Founders (David Senra )

What I learned from having an intense and fun 3 hour dinner with Michael Ovitz. 

1: Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it.

2: There's no ceiling on where you can push your profession.

3: Don't be unequally yoked. Pick partners that have the same ambition as you.

4: Read biographies. Know everything about the history of your industry.

5. Have a profound sense of belief. The world is very malleable. 

6: There’s opportunity hiding in plain sight.

7: By endurance we conquer. 

8: Work 10% less. Optimize for the long term. 

9. Surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth.

10: Retirement is lame.

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“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

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What I learned from having dinner with Charlie Munger and rereading The Tao of Charlie Munger.

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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best !

(5:45) The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.

(8:48) He has never forgotten the importance of having friends in high places.

(9:04) Most people systematically undervalue their time. — Peter Thiel

(11:08) Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. Founders #251)

(12:23) Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #284)

(15:02) Charlie took the excess capital out of Blue Chip Stamp and invested it in profitable businesses.

(16:56) Charlie started seeing the advantages of investing in better businesses that didn't have big capital requirements and did have lots of free cash that could be reinvested in expanding operations or buying new businesses.

(17:38) Go for great.

(21:33) In everything I’ve done it really pays to go after the best people in the world. —Steve Jobs

(27:15) If you're in a good business just know that it's human nature to mess it up. Don't mess it up. Just stay there and let time do its work.

(27:34) One truly great business will make your unborn grandchildren wealthy.

(28:08) All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)

(34:39) I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.

(34:54) Charlie Munger on how he made $400 or $500 million by reading Barron’s for 50 years.

(35:11) One of the reasons Charlie and Warren have never worried about anyone mimicking their investment style is because no other institution or individual has the discipline are the patience to wait as long as they can. 

(35:47) Wisdom is prevention.

(36:50) Only play games where you have an edge. — A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)

(38:31) Wise people step on big and growing troubles early.

(44:51) I am continually amazed at the number of people who are presented with an opportunity and pass. There’s your basic dividing line between the people who shoot up in their careers like a rocket ship, and those who don’t — right there. — Marc Andreessen's Blog Archive (Founders #50)

(46:28) The most inspiring biography I’ve read so far: Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung. (Founders #117)

(47:11) Invest Like The Best #204 Sam Hinkie Find Your People

(42:42) Rober Caro’s Books:

The Power Broker

The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I

Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson II

Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson IV

(48:46) We just got after it and we stayed after it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)

(52:39) Some brand names own a piece of consumer's minds and they do not have any direct competition.

(55:30) We are individual opportunity driven.

(57:08) Size and market domination can create their own kind of durable competitive advantage.

(56:15) Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)

(1:01:57) Extreme specialization is the way to succeed. Most people are way better off specializing than trying to understand the world.

(1:04:44) Wise people want to avoid other people who are just total rat poison and there are a lot of them.

(1:05:35) Charlie and I have seen so much of the ordinary in business that we can truly appreciate a virtuoso performance.

(1:09:00) Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. (Founders #269)

(1:10:15) Charlie looks at nearly everything through the lens of history. You aren't changing human nature. Things will just keep repeating forever.

(1:13:13) There should be more willingness to take the blows of life as they fall. That's what manhood is, taking life as it falls. Not whining all the time and trying to fix it by whining.

(1:14:40) Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)

(1:17:00) Arnold Schwarzenegger autobiographies and episodes:

Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141)

Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #193)

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn. 

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Ford generally accepted the responsibilities of his celebrity-he'd worked diligently to cultivate it, realizing early on that his personal fame heightened demand for Model Ts.

Ford's Model T changed everything. Thanks in great part to Ford's innovative assembly line, Model Ts were mass-produced on a previously unimaginable scale. In competitors factories, it took workers several hours to assemble an individual car. At the Ford plant, a completed Model T rolled off the line every two and a half minutes.

Ford continued tinkering with the manufacturing process, aggressively seeking ways to cut production expenses and Model T prices even more. The best example fostered a popular joke that you could buy any color Model T that you liked, so long as the color was black. Few realized that Ford insisted the cars come in that color because black paint dried quickest, meaning Model Ts could be whipped through the assembly line and off to dealerships at an even faster pace, saving additional time and labor related dollars.

The Model T alone would have established Henry Ford as a household name, but he'd further cemented his reputation as a friend of the working man with a stunning announcement. In an era when factory line workers were lucky to earn $2 a day for their labor and toiled through ten-hour shifts six days a week, Ford pledged to pay $5 a day, and to reduce workdays to eight hours. Everyone in America was talking about it.

Over the years, as Ford founded and failed with two auto manufacturing companies before succeeding with his third, he endlessly reminisced about the meeting and Edison's words of encouragement: “Young man, that's the thing. You have it. Keep at it.”

Ford was a cannier businessman than his hero, much wealthier.

They found themselves in complete agreement about the evils of Wall Street and the crass men there who cared only for profit and not for the public. Both were poor boys who made good. Neither had a college degree, and both were disdainful of those who believed classroom education was superior to hands-on work experience and common sense.

Like Edison, Ford didn't have many friends. Ford was a prickly man and also a complicated one, burning to make the world better for humanity as a whole while not enjoying personal contact with most individuals.

Ford never doubted his own beliefs and decisions, forbidding disagreement from employees and ignoring any from outsiders. Ford's hobby was work. He devoted almost every waking minute to it.

When he and the inventor quickly became the closest of friends, Ford felt energized again, thanks in great part to Edison's inspiration.

For all of Ford's professional life he'd had to overcome skepticism from other successful men. He had always been the outsider, the one with the crazy ideas and clumsy social graces. Edison sympathized, because in his earliest years of prominence he was criticized for some of the same traits. The inventor not only accepted Ford for the rough-edged man that he was, he recognized in him the fine qualities that offset the carmaker's obvious flaws.

Henry Ford was always a man of strong opinions, and one who absolutely trusted his own instincts. He especially disdained anyone identified as an expert: "If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means, I would endow the opposition with experts. No one ever considers himself an expert if he really knows his job."

When prominent, better educated men and their hired experts insisted that the future of the automobile market was limited to manufacturing expensive cars for the wealthy, Ford believed that the real potential lay in sales of a modest but dependable vehicle to the growing American middle class; there would be less profit in individual transactions, but the sheer number of sales would yield greater cumulative returns. With the Model T, Ford was proved right, and he reveled in it.

Their main goal was to have a good time. But few business magnates in America had a shrewder understanding of marketing than Edison, Ford, and Firestone. If rank-and-file consumers liked what they saw and read about, as they surely would, then sales of cars and light bulbs and phonographs and tires would directly benefit, too.

Ford shocked America by resigning as company president. He was going to start an entirely new automobile manufacturing enterprise. Ford Motor Company stockholders assumed the threat was real, and within weeks agreed to sell Ford their shares at a whopping $12,500 a share. (James Couzens, who knew Ford best, held out and received $13,000 for each of his.) Though Ford had to borrow $60 million of the near $106 million total cost, he was still glad to do it. It had been an elaborate bluff, but he was now in complete control of Ford Motor Company.

Ford received thousands of letters with the general message that if he were an anarchist, then America needed more of them. Ford was the son of a Michigan farmer, and like  most rural Americans of the time his formal education was limited to a few years in local schools and teachers who themselves had often not graduated high school. Then he had to leave school to make a living. Like Ford, many of his countrymen read only with difficulty, if at all. Their understanding of American history was limited. They, too, might not remember the exact date of the American Revolution, but they knew that Henry Ford introduced the $5 workday and a car that ordinary people could afford. They identified with Ford so strongly that newspaper attacks on him were taken as insults directed at them.

