happen next. He was always trying to ensure the products were as intuitive and straightforward as possible, and he was willing to invest his own time, effort, and influence to see that they were. Through looking at demos, asking for specific changes, then reviewing the changed work again later on and giving a final approval before we could ship, Steve could make a product turn out like he wanted. — Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda (Bonus episode between Founders #110 and #111) Charles Kettering is the 20th Century’s Ben Franklin. — Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd (Founders #125) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #266 Henry Ford's Autobiography | 08 Sep 2022 | 01:13:45 | |
What I learned from rereading My Life and Work by Henry Ford. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [7:45] True education is gained through the discipline of life. [8:00] Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. (Founders #263) [9:40] Reading this book is like having a one-sided conversation with one of the greatest entrepreneurs to ever live who just speaks directly to you and tells you, “Hey this is my philosophy on company building.” [12:40] His main idea is that business exists for one reason and one reason only —to provide service for other people. [12:50] Everything I do is serving my true end — which is to make a product that makes other people's lives better. [13:47] A sale is proof of utility. [15:00] The sense of accomplishment from overcoming difficulty is satisfying in a way that a life of leisure and ease will never be. [16:00] I think Amazon's culture is largely based on one thing. It's not based on 14. It's based on customer obsession. That is what Bezos would die on the hill for. —Invest Like The Best: Ravi Gupta [20:04] Later Bezos recalled speaking at an all-hands meeting called to address the assault by Barnes & Noble. “Look, you should wake up worried, terrified every morning,” he told his employees. “But don’t be worried about our competitors because they`re never going to send us any money anyway. Let’s be worried about our customers and stay heads-down focused.” — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179) [20:40] Henry Fords philosophy: Get rid of waste, increase efficiency through thinking and technology, drop your prices and make more money with less profit per car, watch your costs religiously, when needed bring that business process in house, and always focus on service. [21:15] Money comes naturally as the result of service. —Henry Ford [21:56] Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) [22:10] Churchill tells his son “Your idle and lazy life is very offensive to me. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence.” [23:45] 3 part series on the founder of General Motors Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan: Billy Durant Creator of General Motors: The Story of the Flamboyant Genius Who Helped Lead America into the Automobile Age by Lawrence Gustin. (Founders #120) Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, A Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey. (Founders #121) My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan. (Founders #122) [24:16] Henry Ford's ONE idea that was different from every other automobile manufacturer: He was determined to concentrate on the low end of the market, where he believed that high volume would drive costs down and at the same time feed even more demand for the product. It was a fundamental difference in philosophy. — Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, A Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey. (Founders #121) [25:50] There must be a better way of doing that. And so through a thousand processes. [27:59] The only way to truly understand what you're doing is to do it for a long time and focus on it. [28:30] It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game that you've been playing all your life. — Mickey Mantle [32:25] One idea at a time is about as much as anyone can handle. [35:45] Picking up horse shit used to be a job. [37:30] That is the way with wise people — they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. [38:20] I cannot say that it was hard work. No work with interest is ever hard. [40:45] None of this works unless you bet on yourself. And usually you are not in the best position when you have to make this decision. [49:59] The most beautiful things in the world are those from which all excess weight has been eliminated. [50:15] Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. (Founders #245) [54:10] I can entirely sympathize with the desire to quit a life of activity and retire to a life of ease. I have never felt the urge myself. [55:30] I don't wanna make a low quality cheap product. I wanna make a high quality cheap product. To do that he's literally got to invent the ability to mass produce cars —which did not exist before Henry Ford. [56:00] A principle rather than an individual is at work. And that the principle is so simple that it seems mysterious. [56:25] He says if we can save 10 steps a day for each of the 12,000 employees that I have, you will save 50 miles of wasted motion and misspent energy every day. The way Ford’s brain works is very similar to the way Rockefeller's brain works. — Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) [58:25] What a line! : No one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. [59:10] I refuse to recognize that there are impossibilities. I cannot discover that any one knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. [59:30] Not a single operation is ever considered as being done in the best or cheapest way in our company. [1:01:05] Continuous improvement makes your business likely to survive economic downturns. [1:05:27] “The definition of business is problems." His philosophy came down to a simple fact of business life: success lies not in the elimination of problems but in the art of creative, profitable problem solving. The best companies are those that distinguish themselves by solving problems most effectively. — Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. (Founders #20) [1:06:38] The best companies are those that distinguish themselves by solving problems most effectively. [1:06:53] That is the point that Henry Ford is making. You should thank your stars for the problem that you're having because once you solve it, you will now have better problem solving abilities. And therefore it's likely over time, that your company becomes more successful as a result of you being forced into this very difficult position to actually grow and acquire these new skills, because business is problems. [1:08:45] Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most: himself. —George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #35) [1:12:35] Henry Ford distilled down to five words: maximum service at minimum cost. [1:18:52] Every advance begins in a small way and with the individual. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader | 30 Aug 2022 | 01:26:10 | |
What I learned from rereading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:11] His mind was never a captive of reality. [5:16] A complete list of every Founders episode on Steve Jobs and the founders Steve studied: Steve Jobs’s Heroes [7:15] Steve Jobs and The Next Big Thing by Randall Stross (Founders #77) [9:05] Steve Job’s Commencement Address [9:40] Driven and curious, even when things were tough, he was a learning machine. [10:20] He learned how to manage himself. [12:45] Anything could be figured out and since anything could be figured out anything could be built. [14:10] It was a calculation based on arrogance. — The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #255) [18:00] We were no longer aiming for the handful of hobbyists who liked to assemble their own computers. For every one of them there were a thousand people who would want the machine to be ready to run. [17:40] He was a free thinker whose ideas would often run against the conventional wisdom of any community in which he operated. [19:55] He had no qualms about calling anyone up in search of information or help. [20:40] I've never found anybody who didn't want to help me when I've asked them for help. I've never found anyone who's said no or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked. Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. [21:50] First you believe. Then you work on getting other people to share your belief. [24:55] All the podcasts on Edwin Land: Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263) [25:00] My friend Frederick’s newsletter I was interviewed for [30:20] He was an extraordinary speaker and he wielded that tool to great effect. [31:00] Never underestimate the value of an ally. — Estée Lauder: A Success Story by Estée Lauder. (Founders #217) [32:50] If you go to sleep on a win you’re going to wake up with a loss. [33:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140) [34:20] Software development requires very little capital investment. It is basically intellectual capital. The main cost is the labor required to design and test it. There's no need for expensive factories. It can be replicated endlessly for practically nothing. [38:10] He cared passionately and he never dialed it in. [39:45] To Pixar And Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History by Lawrence Levy (Founders #235) [42:58] Time carries most of the weight. [43:30] People that are learning machines and then refuse to quit are incredibly hard to beat. Steve jobs was a learning machine who refused to quit. [44:17] Steve Jobs and The Next Big Thing by Randall Stross (Founders #77) [49:40] Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull [50:30] There were times when the reactions against Steve baffled Steve. I remember him sometimes saying to me: Why are they upset? What that said to me was that he didn't intend to get that outcome. It was a lack of skill as opposed to meanness. A lack of skill of dealing with other people. [55:50] Creative thinking, at its best, is chalk full of failures and dead ends. [56:40] Successful people listen. Those that don’t listen don’t last long. —Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) [58:40] You can't go to the library and find a book titled The Business Model for Animation. The reason you can't is because there's only been one company Disney that's ever done it well, and they were not interested in telling the world how lucrative it was. [1:01:20] The company is one of the most amazing inventions of humans. [1:02:25] The only purpose for me in building a company is so that the company can make products. One is a means to the other. [1:04:00] Personal History by Katherine Graham (Founders #152) [1:10:11] Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda [1:11:12] What am I focusing on that sets me apart from my competitors? [1:13:00] The channel? We lost $2 billion last year. Who gives a fuck about the channel? [1:15:21] Time carries most of the weight. Stay in the game as long as possible. [1:16:41] The information he'd glean would go into the learning machine that was his brain. Sometimes that's where it would sit, and nothing would happen. Sometimes he'd concoct a way to combine it with something else he'd seen, or perhaps to twist it in a way to benefit an entirely different project altogether. This was one of his great talents, the ability to synthesize separate developments and technologies into something previously unimaginable. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #264 The Story of Edwin Land and Polaroid | 24 Aug 2022 | 00:54:05 | |
What I learned from rereading Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- (0:01) The most obvious parallel is to Apple Computer. Both companies specialized in relentless, obsessive refinement of their technologies. Both were established close to great research universities to attract talent. Both fetishized superior, elegant, covetable product design. And both companies exploded in size and wealth under an in-house visionary-godhead-inventor-genius. At Apple, that man was Steve Jobs. At Polaroid, the genius was Edwin Land. Just as Apple stories almost all lead back to Jobs, Polaroid lore always seems to focus on Land. (1:22) Both men were college dropouts; both became as rich as anyone could ever wish to be; and both insisted that their inventions would change the fundamental nature of human interaction. (1:37) Jobs expressed his deep admiration for Edwin Land. He called him a national treasure. (3:12) All the podcasts on Edwin Land: Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263) (4:07) Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (5:51) Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (Founders #214) (7:07) All the podcasts about Henry Ford: I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Snow (Founders #9) The Autobiography of Henry Ford by Henry Ford (Founders #26) Today and Tomorrow Henry Ford (Founders #80) My Forty Years With Ford by Charles Sorensen (Founders #118) The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn (Founders #190) (9:16) Another parallel to Jobs: Land's control over his company was nearly absolute, and he exercised it to a degree that was compelling and sometimes exhausting. (11:43) When you read a biography of Edwin land you see an incredibly smart, gifted, driven, focused person endure decade after decade of struggle. And more importantly —finally work his way through. (13:32) Another parallel to Jobs: You may be noticing that none of this has anything to do with instant photography. Polarizers rather than pictures would define the first two decades of lands intellectual life and would establish his company. Instant photos were an idea that came later on, a secondary business around which his company was completely recreated. (14:26) “Missionaires make better products.” —Jeff Bezos (17:44) His letter to shareholders gradually became a particularly dramatic showcase for his language and his thinking. These letters-really more like personal mission statements-are thoughtful and compact, and just eccentric enough to be completely engaging. Instead of discussing earnings and growth they laid out Land's World inviting everyone to join. (18:03) Land gave him a four-word job description: "Keeper of the language.” (23:15) No argument in the world can ever compare with one dramatic demonstration. — My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins (Founders #170) (27:00) The leap to Polaroid was like replacing a messenger on horseback with your first telephone. (28:01) Hire a paid critic: Norio Ohga, who had been a vocal arts student at the Tokyo University of Arts when he saw our first audio tape recorder back in 1950. I had had my eye on him for all those years because of his bold criticism of our first machine. He was a great champion of the tape recorder, but he was severe with us because he didn't think our early machine was good enough. It had too much wow and flutter, he said. He was right, of course; our first machine was rather primitive. We invited him to be a paid critic even while he was still in school. His ideas were very challenging. He said then, "A ballet dancer needs a mirror to perfect her style, her technique. — Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita. (32:13) Another parallel to Jobs: Don't kid yourself. Polaroid is a one man company. (33:32) He argued there was no reason that well-designed, wellmade computers couldn't command the same market share and margins as a luxury automobile. A BMW might get you to where you are going in the same way as a Chevy that costs half the price, but there will always be those who will pay for the better ride in the sexier car. Rather than competing with commodity PC makers like Dell, Compaq and Gateway, why not make only first-class products with high margins so that Apple could continue to develop even better first-class products? The company could make much bigger profits from selling a $3,000 machine rather than a $500 machine, even if they sold fewer of them. Why not, then, just concentrate on making the best $3,000 machines around? — Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney. (37:51) How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story by Billy Gallagher (45:00) All the podcasts about Enzo Ferrari Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J. Baime. (Founders #97) Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and The Making of an Automotive Empire by Luca Dal Monte (Founders #98) Enzo Ferrari: The Man and The Machine by Brock Yates (Founders #220) (45:08) Soul in the game. Listen to how Edwin Land describes his product: We would not have known and have only just learned that a new kind of relationship between people in groups is brought into being by SX-70 when the members of a group are photographing and being photographed and sharing the photographs: it turns out that buried within us— there is latent interest in each other; there is tenderness, curiosity, excitement, affection, companionability and humor; it turns out, in this cold world where man grows distant from man, and even lovers can reach each other only briefly, that we have a yen for and a primordial competence for a quiet good-humored delight in each other: we have a prehistoric tribal competence for a non-physical, non-emotional, non-sexual satisfaction in being partners in the lonely exploration of a onceempty planet. (50:31) “Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company’s owners are slim at best.” —Charlie Munger ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America | 15 Jun 2024 | 01:29:55 | |
What I learned from reading As I See it: The Autobiography of J. Paul Getty by J. Paul Getty. ---- Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event ---- "Learning from history is a form of leverage." — Charlie Munger. Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. You can also ask SAGE (the Founders Notes AI assistant) any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- (2:00) Vice President Nelson Rockefeller did me the honor of saying that my entrepreneurial success in the oil business put me on a par with his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Sr. My comment was that comparing me to John D. Sr. was like comparing a sparrow to an eagle. My words were not inspired by modesty, but by facts. (8:00) On his dad sending him to military school: The strict, regimented environment was good for me. (20:00) Entrepreneurs are people whose mind and energies are constantly being used at peak capacity. (28:00) Advice for fellow entrepreneurs: Don’t be like William Randolph Hearst. Reinvest in your business. Keep a fortress of cash. Use debt sparingly. (30:00) The great entrepreneurs I know have these traits: -Devoted their minds and energy to building productive enterprises (over the long term) -They concentrated on expanding -They concentrated on making their companies more efficient -They reinvest heavily in to their business (which can help efficiency and expansion ) -Always personally involved in their business -They know their business down to the ground -They have an innate capacity to think on a large scale (34:00) Five wives can't all be wrong. As one of them told me after our divorce: "You're a great friend, Paul—but as a husband, you're impossible.” (36:00) My business interests created problems [in my marriages]. I was drilling several wells and it was by no means uncommon for me to stay on the sites overnight or even for two days or more. (38:00) A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature and one of the more pronounced motivating forces in my life. Once I have committed myself to any undertaking, a powerful inner drive cuts in and I become intent on seeing it through to a satisfactory conclusion. (38:00) My own nature is such that I am able to concentrate on whatever is before me and am not easily distracted from it. (42:00) There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to. — The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. (Founders #255) (47:00) [On transforming his company for the Saudi Arabia deal] The list of things to be done was awesome, but those things were done. (53:00) Churchill to his son: Your idle and lazy life is very offensive to me. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence. (54:00) My father's influence and example where the principle forces that formed my nature and character. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It | 18 Aug 2022 | 01:11:31 | |
What I learned from rereading Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:01] Why is Polaroid a nutty place? To start with, it’s run by a man who has more brains than anyone has a right to. He doesn’t believe anything until he’s discovered it and proved it for himself. Because of that, he never looks at things the way you and I do. He has no small talk. He has no preconceived notions. He starts from the beginning with everything. That’s why we have a camera that takes pictures and develops them right away. [1:33] More books on Edwin Land: Insisting on The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land by Victor McElheny The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Chris Bonanos [2:18] “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (Founders #214) [5:17] This guy started one of the great technology monopolies and ran it for 50 years. [7:35] He lived his life more intensely than the rest of us. [8:53] His interest in our reactions was minimal — polite, sometimes kind, but limited by the great drain of energy necessary to sustain his own part. [9:30] He never argued his ideas. If people didn’t believe in them, he ignored those people. —A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95) Loomis was not someone you could argue with. He would listen patiently to an opposing opinion. But his consideration was nothing more than that-an act of politeness on his part.” — Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant (Founders #143) [11:40] Right before he introduces the most important product he ever makes — he is in a fight for his life. There's a good chance that Polaroid is going to be bankrupt. [14:29] The parallel to Steve Jobs is striking. Edwin Land —like jobs — had to turn around the company he founded before they ran out of money! [15:02] At 37 he had achieved everything to which he aspired except success. [15:32] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [22:48] The heroes of your heroes become your heroes. [23:39] Bill Gates would later tell a friend he went to Harvard to learn from people smarter than he was —and left disappointed. —Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140) [27:22] The young hurl themselves into vast problems that have troubled the world's best thinkers, believing that they can find a solution. It is well that they should for, from time to time, one of them does. — Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock. (Founders #261) [29:30] He concentrated ferociously on his quest. [29:43] We live in the age of infinite distraction. [30:03] My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had. [30:29] Among all the components and Land's intellectual arsenal, the chief one seems to be simple concentration. — The Instant Image: Edwin Land and The Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker. (Founders #132) [41:50] A Landian question took nothing for granted, accepted no common knowledge, tested the cliche, and treated conventional wisdom as an oxymoron. [42:44] A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134) [48:33] They had no alternative but to succeed with the camera. Everyone left at Polaroid knew that at the present rate of decline the business, the company, and their jobs would not survive 1947. [55:45] Smith estimated that throughout the eighties he spent at least four hours a day reading. He found he relied quite heavily on his own vision, backed by assimilating information from many different disciplines all at once. “The common trait of people who supposedly have vision is that they spend a lot of time reading and gathering information, and then synthesize it until they come up with an idea." — Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble (Founders #151) [59:05] If you’re not good, Jeff will chew you up and spit you out. And if you’re good, he will jump on your back and ride you into the ground. — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) Walt Disney treated Hench to a tart little lecture: "You're being a poor communicator. People are okay, don't you ever forget that. They will respond to it. They will appreciate it." Hench didn't argue. "We put the best darn leather straps on that stagecoach you've ever seen." — Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. (Founders #158) [1:05:53] There is no such thing as group originality or group creativity or group perspicacity. I do believe wholeheartedly in the individual capacity for greatness. Profundity and originality are attributes of single, if not singular, minds. [1:10:32] There's nothing more refreshing than thinking for a few minutes with your eyes closed. [1:11:00] The present is the past biting into the future. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #262 Herbie Cohen (World's Greatest Negotiator) | 11 Aug 2022 | 00:59:14 | |