They were shocked to receive shipments of Model Ts that they hadn't ordered. The edict on these cars was the same-Ford Motor Company must be paid for them. Refusal would terminate the dealer-company relationship. If they refused to accept these additional Model Ts and were fired by Ford, they could be ruined. Or, as the parent company suggested, they could accept the cars, if necessary get loans from their own banks to pay Ford for them, and then aggressively keep trying to sell Model Ts and hang on until the national economic crisis was over. The dealers had little choice but to accept. That provided Ford with enough money to meet his immediate corporate debts-the dealers had to risk wrath from their banks instead.

She never complained when Ford spent most of his off-the-job hours trying to build a combustion engine in their kitchen. Clara encouraged Ford to pursue his dream of creating "a car for the great multitudes," remaining supportive when his first two companies failed, encouraging  him during the difficult first years of Ford Motor Company, his third.

Ford fixated on even the smallest details.

Patience was never Ford's strength.

Ford had no interest in laurel-resting.

Ford’s cars were built to last. Never flashy, in every way efficient, always dependable, much like the man whose company assembled them. And, just as Ford never saw any reason to change himself, he felt no pressure to change the Model T.

Ford's stubbornness gave competitors the opening they needed. When Alfred Sloan took over General Motors in 1923, the new boss emphasized a marketing plan based on Americans wanting not just transportation, but selection. Enough people now owned cars so that ownership itself was no longer special. What was going to matter soon was driving a car that reflected the personality, the specialness, of the individual owner.

As individuals, Edison, Ford, and Firestone created the means for the "great multitudes" to enjoy leisure entertainment far beyond what was previously imagined. As the Vagabonds, their summer car and camping trips exemplified what they had helped make possible: See what we're doing? You çan do it, too. By their example, the Vagabonds encouraged countless ordinary Americans to pursue their own dreams.

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“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

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What I learned from reading Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever.

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[28:32] All the energy he'd put into trying to destroy himself, he put that into building himself back up. All that negative energy became something else. He became so serious, and so driven and focused. He worked really hard. It takes a lot of determination to wake up early in the morning and write, and then go to a job in the kitchen, and come home at god knows what hour, and get up the next morning and do it again. He was a fiend. One time, he said about his disciplined writing regimen, "Such was my lust to see my name in print." He threw himself into his work in a manner that I found astonishing.

[41:17] He gave me really good advice: "Stay public. You gotta promote, promote, promote, or it all dies. You just gotta be out there all the time." Tony embraced that.

[56:17] He proceeded to tell everyone to ignore the network. He said, "Completely ignore everything they're saying about music, about story, about shots. Let me deal with it all. I'm gonna make the show I want to make, across all fronts.” I had already been editing for ten years, and this was the first time I'd heard anything like this. Everyone is always just trying to make the network happy.

[1:01:51] The line between Tony and the show was very thin, if it existed at all.

[1:07:07] This life isn't a greenroom for something else. He went for it.

[1:20:50] He demanded excellence, and he never settled for shit. He just wanted the show to be the greatest thing ever, all the time.

[1:22:48] It was his life's work, and he never slacked.

[1:34:56] Tony gorged himself on being alive.

[1:46:13] The world is not better off with him not here. It's just not.

[1:45:46] I liked him better when he was just kind of living his best life and looking in the rearview mirror like he stole something. This beautiful life that he had, something people would dream of, and no one else could do it but him. A "slit my wrist" love story is just the shittiest ending to it all.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo 

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(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.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from rereading Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller. 

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Notes and highlights from the episode: 

It has not been my custom to press my affairs forward into public gaze. (Bad boys move in silence)

My favorite biography on Rockefeller John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254)

Secrecy covered all of his operations.

Taking for granted the growth of his empire, he hired talented people as found, not as needed. — Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) 

We had been frank and aboveboard with each other. Without this, business associates cannot get the best out of their work.

Rockefeller said Jay Gould was the best businessman he knew. Jay Gould books and episodes: American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune by Greg Steinmetz (Founders #285) and Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258) 

"If I have to choose between agreement and conflict, I'll take conflict every time. It always yields a better result." — Jeff Bezos

It's a pity to get a man into a place in an argument where he is defending a position instead of considering the evidence. His calm judgment is apt to leave him, and his mind is for the time being closed, and only obstinacy remains

I like doing deals with the same people. You get to know each other and build a mutual sense of trust. Today, a lot of what I do originates from associations that go back ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years. — Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell.

Writing a check separates conviction from conversation. — Warren Buffett

We had with us a group of courageous men who recognized the great principle that a business cannot be a great success that does not fully and efficiently accept and take advantage of its opportunities. (Do everything and you will win)

Such was Rockefeller's ingenuity, his ceaseless search for even minor improvements. Despite the unceasing vicissitudes of the oil industry, prone to cataclysmic booms and busts, he would never experience a single year of loss. — Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248)

Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford. #247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller’s Partner)

Rockefeller on the impact Henry Flagler had on the beginning of Standard Oil: He always believed that if we went into the oil business at all, we should do the work as well as we knew how; that we should have the very best facilities; that everything should be solid and substantial; and that nothing should be left undone to produce the finest results. And he followed his convictions of building as though the trade was going to last, and his courage in acting up to his beliefs laid strong foundations for later years. (Build a first class business in a first class way)

Young people should realize how, above all other possessions, is the value of a friend in every department of life without any exception whatsoever.

When you recruit A players you don't tell them here's 5 things I want you to focus on. Here's your top 10 priorities. NO. You've got one priority. Destroy that priority. Do it more than anybody else possibly will. (Henry Flagler’s main priority was controlling the cost of transportation.)

Larry Ellison: 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) 

We were accustomed to prepare for financial emergencies long before we needed the funds. (Keep a fortress of cash)

It is impossible to comprehend Rockefeller's breathtaking ascent without realizing that he always moved into battle backed by abundant cash. Whether riding out downturns or coasting on booms, he kept plentiful reserves and won many bidding contests simply because his war chest was deeper. — Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248)

I learned to have great respect for figures and facts, no matter how small they were.

This casual way of conducting affairs did not appeal to me.

As our successes began to come, I seldom put my head upon the pillow at night without speaking a few words to myself: "Now a little success, soon you’ll fall down, soon you’ll be overthrown. Because you’ve got a start, you think you’re quite a merchant; look out, or you will lose your head—go steady." These intimate conversations with myself had a great influence on my life. I was afraid I couldn’t stand my prosperity, and tried to teach myself not to get puffed up with any foolish notions. (If you go to sleep on a win you’ll wake up with a loss)

I hope they were properly humiliated to see how far we had gone beyond their expectations. (Chips on shoulders put chips in pockets) 

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 in Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. (Founders #182) 

Rockefeller on Standard Oil stock: Sell everything you've got, even the shirt on your back, but hold on to the stock.

All business proceeds on belief: Trying to run a company without a set of beliefs is like trying to steer a ship without a rudder. — Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp (Founders #184)  

Rockefeller on his “unintelligent competition”: We had the type of man who really never knew all the facts about his own affairs. Many kept their books in such a way that they did not actually know when they were making money or when they were losing money.

A few weeks later, the newspapers announce his new partnership—revealing who had backed his bid—and the news that Rockefeller is, at twenty-five, an owner of one of the largest refineries in the world. 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.  — Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday 

At best it was a speculative trade, and I wonder that we managed to pull through so often; but we were gradually learning how to conduct a most difficult business.

A blueprint for success in any endeavor: Low prices to the customer. Root out any inefficiency. Pay for talent. Control expenses. Invest in technology.

We devoted ourselves exclusively to the oil business and its products. The company never went into outside ventures, but kept to the enormous task of perfecting its own organization

The fastest way to move a dial is narrow the focus. People naturally resist focus because they can’t decide what is important. Therein lies a problem: people can typically tell you after some deliberation what their top three priorities are, but they struggle to decide on just one. What is too much and what is too little focus? Do you ever even discuss this? Most teams are not focused enough. I rarely encountered a team that employed too narrow an aperture. It goes against our human grain. People like to boil oceans. Just knowing that can be to your advantage. When you narrow focus, you are increasing the resourcing on the remaining priority. —  Amp It Up by Frank Slootman 

Two people can run the same business and have vastly different results: Perhaps it is worth while to emphasize again the fact that it is not merely capital and "plants" and the strictly material things which make up a business, but the character of the men behind these things, their personalities, and their abilities; these are the essentials to be reckoned with. 