What I learned from reading The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:20] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #255) [2:42] You Can Negotiate Anything: How to Get What You Want by Herb Cohen. [3:57] Even our heroes falter. [6:01] Once you see your life as a game, and the things you strive for as no more than pieces in that game, you'll become a much more effective player. [7:20] He was proving what would become a lifelong principle: Most people are schmucks and will obey any type of authority. [7:34] Power is based on perception; if you think you got it, you got it, even if you don't got it. [7:54] Nolan Bushnell to a young Steve Jobs: “I taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.” from Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214) [10:30] Life is a game and to win you must consider other people as players with as much at stake as yourself. If you understand their motivations, you can control the action and free yourself from every variety of jam. Focus less on yourself and more on others. Everyone has something at stake. If you address that predicament you can move anyone from no to yes. [14:01] Those who can live with ambiguity and still function do the best. [14:21] Ambiguity is the constant companion of the entrepreneur. [15:26] Don't bitch. Don't complain. Just play the cards that you've been dealt. [20:12] Most people try to blend in. Herbie went the other way. When they zig, I zag. [21:49] It meant Sharon had failed to understand an essential part of an ancient code. If you have a problem with your brother, you deal with it inside the family. Don't rat. Don't turn your brother in to the cops. It was another one of his big lessons. Loyalty. Without that you have nothing. [27:03] Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl [30:11] When it comes to negotiating you'd be better off acting like you know less, not more. [32:18] How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know by Byron Sharp [35:56] He believed it was good, possibly very good, and it was this belief, which never wavered, that would give him the confidence to persist despite the rejections that were coming. Quoting Harry Truman, he'd say, "I make a decision once." And he'd made his decision about the book. In case of rejection, the only thing that would change was his opinion of the publishing house. [37:01] It took 18 no's to get to a yes. [37:37] Herbie sells his book by hand. This part is incredible. [40:36] Back in Bensonhurst we were seeing my father as he'd been before he was our father. As he was still deep down when we weren't looking. [43:50] I told him I did not want something to fall back on because people who have something to fall back on usually end up "falling back on it. [47:34] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. —Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher (Founders #242) That was the last time I saw him. His brave cheerfulness chokes me every time I recall the scene. It is impossible to imagine my father's emotions as he waved goodbye knowing that he might be on his way to London to die. Sixty years have not softened these memories, nor the sadness that he missed enjoying his three children growing up. I felt the devastating loss of my dad, his love, his humor, and the things he taught me. I feared for a future without him. — Invention: A Life by James Dyson (Founders #205) [52:48] Even our heroes falter. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #261 Dee Hock's Autobiography of a Restless Mind Volume One and Two | 04 Aug 2022 | 00:39:05 | |
What I learned from rereading Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1 and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [4:39] Quotes: Abraham Lincoln | Pythagoras | Mark Twain | Socrates | Napoleon | Leonardo da Vinci [6:15] One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey. [6:48] Humility and generosity have no enemies. [7:12] Powerful writing should take one side and stick to it tenaciously, ignoring the other even though it may have merit. Objective writing is impotent. [8:02] The essential reward of anything well done is to have done it. [8:07] What becomes known is worthless until it is shared. [9:25] No dream is so great as the person you might become by remaining true to it. [11:04] The wise make great use of adversity. The foolish whine about it. [12:02] Impatience is a perpetual barrier between desire and realization. [12:46] There are two ways to look at opposition: I want to do it and they will not let me or they want to prevent me and I won’t let them. [13:54] When we fully attend to management of self, excellent management of all else is unavoidable. [14:43] A meaningful life cannot be made from denial. It must be made from affirmation. [15:16] We are each the author of our own life. Whatever we write, masterpiece or trash, it will be published and widely read throughout our life and for decades thereafter. [16:21] The wise do not feel demeaned by asking for advice or diminished by following it. [16:37] A wise man goes forth to meet difficulty on rather than agonizing at its approach. [21:27] Superb design and sluggish effort can never compete with modest design and diligent effort. [21:45] It is both foolish and weak to defer confronting what cannot be avoided. [22:04] I have done many great things perfectly—the ones I imagined but never attempted. [22:09] Delaying what we must do eventually does nothing but lengthen the time and distance we must carry the burden. [22:30] The most interesting people are always the most interested people. [22:54] Complaining about life is like hurling sand against the wind. [23:31] Beginning of Volume 2 [27:29] Certainty is not a property of the universe. It is a construct of the mind. [28:09] Any idiot can impose and exercise control. It takes genius to ensure freedom and release creativity. [29:18] Two centuries ago it took a year to send a message around the globe. Now it takes a fraction of a second. We have no idea what this means or what the consequences may be. [30:04] “Use your head, but follow your heart.” is my advice to all my grandchildren. Come to think of it. It's not bad advice for adults as well. [30:54] Man is at war with his own nature. [31:12] There is nothing at all wrong with discipline providing it is self-induced rather than imposed. [31:26] Books are seductive things. All are worth a look and a touch, some a kiss, others an affair, the best marriage and lifelong devotion. [32:41] Genius merely articulates what your heart already knows. [32:45] The young hurl themselves into vast problems that have troubled the world's best thinkers, believing that they can find a solution. It is well that they should for, from time to time, one of them does. [33:20] Great accomplishment often consists of doing little things well. [33:35] The superior man is concerned when his deeds are not better than his words. [34:16] Books are not dead things. They preserve some thing of the intellect and spirit that writes, and are instrumental in forming the intellect and spirit that reads. [34:42] Ignorant commentaries corrupt brilliant thoughts. That may well prove to be the curse of the internet. [35:44] Conduct is a silent sermon powerfully preached without cessation. [36:02] Every organization has one or two heroes who gives it birth, direction, and purpose. [36:20] Minnows of thought dart about in shallow minds with great agitation. Great whales of thought majestically move through oceanic minds without commotion. [38:00] The new and novel should be viewed with suspicion. For it is improbable that one generation can be wiser than all ancestors combined. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #260 One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization | 03 Aug 2022 | 01:21:22 | |
What I learned from rereading One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:00] I feel compelled to open my life to new possibilities. [2:54] Life is a magnificent, mysterious Odyssey to be experienced. [3:12] One From Many (Founders #42) [3:30] Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1 by Dee Hock and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock [5:12] Patrick Collison tweet on Dee Hock [7:51] He thought from first principles and questioned everything, even down to the nature of money itself. [8:26] He saw a better way of doing things and he didn't listen to folks who said it couldn't be done. [9:32] Today's magic was yesterday's dream. [13:27] Chaordic 1. The behavior of any self-organizing, self-governing, organ, organization, or system that harmoniously exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos. 2. Patterned by chaos and order in a way not dominated by either. 3. Blending of diversity, chaos, complexity and order characteristic of the fundamental organizing principles of evolution and nature. [17:05] That Hock boy is a little strange, he'll read anything. [23:01] None of it seemed demeaning. It was life. It was making a living. It was what proud men did without whining. [24:14] 76 year old Dee Hock describing the 20 year old version of Dee Hock: Thus, at twenty, newly married, unemployed, eager to learn but averse to being taught, emerged an absurdly naive, idealistic, young man—an innocent lamb hunting the lion of life. The hungry lion was swift to pounce. [30:39] If you don’t zero in on your bureaucracy every so often, you will naturally build in layers. You never set out to add bureaucracy. You just get it. Period. Without even knowing it. So you always have to be looking to eliminate it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton (Founders #234) [31:57] In industrial age organizations purpose slowly erodes into process. [34:29] Excellence is the capacity to take pain. [38:41] You can't make a good deal with a bad person. [39:48] Stubborn opinionated, unorthodox, rebellious. [41:31] With three young children, a heavily mortgaged house, no job, little money in reserve, it was impossible to stay out of a dismal swamp of depression. Day after day, I walked the woods in misting Northwest rain. My constant companion was an overwhelming feeling of failure. What was wrong with me? [42:51] There would be no more intense commitment to work. [43:55] He's got an intense commitment to life! [45:38] Use your brain but follow your heart. [53:52] When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I’ll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can’t be sold on its merits. I’d be competing head-on in the cola wars, on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard (Founders #18) [55:56] Focus on how your product or company ought to be and nothing else. [57:28] Business Breakdowns Visa: The Original Protocol Business [58:10] Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond (Founders #176) [1:02:40] His Oh Shit! Moment [1:06:12] He had a passionate commitment to the ideas that bordered on zealotry. [1:06:39] There were dozens of times when I longed to quit. What prevented me is not entirely clear. [1:06:58] Possibility can never be determined by opinion, only by attempt. [1:07:26] What kept me going remains a mystery. It doesn't really matter for there was an inexpressible sense that in some profound non-physical way existence would lose meaning if I did not persist. [1:10:03] Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan (Founders #259) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #259 Bob Dylan | 27 Jul 2022 | 01:18:24 | |
What I learned from reading Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:51] No one could block his way and he didn't have any time to waste. [2:38] Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. —Bob Dylan [3:01] The best talk on YouTube for entrepreneurs: Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley [3:21] Estée: A Success Story by Estée Lauder (Founders #217) [7:52] Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody. [8:12] We may be in the same genre but we don't put out the same product. [16:34] What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire. It was more formidable than the rest of the players. There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing. [18:00] Bob spends a lot of time thinking about and studying history. [20:34] I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else. [21:27] I walked over to the window and looked outside. The air was bitter cold but the fire in my mind was never out. It was like a wind vane that was constantly spinning. [21:45] It is incredible how much reading this guy is going to do. He takes ideas from everything that he reads and applies it to his work. [22:30] Towering figures that the world would never see the likes of again, men who relied on their own resolve, for better or worse, every one of them prepared to act alone, indifferent to approval—indifferent to wealth or love, all presiding over the destiny of mankind and reducing the world to rubble. Coming from a long line of Alexanders and Julius Caesars, Genghis Khans, Charlemagnes and Napoleons, they carved up the world. They would not be denied and were impossible to reckon with—rude barbarians stampeding across the earth and hammering out their own ideas of geography. [26:29] Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. (Founders #232) [29:37] I don't think there's been another human invention that can evoke deeper emotions than a great book —than great writing. [31:17] “What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic." —Carl Sagan [32:35] On War by Carl von Clausewitz [37:55] I knew what I was doing and wasn't going to take a step back or retreat for anybody. [46:40] This idea of being completely separate from the outside world is a main theme in the book. [48:00] Being true to yourself. That was the thing. [51:11] After a while you learn that privacy is something you can sell but you can't buy it back. [57:44] Too many distractions had turned my musical path into a jungle of vines. [58:29] There was a missing person inside of myself and I needed to find him. [59:53] You have to find ways to get out of your own head. [1:01:47] At first it was hard going like drilling through a brick wall. All I did was taste the dust. [1:05:14] Sometimes you could be looking for heaven in the wrong places. Sometimes it could be under your feet or in your bed. [1:07:25] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238) [1:07:42] Somebody different was bound to come along sooner or later who would know that world, been born and raised with it. . . be all of it and more. He'd be able to balance himself on one leg on a tightrope that stretched across the universe and you'd know him when he came-there'd be only one like him. [1:08:23] A new performer was bound to appear. He'd be doing it with hard words and he'd be working 18 hours a day. [1:09:15] Advice from his Dad: “Remember, Robert, in life anything can happen. Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want." [1:11:54] I was beginning to feel like a character from within these songs, even beginning to think like one. [1:12:28] Y’all can't match my hustle You can't catch my hustle You can't fathom my love dude Lock yourself in a room doin' five beats a day for three summers I deserve to do these numbers [1:12:51] I played morning, noon and night. That's all I did, usually fell asleep with the guitar in my hands. I went through the entire summer this way. [1:13:31] The place I was living was no more than an empty storage room with a sink and a window looking into an alley, no closet, a toilet down the hall. I put a mattress on the floor. [1:15:22] Bound for Glory: The Hard-Driving, Truth-Telling, Autobiography of America's Great Poet-Folk Singer by Woody Guthrie ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast
---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #258: Jay Gould (Dark Genius of Wall Street) | 22 Jul 2022 | 01:39:15 | |
What I learned from reading Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:40] John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254) [3:46] From the back cover: Though reviled for more than a century as Wall Street's greatest villain, Jay Gould was in fact its most original creative genius. Gould was the most astute financial and business strategist of his time and also the most widely hated. He was the undisputed master of the nation's railroads and telegraph systems at a time when these were the fastest-growing new technologies of the age. His failed scheme to corner the gold market in 1869 caused the Black Friday panic. He created new ways of manipulating markets, assembling capital, and swallowing his competitors. Many of these methods are now standard practice; others were unique to their circumstances and unrepeatable; some were among the first things prohibited by the SEC when it came into being in the 1930s. [5:59] If he was exceptional, it was as a strategist. He had a certain genius. Time and time again, Wall Street never saw him coming. [7:22] Jay was in fact the Michelangelo of Wall Street: a genius who crafted financial devices and strategies, and who leveraged existing laws, in stunningly original ways. [7:45] His success was profound, his productivity was astonishing, and his motivations and tactics were fascinating. [10:54] Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242) [11:11] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. [11:43] All ambitious men want either to please their fathers or to punch them in the goddamn face. [15:05] Persistent. Deliberate in his study. Disciplined. [16:30] Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung (Founders #117) [20:07] Jay stated his outright belief that happiness consisted not so much in indulgence as in self-denial. [20:28] I am determined to use all my best energies to accomplish this life's highest possibilities. [21:12] I'm going to be rich. I've seen enough to realize what can be accomplished by means of riches, and I tell you I'm going to be rich. I have no immediate plan. I only see the goal. Plans must be formed along the way. [23:09] One decent editorial counts for 1000 advertisements. — Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson and reading A History of Great Inventions by James Dyson. (Founders #200) [27:32] Jay would always remain acutely aware of the brevity of one's time on earth. [33:02] Great question to ask: Who would I rather be? Jay breaks down the tanner industry and who is in the best position: I’ve come to realize that it is the merchants who command the true power in this industry. The tanner appears to take the greatest share of capital, but merely processes that capital, his expenses being extensive, his risk real, and his labor heavy. The shippers deal with the next largest sums, but again have extensive expenses and much work to do. The brokers, meanwhile, take what seems the smallest share but is in fact the largest. Theirs is nearly pure profit made on the backs of the shippers and the tanner, never their hands dirtied. [38:39] He was aggressive and expansionist by temperament. [46:10] There are magician’s skills to be learned on Wall Street and I mean to learn them. [46:51] He fixated on the business and his own future and he appears to have cared little about the wider world. [47:10] He seemed to have approached all things with a machine like intensity that some found hard to take. [48:40] As I learned time and again, success in business often rests on a minute reading of the regulations that impact your business. — Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. (Founders #188) [50:46] Action was his hobby. [50:48] He was relentless in his efforts to bring about the accomplishment of those things which he set about to do. [57:16] What finding your life’s work sounds like: We are at a moment where there is a particular, inevitable future waiting to be made. I see things very, very clearly. I feel inspired with an artist's conception. My road is laid out before me in the plainest of ways. He felt as if “all the wheels” had finally been installed on his life. Not only did he have professional focus, "but also the meaning that is family: a wife and child to fight wars and build castles for. Now that I am at this place, it is a puzzlement to me how I endured before. Everything prior seems to have been boxing in the dark, scraping without reason. Now I have my road to walk and my reason for walking it. Now the pieces fit, and this thing ambition is no longer blind but divine, a true and noble and necessary path." [58:33] Work and family would remain his two hallmarks to the end of his days. [59:56] He only wanted to be around A Players: Jay's abilities as an entrepreneurial talent scout, selecting the natural leaders from among the naturally led, the innovators from among the drones, would loom large in the making of his fortune. [1:04:18] No one could have guessed that these two unknowns would soon be notorious as the all time greatest tag team ever to wrestle Wall Street to its knees. [1:05:56] Both men (Fisk and Gould) had an inexhaustible capacity for work and both were unusually intelligent. They made a formidable combination when they joined forces. [1:07:51] The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye. (Founders #256) [1:18:14] It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. —Warren Buffett [1:25:51] Things are not as they appear from the outside. —John D. Rockefeller [1:29:16] Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS by Greg Niemann. (Founders #192) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #257 Richard Garriott (Video Games and Space Exploration) | 15 Jul 2022 | 01:18:23 | |
What I learned from reading Explore/Create My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark by Richard Garriott. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [6:49] Richard Garriott’s house [7:39] Past episodes on video game creators Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games by Sid Meier (Founders#195) Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner (Founders #21) [9:31] I was lucky to learn early on that a deep understanding of the world around you makes you its master. [9:52] The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think. — The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50) [10:08] Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. —Steve Jobs [10:33] The tagline of his company: We create worlds. [13:13] My heroes are people who took epic journeys into the unknown often at substantial personal risk. I am simply following the path that they carved into history. [13:33] Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing (Founders #144) [13:49] Two books coming soon: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes Shackleton: The Biography by Ranulph Fiennes [14:57] By endurance we conquer. —Ernest Shackleton [17:01] Insisting On the Impossible : The Life of Edwin Land by Victor McElheny [17:45] In his acceptance speech, Land chose to pay tribute to the process of invention by analogy to the basic American sense of adventure and exploration: We are becoming a country of scientists, but however much we become a country of scientists, we will always remain first of all that same group of adventurous transcontinental explorers pushing our way from wherever it is comfortable into some more inviting, unknown and dangerous region. Now those regions today are not geographic, they are not the gold mines of the west; they are the gold mines of the intellect. And when the great scientists, and the innumerable scientists of today, respond to that ancient American urge for adventure, then the form that adventure takes is the form of invention; and when an invention is made by this new tribe of highly literate, highly scientific people, new things open up. . . . Always those scientific adventurers have the characteristic, no matter how much you know, no matter how educated you are in science, no matter how imaginative you are, of leading you to say, “I’ll be darned, who ever thought that such a domain existed?” —Edwin Land in A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald K. Fierstein (#134) [17:55] I misspoke. The word should have been ancestors! Not descendants :( [21:40] The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. —Steve Jobs [22:00] Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell [25:09] One of my favorite sentences in the book. Every storyteller is familiar with the pleasure that comes from sitting with your friends around a fire, pouring a few drinks, and weaving a yarn. This was man's first form of entertainment, and when done well is still his best. [26:09] Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent by Nolan Bushnell (Founders #36) [34:10] The owner of the store told me, "Richard, this game you've created that we're all playing is obviously a more compelling reason to have one of these machines than anything that's out there. We really need to be selling this on the store wall." Selling? Wow, what an interesting idea. [35:30] This was a state-of-the-art operation then. We hung them up in the store and in the first week sold about twelve copies at $20 each. I would estimate that at the time, there were probably fewer than a couple of dozen people anywhere in the world creating computer games, and not one of us could have imagined we were creating an industry that in less than three decades would become the largest and most successful entertainment industry in history, that a game would gross more in a few weeks than the most successful movie in history had earned in decades. [37:46] California Pacific's version of Akalabeth was priced at $34, of which I received $5; and they sold thirty thousand copies. I had earned $150,000, more than twice my father's yearly salary as an astronaut. It was a phenomenal amount of money, enough to buy a house. It was so much money that it didn't really sink in; it all seemed like some kind of fantasy. We all thought it was a fluke. It was great that someone wanted to pay me for doing what I was already doing. [38:59] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #255) [41:55] By then I knew enough about the computer game industry to understand that it wasn't actually an industry; it was an association of companies run by people who had no more experience than I did and who popped up, published a few games, then disappeared. So my brother Robert and I decided to start our own company. [43:21] The leader's habits become everyone's habits. [47:00] It would have been almost impossible to be more wrong. That was one of my first big lessons in: "What I think is not necessarily right and perhaps not what everybody else thinks.” [49:04] Dune Director Denis Villeneuve Breaks Down the Gom Jabbar Scene [53:32] The belief system of the founder is the language of the company. That is why it is usually written down and repeated over and over again. [54:03] Imitation precedes creation. —Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. (Founders #210) [1:05:59] This is going to be one of the most successful games they ever make and he had to fight just to get them to let him do this. [1:07:42] The EA marketing team had projected lifetime sales of Ultima Online at 30,000 units—which they thought was wildly optimistic. We put it on the Internet Within a week or so 50,000 people had signed up to pay $5 for the disc. [1:08:46] The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50) [1:09:40] One thing is for sure. People are very, very willing to spend real money on all types of virtual items. [1:10:18] A lesson on human nature: People began to covet these items— like property and magic swords— but were not willing to put in the time to earn the gold needed to buy them. [1:12:01] The art of business was to stay in business long enough to give yourself the best chance to get a big hit. [1:15:55] The creative joy we'd once shared in developing a game had been replaced by the prosaic demands of running a business. It was hard to believe how much had changed; only a few years earlier our people would happily work all night and love every minute of it, and now we had become a sweatshop. [1:17:17] I left the office, drove to a grocery store parking lot, and wept for several hours. It was the end of my personal Camelot. This was no game, this was my life. It had been painful for me to fire other people, but as I had just learned, that was nothing compared to being fired myself. I got blindsided by a deep and complex range of feelings. I felt like a failure; I was angry and depressed and confused. It was a hurt that lasted a long time and, frankly, I don't think I ever fully got over it. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #256 Edward L. Bernays (Public Relations, Advertising, & Persuasion) | 09 Jul 2022 | 01:18:14 | |
What I learned from reading The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:54] The very substance of American thought was mere clay to be molded by the savvy public relations practitioner. [1:48] Bernays saved every scrap of paper he sent out or took in and provided them to be made public after his death. [4:15] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. (Founders #255) [6:43] Thinking unconventionally, operating at the edge, and pushing the boundaries became his trademark over a career that lasted more than 80 years. [10:13] Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. [12:06] Eddie was convinced that understanding the instincts and symbols that motivate an individual could help him shape the behavior of the masses. [12:32] 1. Get hired to promote a product. 2. Attach that product to a cause that gives the consumption of that product a deeper meaning. 3. Use the cause to get a small newspaper/media organization to write about the product. 4. Use that media to get larger media to promote the cause indirectly promoting your product. [15:36] Set yourself to becoming the best-informed person in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read books on oil geology and the production of petroleum products. Read the trade journals in the field. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, talking to motorists. Visit your client’s refineries and research laboratories. At the end of your first year, you will know more about the oil business than your boss. — Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy (Founders #82) [17:13] Humans love if other humans will do their work for them. [19:01] A lesson he is learning promoting: Public visibility had little to do with real value. [24:13] The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz (Founders #206) [24:35] He never, never, never, never has just one plan of attack. It is always many, many, attack vectors, relentlessly. [28:29] Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. (Founders #186) [37:23] The outcome was one that most publicity men can only dream about. An irresistible script for a stunt flawlessly executed, covered in nearly every paper in America, with no one detecting the fingerprints of either Bernays or his tobacco company client. [38:18] John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254) and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248) [44:15] His philosophy in each case was the same. Hired to sell a product or service, he instead sold whole new ways of behaving, which appeared obscure but over time repaid huge rewards for his clients. [44:26] The Dao of Capital: Austrian Investing in a Distorted World by Mark Spitznagel (Founders #70) [45:00] He was convinced that ordinary rules did not apply to him. He repeatedly proved that he could reshape reality. [45:21] The formula was simple: Bernays generated events, the events generated news, and the new generated a demand for whatever he happened to be selling. [48:47] In an era of mass communications modesty is a private virtue and a public fault. [52:45] The best defense against propaganda is more propaganda. [59:54] Advice to younger parents from Eddie’s wife: Be certain to keep a balance where that little girl is concerned. Be sure not to let her get lost in your busy life. (The little girl was 2 or 3 at the time) [1:09:14] He's like journalists, writers, media representatives, news anchors — You have something very valuable that I want —the attention of the public. If I can make your job easier, I am more likely to get some of that attention for my private interest. [1:14:55] I still earned fees until I was 95. [1:17:29] His children remained mystified as to how Eddie managed to die with so few assets. [1:17:37] Sometimes later in life Eddie told me that he hadn't spent his money wisely. It is the only time he ever told me that he regretted anything. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) | 02 Jul 2022 | 01:29:58 | |
What I learned from rereading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:47] This story can shock and infuriate us, and it does. But I found it invigorating, too. It told me that the life of the nation was written not only by speech-making grandees in funny hats but also by street-corner boys, immigrant strivers, crazed and driven, some with one good idea, some with thousands, willing to go to the ends of the earth to make their vision real. [4:56] Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55) [6:00] Unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries William Walker was not afraid of Cornelius when he should have been. [8:21] The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children. [8:42] The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen [8:54] He was driven by the same raw energy that has always attracted the most ambitious to America, then pushed them to the head of the crowd. Grasper, climber-nasty ways of describing this kid, who wants what you take for granted. From his first months in America, he was scheming, looking for a way to get ahead. You did not need to be a Rockefeller to know the basics of the dream: Start at the bottom, fight your way to the top. [10:01] There is no problem you can't solve if you understand your business from A to Z. [13:08] Sam spotted an opportunity where others saw nothing. [14:17] As far as he was concerned, ripes were considered trash only because Boston Fruit and similar firms were too slow-footed to cover ground. It was a calculation based on arrogance. I can be fast where others have been slow. I can hustle where others have been satisfied with the easy pickings of the trade. [14:42] The kid on the streets is getting a shot at a dream. He sees the guy who gets rich and thinks, yep, that'll be me. He ignores the other stories going around. // There's no way to quantify all that on a spreadsheet, but it's that dream of being the exception, the one who gets rich and gets out before he gets got that's the key to a hustler's motivation. —Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238) [22:36] He was pure hustle. [24:15] Preston later spoke of Zemurray with admiration. He said the kid from Russia was closer in spirit to the banana pioneers than anyone else working. "He's a risk taker," Preston explained, “he's a thinker, and he's a doer.” [26:33] They don't write books about people that stopped there. [28:48] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248) and John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (#254) [30:22] He seemed to strive for the sake of striving. [30:44] If you're on a mans side you stay on that mans side or you're no better than a goddamn animal. [31:11] The world is a mere succession of fortunes made and lost, lessons learned and forgotten and learned again. [35:41] A man whose commitment could not be questioned, who fed his own brothers to the jungle. [36:00] The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacificby Alistair Urquhart. [37:02] Why the Founders of United Fruit were the Rockefellers of bananas. [43:23] He kept quiet because talking only drives up the price. [44:19] There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to. [49:30] He believed in the transcendent power of physical labor—that a man can free his soul only by exhausting his body. [58:04] He disdained bureaucracy and hated paperwork. So seldom did he dictate a letter that he requires no full-time secretary. [1:00:01] He was respected because he understood the trade. By the time he was 40 he had served in every position. There was not a job he could not do nor a task he could not accomplish. He considered it a secret of his success. [1:01:02] Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. (Founders #245) [1:04:00] Zemurray was the founder, forever on the attack, at work, in progress, growing by trial and error. [1:06:44] Here was a self-made man, filled with the most dangerous kind of confidence: he had done it before and believed he could do it again. This gave him the air of a berserker, who says, If you're going to fight me, you better kill me. If you’ve ever known such a person, you will recognize the type at once. If he does not say much, it's because he considers small talk a weakness. Wars are not won by running your mouth. I'm describing a once essential American type that has largely vanished. Men who channeled all their love and fear into the business, the factory, the plantation, the shop. [1:07:44] Founder Mentality vs Big Company Mentality: When this mess of deeds came to light, United Fruit did what big bureaucracy-heavy companies always do: hired lawyers and investigators to search every file for the identity of the true owner. This took months. In the meantime, Zemurray, meeting separately with each claimant, simply bought the land from them both. He bought it twice paid a little more, yes, but if you factor in the cost of all those lawyers, probably still spent less than United Fruit and came away with the prize. [1:09:04] His philosophy: Get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and blood in your eyes. [1:13:02] For every move there is a counter move. For every disaster there is a recovery. He never lost faith in his own agency. [1:13:57] A man focused on the near horizon of costs can sometimes lose sight of the far horizon of potential windfall. [1:16:22] You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out. [1:19:03] In a time of crisis the mere evidence of activity can be enough to get things moving. [1:19:42] Zemurray was never heard to bitch or justify. He was a member of a generation that lived by the maxim: Never complain, never explain. [1:23:08] The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye [1:24:14] He should link his private interest to a public cause. [1:25:32] In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. [1:28:28] Sam's defining characteristic was his belief in his own agency, his refusal to despair. No story is without the possibility of redemption; with cleverness and hustle, the worst can be overcome. I can't help but feel that we would do well by emulating Sam Zemurray–not the brutality or the conquest, but the righteous anger that sent the striver into the boardroom of laughing elites, waving his proxies, shouting, "You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #254 John D. Rockefeller: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers | 27 Jun 2022 | 01:40:48 | |
What I learned from reading John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:07] He transmitted messages in code and secrecy covered all of his operations. [0:39] Rockefeller compared himself to Napoleon. [2:20] He could think quicker and along more individual and original lines than any of them. [2:35] It is always hard to successfully control what you don't understand. [3:32] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) [7:27] By the time I was a man — long before it —I had learned the underlying principles of business and the rules of business as well as many men acquire them by the time they are 40. I needed no one to advise me about the nature of transactions with which I had been carrying on since childhood. [8:59] Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller. (Founders #148) [10:55] You should try to expose yourself to experiences that are slightly ahead of your skillset or understanding and you should do so constantly. [13:48] A veteran of long-distance provider MCI, Price came to Amazon in 1999. He blundered early by suggesting in a meeting that Amazon executives who traveled frequently should be permitted to fly business-class. Bezos often said he wanted his colleagues to speak their minds, but at times it seemed he did not appreciate being personally challenged. “You would have thought I was trying to stop the Earth from tilting on its axis,” Price says, recalling that moment with horror years later. “Jeff slammed his hand on the table and said, ‘That is not how an owner thinks! That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.’ — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179) [18:42] He saw that posted rates, supposedly fixed, could also be negotiated. All was not as it seemed on the outside. [20:45] He was the greatest borrower I ever saw. [22:12] What if the president of a bank refused to make me a loan? That was nothing. That made no difference to me; simply meant that I must look elsewhere until I got what I wanted. [26:07] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140) [26:41] Lost from view is the Rockefeller that Cleveland knew in the 1860s— a vigorous, alert gentleman with a quiet, but extraordinary personality. [29:10] Small egos do not build giant companies. [30:23] When Money Was In Fashion: Henry Goldman, Goldman Sachs, and the Founding of Wall Street by June Breton Fisher. (Founders #255) [33:10] The customer-experience path we've chosen requires us to have an efficient cost structure. The good news for shareowners is that we see much opportunity for improvement in that regard. Everywhere we look we find what experienced Japanese manufacturers would call muda, or waste.* I find this incredibly energizing. I see it as potential-years and years of variable and fixed productivity gains and more efficient, higher velocity, more flexible capital expenditures. — Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos (Founders #155) [34:54] Other refiners groused about these restrictions, but in general they accepted them as facts to live with. Rockefeller refused to do so. [38:55] Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford. (Founders #247) [40:15] You don’t want turnover on your core product team. Knowledge compounds. Don’t interrupt the compounding. — Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds (Founders #124) [47:47] 1. You raise money so you can increase production. 2. Use your increased production to get better rates on transportation than other refiners. 3. Use your increased profits —because you have better transportation —to buy your competitors. 4. You continue to find secret sources of income. [55:23] Most simply doubted that Rockefeller's plan would work. John, it cannot be done, they said. [56:13] It was ruthless efficiency and hyper competence. [1:00:07] Rockefeller loves secret allies. [1:00:31] The secret ownership of other companies was so well preserved that often a refiner enraged by Standard’s ruthless tactics would refuse its offer to buy him out and sell instead to a local competitor—unaware that he had in fact sold out to Standard. [1:02:01] He believed that Standard Oil stock is the most valuable thing in the world to own and always bought more of it. [1:05:57] Check out how Rockefeller turns an expense into a profit center: Standard purchased a half interest in Chess, Carley & Company, the largest distributor of refined oil to the South and Southwest. Together they purchased a number of the newly introduced bulk tank cars. Chess-Carley shipped turpentine from southern pine forests to Cleveland, where the cars were emptied and the turpentine was sold in the local market. The tank cars were then filled with kerosene and sent back to Louisville for distribution. In a single swoop the huge expense of shipment by barrels had been eliminated. [1:09:22] He proceeded in the same steady, methodical way that a farmer plowed a field. [1:13:47] The danger Potts and the Pennsylvania railroad posed to his creation convinced Rockefeller that the time had come to pick a fight with the world's largest industrial corporation. [1:23:20] Rockefeller would have horse-drawn carriages drive up and down the streets and sell oil directly. [1:28:28] I think it is fair to say that the strong men who were competitors in the oil refining business, the aggressive men in the best financial condition, and the most intelligent, indeed the class of men who would be most likely to survive in the competitive struggle, were the men who were most likely to take up our idea of cooperation. [1:33:09] Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. [1:35:38] Jay Gould was the single most unsettling force ever to appear on the American industrial scene. [1:36:22] Among wheelers and dealers of his day Gould had no peer. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #351 The Founder of Rolex: Hans Wilsdorf | 04 Jun 2024 | 00:57:11 | |