When it comes to competition, being one of the best is not good enough. Do you really want to plan for a future in which you might have to fight with somebody who is just as good as you are? I wouldn't. — Jeff Bezos in Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos

Don't even think of temporary or sharp advantages. Don't waste your effort on a thing which ends in a petty triumph unless you are satisfied with a life of petty success.

Study diligently your capital requirements, and fortify yourself fully to cover possible set-backs, because you can absolutely count on meeting setbacks.

Do not to lose your head over a little success, or grow impatient or discouraged by a little failure.

Know your numbers. You need to know your business down to the ground.

Money comes naturally as a result of service (Henry Ford)

Don’t do anything that someone else can do (Edwin Land)

The man will be most successful who confers the greatest service on the world.

Commercial enterprises that are needed by the public will pay. Commercial enterprises that are not needed fail, and ought to fail.

Dedicate your life to building something that contributes to the progress and happiness of mankind.

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach. 

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[0:10] She was  the smartest woman on Wall Street, a financial genius, a railroad magnate, a real estate mogul, a Gilded Era renegade, a reliable source for city funds.

[0:19] “I have had fights with some of the greatest financial men in the country. Did you ever hear of any of them getting ahead of Hetty Green?”

[1:10] I go my own way, take no partners, risk nobody else’s fortune.

[1:29] She was considered the single biggest individual financier in the world.

[1:58]  A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95)

[2:55] Watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.

[3:31] Don’t close a bargain until you have reflected on it overnight.

[4:00] I am always buying when everyone wants to sell, and selling when everyone wants to buy.

[4:51] I never set out for anything that I don’t conquer.

[5:55] To live content with small means; To seek elegance rather than luxury, And refinement rather than fashion; To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich.

[7:27] Her father’s advice: Never owe anyone anything.

[9:44] By the time she is 13 she is the family bookkeeper.

[11:53] She paid attention when he (her father) repeated again and again that property was a trust to be taken care of and enlarged for future generations. She obeyed when he insisted that she keep her own accounts in order and later praised the experience. “There is nothing better than this sort of training,” she said.

[13:28] Hetty hungered for money itself.

[14:08] List of financial panics discussed in the book: Panic of 1857, Panic of 1866, The Long Depression 1873-1896 which had several panics within, (Panic of 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893) Panic 1901 and Panic of 1907.

[16:18] She was a master at studying what happened before her.

[16:31] The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by TJ Stiles. (Founders #54) and Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55)

[17:15] Clever men like Russell Sage, a future role model for Hetty, kept substantial amounts of cash on hand and used it to buy stocks at rock-bottom prices. John Pierpont Morgan told his son there was a good lesson to be learned from other people’s greed and good bargains to be found in the aftermath. In future times, Hetty would always keep cash available and use it to buy when everyone else was selling. Much later, Warren Buffett would do the same. But most people watched their money wash away in the flood.

[23:57] This was the start of the contrary investing she followed for the rest of her life: buying when everyone else was selling; selling when everyone else was buying. “I buy when things are low and nobody wants them. I keep them until they go up and people are crazy to get them. That is, I believe, the secret of all successful business,” she said.

[26:46] Hetty, like Claude Shannon, Warren Buffett, and Ed Thorp, collected a lot of information. Hetty read more and studied more than most other people.

[28:07] The opportunities were enormous for those with the stomach to take the risks.

[30:25] The markets may change, the methods may be revamped, but as long as human beings are propelled by greed and ego, they are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

[31:11] She had a pile of cash when others were scouring for pennies, but she also had a deft mind and the colossal courage to push against the crowd.

[36:17] Hetty’s investments were not always known: she purchased property under fictitious names, bought stocks under other identities, and was praised by shrewd observers for how closely she held her positions.

[37:41] Williams greeted his new customer with all the courtesy and respect due a woman of her wealth. “I have observed that many a tattered garment hides a package of bonds and that gorgeous clothing does not always cover a millionaire,” he told his colleagues.

[44:14] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #37)

[45:52] Hetty didn't like the idle rich. She respected authentic achievement.

[48:48] Companies who stocks had skyrocketed collapsed when their lack of capital was revealed.

[49:22] The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard. (Founders #29)

[49:30] More companies die from indigestion than starvation. —David Packard

[50:58] She used her intelligence to increase her wealth, her independence to live as she wished, and her strength to battle anyone who stood in her way.

[55:24] They sought her out to sell off their possessions. As rates rose, more and more of “the solidest men in Wall Street,” she said, from “financiers to legitimate businessmen,” came to call, begging to unload everything from palatial mansions to automobiles. “They came to me in droves,” she recalled.

[59:30] When it comes to spending your life, there have to be some things neglected. If you try to do too much, you can never get anywhere.

[59:53] You see this advice over and over again. You just got to figure out what that thing is that you want to focus on. No one can answer that question for you.

[1:00:14] I think the key to a happy life is getting to the end of your life with the least amount of regrets as possible.

[1:00:24] She prized the life she led. “I enjoy being in the thick of things. I like to have a part in the great movements of the world and especially of this country. I like to deal with big things and with big men. I would rather do [this] than play bridge. Indeed, my work is my amusement, and I believe it is also my duty.”

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What I learned from reading George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. 

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Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most: himself.

“What we’re striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released, and be completely free to express ourselves,” explained Lucas. “That’s very hard to do in the world of business. In this country, the only thing that speaks is money and you have to have the money in order to have the power to be free.”

George looked at it like a businessman, saying, ‘Wait a minute. The studios borrowed money, took a 35 percent distribution fee off the top. This is crazy. Why don’t we borrow the money ourselves?' Some of the bravest and/or most reckless acts were not aesthetic, but financial.

My thing about art is that I don’t like the word art because it means pretension and bullshit, and I equate those two directly. I don’t think of myself as an artist, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m a craftsman. I don’t make a work of art; I make a movie. 

You couldn’t pay me enough money to go through what you have to go through to make a movie. It’s excruciating. It’s horrible. You get physically sick. I get a very bad cough and a cold whenever I direct. I don’t know whether it’s psychosomatic or not. You feel terrible. There is an immense amount of pressure, and emotional pain. But I do it anyway, and I really love to do it. It’s like climbing mountains.

I was seriously, seriously depressed at that point because nothing had gone right. Everything was screwed up. I was desperately unhappy. That was a very dark period for me. We were in dire financial straits. I was in debt to my parents, in debt to Francis Coppola, in debt to my agent; I was so far in debt I thought I’d never get out.

He was fascinated not only by Scrooge McDuck’s exploits but also by his conniving capitalist ways. “Work smarter, not harder,” was Scrooge’s motto, and his stories were full of inventive schemes that, more often than not, made him even richer and more successful. In Scrooge’s world, hard work paid off, yes — but so did cleverness and a desire to do something in a way no one had ever thought of before. The lessons Lucas learned from Uncle Scrooge would shape the kind of artist and businessman he would become in the future: conservative and driven, believing strongly in his own vision and pursuing it aggressively.

I sit at my desk for eight hours a day no matter what happens, even if I don’t write anything. It’s a terrible way to live. But I do it; I sit down and I do it. I can’t get out of my chair until five o clock or five-thirty. It’s like being in school. It’s the only way I can force myself to write. Most days, no words would be written at all. At 5:30 he would tromp downstairs to watch the evening news, glaring with anger over a TV dinner as he stewed about the blank pages he’d left upstairs.