What I learned from reading about Hans Wilsdorf and the founding of Rolex. ---- Build relationships at the Founders Conference on July 29th-July 31st in Scotts Valley, California ---- "Learning from history is a form of leverage." — Charlie Munger. Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Get access to Founders Notes here. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- (0:01) At the age of twelve I was an orphan. (1:00) My uncles made me become self-reliant very early in life. Looking back, I believe that it is to this, that much of my success is due. (9:00) The idea of wearing a watch on one's wrist was thought to be contrary to the conception of masculinity. (10:00) Prior to World War 1 wristwatches for men did not exist. (11:00) Business is problems. The best companies are just effective problem solving machines. (12:00) My personal opinion is that pocket watches will almost completely disappear and that wrist watches will replace them definitively! I am not mistaken in this opinion and you will see that I am right." —Hans Wilsdorf, 1914 (14:00) The highest order bit is belief: I had very early realized the manifold possibilities of the wristlet watch and, feeling sure that they would materialize in time, I resolutely went on my way. Rolex was thus able to get several years ahead of other watch manufacturers who persisted in clinging to the pocket watch as their chief product. (16:00) Clearly, the companies for whom the economics of twenty-four-hour news would have made the most sense were the Big Three broadcasters. They already had most of what was needed— studios, bureaus, reporters, anchors almost everything but a belief in cable. — Ted Turner's Autobiography (Founders #327) (20:00) Business Breakdowns #65 Rolex: Timeless Excellence (27:00) Rolex was effectively the first watch brand to have real marketing dollars put behind a watch. Rolex did this in a concentrated way and they've continued to do it in a way that is simply just unmatched by others in their industry. (28:00) It's tempting during recession to cut back on consumer advertising. At the start of each of the last three recessions, the growth of spending on such advertising had slowed by an average of 27 percent. But consumer studies of those recessions had showed that companies that didn't cut their ads had, in the recovery, captured the most market share. So we didn't cut our ad budget. In fact, we raised it to gain brand recognition, which continued advertising sustains. — Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp. (Founders #184) (32:00) Social proof is a form of leverage. — Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. (Founders #329) (34:00) What really matters is Hans understood the opportunity better than anybody else, and invested heavily in developing the technology to bring his ideas to fruition. (35:00) On keeping the main thing the main thing for decades: In developing and extending my business, I have always had certain aims in mind, a course from which I never deviated. (41:00) Rolex wanted to only be associated with the best. They ran an ad with the headline: Men who guide the destinies of the world, where Rolex watches. (43:00) Opportunity creates more opportunites. The Oyster unlocked the opportunity for the Perpetual. (44:00) The easier you make something for the customer, the larger the market gets: “My vision was to create the first fully packaged computer. We were no longer aiming for the handful of hobbyists who liked to assemble their own computers, who knew how to buy transformers and keyboards. For every one of them there were a thousand people who would want the machine to be ready to run.” — Steve Jobs (48:00) More sources: Rolex Jubilee: Vade Mecum by Hans Wilsdorf Rolex Magazine: The Hans Wilsdorf Years Vintage Watchstraps Blog: Hans Wilsdorf and Rolex Business Breakdowns #65 Rolex: Timeless Excellence Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands by Jean Noel Kapferer and Vincent Bastien ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #253 Henry Goldman (Goldman Sachs) | 22 Jun 2022 | 00:56:11 | |
What I learned from reading When Money Was In Fashion: Henry Goldman, Goldman Sachs, and the Founding of Wall Street by June Breton Fisher. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:30] The Uses of Adversity by Malcolm Gladwell [2:40] Business Breakdowns: Goldman Sachs: Fortune Favors The Old [3:00] Men can learn from the past, and I've been shocked how little some of the younger executives in the present firm know about its origins. They don't even know that my grandfather, whose picture is on the wall there, founded the firm. [3:46] My grandfather, Henry Goldman, was the son of a poor German immigrant named Marcus Goldman. Marcus Goldman is the founder of Goldman Sachs. [5:45] Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World by Lynn Downey (Founders #33) [7:10] The job Marcus Goldman was grateful to have: Walking the streets peddling goods seven days a week. Working regardless of rain, or snow, or the humid summer heat. [9:13] Henry had been slow learning to read. It was finally determined that the youngster suffered from astigmatism, and his chores in the shop were limited to fetching and carrying articles from the storeroom or fastening the shutters at closing time. His mother was convinced he would never succeed in a competitive world and was inclined to coddle and baby him. (The “slow learner” is the one that fuels much of Goldman Sachs growth!) [12:03] At the time no qualifications or special training were needed to enter the banking business. [13:36] Marcus was anxious to capitalize on every waking hour. [14:19] Henry was an attentive listener who committed everything he heard to memory. [18:40] Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. — Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby (Founders #212) [25:12] This part about the Railroads reminded me of the Internet: As new businesses started up every day and the distribution of their goods was being revolutionized by the rapid spider webbing of railroads across the country, Henry was itching to get into the action. [26:05] Goldman Sachs partners with Kleinwort Sons & Co [27:36] Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild by Amos Elon. (Founders #197) and The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets by Niall Ferguson. (Founders #198) [30:01] David Ogilvy’s idea that The Good Ones Know More: First, you must be ambitious. Set yourself to becoming the best-informed man in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read text books on the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroleum products. Read all the trade journals in the field. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, pumping gasoline and talking to motorists. Visit your client's refineries and research laboratories. Study the advertising of his competitors. At the end of your second year, you will know more about gasoline than your boss; you will then be ready to succeed him. Most of the young men in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial. — Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #89) [30:23] The best talk on YouTube: Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley [32:28] Jacob Schiff was fascinated by railroad development in all its ramifications and became determined that his firm would dominate the field. There was not a facet of railroad investment or operation that he did not carry in his head. [34:30] Learn more about Standard Oil: Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford. (Founders #247) Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) [39:18] Markets can turn on a dime. —Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger (Founders #243) [40:12] The greatest entrepreneurs that have ever lived optimized for survival. [44:22] Henry’s motto: Money is always in fashion. [45:08] The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw. (Founders #145) [54:00] But he held no sympathy for them. They had relied on the decisions of others, which he himself would never have done. [54:13] Henry shared the regret that he had never developed greater rapport with his children. He thought of his inability to “noodle" with them, to express approval, to overlook their minor slips, to embrace them and say, “I love you.” ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #252 Socrates | 17 Jun 2022 | 00:47:28 | |
What I learned from reading Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:54] I would trade all my technology for an afternoon with Socrates. — Steve Jobs In His Own Words by George Beahm. (Founders #249) [1:20] Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226) Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240) [2:07] It’s fascinating how great entrepreneurs would arrive at similar conclusions even though they lived at different times in history, they lived in different parts of the world, and they worked in different industries. [3:43] It was Confucius's view that education was the key to everything. [4:57] Socrates was in no doubt that education was the surest road to happiness. [7:05] Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus (Founders #232) [8:43] It is immoral to play at earning one's living. —Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie (Founders #199) [9:40] Socrates was never a bore—far from it. [11:12] Excellence is the capacity to take pain. —Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp. (Founders #184) [11:25] No discomfort seemed to dismay him. [12:36] A healthy body is the greatest of blessings. [14:50] Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Commonwealth and its empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. —Winston Churchill [15:18] An incredible paragraph: It was Pericles' gift to transmute Athenian optimism into a spirit of constructive energy and practical dynamism that swept through this city like a controlled whirlwind. Pericles believed that Athenians were capable of turning their brains and hands to anything of which human ingenuity was capable-running a city and an empire, soldiering, naval warfare, founding a colony, drama, sculpture, painting, music, law, philosophy, poetry, oratory, education, science and do it better than anyone else. [16:26] Robber barons like Henry Flagler (Founders #247) and Rockefeller (#248) believed you could be a master of fate too. [18:41] Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251) [21:20] His deepest instinct was to interrogate. The dynamic impulse within him was to ask and then use the answer to frame another question. [22:27] I don’t want to skip over how important that sentence is: He made the people he questioned feel important. [22:39] Mary Kay would teach her salespeople that everyone goes through life with an invisible sign hanging around his or her neck reading, “make me feel important.” —Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. (Founders #20) [25:18] He was extremely interested in how things were done by experts. Craftsmanship fascinated him. He accumulated a good deal of information concerning products and processes. [27:48] There's just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. —Steve Jobs [28:21] He wants to show that on almost any topic the received opinion is nearly always faulty and often wholly wrong. Socrates was always suspicious of the obvious. The truth is very rarely obvious. [29:39] Be suspicious of the obvious. [29:47] What is particularly liberating about Socrates is his hostility to the very idea of there being a right answer. [30:21] This denial of independent thought by individuals was exactly the kind of mentality he spent his life in resisting. [39:10] Intense competition generated artistic and cerebral innovation on a scale never before seen in history, but also envy, spite, personal jealousies, and vendettas. [42:14] We have to accept that Socrates was a curious mixture of genuine humility and obstinate pride. [44:42] Socrates in prison, about to die for the right to express his opinions, is an image of philosophy for all time. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #251 Ben Franklin and George Washington: The Founding Partnership | 13 Jun 2022 | 00:57:14 | |
What I learned from reading Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:59] Both men have been called The First American but they were friends first and never rivals. [1:32] Leadership at this level is a rare quality and well-worth study. [1:53] The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. (Founders #62) and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #115) [3:53] He was bookish and inquisitive. Franklin quickly displayed a seemingly inexhaustible capability for hard work and was self-taught by reading. [5:36] Franklin was convinced that acts mattered more than beliefs. [6:06] Franklin advised fellow tradesmen. The way to wealth depends chiefly on two words: Industry and Frugality. Waste neither time nor money. Make the best use of both. [7:06] The years roll around and the last one will come. When it does I would rather have it said he lived usefully than he died rich. [8:25] He found electricity a curiosity and left it a science. [8:50] When Franklin proposed the ideal prayer it was for “Wisdom that discovers my truest interests.” [9:26] George Washington was a vigorous and active man, an early riser about his business all day. And by no means intellectually idle, he accumulated a library of 800 books. —Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226) [10:08] His (Washington) strategy was clear, intelligent, absolutely consistent, and maintained with an iron will from start to finish. [16:09] The pictures that we primarily know them as: Washington on the $1 bill and Franklin on the $100 bill — Washington was 64 years old in that picture and Franklin was almost 80 — that is not what they look like at this point. Washington is an extremely young man (21 or 22 years old) and Franklin (48 years old) still has almost 40 years left of life. [18:44] Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy [21:09] Think about this. Franklin is almost 50. He's already a successful entrepreneur, successful scientist, successful writer and now he focuses his talent on the most important project of his life. Something he will be working on in one form or another for the next 34 years —until he dies. [24:28] Never underestimate your opponent. It’s all downside and no upside. [26:39] You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don't, you're going to lose. And that's as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you've got an edge. And you've got to play within your own circle of competence. —Charlie Munger [27:58] Washington remained remarkably calm under fire. [28:23] This is a great description of how lopsided this was: You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. [29:20] This is going to be the most decorated military leader in early American history and so far everything we've seen from his early career is just one failure after another. [32:00] Where Washington's regimen was chronically undermanned, Franklin’s was oversubscribed. They had precisely the same job—to secure the frontier. [32:30] There's a lesson that both Franklin and Washington learned during this part that is going to eventually ripple throughout history: A final shared lesson carried weight. Despite the war's ultimate outcome, the British were beatable in New World combat. "This gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted Ideas of the Prowess of British soldiers was not well founded.” So it's like you have this reputation because you're this gigantic superpower, this world empire —and yet what we're seeing on the battlefield was like, oh, wait a minute —they're beatable. [36:55] Understanding what people believe is pivotal to understanding why they do what they do. [37:36] Washington’s view of the American Revolution: "Essentially, he saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretensions of superiority and won control over half of a continent." [40:17] We have taken up arms in defense of our Liberty, our property, our wives, and our children. We are determined to preserve them or die. [43:02] Washington used the winter to reassess and revise his army structure and strategy because both were faulty. [47:08] By soldiering on for one more year Washington's army, destitute and half naked, turned the world upside down. Imagine if they had quit before this point! [51:50] When I look at this building, my dear sister, and compare it with that in which our good parents educated us, the difference strikes me with wonder. (A lot can change in one lifetime) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #250 Jacob Fugger (The Richest Man Who Ever Lived) | 08 Jun 2022 | 00:57:04 | |
What I learned from reading The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger by Greg Steinmetz. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:55] The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191) [5:05] It is well known that without me your majesty might not have acquired the Imperial crown. You will order that the money which I've paid out, with the interest, shall be paid without further delay. [6:20] There's many examples in the book where Jacob is constantly pushing the pace and going further than you would expect when the consequences of making certain mistakes at this time in history was death. [6:51] He wanted to see how far he could go even if it meant risking his freedom and his soul. [7:01] He is the German Rockefeller. He thought that he was blessed with a talent for money-making by God. And so he couldn't retire. He couldn't live a life of leisure because God told him to make as much money as possible. [8:38] Fugger wrote the playbook for everyone who keeps score with money. A must for anyone interested in history or wealth creation. —Bryan Burrough Barbarians At The Gate [9:33] Jacob was the first documented millionaire in history. [10:43] His objective was neither comfort nor happiness. It was to stack up money until the end. [12:18] Venice was the most commercially minded city on Earth at the time. I wonder what the most commercially minded city on Earth is today? I don't know the answer. [13:31] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) [17:42] The spectacle of the Emperor begging for help startled Jacob. Any belief he may have had in the Emperor’s superhuman qualities could not have survived the fact that mere shopkeepers had denied credit to the supposedly most powerful figure in Europe. [19:11] Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History WW1 series [23:16] There was nothing pioneering or innovative about the loan. His competitors could have made it as easily as Jacob did. All Jacob did was put up his money when no one else had the guts. Such out of favor investments became a hallmark of his investing career. [23:37] The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach (Founders #103) [28:47] Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild by Amos Elon (Founders #197) and The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets by Niall Ferguson (Founders #198) [30:44] He was a radical. He refused to believe that noble birth made someone better than anyone else. For him, intelligence, talent, and effort made the man. [32:29] You write the best life story by living an interesting life. [33:23] His greatest talent was an ability to borrow the money he needed to invest. [36:00] Nothing gave him greater joy than the chores required to make him richer. [38:12] I don’t like plan B. Plan B should be to make Plan A work. —Jeff Bezos [38:57] Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford (Founders #247) [41:04] In every age men have been dishonest and governments corrupt. The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. (Bonus episode between #169 and #170) [43:47] Luther combined technology with an extremely strong worth ethic work. [45:29] Jacob monitored every transaction. [51:31] So this dude wanted to kill the rich and they put him on their currency. [55:55] Jacob believed that businesses could more easily function with fewer, not more decision-makers. [56:29] The Fugger family, 17 generations after Jacob lived, still enjoy income on land Jacob acquired centuries earlier. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| Steve Jobs's Heroes | 02 Jun 2022 | 00:30:51 | |
---- Come see a live show with me and Patrick O'Shaughnessy from Invest Like The Best on October 19th in New York City. ---- On Steve Jobs #5 Steve Jobs: The Biography #19 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader #76 Return To The Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and The Creation of Apple #77 Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing #204 Inside Steve Jobs' Brain #214 Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography #235 To Pixar And Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History Bonus Episodes on Steve Jobs Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success (Between #112 and #113) Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs (Between #110 and #111) On Jony Ive and Steve Jobs #178 Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products On Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs #34 Creativity Inc: Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way of True Inspiration On Steve Jobs and several other technology company founders #157 The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution #208 In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World STEVE JOBS'S INFLUENCES Edwin Land #40 Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid #132 The Instant Image: Edwin Land and The Polaroid Experience #133 Land's Polaroid: A Company and The Man Who Invented It #134 A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War Bob Noyce and Andy Grove #8 The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company #159 Swimming Across #166 The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley Nolan Bushnell #36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent Akio Morita #102 Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony Walt Disney #2 Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination #39 Walt Disney: An American Original #158 Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World J. Robert Oppenheimer #215 The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Henry Ford #9 I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford #26 My Life and Work: The Autobiography of Henry Ford #80 Today and Tomorrow: Special Edition of Ford's 1926 Classic #118 My Forty Years With Ford #190 The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip David Packard and Bill Hewlett #29 The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company Alexander Graham Bell #138 Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell Robert Friedland #131 The Big Score: Robert Friedland and The Voisey's Bay Hustle Larry Ellison (Steve’s best friend) #124 Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle #126 The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice #127 The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #249 Steve Jobs In His Own Words | 01 Jun 2022 | 00:49:34 | |