Sitting next to him was a thirty-one-year-old independent filmmaker from northern California named John Korty. When he digressed into the details of his filmmaking Lucas really took an interest. For the past three years, Korty had been running his own filmmaking facility out of his barn at Stinson Beach, a small ocean resort town just north of San Francisco. He had privately raised the $100,000 for Crazy Quilt by hitting up friends, colleagues, and even his actors for money, shot the movie locally, then edited it on his own equipment. At the film’s premiere, it received a lengthy standing ovation, and Hollywood executives fell over themselves scrambling to distribute it and recruit Korty. But Korty was having none of it. “From what I saw of Hollywood, they can keep it right now,” Korty said. “I would rather work for myself. In Hollywood you have a producer breathing down your neck. Here in northern California I am happier working with less money. The risk of failure is far less . We can complete a film in maybe a year, getting the results we want.” This was exactly what they had in mind for themselves. “Korty inspired us both,” said Coppola. “He was a real innovator.”

How many people think the solution to gaining quality control, improving fiscal responsibility, and stimulating technological innovation is to start their own special effects company?” Ron Howard said admiringly. “But that’s what he did.”

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What I learned from reading The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals by Frank Partnoy. 

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Episode Outline: 

1. Ivar was charismatic. His charisma was not natural. Ivar spent hours every day just preparing to talk. He practiced his lines for hours like great actors do.

2. Ivar’s first pitch was simple, easy to understand, and legitimate: By investing in Swedish Match, Americans could earn profits from a monopoly abroad.

3. Joseph Duveen noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation. — The Days of Duveen by S.N. Behrman.  (Founders #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer)

4. Ivar studied Rockefeller and Carnegie: Ivar's plan was to limit competition and increase profits by securing a monopoly on match sales throughout the world, mimicking the nineteenth century oil, sugar, and steel trusts.

5. When investors were manic, they would purchase just about anything. But during the panic that inevitably followed mania, the opposite was true. No one would buy.

6. The problem isn’t getting rich. The problem is staying sane. — Charlie Munger

7. Ivar understood human psychology. If something is limited and hard to get to that increases desire. This works for both products (like a Ferrari) and people (celebrities). Ivar was becoming a business celebrity.

8.  I’ve never believed in risking what my family and friends have and need in order to pursue what they don't have and don't need. — The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham. (Founders #227)

9. Great ideas are simple ideas: Ivar hooked Durant with his simple, brilliant idea: government loans in exchange for match monopolies.

10. Ivar wrote to his parents, "I cannot believe that I am intended to spend my life making money for second-rate people. I shall bring American methods back home. Wait and see - I shall do great things. I'm bursting with ideas. I am only wondering which to carry out first."

11. Ivar’s network of companies was far too complex for anyone to understand: It was like a corporate family tree from hell, and it extended into obscurity.

12. “Victory in our industry is spelled survival.”   —Steve Jobs

13. Ivar's financial statements were sloppy and incomplete. Yet investors nevertheless clamored to buy his securities.

14. As more cash flowed in the questions went away. This is why Ponzi like schemes can last so long. People don’t want to believe. They don’t want the cash to stop.

15. A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)

16.  A summary of Charlie Munger on incentives:

1. We all underestimate the power of incentives.
2. Never, ever think about anything else before the power of incentives.
3. The most important rule: get the incentives right.

17. This is nuts! Fake phones and hired actors!

Next to the desk was a table with three telephones. The middle phone was a dummy, a non-working phone that Ivar could cause to ring by stepping on a button under the desk. That button was a way to speed the exit of talkative visitors who were staying too long. Ivar also used the middle phone to impress his supporters. When Percy Rockefeller visited Ivar pretended to receive calls from various European government officials, including Mussolini and Stalin. That evening, Ivar threw a lavish party and introduced Rockefeller to numerous "ambassadors" from various countries, who actually were movie extras he had hired for the night.

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What I learned from reading Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior and Creators by Paul Johnson. 

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(4:00) The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai. (Founders #296)

(5:00) Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss.

(6:00) Dior was a nobody in his forties, with nothing in his design career to suggest genius.

(6:00) When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved. They discover what to work on as a result of a chance meeting, or by reading a book they happen to pick up. So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions.

— How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)

(7:00) Dior told him: “I am not interested in managing a clothing factory. What you need, and I would like to run, is a craftsman’s workshop, in which we would recruit the very best people in the trade, to reestablish in Paris a salon for the greatest luxury and the highest standards of workmanship. It will cost a great deal of money and entail much risk.”

(8:00) He spat in the face of postwar egalitarian democracy and said, in so many words, “I want to make the rich feel rich again.” His first collection turned out to be the most successful in fashion history.

(18:00) I envisioned my fashion house as a craftsman’s workshop rather than a clothing factory.

(19:00) A fortune teller tells Dior he must do found his fashion house in spite of his fears and doubts: She ordered me sternly to accept the Boussac offer at once. You must create the house of Christian Dior, whatever the conditions, she told me. Nothing anyone will offer you later will compare with the chance which is open to you now.

(22:00) Dior said Balenciaga was "the master of us all" — Balenciaga (Founders #315)

(26:00) Gossip and malicious rumors are worth more than the most expensive publicity campaign in the world.

(29:00) The most passionate adventures of my life have been with my clothes. I am obsessed with them.

(30:00) When asked what was the best asset a man could have, Albert Lasker replied, ‘Humility in the presence of a good idea.’ It is horribly difficult to recognize a good idea. I shudder to think how many I have rejected. Research can’t help you much, because it cannot predict the cumulative value of an idea. — Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

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“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

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What I learned from reading Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 by Nicholas Reynolds. 

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“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

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What I learned from rereading The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. 

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[2:00] Obsessed with privacy, Ludwig pays a major public relations firm fat fees to keep his name out of the papers.

[4:00]  An associate speaks of his unlimited ingenuity in dreaming up new ways of doing things.

[5:00] Ludwig’s most notable characteristic, besides his imagination and pertinacity, is a lifelong penchant for keeping his mouth shut.

[5:00] I'm in this business because I like it. I have no other hobbies.

[6:00] Holding strongly to an opinion, purpose, or course of action, stubbornly or annoyingly persistent.

[8:00] Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger (Founders #243)

[10:00] At his peak, he owned more than 200 companies in 50 countries.

[23:00] War makes the demand for Ludwig's products and services skyrocket.

[25:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)

[28:00] He did not mellow as he grew richer and older.

[28:00] Some years later, 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 for his prodigality: "We do not pay to send ironmongery by air mail!"

[29:00] Ludwig’s tightfistedness, however, persisted after the Depression, putting him in sharp contrast to such free spenders as Onassis and Niarchos. It also was largely responsible for many of his innovations in the shipbuilding industry.

[29:00] Onassis: An Extravagant Life by Frank Brady. (Founders #211)

[30:00] Ludwig’s ridding his ships of any feature that did not contribute to profits pleased his own obsessive sense of economy and kept him a step ahead of the competition. When someone asked why he didn't put a grand piano aboard his ships, as Stavros Niarchos did, Ludwig snapped, "You can't carry oil in a grand piano."

[31:00] Stay in the game long enough to get lucky.

[32:00] 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)

[37:00] The yacht was as much a business craft as any of his tankers and probably earned him more money than any of them.

[40:00] Like the Rockefeller organization, Ludwig had mastered the practice of keeping his money by transferring it from one pocket, one company to another, while appearing to spend it.

[42:00] He had learned something by now. Opportunities exist on the frontiers where most men dare not venture, and it is often the case that the farther the frontier, the greater the opportunity.

[43:00] The way to escape competition is to either do something no one else is doing or do it where no one else is doing it.

[43:00] Much of Ludwig's success was due to his willingness to venture where more timid entrepreneurs dared not go.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from rereading A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. 

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1. The book reveals a thorough, rigorous, methodical person in search of life, knowledge, financial security, and, not least of all, fun. 

2. I learned at an early age to teach myself. This paid off later on because there weren’t any courses in how to beat blackjack, build a computer for roulette, or launch a market-neutral hedge fund.

3. Even though the Goliath I was challenging had always won, I knew something no one else did: He was nearsighted, clumsy, slow, and stupid, and we were going to fight on my terms, not his.

4. I admired the heroes who, through extraordinary abilities and resourcefulness, achieved great things. I may have been inspired to mirror this in the future by using my mind to overcome intellectual obstacles.

5. Rather than subscribing to widely accepted views—such as you can’t beat the casinos—I checked for myself. 

6. What matters in life is how you spend your time.

7.  Life is like reading a novel or running a marathon. It’s not so much about reaching a goal but rather about the journey itself and the experiences along the way. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Time is the stuff life is made of,” and how you spend it makes all the difference.

8. I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those gambling games or make those investments where I have an edge.

9. Since much of what we were doing was being invented as we went along, and our investment approach was new, I had to teach a unique set of skills. I chose young smart people just out of university because they were not set in their ways from previous jobs. Better to teach a young athlete who comes fresh to his sport than to retrain one who has learned bad form.

10. Whatever you do, enjoy your life and the people who share it with you, and leave something good of yourself for the generations to follow.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson.

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[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!

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams by Michael D'Antonio.

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[0:01] Perhaps the only thing about Milton Hershey that is absolutely certain is that he believed in progress. He was always moving. 

[2:51] This blew my mind. Only six universities held larger endowments. Which meant that the Milton Hershey School was richer than Cornell, Columbia, or the University of Pennsylvania.   

[4:14] Milton’s father was unrealized ambition personified.  

[5:44] One of the biggest things Milton learned from his father and something he avoided. His father had 1,000 schemes and never stuck to any of them. He didn’t know what perseverance meant. 

[7:25] Rockefeller had arrived in Oil City in the same year as Hershey, 1860. But unlike Henry, he was possessed of extraordinary energy, remarkable financial savvy, and an uncanny ability to remain focused on his goals. 

[8:00] Henry’s had a preference for talking about things rather than doing them. Even neighbors could see that the man was lazy. Milton was the direct opposite of these traits. 

[8:37] This gives you an insight into why Milton would leave a large fortunes to orphans: Milton was denied the kind of stability children need to feel secure. He had been moved from place to place, and he listened to his parents argue with increasing frequency and anger. Milton went without proper shoes and the little family didn’t have enough to eat. 

[9:14] He learned to channel all of his energy and passions into a single outlet: work.

[10:47] The main takeaway from this book: Milton Hershey had perseverance in abundance. 

[12:43] Hershey experiences multiple business failures before he founds his first successful company.  

[14:34] Things start to go bad. He realizes he has another “me too” product. He faced intense competition from hundreds of other candy retailers and wholesalers in the city. He doesn’t find success unit he actually innovates. Milton finds a way to turn a luxury product — milk chocolate — into a mass produced, inexpensive product.  

[16:37]  This is an important part. He is being squeezed by suppliers. Later on in life he realizes if something is important to your business you must control it. He starts his own sugar plantation. He does this for other ingredients he needs to make his product. 

[19:08]  His simple idea: Caramel is really popular in Western states. The candy makers in Denver figured out how to make caramel that don’t go bad and taste very well. That was not happening where he was from. He decided to take that idea back east and build my own caramel empire. He sells that company for $1 million and uses that money to start Hershey Chocolate. 

[22:34] Milton is doing exactly what you and I are doing right now. He is studying successful entrepreneurs.  

[24:44] Bouncing back from defeat is essential for growth in any endeavor. 

[25:00] Milton is at rock bottom. He is somewhat depressed and downtrodden. But there is something freeing about that. Because he realizes I can only go up from here. 

[25:30] The main theme in the life of Milton Hershey is perseverance. He has been working in this industry for 14 years. He has had two gigantic business failures. He has borrowed money from everybody he possible can. He is tapped out. He is embarrassed. He is a failure. Yet he doesn’t quit. 

[26:12] If failure is the best instructor he could argue that he had earned a doctorate. He intended to make candy no one else produced.  

[29:48] This is the wild part. He had told me all. He did not conceal the bad part. He made no excuses for it. He was honest. I decided I would lend him the money. But I was afraid to present the bank that note with that story. To avoid the trouble I put my own name on the note. The banker takes out the loan for Milton —in his name! 

[30:50] Milton tried to make small improvements over a long period of time.  

[31:30] Small continuous improvements over many years produces miracles. 

[31:54] No one alive visited more retail stores than Sam Walton. He was obsessed with studying and learning from other entrepreneurs. No one alive had gone into more confectionaries and candy shops than Milton Hershey.  

[32:20] While visiting Europe he notices that companies were creating a big new industry serving low cost chocolate to the masses.  

[33:54] He is constantly redesigning his manufacturing process, making it more efficient. It becomes so efficient no one else can compete with him. 

[36:41]  Only the Swiss had figured out how to mass produce milk chocolate. They aren’t going to tell Milton how to do it. He must experiment on his own. . . To do this he sets up a milk chocolate skunkworks. 

[38:13]  How many people are willing to put in this much work? Milton and about 18 workers would rise at 4:30a.m. to milk the herd of 78 cows. After breakfast they’d go to work. Sometimes they didn’t come out until the next morning. 

[40:05] What Milton Hershey did for the mass production of chocolate is the same thing that Henry Ford did for the mass production of automobiles and its the same thing the McDonald’s brothers did for the mass production of fast food. 

[46:15] This one act would create something unique in both philanthropy and capitalism. It made the school, under its trustees, the majority owners of a national company that was poised to double in size, many times over, in the decades to come. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley by Leslie Berlin.

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[0:01] Bob Noyce took me under his wing,” Steve Jobs explains. “I was young, in my twenties. He was in his early fifties. He tried to give me the lay of the land, give me a perspective that I could only partially understand.” Jobs continues, “You can’t really understand what is going on now unless you understand what came before.” 

[2:00] He inspired in nearly everyone whom he encountered a sense that the future had no limits , and that together they could , as he liked to say, “Go off and do something wonderful.” 

[3:15] Warren Buffett , who served on a college board with Noyce for several years said: “Everybody liked Bob. He was an extraordinarily smart guy who didn’t need to let you know he was that smart. He could be your neighbor, but with lots of machinery in his head.” 

[12:01] Noyce was slowly gathering experiences that would anchor his adult approach to life, which was not so much an approach as a headlong rush into any challenge with the unshakable assumption that he would emerge not only successful, but triumphant. 

[14:18] Every night before he fell asleep, Noyce would mentally rehearse each of his dives in slow motion until he could see himself executing them perfectly. He called this habit “envisioning myself at the next level,” and he carried it with him throughout his life. In his mind’s eye, he could always see himself achieving something more. 

[21:16] Bob was not the type to slow down for much of anything. 

[33:02] His approach was to know the science cold and then “forget about it.” He did not slog or grind his way to ideas; he felt they just came to him. When he heard Picasso’s famous line about artistic creativity — “I do not seek; I find” — Noyce said that he invented in the same way. 

[35:31] “I don’t have any recollection of a ‘ Boom! There it is!’ light bulb going off, ”Noyce later said of his ideas. Instead, he conceived of the integrated circuit in an iterative method he described thus: “[ I thought,] let’s see, if we could do this, we can do that. If we can do that, then we can do this. [It was] a logical sequence. If I hit a wall, I’d back up and then find a path, conceptually, all the way through to the end. [Once you have that path], you can come back and start refining, thinking in little steps that will take you there. Once you get to the point that you can see the top of the mountain, then you know you can get there.” 

[45:48] We were a hard, young, hungry group. Our attitude was ‘We don’t give a damn what money you have to offer, buddy. We’re going to do this ourselves.’

[1:08:55] Noyce was invited to dinner at the home of an entrepreneur whose company the his fund had supported. After the dishes had been cleared and the children sent to bed, Noyce listened as the company founder explained that some day, if the business did well, he would like to move his family into a bigger, nicer house. Noyce looked up at him and said very quietly, “You’ve got a nice family. I screwed up mine. Just stay where you are.” Twenty - five years and a successful company later, the entrepreneur has not moved. 