What I learned from reading I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words by George Beahm. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:05] On Steve Jobs #5 Steve Jobs: The Biography Bonus Episodes on Steve Jobs Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success (Between #112 and #113) On Jony Ive and Steve Jobs #178 Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products On Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs #34 Creativity Inc: Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way of True Inspiration On Steve Jobs and several other technology company founders #157 The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution #208 In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World [3:13] We're not going to be the first to this party, but we're going to be the best. [4:54] Company Focus: We do no market research. We don't hire consultants. We just want to make great products. [5:06] The roots of Apple were to build computers for people, not for corporations. The world doesn't need another Dell or Compaq. [5:52] Nearly all the founders I’ve read about have a handful of ideas/principles that are important to them and they just repeat and pound away at them forever. [7:00] You can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. [8:09] I think of Founders as a tool for working professionals. And what that tool does is it gets ideas from the history of entrepreneurship into your brain so then you can use them in your work. It just so happens that a podcast is a great way to achieve that goal. [8:48] Tim Ferriss Podcast #596 with Ed Thorp [8:50] A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders 222) [10:43] In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service. [12:05] The Essential Difference: The Lisa people wanted to do something great. And the Mac people want to do something insanely great. The difference shows. [14:21] Sure, what we do has to make commercial sense, but it's never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience. [15:57] Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. (Founders #19) [16:41] We had a passion to do this one simple thing. [16:51] And that's really important because he's saying I wasn't trying to build the biggest company. I wasn't trying to build a trillion dollar company. It wasn't doing any of that. Those things happen later as a by-product of what I was actually focused on, which is just building the best computer that I wanted to use. [17:14] In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208 ) [17:41] It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. [20:29] Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets. [21:06] A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95) “A very small percentage of the population produces the greatest proportion of the important ideas. There are some people if you shoot one idea into the brain, you will get half an idea out. There are other people who are beyond this point at which they produce two ideas for each idea sent in.” [22:29] Edwin land episodes: Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid (Founders #40) The Instant Image: Edwin Land and The Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker. (Founders #132) Land’s Polaroid: A Company and The Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. (Founders #133) A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald K. Fierstein. (Founders #134) [25:01] Macintosh was basically this relatively small company in Cupertino, California, taking on the goliath, IBM, and saying "Wait a minute, your way is wrong. This is not the way we want computers to go. This is not the legacy we want to leave. This is not what we want our kids to be learning. This is wrong and we are going to show you the right way to do it and here it is and it is so much better. [27:47] Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Productsby Leander Kahney. ( [29:00] Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte (Founders #98) [34:39] On meeting his wife, Laurene: I was in the parking lot, with the key in the car, and I thought to myself: If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman? I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town, and we've been together ever since. [37:26] It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do. [41:29] Constellation Software Inc. President's Letters by Mark Leonard. (Founders #246) [42:30] Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita. (Founders #102) [44:36] Victory in our industry is spelled survival. [45:21] Once you get into the problem you see that it's complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep going, find the underlying problem, and come up with an elegant solution that works on every level. [48:15] Churchill by Paul Johnson (Founders #225) [48:25] I would trade all my technology for an afternoon with Socrates. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #248 John D. Rockefeller (Titan) | 28 May 2022 | 01:50:37 | |
What I learned from reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:15] Rockefeller trained himself to reveal as little as possible [4:22] Once Rockefeller set his mind to something he brought awesome powers of concentration to bear. [4:44] My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn’t know they had. —Edwin Land [9:00] When playing checkers or chess, he showed exceptional caution, studying each move at length, working out every possible countermove in his head. "I'll move just as soon as I get it figured out," he told opponents who tried to rush him. "You don't think I'm playing to get beaten, do you?" [9:20] To ensure that he won, he submitted to games only where he could dictate the rules. Despite his slow, ponderous style, once he had thoroughly mulled over his plan of action, he had the power of quick decision. [14:49] When John was child, Bill would urge him to leap from his high chair into his waiting arms. One day he dropped his arms letting his astonished son crash to the floor. Remember, Bill lectured him, never trust anyone completely. Not even me. [15:32] The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw (Founders #145) He didn't care what people thought of him and despised society. [16:13] Rockefeller analyzed work, broke it down into component parts, and figured out how to perform it most economically. [18:49] He was a confirmed exponent of positive thinking. [19:10] Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection. [25:14] Rockefeller wasn't one to dawdle in an unprofitable concern. His career had few wasted steps, and he never vacillated when the moment ripened for advancement. [26:20] He's constantly praising adversity in early life as giving him strength to deal with all the stuff he had to deal with later on his life. [26:49] Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. (Founders #135) He was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work. [27:17] Your future hangs on every day that passes. [36:13] If it is of critical importance to your business you have to do it yourself. [36:42] In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman. (Founders #244) [38:36] He would never experience a single year of loss. [39:30] Two quotes from Charlie Munger: The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don't. It's just that simple. Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. (Founders #90) You should remember that good ideas are rare—when the odds are greatly in your favor, bet heavily. Tao of Charlie Munger: A Compilation of Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway's Vice Chairman on Life, Business, and the Pursuit of Wealth With Commentary by David Clark (Founders #78) [41:03] He's gonna to have a massive advantage over other people who only wanted to book short-term profits. [42:01] The Clarks were the first of many business partners to underrate the audacity of the quietly calculating Rockefeller, who bided his time as he figured out how to get rid of them. [44:27] He's super frugal on one end of the spectrum. Extremely frugal! Not going to let his business waste a penny. But he's also —on the very other end of the spectrum— willing to spend and to borrow and to go big. I will borrow every single dollar the banks will give me. He is the weird combination of extreme frugality and extreme boldness. [46:08] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday (Founders 31) On that day his partners “woke up and saw for the first time that my mind had not been idle while they were talking so big and loud,” he would say later. They were shocked. They’d seen their empire dismantled and taken from them by the young man they had dismissed. Rockefeller had wanted it more. [47:13] On that day his partners “woke up and saw for the first time that my mind had not been idle while they were talking so big and loud,” he would say later. They were shocked. They’d seen their empire dismantled and taken from them by the young man they had dismissed. Rockefeller had wanted it more. [47:37] He would never again feel his advancement blocked by shortsighted, mediocre men. [48:16] From this point forward, there would be no zigzags or squandered energy, only a single-minded focus on objectives that would make him both the wonder and terror of American business. [48:38] Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller. (Founders #148) We devoted ourselves exclusively to the oil business and its products. That company never went into outside ventures, but kept to the enormous task of perfecting its own organization. [55:02] He always kept plentiful cash reserves. He won many bidding contests simply because his war chest was deeper. [55:46] Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. (Founders #232) [1:05:37] Twenty-nine-year-old John D. Rockefeller demanded that seventy four-year-old Commodore Vanderbilt, the emperor of the railroad world, come to him. This refusal to truckle, bend, or bow to others, this insistence on dealing with other people on his own terms, time, and turf, distinguished Rockefeller throughout his career. [1:11:07] The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. (Founders #139) [1:14:16] This is the investment opportunity of a lifetime and they're running in the opposite direction. [1:23:37] His master plan was to be implemented in a thousand secret, disguised, and indirect ways. [1:26:37] I have ways of making money you know nothing about. [1:30:59] You don't have any ambition to drive fast horses, do you? [1:32:59] Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger. (Founders #243) [1:34:42] He was now living a fantasy of extravagant wealth and few people beyond the oil business had ever even heard of him. [1:35:33] Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS by Greg Niemann. (Founders #192) [1:36:00] American high society in the 20th century would be loaded with descendants of those refiners who opted for stock. [1:39:02] Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte (Founders #98) [1:39:30] Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed. [1:40:22] Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things, fail because we lack concentration-the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything else? [1:42:31] Copy This!: How I turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and 100 square feet into a company called Kinkos by Paul Orfalea. (Founders #181) [1:42:40] Part of the Standard Oil gospel was to train your subordinate to do your job. As Rockefeller instructed a recruit, "Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it. As soon as you can, get some one whom you can rely on, train him in the work, sit down, cock up your heels, and think out some way for the Standard Oil to make some money.” True to this policy, Rockefeller tried to extricate himself from the intricate web of administrative details and dedicate more of his time to broad policy decisions. [1:49:50] He entered retirement just at the birth of the American automobile industry. The automobile would make John D. Rockefeller far richer in retirement than at work. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) | 19 May 2022 | 01:16:19 | |
What I learned from reading Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:14] The building of the railroad across the ocean was a colossal piece of work born of the same impulse that made individuals believe that pyramids could be raised cathedrals, erected and continents Tamed the highway [1:31] All that remains of an error where men still lived, who believed that with enough will and energy and money that anything could be accomplished. [2:13] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr by Ron Chernow (Founders #16) [2:35] Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73) The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie (Founders #74) Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist by Quentin Skrabec Jr. (Founders #75) [5:51] The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (Founders #62) [6:24] Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #115) “This industry visible to our neighbors began to give us character and credit," Franklin noted. One of the town's prominent merchants told members of his club, "The industry of that Franklin is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind; I see him still at work when I go home from club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." Franklin became an apostle of being-and, just as important, of appearing to be-industrious. Even after he became successful, he made a show of personally carting the rolls of paper he bought in a, wheelbarrow down the street to his shop, rather than having a hired hand do it. [8:54] Ogilvy on Advertising (Founders #82) Set yourself to becoming the best-informed person in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read books on oil geology and the production of petroleum products. Read the trade journals in the field. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, talking to motorists. Visit your client’s refineries and research laboratories. At the end of your first year, you will know more about the oil business than your boss, and be ready to succeed him. [10:50] The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham. (Founders #227) Over the years, a number of very smart people have learned the hard way that a long string of impressive numbers multiplied by a single zero always equals zero. That is not an equation whose effects I would like to experience personally. [13:20] Rockefeller did not believe in diversification. He said they had no outside interest. That it is an immense task building a successful company. It's silly to go out and diversify into other lines or to make other investments. Focus on your business! [13:53] Their chief binding passion: The desire to make large sums of money. [14:13] Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller. (Founders #148) [19:44] Warren Buffett on MOATs: On a daily basis, the effects of our actions are imperceptible; cumulatively, though, their consequences are enormous. When our long-term competitive position improves as a result of these almost unnoticeable actions, we describe the phenomenon as "widening the moat." When short-term and long-term conflict, widening the moat must take precedence. [20:06] The way I define moat: Why are you difficult to compete with? [26:54] For the last 14 or 15 years I have devoted myself exclusively to my business. [28:00] He had become a creator instead of an accumulator and he had found much more satisfaction in such an accomplishment. [30:40] Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 by Nicholas Reynolds. (Founders #194) [35:54] You have to admire Julia Tuttle. She is relentlessly persistent. [36:27] Flagler likes to keep his options open and react to new information. [43:25] It was a time in history when men were tempted no longer to regard themselves as the mercy of the fates —but as masters of their environment. [46:08] A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222 and #93) [46:29] Getting rich and staying rich are two separate skills. [49:11] It is well-documented that Flagler planned his actions carefully. [51:06] He is not at all interested in retiring and is in fact, choosing to run directly towards more difficulties. [51:51] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238) Every hustler knows the value of a feint. It keeps you one step ahead of whoever's listening in. [52:57] During your attempt at doing something difficult you're going to have several points where all of the options in front of you would not be described as good options. [57:47] You realize that you were before a man who has suffered and has never wept, who has undergone intense pain and has never sobbed, who has never bent under stress. [58:12] The only excess I believe I have indulged in has been that of hard work. [58:58] Hard work, energy, and accomplishment. For Flagler it seemed to be all he knew and all he needed to know. [1:07:16] A story about how not panicking can save your life. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #246 Mark Leonard's Shareholder Letters | 13 May 2022 | 00:55:53 | |
What I learned from reading Constellation Software Inc. President's Letters by Mark Leonard. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:10] Business lessons from Mark Leonard by Tren Griffin [2:11] Newsletter: Liberty’s Highlights The Serendipity Engine: Investing & business, science & technology, and the arts. [2:59] I don’t like anyone telling me what to do. I don’t like anyone saying I am an authority figure and you will do it this way. I can’t think of anything that annoys me more. I was stuck by the principal. I challenged teachers. I left home early. I had a bootleg radio license. I built a flamethrower. I did things that weren’t accepted by lots of people. That ability to choose what I think is right is something I prize highly. [4:49] Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It (Founders #110) and The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success (Founders #94) [4:53] Teledyne grows bigger by dividing businesses into smaller parts wherever possible. Singleton claims that this keeps his managers creative and not wasteful. [5:12] Our preference is to acquire businesses in their entirety and to own them forever. [8:57] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King (Founders #37) [9:18] There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to. [12:20] Customer relationships that endure for more than two decades are valuable. [13:08] The longer we have owned a small software business, the larger and better it has become. [15:32] Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters. All of them! (Founders #71) [23:22] We didn't get to that point with central edicts or grand plans. We just had a hunch that our internal ventures could be better managed, and started measuring them. The people involved in the Initiatives generated the data, and with measurement came adjustment and adaptation. It took 6 years, but we have fundamentally changed the mental models of a generation of our managers and employees. [23:56] A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market (Founders #93 and #222) [28:06] Our business units rarely get large. [28:26] This suggests that the size and performance of our business units are almost totally unrelated. I believe that these business units are small for a reason...that the advantages of being agile and tight far outweigh economies of scale. I’m not a proponent of handling our “complexity problem” by creating a bunch of 400 employee business units to replace our 40 employee units. I’m looking for ways of “achieving scale” elsewhere. [29:06] Debt is cheap right now, so it is pretty tempting to use it. Unfortunately, it has a nasty habit of going away when you need it most. [30:42] The Essays of Warren Buffett (Founders #227) [32:51] Book recommendation from Mark: Thinking Fast and Slow [34:53] I love what I'm doing and don't want to stop unless my health deteriorates or the board figures it's time for me to go. [36:42] My personal preference is to instead focus on keeping our business units small, and the majority of the decision making down at the business level. Partly this is a function of my experience with small high performance teams when I was a venture capitalist, and partly it is a function of seeing that most vertical markets have several viable competitors who exhibit little correlation between their profitability and relative scale. (TRUST IN SMALL GROUPS OF SMART PEOPLE) [37:35] There are a number of implications if you share my view: We should a) regularly divide our largest business units into smaller, more focused business units unless there is an overwhelmingly obvious reason to keep them whole, b) operate the majority of the businesses that we acquire as separate units rather than merge them with existing CSI businesses, and c) drive down cost at the head office and Operating Group level. [38:11] I want you to bear with me because I really do think this is a very clear description of what he's building, the advantages the strategy provides, and why he's going to be hard to compete with over the longterm. [40:13] We have 199 business units. We can run a test in 5, 10, 6, 24, whatever it is —we find what works and we can spread it throughout the entire company and spreading best business practices makes those businesses better. The longer it goes, the more businesses we have, the stronger they get over the time. And it's nice you have a checkbook and a phone but I'm way too far ahead— you'll never catch me is essentially what he's saying. [42:00] Copy This!: How I turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and 100 square feet into a company called Kinkos (Founders #181) [43:19] Book recommendation from Mark: The Evolution of Cooperation [44:52] You Don't Know Jack... or Jerry by Robert O. Babcock. Jack Henry and Jerry Hall launched a software company in theh back of a small engine repair shop. Thirty years later, Jack Henry and Associates, Inc., is a thriving operation with over 3,700 employees in close to 50 locations around the United States. [47:22] Book Recommendations from Mark: One Man's Medicine: An Autobiography of Professor Archie Cochrane and Effectiveness and Efficiency, Random Reflections on Health Services by Archie Cochrane The first book is a moving, idiosyncratic and dryly amusing autobiography of a brilliant and erudite outsider that makes you wish you’d known the man firsthand. The second is a stinging critique of a well-meaning but entrenched medical establishment, for their ineffective and dangerous medical practices. [48:23] We spend time on non-randomized observational studies trying to spot business practices that actually add value rather than just adding overhead. [48:34] My favorite part of Mark’s letters [51:09] A huge body of academic research confirms that complexity and coordination effort increases at a much faster rate than head count in a growing organization. [51:50] The business manager needs to be asked why employees and customers wouldn't be better served by splitting that business into smaller units. Our favorite outcome in this sort of situation is that the original business manager runs a large piece of the original business and spins off a new business unit run by one of his or her proteges. [53:39] Something wonderful happens when you spin off a new business unit. [54:16] When you get big you lose entrepreneurship. [54:43] If I were advising my 35 or 40-year-old self on where to go, I would tell him to stay put. Become a master Craftsman in the art of managing your VMS business. It is the most satisfying job in Constellation and will generate more than enough wealth for you to live very comfortably and provide for your family. [55:30] You can't be normal and expect abnormal results. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #245 Rick Rubin (In the Studio) | 08 May 2022 | 01:21:24 | |