[1:09:45] His financial success directly benefited the entrepreneurs whose companies he funded, but the stories about Noyce’s success indirectly inspired many more. One entrepreneur put it this way: “Why do we love this dynamic environment? I’ll tell you why. Because we have seen what Steve Jobs, Bob Noyce, Nolan Bushnell [founder of Atari], and many others have done, and we know it can and will happen many times again. ”In other words, if they could do it, why couldn’t he? Such rationale functioned as a self - fulfilling prophecy in Silicon Valley, propelling the region forward on a self - perpetuating cycle of entrepreneurship and wealth. (This is what I hope Founders does.) 

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from rereading Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. 

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(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)

A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)

The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)

Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid (Founders #40)

(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

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“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

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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. 

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“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

The name of Nobel usually calls to mind Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, and the internationally prestigious prizes that bear his name. But Alfred was only one member of a creative and innovative family who built an industrial empire in prerevolutionary Russia. The saga begins with an emigre from Sweden, Immanuel Nobel, who was an architect, a pioneer producer of steam engines, and a maker of weapons.

Immanuel's sons included Alfred; Robert, who directed the family's activities in the Caspian oil fields; and Ludwig, an engineering genius and manufacturing magnate whose boundless energy and fierce determination created the Russian petroleum industry.

Ludwig's son Emanuel showed similar mettle, shrewdly bargaining with the Rothschilds for control of the Russian markets and competing head-on with Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell for lucrative world markets.

Perhaps no family in history has played so decisive a role in building an industrial empire in an underdeveloped but resource-rich nation. Yet the achievements of the Nobel family have been largely forgotten. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Emmanuel had to flee the country disguised as a peasant.

The Nobel empire with its 50,000 workers lay in ruins. An empire which had taken eighty years to design and build, was nearly destroyed, bringing a sudden and bitter end to one of the most remarkable industrial odysseys in world history.

This episode is what I learned from reading The Russian Rockefellers: The Saga of the Nobel Family and the Russian Oil Industry by Robert Tolf.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen.

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[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.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading My Turn: A Life of Total Football by Johan Cruyff.

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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. 

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[0:01] I always say you play football with your head; you just use your legs to run.

[1:09] I'm not capable of doing something at a low level.

[8:45] I'm definitely cunning. I'm always on the lookout for the best advantage.

[13:16] To be able to touch the ball perfectly once, you need to have touched it a hundred thousand times in training.

[14:00] My father died in 1959, when he was forty-five and I was twelve. His death has never let go of me.

[21:07] Winning was the consequence of the process that we had concentrated on.

[45:30] It doesn't work without full commitment.

[55:17] The experiences I have been through have given me a vast store of knowledge that needs to be shared so that others can profit from my experiences.

[56:09] I've led a full life and can look back on it the way you're supposed to. It's been so incredibly intense that I feel like I've lived for a hundred years.

[56:21] A setback is probably a sign that you need to make some adjustments. If you learn to think that way, all experiences are translated into something positive.

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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. 

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“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

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For over 30 years the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meetings were recorded. Munger and Buffett answered over 1700 questions from shareholders during that period. Alex Morris watched hundreds of hours of these meetings and then he gathered, organized, and edited the most interesting ideas into 450+ pages — all in Buffett and Munger's own words.  I thought it would be fun to rip through a bunch of Munger and Buffett's best ideas very rapidly. It was. 

This episode is what I learned from reading Buffett and Munger Unscripted: Three Decades of Investment and Business Insights from the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meetings by Alex Morris.

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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. 

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Vesto: All of your company's financial accounts in one view. Connect and control all of your business bank accounts from one dashboard. Go to Vesto and schedule a demo with the founder Ben. Tell him David sent you. 

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games by Sid Meier. 

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Sometimes it takes a misstep to figure out where you should be headed.

Each game taught me something, each game was both painful and gratifying in its own way, and each game contributed to what came after it.

We are surrounded by decisions, and therefore games, in everything we do.
 

If my gravestone reads "Sid Meier, creator of Civilization" and nothing else, I'll be fine with that. It's a good game to be known for, and I'm proud of the positive impact it's had on so many players' lives.

There was no such thing as a retail computer game, only free bits of code passed  between hobbyists, so it would have been difficult for me to harbor secret dreams of becoming a professional computer game designer.

"I could design a better game in two weeks." “Then do it," he insisted, "If you can do it, I can sell it."

At the time it felt like a fun project, but not any sort of life-changing decision. The big moments rarely do, I think, and the danger of retroactive mythologizing is that it makes people want to hold out for something dramatic, rather than throwing themselves into every opportunity.

—

As soon as the articles were published, Bill began placing calls to hobby stores that were farther than driving distance away.

"Hello, I'm looking to buy a copy of Hellcat Ace.

"Hmm, I don't think we carry that one"

"What?" he would fume. "What kind of computer store are you? Didn't you see the review in Antic?" Then he would hang up in a huff, muttering about taking his business elsewhere.

A week later he would call again, pretending to be somebody else. And a third time a week after that. 

Finally, on the fourth week, he'd use his professional voice. "Good afternoon, I'm a representative from MicroProse Software, and I'd like to show you our latest game, Hellcat Ace." Spurred by the imaginary demand, they would invite him in.

—

My appetite for making games was growing stronger. 

I never forgot that moment. My mother had become emotionally invested in this little game, so profoundly that she'd had to abandon it entirely.

Games could make you feel. If great literature could wield its power through nothing but black squiggles on a page, how much more could be done with movement, sound, and color? The potential for emotional interaction through this medium struck me as both fascinating and enticing.

Were there people who got paid for making games? Could I be one of those people? I knew by now that I was a person who would make games, probably for the rest of my life, but it had never occurred to me that it could be a source of income. If that were true, then being a game designer seemed like the ideal job.

I was cautious about giving up my steady paycheck, and still not convinced that this dream was going to last.

Quality content was the driving force behind it all.

All that mattered to me was that I got to make games for a living.

I don't think any of us could have imagined back then the kind of cultural domination that gaming would someday achieve.

Robin Williams pointed out that all the other entertainment industries promoted their stars by name, so why should gaming be any different?

A pirate's career would last about forty years between childhood and old age, and his goal was to accomplish as much as he could in that window-to have an adventurous life with no regrets.

Life is not a steady progression of objectively increasing value, and when you fail, you don't just reload the mission again. You knock the wet sand off your breeches and return to the high seas for new adventures. And if you happen to get marooned on a deserted island a few times, well, that makes for a good tavern story, too.

I'd always had a distaste for business deals in general, simply because it's not the kind of thing I want to spend my day doing, but I was starting to realize that there was potential danger in them as well.

People play games to feel good about themselves.

Age and experience may bring wisdom, but sometimes it's useful to be a young person who hasn't learned how to doubt himself yet.

Sid Meier makes a pathetic Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he makes a magnificent Sid Meier.

Deciding what doesn't go into the game is sometimes more important than deciding what does.

Conventional wisdom said a strategy title would never make the big money. (Sid sold 51 million copies)

They were interacting with the game as a tool, rather than an experience.

Good games don't get made by committee.

What I didn't see at the time is that imagination never diminishes reality; it only heightens it.

The dichotomy between someone else's talent and your own is a cause for celebration, because the further apart you are, the more you can offer each other.

This is not to say that my version of Civilization had no outside influences—far from it. Aside from the general "creating not destroying" concept I had first encountered in SimCity, there were two games that I very much respected, and blatantly took ideas from to use for my own purposes.

The ideas didn't start with us, and they can't end with us either.

Whatever it is you want to be good at, you have to make sure you continue to read, and learn, and seek joy elsewhere, because you never know where inspiration will strike.

A full 70 percent of Candy Crush Saga users have never paid a dime for the game yet it still brings in several million dollars a day.

So many of our wildest dreams have turned out to be laughably conservative that it's hard to write off anything as impossible.

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“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

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What I learned from reading The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son by John D. Rockefeller. 

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(5:00) My Influence had been extended to all corners of the oil industry.  If I say that I have the power of life and death over oil producers and oil refiners, that is not a lie. I can make them wealthy or I can make them worthless.

(7:25) I never thought I would lose. As far as my nature is concerned, I do not meet competition. I destroy competitors.

(8:30) Retreat means surrender. Retreat will turn you into a slave. The war is inevitable. Let it come.

(9:00) Bring a steel like determination to face all kinds of challenges.

(13:45) I firmly believe that our destiny is determined by our actions and not by our origins.

(15:45) 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)

(21:00) The glory and success of the family cannot guarantee the future of a children and grandchildren.

(22:30) People of poor backgrounds will actively develop their abilities while also seizing various opportunities because they urgently need to rescue themselves.

(26:00) Luck is the remnant of design luck is the remnant of design. — Cyrus McCormick

(27:30) Rockefeller explains to his son, in writing, exactly what he was: A conqueror.

(28:00) Everyone is a designer and architect of his own destiny.

(29:00) If you do everything you will win: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything. — The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)

(32:00) Visionary businessmen are always good at finding opportunities in every disaster. And that is how I did it.

(36:00) Anything can happen in this world.

(38:30) People who climb up in any industry are fully committed to what they are doing. They sincerely love the work that they do. If you sincerely love the work that you do you will naturally succeed.

(41:00) Do it now. Opportunity comes from opportunity.

(42:00) Action solves everything.

(42:00) Always more audacity. — Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. (Founders #319)

(43:00) So at this time we’d better push it. We’d better push it.

(43:00) Smart people make things happen.

(46:00) Life is an opportunity at a time.

(48:00) Get rid of the habit of being distracted.

(54:00) No one in the world leads a smooth life.

(58:00) Too many people overestimate what they lack and underestimate what they have.

(58:00) You cannot sharpen your razor on velvet. — Abraham Lincoln

(59:00) When I was a poor boy I was confident that I would become the richest person in the world. Strong self confidence inspired me.

(59:00) I never believed that failure is the mother of success. I believe that faith is the father of success. Victory is a habit.

(59:00) Believing that there will be great results is the driving force behind all great careers.

(1:06:00) A story about Rockefeller’s ruthless competitive drive.

(1:07:00) My nature never wears off. What I like is the good feeling of victory.

(1:09:00) The people who can get ahead in the world are those who know how to find their ideal environment. If they cannot find it, they will create it themselves.

(1:16:00) Enthusiasm is a force multiplier to everything.

(1:16:00) The outcome of things is often proportional to our enthusiasm.

(1:18:00) I think carefully prepared plans and actions are called luck. I never succumb to luck, I believe in cause and effect.

(1:18:00) Ask yourself: Am I using my mind to create history?

(1:18:00) I never succumb to luck, I believe in cause and effect.

(1:18:00) In the process for pursuing career success the most important step is to prevent yourself from making excuses.

(1:19:00) The important thing is that you firmly believe that you are your greatest capital.

(1:19:00) Faith [in yourself] is the force that must drive you forward.

(1:20:00) No American has completely changed the American way of life like Henry Ford did. He has turned the car from a luxury into a necessity that everyone can afford.

(1:23:00) I told myself, I warned myself. You must hold onto this tightly. It can bring you to the realm of your dreams.

(1:26:00) Of course I paid a high price, but what I won was freedom and a glorious future. I became my own master.

(1:32:00) The end is just the beginning. — Andrew Carnegie

(1:33:00) Look at those who fail, and you will find that most people fail not because they make mistakes, but because they are not fully committed. The same goes for companies.

(1:35:00) The person who can create value the most is the person who devotes himself completely to his favorite activities.

(1:36:00) Match people by their enthusiasm.

(1:38:00) THE ROCKEFELLER EPISODES: 

#307 The World's Great Family Dynasties 

#254 John D. Rockefeller: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers

#248 John D Rockefeller (Titan) 

#247 Henry Flagler (Rockefeller's partner) 

#148 John D. Rockefeller's Autobiography 

#16 John D. Rockefeller (Titan) 

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte.

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[0:01] Ferrari was animated by an extraordinary passion that led him to build a product with no equal

[3:52] Lee Iacocca on why Enzo Ferrari will go as the greatest car manufacturer in history: "Ferrari spent every dollar chasing perfection." 

[8:50] Business lessons from his father  

[11:47] Enzo Ferrari was not interested in school. He wanted to start working immediately. 

[16:36] The deaths of his father and brother 

[18:20] No job. No money. No connections. A young man desperate to succeed in life. 

[23:06] He learned something that he would never forget for the rest of his life: Not even the best driver had any chance of victory if he was not at the wheel of the best car. 

[24:20] Starting his first business which ends in bankruptcy.

[28:31] Enzo learned from those who already accomplished what he was trying to do. 

[31:10] He does the best possible job at whatever task he is given. Even if he doesn't want to do it. Enzo focuses on being useful. 

[33:35] A young Enzo Ferrari is plagued with doubts and close to a nervous breakdown. 

[38:28] The large leave gaps for the small: The start of Scuderia Ferrari. 

[49:38] Enzo Ferrari at 33 years old. 

[51:30] For Enzo Ferrari it was always day 1.

[52:33] Alfa Romeo pulls the plug/the end of Scuderia Ferrari, the birth of Ferrari.

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“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

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What I learned from reading Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words.

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You can read, reread, and search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. 

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 A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: 

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(3:48) He gave an extraordinary amount of thought to how best to use our fleeting time.

(4:24) He imagined what reality lacked and set out to remedy it.

(7:27) Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Video and My Notes.

(10:02) 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)

A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)

The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)

Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)

(13:23) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.

(14:10) One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock. (Founders #260)

(15:42) Read Jeff Bezos's shareholder letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations(Founders #282)

(19:45) If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. (Founders #297)

(30:47) How important product is based on how much time you spend with it: People are going to be spending two, three hours a day interacting with these machines—longer than they spend in the car.

(39:02) Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Appleby Michael Moritz. (Founders #76)

(40:32) The real big thing is: if you’re going to make something, it doesn’t take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it’s really great.

(45:07) Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull 

(45:31) Steve’s enthusiasm kept him writing check after check to Pixar, ultimately investing some $60 million.

(47:47) It is better to have fewer people even if it means doing less. Let's build our company slowly and carefully.

(53:36) 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. — Driven From Within by Michael Jordan (Founders #213)

(54:40) You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times in the process of getting there.

(1:00:11) There wasn’t a hierarchy of ideas that mapped onto the hierarchy of the organization.

(1:03:33) Don’t be a career. The enemy of most dreams and intuitions, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the “Career.” A career is a concept for how one is supposed to progress through stages during the training for and practicing of your working life. There are some big problems here. First and foremost is the notion that your work is different and separate from the rest of your life. If you are passionate about your life and your work, this can’t be so. They will become more or less one. This is a much better way to live one’s life.

(1:05:11) Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.

(1:05:58) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.

(1:09:27) In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208)

(1:10:52) Much of it is also drive and passion—hard work makes up for a lot.

(1:13:28) A risk-taking creative environment on the product side required a fiscally conservative environment on the business side.

(1:13:57) You've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully.

(1:14:38) A remarkably consistent set of values that Steve held dear: Life is short; don’t waste it. Tell the truth. Technology should enhance human creativity. Process matters. Beauty matters. Details matter. The world we know is a human creation—and we can push it forward.

(1:19:24) Steve Jobs speaking to Apple employees (Video) 

(1:29:48) Apple is the world’s premier bridge builder between mere mortals and the exploding world of high technology.

(1:30:14) Steve’s favorite quote: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle

(1:32:29) The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley by Leslie Berlin. (Founders #166)

(1:42:27) That’s been the most important lesson I’ve learned in business: that the dynamic range of people dramatically exceeds things you encounter in the rest of our normal lives—and to try to find those really great people who really love what they do. 