What I learned from reading Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- Rick Rubin on Lex Fridman Podcast #275 Rick Rubin on The Peter Attia Drive Podcast #57 [1:39] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238) [3:19] Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. [3:31] His goal is to record music in its most basic and purest form. No extra bells and whistles. All wheat, no chaff. [5:42] Dr. Land was saying: “I could see what the Polaroid camera should be. It was just as real to me as if it was sitting in front of me before I had ever built one.” And Steve said: “Yes, that’s exactly the way I saw the Macintosh.” He said if I asked someone who had only used a personal calculator what a Macintosh should be like they couldn’t have told me. There was no way to do consumer research on it so I had to go and create it and then show it to people and say now what do you think?” Both of them had this ability to not invent products, but discover products. Both of them said these products have always existed — it’s just that no one has ever seen them before. We were the ones who discovered them. The Polaroid camera always existed and the Macintosh always existed — it’s a matter of discovery. [7:31] My goal is to just get out of the way and let the people I'm working with be the best versions of themselves. [7:50] Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders 1965-2018 by Warren Buffett (Founders #88) [11:26] In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman. (Founders #244) [14:13] “Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain and fitting them all together in new and different ways.” —Steve Jobs [16:00] Less is more but you have to do more to get to less. [16:25] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson and reading A History of Great Inventions by James Dyson. (Founders #200) [17:56] Rubin's most valuable quality is his own confidence. [20:57] If we're going to do this, let's aim for greatness. You have to believe what you were doing is the most important thing in the world. [21:29] Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe. (Founders #221) “Everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing.” [24:24] On being a reducer —not a producer: Often in the studio there will be the idea to add layers to make it seem bigger. Sometimes the more things you add, the smaller it gets. A lot of it is counterintuitive. You need to discover it in practice. [27:10] I want to play loud. I want to be heard. And I want all to know I'm not one of the herd. [36:16] There were no stars in rap music. It was really just a work of passion. Everyone who was doing it was doing it because they loved it, not because anyone thought it was a career. [38:12] Krush Groove YouTube link [38:47] Russell really cared about finding new ways to expose their music to a bigger audience. [39:03] Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. (Founders #228) [44:19] A handmade product at scale. [48:23] Rap music as recorded work was just eight years old. [50:06] Q: Do you have an engine of constant dissatisfaction. Self criticism that I could have done better? A: No. I’m pleased with the work that we did. Excited to keep working. It’s fun. I don’t know what else I’d do with myself. I like making things, it’s fun. I feel like it’s my reason to be on the planet so I just keep doing it. If it could be better I would have kept working on it. If it could be better it’s not done. I’ve done everything I can to make it the best it can be. I can’t do more than that so there is nothing to be critical of. It is almost like a diary entry. Everything we make is a reflection in a moment in time. Could be a day, could be a year. [52:54] These things that we don't understand and cannot explain happen regularly. [58:33] To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. [58:58] He's living in four different centuries at once. [1:01:02] I believe in you so much, I'm going to make you believe in you. [1:03:07] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140) Gates and Allen were convinced the computer industry was about to reach critical mass, and when it exploded it would usher in a technological revolution of astounding magnitude. They were on the threshold of one of those moments when history held its breath... and jumped, as it had done with the development of the car and the airplane. They could either lead the revolution or be swept along by it. [1:05:35] The newest sounds have a tendency to sound old when the next new sound comes along. But a grand piano sounded great 50 years ago and will sound great 50 years from now. I try to make records that have a timeless quality. [1:13:58] Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #350 How To Sell Like Steve Jobs | 27 May 2024 | 00:47:06 | |
What I learned from reading The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo ---- Learning from history is a form of leverage. —Charlie Munger. Founders Notes gives you the super power to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- (1:00) You've got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology—not the other way around. —Steve Jobs in 1997 (6:00) Why should I care = What does this do for me? (6:00) The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals by Frank Partnoy. (Founders #348) (7:00) Easy to understand, easy to spread. (8:00) An American Saga: Juan Trippe and His Pan Am Empire by Robert Daley (8:00) The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. (Founders #255) (9:00) love how crystal clear this value proposition is. Instead of 3 days driving on dangerous road, it’s 1.5 hours by air. That’s a 48x improvement in time savings. This allows the company to work so much faster. The best B2B companies save businesses time. (10:00) Great Advertising Founders Episodes: Albert Lasker (Founders #206) Claude Hopkins (Founders #170 and #207) David Ogilvy (Founders #82, 89, 169, 189, 306, 343) (12:00) Advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell, yet the majority of campaigns contain no promise whatever. (That is the most important sentence in this book. Read it again.) — Ogilvy on Advertising (13:00) Repeat, repeat, repeat. Human nature has a flaw. We forget that we forget. (19:00) Start with the problem. Do not start talking about your product before you describe the problem your product solves. (23:00) The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292) (27:00) Being so well known has advantages of scale—what you might call an informational advantage. Psychologists use the term social proof. We are all influenced-subconsciously and, to some extent, consciously-by what we see others do and approve. Therefore, if everybody's buying something, we think it's better. We don't like to be the one guy who's out of step. The social proof phenomenon, which comes right out of psychology, gives huge advantages to scale. — the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger (Founders #329) (29:00) Marketing is theatre. (32:00) Belief is irresistible. — Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. (Founders #186) (35:00) I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts. And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #244 Harry Snyder (In-N-Out Burger) | 03 May 2022 | 01:05:04 | |
What I learned from reading In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:03] This is an absorbing case study on how a family business came to be at the center of its own cheerful cult. [2:42] Aliens, Jedi, & Cults: A Mental Model for Potential [5:05] Stripe gave me a mental model for potential. An alien founder assembles a group of Jedi to start a cult and go on a mission together. [5:28] The developers raving about Stripe formed the cult. [6:37] If you are searching for a project with potential, watch out for the alien founder, Jedi team, and cult following of people on a messianic mission. [7:58] A few years ago I started notice that people were getting Tesla tattoos. It is very hard to ever short something where people are tattooing the brand on their body. — Josh Wolfe [8:38] Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys (Founders #188) Word of mouth is the most effective advertising of all. I have been known to say that there's no better business to run than a cult. Trader Joe's became a cult of the overeducated and underpaid, partly because we deliberately tried to make it a cult once we got a handle on what we were actually doing, and partly because we kept the implicit promises with our clientele. [9:12] List of David Ogilvy podcasts: Ogilvy on Advertising (Founders #82) Confessions of an Advertising Man (Founders #89) The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising(Founders #169) The Unpublished David Ogilvy (Founders #189) [9:17] Word of mouth is the most effective advertising of all. In and Out has that, Tesla has that, Stripe has that, Bitcoin has that, Trader Joe's has that, Apple has that. [10:35] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Founders #31) The best startups might be considered slightly less extreme kinds of cults. The biggest difference is that cults tend to be fanatically wrong about something important. People at a successful startup are fanatically right about something those outside it have missed. [11:33] In and Out was fanatically right about something that companies like McDonald’s, Wendy's and others, missed. [11:43] The most important sentence in the book: "Keep it real simple. Do one thing and do it the best you can.” [12:55] The family owned, fiercely independent chain has remained virtually unchanged since its inception in 1948. [14:53] It is known as the anti-chain with the cult-like mystique. The anti-chain is a perfect way to describe In and Out’s approach to building their business. [19:48] Harry's drive and tenacity were propelled by the uncertainty of watching his parents labor to provide for his family. Harry grew into a disciplined fellow with a strong sense of responsibility. [27:50] The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (Founders #179) [28:15] Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator (Founders #107) [28:55] I have always said that competition just makes you stronger. You shouldn't be afraid of the competition. They make you stay on top of your game. They keep you on your toes. [29:23] You don't ever cut corners when it comes to the quality of your product. [30:23] There is no cult-like following for shitty products. [33:21] This dude is obsessed with simplicity. [33:44] Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success Never underestimate the degree to which people crave clarity and respond positively to it. [36:26] If he was alive today and you could ask him for advice I think he would just say do it yourself. [37:18] This is an important distinction —and I think also how you get to a cult-like following—he's not interesting in being the biggest, he's interested in being the best. [38:34] If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life. [39:47] He refused to sacrifice quality for the sake of profits. [40:05] From the start, In-N-Out ran a customer-driven shop. [41:00] Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans (Founders #216) [44:07] He believed in paying for quality and that included wages. [44:31] Why would you skimp on the level of quality people you work with? That's insane to me — it just makes no sense at all. [44:48] Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! [45:42] Embrace hard work, ignore fads, identify what's important to you, and repeat it for decades. [46:39] The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon(Founders #237) [50:00] Catering to the car-reliant customer, Harry focused on putting his drive-throughs right next to off-ramps of the fast-expanding freeway system. The growing Southern California freeway network became a significant factor in In-N-Out's own rising popularity. [50:45] He's got a handful of really simple principles he refuses to deviate from. He focuses on quality and does that for decade after decade, He's giving us somewhat of a blueprint to build a cult-like following. People respond to this because you've put their interest ahead of your own. [51:56] Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success(Founders #56) [56:50] You don't build a cult following by trying to wring more money out of cheaper products. [58:19] I'm focused on the customer. I'm focused on quality. My competitors are focused on a spreadsheet. [59:56] Limit the number of details to perfect and make every detail perfect. That is exactly what Harry Snyder did. [1:00:41] From his perspective, In-N-Out was simply a different creature than its competitors. [1:01:07] He was very much about problem solving before it became a problem. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #243 Francis Greenburger (Real Estate Billionaire) | 25 Apr 2022 | 01:16:25 | |
What I learned from reading Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:26] I can be extremely stubborn when I have a hunch about something. [3:31] I knew all too well that markets can turn on a dime. [5:40] Money that had once flowed freely dried up over night. [6:41] I always listened to other people's ideas because that is how you happen upon the good ones. [6:46] Logic is no match for bureaucracy. [7:33] This ruthless industry has created far more bankruptcies than it has billionaires. Saying no is the most important judgment that you make. [9:00] Time to Make the Donuts: The Founder of Dunkin Donuts Shares an American Journey (Founders #231) [9:09] Sometimes the best lessons that you learn in life are from what you discover in the weaknesses of otherwise very good people. [15:54] My father was terrible with money. His knack of mismanaging it, losing it, or not making it in the first place was an incredible source of stress within our family. [19:09] The constant question mark that was my parents's checkbook balance made a lasting impression. [24:31] His pride in my abilities formed the basis of the self-confidence that allowed me to start businesses, sell books, make crazy friends, and love women at an age when most others were busy with their homework. [29:40] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King (Founders #37) [30:12] I see opportunity where others saw nothing. [31:34] He doesn't dilly-dally. This guy moves fast. It's not like I proved it once, let me try two or three times. He is like it worked once, it's gotta work over and over again, and he immediately starts to scale it. [37:40] Don’t interrupt the compounding: I was skating on razor thin margins that a busted toilet could threaten. But I prefer to remain on the edge as I kept my buildings running rather than sell any of them before they grew to the much higher value that I had a hunch they would one day achieve. [40:45] The idea that builds his empire: By co-oping I would be dealing with tens of thousands of dollars in sales, rather than hundreds of dollars in rents. [41:58] Once something works don't dilly dally. Go as fast as you possibly can. [43:08] Lots of folks thought what I was doing was insane. [43:17] I knew something that the market had not yet fully embraced. [47:06] My advice to those with expanding businesses is that they must first make a decision about how they want to allocate their time and structure their business so that the balance reflects that. [49:33] Children require attention and involvement. This takes you out of your self orientation and makes you invest in another person who can only pay you in one currency: Love. [50:09] If anyone had asked me in 1990 what the chances of my business survival was I would have said 1 in 100. I still consider it a miracle that we didn't go bankrupt. [53:12] The main lesson is never delay discomfort. Waiting or ignoring a problem never solves it. Just run towards it. [55:36] Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Founders #30) [56:27] Every parent’s worst nightmare. [1:06:25] Disaster usually rises when short-term profit takes precedence over lasting value creation. [1:08:21] I don't pick investments. I pick jockeys, not horses. [1:10:31] Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II (Founders #143) [1:10:52] The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age (Founders #103) [1:13:52] Real security comes from adaptability. [1:13:59] Independent thinking in its simplest forms means not assuming that the status quo was the best answer, the right answer, or the most effective answer. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #242 Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life | 21 Apr 2022 | 01:29:13 | |
What I learned from reading Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:49] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. [5:33] I had spent a lifetime with a frustrated, and often unemployed man, who hated anybody who was successful. [7:01] And he said, “Yeah, but there can only be one genius in the family. And since I'm already that, what chance do you have? “What kind of father says something like that to his son? [8:21] He is incredibly talented and incredibly pretentious. He doesn't know what he's doing half the time and the other half of the time he's brilliant. [9:46] There is no speed limit. The standard pace is for chumps. [10:04] Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power (Founders #135) [11:54] George Lucas: A Life (Founders #35) [12:45] Steven Spielberg: A Biography (Founders #209) [14:10] Coppola displayed a remarkable ability to do whatever was necessary to get the job done. [16:30] I had an overwhelming urge to make films. [19:11] I deliberately worked all night so when he'd arrive in the morning he would see me slumped over the editing machine. [20:36] Say yes first, learn later. [21:00] My peculiar approach to cinema is I like to learn by not knowing how the hell to do it. I’m forced to discover how to do it. [23:10] His willingness to seize the moment was one of the main characteristics separating him from his other fellow students and aspiring filmmakers. [30:44] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (Founders #233) [37:43] You have to control the money or you don't have control. [38:53] At his absolute lowest point comes his greatest opportunity. [41:59] It only takes a couple of these gigantic flops to permanently erase any positive financial outcome that you had previously. [44:55] Either control your emotions or other people are going to control you. [47:35] In many cases, the people we study are dead. We can't talk to them, but they can still counsel us through their life stories. [50:00] Excellence took time and patience. [51:56] Even in the vortex of the storm some outstanding work was being accomplished. Something strong and powerful was being forged in struggle. [52:46] Vito Corleone had shown a rough-hewn old-world wisdom, the kind gained through experience rather than from a textbook. [56:29] A great story about loyalty and friendship. If you have a friend like this, hold onto them. [1:03:32] Martin Sheen on working for Coppola: I have a lot of mixed feelings about Francis. I'm very fond of him personally. The thing I love about him most is that he never, like a good general, asks you to do anything he wouldn't do. He was right there with us, lived there in shit and mud up to his ass, suffered the same diseases, ate the same food. I don't think he realizes how tough he is to work for. God, is he tough. But I will sail with that son of a bitch anytime. [1:04:58] I always had a rule. If I was going away for more than 10 days I’d take my kids out of school. [1:08:31] If you don't have this fundamental alignment between who you are and the work you do —and how you do that work —there's going to be some level of misery unhappiness if you don't resolve that conflict. [1:12:22] Half the people thought it was a masterpiece and half the people thought it was a piece of shit. [1:23:01] On the death of his son: I realized that no matter what happened, I had lost. No matter what happened, it would always be incomplete. [1:25:38] I want to be free. I don't want producers around me telling me what to do. The real dream of my life is a place where people can live in peace and create what they want. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #241 The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies | 14 Apr 2022 | 01:27:13 | |
What I learned from reading Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:07] The Wright Brothers (Founders #239) [3:47] Avoid any activity that distracts you from improving the quality of your product and the quality of your business. [5:58] Completely self-taught, he made spectacular intellectual leaps to solve a series of intractable problems that had alluded some of history's most brilliant men. [9:46] The Wright-Curtiss feud was at its core a study of the unique strengths and flaws of personality that define a clash of brilliant minds. Neither Glenn Curtiss nor Wilbur Wright ever came to understand his own limits, that luminescent intelligence in one area of human endeavor does not preclude gross incompetence in another. And because genius often requires arrogance, both men continuously repeated their blunders. [13:38] P.T. Barnum: An American Life (Founders #137) [13:49] John Moisant had three failed attempts to overthrow the government of El Salvador. [17:44] Master of Precision: Henry Leland (Founders#128) [19:32] Sacrifices must be made. [20:18] The science of flight has attracted the greatest minds in history—Aristotle, Archimedes, Leonardo, and Newton, —but achieving the goal stumped all of them. [23:19] If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic-being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago. —Elon Musk [23:57] If the process was to move forward with any efficiency, experimenters would need some means to separate what seemed to work from what seemed not to–data and results would have to be shared. The man who most appreciated that need was someone who, while not producing a single design that resulted in flight, was arguably the most important person to participate in its gestation. [28:46] He found his first breakthrough by doing the exact opposite of his competitor. [30:08] The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (Founders #145) [39:04] His passion was speed. He had tremendous endurance, he was never a quitter, and he would do anything to win. [42:25] My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins (Founders #170) [43:46] No lead is insurmountable if you stop running before you've reached the finish line. [47:03] Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell (Founders #138) [47:05] The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism (Founders #142) Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt (Founders #156) The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Founders #175) [47:40] Never underestimate your opponent. It’s all downside, no upside. Churchill (Founders #225) [57:05] He saw competition as a destructive, inefficient force and favored large-scale combination as the cure. Once, when the manager of the Moet and Chandon wine company complained about industry problems, J.P. suggested he buy up the entire champagne country. — The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (Founders #139) [1:00:05] Find people who are great at selling your product and hire them. [1:06:55] He was driven by an uncontrollable desire for adventure and wealth, and almost an adolescent need to be seen as a swashbuckling hero. [1:07:45] John was left desperate for an outlet for his obsessive audacity. [1:13:57] The McCormick's were used to making terms, not acquiescing to them. [1:19:15] Wilbur never seemed to grasp that his crusade to destroy his nemesis could destroy him. [1:20:00] I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. —Steve Jobs ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #240 Mozart: A Life | 07 Apr 2022 | 00:45:53 | |
What I learned from reading Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:52] Churchill by Paul Johnson (Founders #225) [2:15] A life of constant hard work, lived at the highest possible level of creative concentration. [3:05] Mozart worked relentlessly. [3:56] He started earlier than anyone else and was still composing on his deathbed. [5:34] He soon came to the conclusion that he had fathered a genius— and being a highly religious man, that he was responsible for a gift of God to music. [7:05] I think the idea here is if you truly believe that what you're doing is good for the world— and you approach it with the same kind of religious zeal— you have a massive advantage over a competitor that doesn't have the same missionary mindset. [8:09] My Turn: A Life of Total Football by Johan Cruyff (Founders #218) [8:42] Leading By Design: The Ikea Story (Founders #104) [9:09] He loved humor, and laughter was never far away in Mozart's life, together with beauty—and the unrelenting industry needed to produce it. [13:36] Decoded by Jay Z (Founders #238) [15:36] Russ ON: Delusional Self-Confidence & How To Start Manifesting Your Dream Life and Steve Stoute & Russ Explain Why Every Creator Should Consider Themselves A Business [19:46] You don't tell Babe Ruth how to hold a bat. [20:43] I will take your demand and I'll use it as a constraint to increase my creativity. [21:27] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King (Founders #37) [22:37] You need to tell potential customers what work and effort goes into the product that you produce because they will have a deeper appreciation for what you do. [24:52] Inside Steve’s Brain (Founders #204) [25:06] He's made and remade Apple in his own image. Apple is Steve Jobs with 10,000 lives. [25:30] Mozart wanted to talk to A players. [26:32] The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50) [26:57] You should only work in industries where— for the important companies of that industry —the founders are still in charge at those companies. [31:13] As a child and teenager Mozart was the most hardworking and productive composer in musical history. [34:17] Find something that is being done on a basic level and then realize its potential by re-imagining it. [36:13] It was all hard, intense application of huge knowledge and experience, sometimes illuminated by flashes of pure genius. [36:40] Imagine being so good at what you do that the ruler of your country has to pass a law to get people to stop clapping. [40:15] It is no use asking what if Mozart had had an ordinary, normal father. Mozart without his father is inconceivable, and there is no point in considering it. Just as Mozart himself was a unique phenomenon, so Leopold was a unique father, and the two created each other. [41:00] There's a sense in which Mozart's entire life is a gigantic improvisation. [41:21] From the age of twenty Mozart never went a month without producing something immortal-something not merely good, but which the musical repertoire would be really impoverished without. [43:03] Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain, and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. —Steve Jobs [43:39] Mozart's beauty prevents one from grasping his power. [43:39] Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man (Founders #150) and Sam Walton: Made In America (Founders #234) [45:31] Never despair! ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| Steve Jobs and His Heroes | 01 Apr 2022 | 00:30:24 | |
---- Come see a live show with me and Patrick O'Shaughnessy from Invest Like The Best on October 19th in New York City. ---- On Steve Jobs #5 Steve Jobs: The Biography #19 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader #76 Return To The Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and The Creation of Apple #77 Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing #204 Inside Steve Jobs' Brain #214 Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography #235 To Pixar And Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History Bonus Episodes on Steve Jobs Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success (Between #112 and #113) Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs (Between #110 and #111) On Jony Ive and Steve Jobs #178 Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products On Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs #34 Creativity Inc: Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way of True Inspiration On Steve Jobs and several other technology company founders #157 The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution #208 In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World STEVE JOBS'S INFLUENCES Edwin Land #40 Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid #132 The Instant Image: Edwin Land and The Polaroid Experience #133 Land's Polaroid: A Company and The Man Who Invented It #134 A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War Bob Noyce and Andy Grove #8 The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company #159 Swimming Across #166 The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley Nolan Bushnell #36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent Akio Morita #102 Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony Walt Disney #2 Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination #39 Walt Disney: An American Original #158 Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World J. Robert Oppenheimer #215 The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb Henry Ford #9 I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford #26 My Life and Work: The Autobiography of Henry Ford #80 Today and Tomorrow: Special Edition of Ford's 1926 Classic #118 My Forty Years With Ford #190 The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip David Packard and Bill Hewlett #29 The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company Alexander Graham Bell #138 Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell Robert Friedland #131 The Big Score: Robert Friedland and The Voisey's Bay Hustle Larry Ellison (Steve’s best friend) #124 Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle #126 The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice #127 The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #239 The Wright Brothers | 29 Mar 2022 | 01:33:18 | |
What I learned from rereading The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:40] Relentlessly Resourceful by Paul Graham [4:11] If I were running a startup, this would be the phrase I'd tape to the mirror. "Make something people want" is the destination, but "Be relentlessly resourceful" is how you get there. [5:35] Everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing. —Charlie Munger [6:44] No bird soars in a calm. [10:30] Neither ever chose to be anything other than himself. [11:36] Wilbur was a little bothered by what others might be thinking or saying. [11:46] What the two had in common above all was a unity of purpose and unyielding determination. [15:09] Every mind should be true to itself —should think, investigate and conclude for itself. [17:53] My Life in Advertising (Founders #170) [19:33] Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace (Founders #174) [19:39] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire (Founders #140) [23:56] I wish to avail myself of all that is already known. [30:32] Like the inspiring lectures of a great professor, the book had opened his eyes and started him thinking in ways he never had. [34:29] In no way did any of this discourage or deter Wilbur and Orville Wright, any more than the fact that they had had no college education, no formal technical training, no experience working with anyone other than themselves, no friends in high places, no financial backers, no government subsidies, and little money of their own. Or the entirely real possibility that at some point, like Otto Lilienthal, they could be killed. [36:07] When once this idea has invaded the brain it possesses it exclusively. [38:23] I’ve never found anybody that didn’t want to help me if I asked them for help. I called up Bill Hewlett when I was 12 years old. He answered the phone himself. I told him I wanted to build a frequency counter. I asked if he had any spare parts I could have. He laughed. He gave me the parts. And he gave me a summer job at HP working on the assembly line putting together frequency counters. I have never found anyone who said no, or hung up the phone. I just ask. Most people never pick up the phone and call. And that is what separates the people who do things, versus the people who just dream about them. You have to act. —Steve Jobs [41:47] You wanted to start a company. You knew that it was going to be hard. What are you complaining for? [42:17] Jay Z: Decoded (Founders #238) [42:56] They had their whole heart and soul in what they were doing. [46:28] You should follow your energy. [53:49] The Wright brothers have blinders on mentality. They don't care what other people say. They just say I'm working at this. I don't care what other people think. [54:16] The brothers proceeded entirely on their own and in their own way. [58:21] This is the blueprint they are using: Test. Iterate. Test. Iterate. Work long hours. Concentrate and ignore the naysayers. [1:00:31] Wilbur was always ready to jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up. He believed in a good scrap. He believed it brought out new ways of looking at things and helped round off corners. [1:00:57] Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire (Founders #180) [1:02:26] Pour gasoline on promising sparks. [1:04:14] It is very bad policy to ask one flying machine man, about the experiments of another, because every flying machine man thinks that his method is the correct one. [1:08:46] Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Founders #210) [1:10:26] They were always thinking of the next thing to do. They didn't waste much time worrying about the past. [1:11:05] Look around, just about any person or entity achieving at a high level has the same focus. The morning after Tiger Woods rallied to beat Phil Mickelson at the Ford Championship in 2005, he was in the gym by 6:30 to work out. No lights. No cameras. No glitz or glamour. Uncompromised. — Driven From Within (Founders #213) [1:12:56] They would have to learn to accommodate themselves to the circumstances. [1:20:42] The best dividends on labor invested have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power. [1:27:37] He went his way always in his own way. [1:31:45] A man who works for the immediate present and its immediate rewards is nothing but a fool. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #238 Jay Z: Decoded | 23 Mar 2022 | 01:58:14 | |
What I learned from reading Decoded by Jay Z. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:39] I would practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep [2:10] Even back then I though I was the best. [2:57] Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography (Founders #219) [4:32] Belief becomes before ability. [5:06] Michael Jordan: The Life (Founders #212) [5:46] The public praises people for what they practice in private. [7:28] Lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers. [7:50] Sam Walton: Made In America (Founders #234) [9:50] He was disappointed in the world, so he built one of his own — from Steven Spielberg: A Biography (Founders #209) [12:47] The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50) [13:35] I'm not gonna say that I thought I could get rich from rap, but I could clearly see that it was gonna get bigger before it went away. Way bigger. [21:10] Over 20 years into his career and dude ain’t changed. He’s got his own vibe. You gotta love him for that. (Rick Rubin) [21:41] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [25:27] I believe you can speak things into existence. [27:20] Picking the right market is essential. [29:29] All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason – they run out of money. —Don Valentine [29:42] There are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes- you don’t have to go to business school for two years: high gross margins and cash flow. The other financial metrics you can forget. —Don Valentine [31:54] I went on the road with Big Daddy Kane for a while. I got an invaluable education watching him perform. [33:12] Everything I do I learned from the guys who came before me. —Kobe [34:15] I truly hate having discussions about who would win one on one or fans saying you’d beat Michael. I feel like Yo (puts his hands up like stop. Chill.) What you get from me is from him. I don’t get 5 championships without him because he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice. [34:50] Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography (Founders #214) [37:20] This is a classic piece of OG advice. It's amazing how few people actually stick to it. [38:04] Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success(Founders #56) [39:04] The key to staying on top of things is to treat everything like it's your first project. [41:10] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (Founders #233) [44:46] We (Jay Z, Bono, Quincy Jones) ended up trading stories about the pressure we felt even at this point in our lives. [45:22] Competition pushes you to become your best self. Jordan said the same thing about Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. [46:43] If you got the heart and the brains you can move up quickly. There's no way to quantify all of this on a spreadsheet, but it's the dream of being the exception. [52:26] He (Russell Simmons) changed the business style of a whole generation. The whole vibe of startup companies in Silicon Valley with 25 year old CEOs wearing shell toes is Russell's Def Jam style filtered through different industries. [54:17] Jay Z’s approach is I'm going to find the smartest people that that know more than I do, and I'm gonna learn everything I can from them. [54:49] He (Russell Simmons) knew that the key to success was believing in the quality of your own product enough to make people do business with you on your terms. He knew that great product was the ultimate advantage in competition. [55:08] In the end it came down to having a great product and the hustle to move it. [56:37] Learn how to build and sell and you will be unstoppable. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (Founders #191) [58:30] We gave those brands a narrative which is one of the reasons anyone buys anything. To own not just a product, but to become part of a story. [59:30] The best thing for me to do is to ignore and outperform. [1:01:16] Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. (Founders #90) [1:06:01] Tao of Charlie Munger: A Compilation of Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway's Vice Chairman on Life, Business, and the Pursuit of Wealth With Commentary (Founders #78) [1:08:42] Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products(Founders #178) [1:11:46] Long term success is the ultimate goal. [1:12:58] Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love - Bill Gurley [1:15:11] I have always used visualization the way athletes do, to conjure reality. [1:18:14] The thing that distinguished Jordan wasn't just his talent, but his discipline, his laser-like commitment to excellence. [1:19:42] The gift that Jordan had wasn't just that he was willing to do the work, but he loved doing it because he could feel himself getting stronger and ready for anything. That is the kind of consistency that you can get only by adding dead serious discipline of whatever talent you have. [1:21:37] when you step outside of school and you have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information. I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it to my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around restless, making connections, mixing, and matching ideas rather than marching in a straight line, [1:27:41] Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam (Founders #116) [1:34:15] The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you. That you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places. [1:36:25] There are extreme levels of drive and pain tolerance in the history of entrepreneurship. [1:38:45] Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business [1:42:24] I love sharp people. Nothing makes me like someone more than intelligence. [1:44:17] They call it the game, but it's not. You can want success all you want but to get it you can't falter. You can't slip. You can't sleep— one eye open for real and forever. [1:51:49] The thought that this cannot be life is one that all of us have felt at some point or another. When a bad decision and bad luck and bad situations feel like too much to bear those times. When we think this, this cannot be my story, but facing up to that kind of feeling can be a powerful motivation to change. [1:54:18] Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #237 Julio Lobo (Cuba's Last Sugar Tycoon) | 16 Mar 2022 | 01:10:35 | |
What I learned from reading The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon by John Paul Rathbone. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:02] Beyond Possible: One Man, Fourteen Peaks, and the Mountaineering Achievement of a Lifetime (Founders #236) [3:22] This is a cautionary tale. [6:18] One of the main lessons of the book is just how fast things can change. [6:25] The History of Cuba in 50 Events [10:14] Lobo walked with a limp due to a murder attempt 14 years before that had blown a four inch chunk out of his skull. [12:29] One of the most human of all desires is to perpetuate what you have created. [12:55] Lobo thinks he has leverage when he really doesn’t. [18:39] He dies in poverty. Imagine having $5 billion and then at the end of your life having to rely on an allowance from your adult daughters. [20:30] I think about what Charlie Munger says: Don't try to be really smart. Just try to be consistently not dumb over a long period of time. [20:58] Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (Founders #146) [22:59] Chico, I was born naked. I will probably die naked. And some of the happiest moments of my life happened when I was naked. [29:01] From an early age it was apparent that Lobo sought not only wealth but glory too. [30:21] He was an individualist who did not spare himself any sacrifice to attain his objectives. [31:26] The clearest path to wealth is building a business that benefits somebody else's life. Make a product or service that makes somebody else's life better. Do that for a long period of time and keep improving it. [33:45] His father told him I would much rather you make your mistakes now than later when I may not be around to pick up your pieces. [38:16] It turns out that almost being executed makes you impatient for large success. [40:32] If you instead focus on the prospective price change of a contemplated purchase, you are speculating. There is nothing improper about that. I know, however, that I am unable to speculate successfully, and I am skeptical of those who claim sustained success at doing so. Half of all coin-flippers will win their first toss; none of those winners has an expectation of profit if he continues to play the game. And the fact that a given asset has appreciated in the recent past is never a reason to buy it. —Warren Buffett from The Essays of Warren Buffett (Founders #227) [45:09] Think about the type of funeral you want. There is a story about a person who died. The minister said it is now time to say something nice about the deceased. After long time a person came up and said, “His brother was worse.” That is not the kind of funeral you want. —Charlie Munger [50:34] Alfred Nobel: A Biography (Founders #163) [52:30] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King(Founders #37) [54:26] They almost resorted to a duel, which was still common in Cuba at the time, where differences were often settled with machetes at dawn. [1:04:34] There are times when chasing the things money can buy, one loses sight of the things which money can't buy and are usually free. [1:05:10] The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (Founders #191) [1:05:17] A calm mind, a fit body and a house full of love, these things cannot be bought, they must be earned. —Naval Ravikant [1:08:52] His business collapsed like a house of cards. [1:09:34] It was the same ending that befell so many other famous speculators throughout history. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #236 Nims Purja (Mountain Climber) | 11 Mar 2022 | 01:04:27 | |
What I learned from reading Beyond Possible: One Man, Fourteen Peaks, and the Mountaineering Achievement of a Lifetime by Nims Purja. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:36] Walking out on my career felt risky, but I was prepared to gamble everything for my ambition. [4:20] Your extremes are my normal. [12:04] Wow, this is my shit. I'd been working without much thought, operating in the flow state that athletes often describe when they set world records or win championships. I was in the zone. Brother, I thought. You're a badass at high altitude. [13:27] I was poor from the beginning. We didn't have any money, and the thought of owning a car was unimaginable. But we were a loving family, and I was a happy kid. It didn't take a lot to keep me amused. [14:57] From an early age, I believed in the power of positive thinking. [18:17] I also like the idea of being on top. [19:00] Sam Walton: Made In America (Founders #234) [19:03] I understood that to become a special forces operator, it was important to adapt to an increased workload. [19:25] One thing I don’t even have on my list is “work hard.” If you don’t know that already, or you’re not willing to do it, you probably won’t be going far enough to need my list anyway. —Sam Walton [19:44] Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #141) [20:58] This is insane: On weekends, my daily routine involved running for hours at a time. I'd haul my ass around the streets with two or three Gurkha buddies; we operated in a relay system, where I was the only soldier prevented from taking a break. One guy would accompany me for six miles, leading me along at a strong pace. Once he completed his distance, another running partner took over, and together we'd go six more miles. This went on for hours, and left me physically and psychologically pummeled. [21:43] Emotional control was only one of the many traits I'd need to possess to become elite. [22:22] Read the first 113 pages of this book Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #193) [24:14] I focused only on the 24 hours ahead. Today I will give 100 percent and survive, I thought at the beginning of each day. I'll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. [26:47] You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t start by saying, ‘I’m going to build the biggest, baddest wall that’s ever been built.’ You don’t start there. You say, ‘I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.’ If you do that every single day, soon you will have a wall. —Will Smith [28:52] I always smiled my way through the mud. [29:03] Excellence is the capacity to take pain. —Isadore Sharp (Founders #184) Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy [30:02] Dru Riley founder of Trends.VC has a 100 Rules Personal Philosophy [32:14] The glass-half-empty attitude went against everything I'd been taught in the military, where grumbling or giving up wasn't an effective strategy. If problems or challenges came my way, I was supposed to find solutions, having been trained to adapt and survive. [35:30] The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Founders #100) [43:33] I approached every day with a positive thought: I can do this. I will navigate every problem the mission can throw at me. I've already climbed the world's tallest peak. The only thing standing in my way right now is funding. Get out there and smash it. [48:48] I'd proven to everybody that it is never too late to make a massive change in your life. [53:43] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (Founders #233) [54:40] There were occasions when a panicked call would come over the radio: “Nims, it's snowing heavily on the mountain. It's going to be a rough climb!" Rather than wallowing in negativity, I'd make a smart-ass comment to lift the mood. "Come on, bro, what do you think we're getting on a mountain—a bloody heat wave?" [54:58] Mark Twain once wrote that if a person’s job was to eat a frog, then it was best to take care of business first thing in the morning. But if the work involved eating two frogs, it was best to eat the bigger one first. In other words: Get the hardest job out of the way. [57:57] Suffering sometimes creates a weird sense of satisfaction for me. It creates a sense of pride when seeing a job through to the end. [58:23] It is important to keep the promises you make yourself: If I say that I'm going to run for an hour, I'll run for a full hour. If I plan to do 300 push-ups in a training session, I won't quit until I've done them all-because brushing off the effort means letting myself down, and I don't want to have to live with that. And neither should you. [1:02:05] The adventure taught me an important lesson. Fear was never going to hold me back from pressing ahead with my plans. It established in me a mindset with zero doubts and zero tolerance for excuses. [1:03:12] We worked as a small expedition unit, in teams of three, four, or five, but we moved with the power of 10 bulls and the heart of a hundred men. [1:03:24] Most of all, I realized that somebody in the 14 peaks had been a launchpad. I needed more. I have to push my limits to the max, sitting tight, waiting it out and living in the past have never been for me. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #349 How Steve Jobs Kept Things Simple | 20 May 2024 | 00:52:29 | |