(1:43:00) Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Productsby Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)

(1:47:27) It’s a circus world, and you never know what’s around the next corner.

(1:53:40) Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219)

(2:01:00) All glory is fleeting.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble.

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[0:01] At age thirty Frederick Wallace Smith was in deep trouble. His dream of creating Federal Express had become too expensive and was fast fizzling out. He had exhausted his father’s millions. He was in hock for 15 or 20 million more. He appeared in danger of losing his cargo jets and also his wife. His own board of directors had fired him as CEO. Now the FBI accused him of forging papers to get a $2 million bank loan and was trying to send him to prison. He thought of suicide. 

[1:08] At any risk, at any cost, he refused to let his Federal Express dream die. 

[6:23] I believe that a man who expects to win out in business without self-denial and self-improvement stands about as much chance as a prizefighter would stand if he started a hard ring battle without having gone through intensive training. Natural ability, even when accompanied by the spirit to win, is never sufficient. 

[7:32] It was push and drive he inherited from his father. He had to be doing something all the time. 

[9:19] Fred is one of those people who never gives up if he wants something and you say no. He just goes on and on and on. 

[10:50] And one of the greatest qualities that he has, that anybody can have, is he’s a voracious reader. You could talk to Fred Smith about government or literature, a whole range of things kids his age didn’t know much about. 

[11:38] Like Nike, the idea for FEDEX started as a term paper: There is no great mystery to the “hub and spoke” concept. As Smith visualized the plan, the “hub” would be located in a middle America location with “spokes” radiating out to Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, and other cities. Fred Smith thought of his system as similar to the telephone network, where all calls are connected through a “central switchboard” routing process. 

[18:40] He wanted to do something that nobody else had done. That was his main objective. 

[20:18] Smith wasn’t traveling in a straight line himself. He tried first one project and then another. All of them were built around his idea of acquiring and operating a fleet of jets. It [FEDEX] didn’t start out as a package outfit. 

[27:23] Fred Smith was learning not to be disheartened or dismayed by negative reactions. 

[35:43] Fred was in such deep thought all the time. Constantly thinking. Sheer determination. You could walk in and he’d be thinking about something and literally wouldn’t know you were in the room. That is one sign of a great mind—the ability to concentrate. When I read that section it made me think of this great quote by Edwin Land: “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.” 

[39:00] A great way to think about how hard FEDEX was to start: If you open a Wal-Mart store, and if that formula succeeds and you do well, you open a thousand of them. But you don’t open a thousand of them to take the first order. Which is what you had to do to start FEDEX. 

[47:10] We were first-grade novices. And I think that really played to our advantage because we were not fully aware of the obstacles we faced or the difficulty in overcoming them. I look back on it now and think, Oh, my God, why in the world would anybody try to do something like this! 

[53:18] Fred Smith himself said, “No man on earth will ever know what I went through in 1973-1974. When I read that I thought of this quote on Charlie Munger: “Life will have terrible blows in it, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every missed chance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every missed chance in life was an opportunity to learn something and that your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity. But instead to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.” 

[1:01:30] Fred Smith: You have to be absolutely brutal in the management of your time.

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“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

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What I learned from reading How To Make A Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs. 

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(0:01) I'm what's called a moneymaker. I've started five companies from scratch—seven if you include two spin-offs and turned them all into billion dollar or multibillion-dollar enterprises.

(2:00) I love working with outrageously talented people to deliver outsized returns for shareholders in public stock markets.

(5:00) All of the successful people I know have rearranged their brains to prevail at achieving big goals in turbulent environments where conventional thinking often fails.

(5:00) The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places and they do this by thinking about business from first principles. —  Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel (Founders #335)

(7:00) So much of success in business comes from keeping your head in a good place.

(8:00) I'm an ambitious person by nature and a dealmaker by inclination.

(9:00) Episode #295: I Had Dinner With Charlie Munger

(13:00) Listen to Think Big and Move Fast: Brad Jacobs on Invest Like the Best 

(14:00) Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. (Founders #20)

(15:00) If you want to make money in the business world, you need to get used to problems, because that's what business is.

(20:00) I am not surprised when things don’t go perfectly. That is the nature of the universe.

(21:00) Listen to this incredible conversation between Charlie Munger and John Collison on Invest Like The Best. 

(28:00) Invest in technology. The savings compound, it gives you an advantage over a slower moving competitor, and can be the difference between a profit and a loss. (Lesson from Andrew Carnegie)

(31:00) How Larry Gagosian Reshaped The Art World by Patrick Radden Keefe. (Founders #325)

(36:00) While the rental industry overall was slow to computerize, the larger regional players were more tech-savvy. By 1997, nearly all of them were running on software developed by a company called Wynne Systems.

I bought Wynne.

Owning Wynne accomplished two things.

We had an industry-best platform that we could continue to develop internally for our own use, and the acquisition gave us access to aggregated, anonymized data on macro-trends across the industry.

This gave us a high-level view of emerging market trends, such as equipment gluts or shortages in the making. We could proactively adjust our pricing and asset management, while the rest of the industry was being reactive.

(40:00) The deals I've avoided have contributed more to my success than the deals I've done.

(42:00) I love these questions for a business and a family:

“What's your single best idea to improve our company?"

and

"What's the stupidest thing we're doing as a company?"

(47:00) There are few mistakes costlier than hiring the wrong person.  An empty seat is less damaging than a poor fit.

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“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. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone.

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[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

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“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

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“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

What I learned from reading Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders by Warren Buffett.

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan.

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[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

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein. 

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[0:21] He died in 1991 with 535 patents to his credit, third in U.S. history. His honorary doctorate degrees, too numerous to list, come from the most distinguished academic institutions, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. He received virtually every distinction the scientific community has to offer, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and membership in the prestigious Royal Society of London. Land was included on Life’s list of the 100 most important Americans of the twentieth century.  

[1:35]  In so many ways, on so many occasions, Land’s life was a manifestation of the indefatigable can-do attitude he embraced and encouraged others to follow. 

[2:15] Land has the well-grounded suspicion that good, careful, systematic planning can kill a creative company.  

[2:34] Pick problems that are important and nearly impossible to solve, pick problems that are the result of sensing deep and possibly unarticulated human needs, pick problems that will draw on the diversity of human knowledge for their solution, and where that knowledge is inadequate, fill the gaps with basic scientific exploration—involve all the members of the organization in the sense of adventure and accomplishment, so that a large part of life’s rewards would come from this involvement.  

[3:30] Steve Jobs was one of Land’s most dedicated fans: “Not only was [Land] one of the great inventors of our time,” said Jobs in a 1985 interview, “but, more importantly, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that. . . . The man is a national treasure, I don’t understand why people like that can’t be held up as models. This is the most incredible thing to be—not an astronaut, not a football player—but this.” 

[5:22] Land’s relative anonymity can perhaps best be explained by his inscrutable personality, his simple shyness, and his blinders-on mentality when it came to his life’s work.  

[6:19] He sees himself as determined, iron-willed and hard driving, a man who will not rest until he has conquered whatever problem is at hand.  

[6:31] The formula for accomplishment he practiced throughout his life—creative wonderment and intellectual curiosity followed by inexhaustible effort—remains a model that should inform and inspire us all, no matter the particular field of our endeavor.  

[8:56] He strongly believed that concentrated focus could also produce extraordinary results for others. Late in his career, Land recalled that his “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.” 

[16:24] A way to describe Edwin Land: “a state of mind that includes curiosity, an idealism which is dissatisfied with the restrictions and imperfections of the present, a great inward urge for discovery and an ability to translate this dissatisfaction and inward urge into constructive achievement.”  

[21:43] How to do something difficult: You always start with a fantasy. Part of the fantasy technique is to visualize something as perfect. Then with the experiments you work back from the fantasy to