What I learned from reading Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success by Ken Segall. ---- Learning from history is a form of leverage. —Charlie Munger. Founders Notes gives you the super power to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- (1:30) Steve wanted Apple to make a product that was simply amazing and amazingly simple. (3:00) If you don’t zero in on your bureaucracy every so often, you will naturally build in layers. You never set out to add bureaucracy. You just get it. Period. Without even knowing it. So you always have to be looking to eliminate it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234) (5:00) Steve was always easy to understand. He would either approve a demo, or he would request to see something different next time. Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity, what he wanted to happen next. — Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda. (Founders #281) (7:00) Watch this video. Andy Miller tells GREAT Steve Jobs stories. (10:00) Many are familiar with the re-emergence of Apple. They may not be as familiar with the fact that it has few, if any parallels. — Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Appleby Michael Moritz. (15:00) If the ultimate decision maker is involved every step of the way the quality of the work increases. (20:00) "You asked the question, What was your process like?' I kind of laugh because process is an organized way of doing things. I have to remind you, during the 'Walt Period' of designing Disneyland, we didn't have processes. We just did the work. Processes came later. All of these things had never been done before. Walt had gathered up all these people who had never designed a theme park, a Disneyland. So we're in the same boat at one time, and we figure out what to do and how to do it on the fly as we go along with it and not even discuss plans, timing, or anything. We just worked and Walt just walked around and had suggestions." — Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. (Founders #347) (23:00) The further you get away from 1 the more complexity you invite in. (25:00) Your goal: A single idea expressed clearly. (26:00) Jony Ive: Steve was the most focused person I’ve met in my life (28:00) Editing your thinking is an act of service. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #235 Steve Jobs (The Pixar Story) | 07 Mar 2022 | 01:18:25 | |
What I learned from reading To Pixar And Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History by Lawrence Levy. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:34] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (Founders #233) [3:42] Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (Founders #34) [3:52] Readwise App [7:22] George Lucas: A Life (Founders #35) [7:48] Steve jobs had been a Silicon Valley's most visible celebrity but that made it all the more glaring that he had not had a hit in a long time —a very long time. [8:49] Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing (Founders #77) [13:35] Why would I join a company that had been struggling for sixteen years and whose payroll was paid every month out of the personal checkbook of its owner? I had not realized how dire Pixar's financial situation was. It had no cash, no reserves, and it depended for its funds on the whim of a person whose reputation for volatility was legendary. [14:05] There is no a better advertisement than a demo. [15:57] Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story (Founders #141) [16:03] There was nothing normal about me. My drive was not normal. My vision of where I wanted to go in life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryptonite to me. —Arnold [16:31] I looked at my start-up clients and to me they were on an adventure. I yearned for the kind of adventure they were on. [17:28] Mind Your Own Business: A Maverick's Guide to Business, Leadership and Life (Founders #229) [17:46] I regard myself as guardian of the company's soul. [19:06] Pixar has this amazing collection of talent doing work that no one has seen before. Now it's time to turn that into a business. —Steve Jobs [22:01] Steve had an almost permanent intensity about him, like he was always in top gear. [28:25] Pixar was embarked on a lonely courageous quest through terrain, into which neither it nor anyone else had ever ventured. [28:52] Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader (Founders #19) [31:37] Home video was turning animated feature films into big business. Bigger than we had ever imagined. [32:24] There was no modern precedent for taking an independent animation company public. [36:54] Look at the value of the major Hollywood studios and you'll see their library of films is really significant. [39:27] There was no part of Steve that bought into the idea of making products that might not all have a shot at greatness. [41:22] Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony (Founders #102) [48:40] Steve once told me that the gestation of great products takes much longer than it appears. What seems to emerge from nowhere belies a long process of development, trials, and missteps. [53:46] The problem with success, even a little success, is that it changes you. You are no longer walking along the same precipice that drove you to do great work in the first place. Success can take the edge away. [54:16] Creative vision does not spring forth fully formed. [59:33] Fear and ego conspire to rein in creativity, and it is easy to allow creative inspiration to take a back seat to safety. [1:01:38] The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the Americas Cup, Twice (Founders #126) [1:06:41] Once Steve decided what he wanted in a negotiation, he developed something akin to a religious conviction about it. In his mind, if he didn't get what he wanted, nothing else would take its place, so he'd walk away. This made Steve an incredibly strong negotiator. [1:10:52] One never knows if an event that appears detrimental is in fact part of a larger pattern that we cannot see. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #234 Sam Walton: Made In America | 28 Feb 2022 | 01:55:24 | |
What I learned from rereading Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:56] The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) [5:45] We just got after it and stayed after it. [6:06] Foxes and Hedgehogs [6:39] Hedgehogs may not be as clever as foxes but they obsessively measure and track everything about their business, and over time, they acquire deep, relevant knowledge and expertise. Their single minded approach may appear risky at times but they are conservative by nature. Hedgehogs don’t speculate or make foolish bets. If all their eggs are in that one proverbial basket, they follow Mark Twain’s advice – and watch that basket very carefully. [7:17] The thing with Hedgehogs is that they never give up. They keep at it – and they don’t ever get bored because they just love what they do – and they have a lot of fun along the way. [7:28] Hedgehogs are the ones who build great, lasting companies. As entrepreneurs, they are the rarest of breeds – those who can start something anew, make it work, stick with it, and build something special, and ultimately, inspire others along the way, with their determination, dedication and commitment. [8:49] At first, we amazed ourselves. And before too long, we amazed everybody else too. [9:26] Think about how crazy this is. He died weeks after that writing this. His last days were spent categorizing and organizing his knowledge so future generations can benefit. [12:32] Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger(Founders #90) [12:56] "It's quite interesting to think about Walmart starting from a single store in Arkansas – against Sears, Roebuck with its name, reputation and all of its billions. How does a guy in Bentonville, Arkansas, with no money, blow right by Sears? And he does it in his own lifetime – in fact, during his own late lifetime because he was already pretty old by the time he started out with one little store. He played the chain store game harder and better than anyone else. Walton invented practically nothing. But he copied everything anybody else ever did that was smart – and he did it with more fanaticism. So he just blew right by them all. —Charlie Munger [17:11] What motivates the man is the desire to absolutely be on the top of the heap. [17:32] Practice your craft so much that you're the best in the world at it and the money will take care of itself. [18:44] We exist to provide value to our customers. [21:18] A Conversation with Paul Graham [22:32] It never occurred to me that I might lose; to me, it was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. [26:42] Time to Make the Donuts: The Founder of Dunkin Donuts Shares an American Journey by William Rosenberg. (Founders #231) [29:35] It didn’t take me long to start experimenting—that’s just the way I am and always have been. [30:56] Do things that other people are not doing. [33:13] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233) [33:41] I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of the biggest contributions to the later success of Wal Mart. [34:10] Our money was made by controlling expenses. I gotta read that again because it's so important. Our money was made by controlling expenses. [37:49] Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man (Founders #150) [38:37] I’ve always thought of problems as challenges, and this one wasn’t any different. I didn’t dwell on my disappointment. The challenge at hand was simple enough to figure out: I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time. [42:47] Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp. (Founders #184) [45:12] The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie (Founders #74) [47:08] Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator by Robert E. Price. (Founders #107) [49:56] Sam had a really simple hypothesis for the first Wal Mart: We were trying to find out if customers in a town of 6,000 people would come to our kind of a barn and buy the same merchandise strictly because of price. The answer was yes. [52:19] I have always been a Maverick who enjoys shaking things up and creating a little anarchy. [54:23] In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and/or minimizing one or a few variables. —Charlie Munger [55:02] He does something really smart here. And this is something I missed the first time I read the book. He finds a way to force himself to know the numbers for every single store. [56:13] Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It by Dr. George Roberts. (Founders #110) [58:11] Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. (Founders #213) I’m not so dominant that I can’t listen to creative ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. —Michael Jordan [58:43] We paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to the way things were supposed to be done, you know, the way the rules of retail said it had to be done. [1:03:15] Estée: A Success Story by Estée Lauder. (Founders #217) [1:04:00] One thing I never did—which I’m really proud of—was to push any of my kids too hard. I knew I was a fairly overactive fellow, and I didn’t expect them to try to be just like me. [1:06:38] I was never in anything for the short haul. [1:10:36] Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) Like so many NBA players, Drexler was operating mostly off his great store of talent, absent any serious attention to the important details of the game. Jordan had been surprised to learn how lazy many of his Olympic teammates were about practice, how they were deceiving themselves about what the game required. [1:11:56] And you can think about Sam constantly learning from everybody else, visiting stores —that is a form of practice. Every single craft has a form of practice. It just is not as obvious as it is in sports. [1:13:26] He proceeds to extract every piece of information in your possession. [1:15:37] He has just been a master of taking the best of everything everybody else is doing and adapting it to his own needs. [1:18:52] We were serious operators who were in it for the long haul, that we had a disciplined financial philosophy, and that we had growth on our minds. [1:19:54] Most people seem surprised to learn that I've never done much investing in anything except Walmart. [1:20:42] He's like I just figured out the Walmart's worked. And then all I did was focus on making more of them. You don't have to over-complicate it. [1:23:04] If you ask me if I'm an organized person, I would say flat out, no, not at all. Being organized would really slow me down. (Optimize for flexibility) [1:24:26] The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson (Founders #127): My view is different. My view is that there are only a handful of things that are really important, and you devote all your time to those and forget everything else. If you try to do all thousand things, answer all thousand phone calls, you will dilute your efforts in those areas that are really essential [1:26:15] I think one of Sam's greatest strengths is that he is totally unpredictable. He is always his own person. He is totally independent in his thinking. [1:26:45] If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. —Bruce Lee [1:28:40] You can’t possibly know the TAM. You are in the middle of inventing the TAM. [1:30:08] There is no speed limit by Derek Sivers [1:31:54] Built From Scratch: How A Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion (Founders #45) [1:41:35] I like to keep everybody guessing. I don't want our competitors getting too comfortable with feeling that they can predict what we're going to do next. [1:42:25] He ties that investment int technology with the compounding savings and over the long-term, he's going to destroy his competition just off this one metric alone. [1:43:39] Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS by Greg Niemann. (Founders #192) [1:47:56] Sam’s 10 Rules for Building A Business [1:48:04] One thing I don’t even have on my list is “work hard.” If you don’t know that already, or you’re not willing to do it, you probably won’t be going far enough to need my list anyway. [1:48:51] Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. [1:50:54] Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. For twenty-five years running—long before Wal-Mart was known as the nation’s largest retailer—we ranked number one in our industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||
| #233 Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin (PayPal) | 23 Feb 2022 | 01:53:50 | |
What I learned from reading The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:50] Your life will be shaped by the things that you create and the people you make them with. [2:45] A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age (Founders #95) [3:17] Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Founders #1 and #30) [4:48] It is hard to find a lukewarm opinion about PayPal's founders. [5:29] To skip PayPal's creation is to neglect the most interesting stuff about its founders. It is to miss the defining experiences of their early professional lives —one that defined so much of what came later. [6:39] There's just so many times I put down the book and I'm like, “That is really, really smart, what they just did there.” [6:59] It perfectly captures when they [Musk, Thiel, Sacks, Hoffman, Levchin, Rabois] were just hustlers trying to figure it out. [8:31] For the next several years, the company’s survival was an open question. They were sued, defrauded, copied, mocked— from the outset. PayPal was a startup under siege. Its founders took on multi-billion dollar financial firms, a critical press and skeptical public, hostile regulators, and even foreign fraudsters. [10:14] From Henry Ford’s autobiography: That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. [11:11] Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy (Founders #89) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson (Founders #115) Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble (Founders #151) [12:03] A wall in the engineering office had two banners. One was titled The World Domination Index. The World Domination Index was a total count of PayPal's users that day. The other was a banner bearing the words Memento Mori —Latin for remember that you will die. PayPal's oddball team was out to dominate the world, or die trying. [15:37] At PayPal disharmony produced discovery. [16:22] Steve Jobs The Lost Interview Notes [17:36] Properly understood PayPal story is a four year odyssey of near failure followed by near failure. [20:22] He showed early signs of his hallmark intensity. He wanted to be the best at everything he did. [21:08] Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss [21:50] Knowledge Project: Marc Andreessen [23:01] What would Shimada do? I understand how this guy thinks. I've studied how he thinks. Now I'm presented with a difficult decision. I'm running it through my own calculus—but to enhance that is like, let me ask what would Shimada do in this situation? That is genius. [23:47] The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz (Founders #41) [25:19] Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel (Founders #31) [29:25] Everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing. —Charlie Munger [31:14] The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams [32:25] "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Characte by Richard Feynman [35:32] He walked into Musk's his bedroom. The room was literally filled with biographies about business luminaries and how they succeeded. Elon was prepping himself and studying to be a famous entrepreneur. [38:32] Musk had learned that startup success wasn't just about dreaming up the right ideas as much as discovering and then rapidly discarding the wrong ones. [39:04] Keep iterating on a loop that says, Am I doing something useful for other people? Because that is what a company is supposed to do. Too much precision in early plans, Musk believed, cut that iterative loop prematurely. [40:10] My mind is always on X, by default, even in my sleep. I am by nature, obsessive compulsive. What matters to me is winning and not in a small way. —Elon Musk [48:20] PayPal prioritized speed on everything over everything else except in one category —recruiting. They would rather staff slowly then compromise on quality. [48:47] Max would keep repeating “As hire As. Bs hire Cs. So the first B you hire takes the whole company down.” [50:52] Do Things That Don’t Scale by Paul Graham [52:31] Is there something that you're not working on that could be a more simple version of what you're currently doing? [55:30] Why is that crazy? Because three years later Elon Musk will make $180 million from this broken situation that he's currently finds himself in. [55:48] Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Apple by Mike Mortiz (Founders #76) [57:48] Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger (Founders #172) [59:02] There is no speed limit by Derek Sivers [1:03:51] Make your product as easy as email. [1:05:08] Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success by Ken Segall (Bonus episode in between #112 and #113) [1:10:19] In Levchin and Thiel, Musk found something he rarely encountered— competitors as driven to win as he was. [1:11:36] “I really liked this Elon guy”, Levchin remembered thinking. “He’s obviously completely crazy, but he's really, really smart. And I really like smart people.” [1:18:23] Oftentimes it's better to just pick a path and do it rather than vacilitate endlessly on the choice. —Elon Musk [1:18:40] Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent by Nolan Bushnell (Founders #36) [1:19:39] He was going to tame us young whippersnappers with these like seasoned financial executives or whatever. And we're like, uh, these are the same seasoned executives at these banks who can't do jack shit, who can't compete with us. This doesn't make sense. —Elon Musk [1:21:16] The founder may be bizarre and erratic, but this is a creative force and they should run the company. —Elon Musk [1:22:26] Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick Brooks [1:23:33] Company leaders set a cultural tone of impatience. [1:26:17] Every moment of friction for the customer was fat to be cut. [1:31:00] Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. —Ed Catmull in Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration (Founders #34) [1:31:35] Peter Thiel’s tendency to buck convey convention had nothing to do with math or political philosophy. It had to do with people. He didn't give a shit. He cared about smart people who worked hard. [1:37:25] PayPal was a company of extremely aggressive people with a real bias for action. [1:38:24] You can copy what I'm doing, but I'm only focused on this. While payments is just one part of your gigantic business. [1:40:32] PayPal began this effort as it had begun much else over the prior years with a little planning, quick action, and faith in itself to iterate its way to success. [1:47:25] Just because someone shoots five bullets at you and misses does not preclude the sixth one from killing you. [1:47:33] A great Steve Jobs story [1:51:23] Reid Hoffman forces himself to regularly ask others, "Who is the most eccentric or unorthodox person, you know, and how could I meet them?" [1:52:25] It is hard but fair. I live by those words. —Michael Jordan in his autobiography (Founders #213) [1:52:34] PayPal's earliest employees reserve their highest praise for those who tread the same stony road— founders across varied fields of endeavor. "Those that bring the big ideas into hard, unpredictable reality are the practitioners, the high-leverage ones, and I admire them almost without reservation," Max wrote "One key ingredient of being this kind of person is an almost irrational lack of fear of failure and irrational optimism. —Max Levchin ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast | |||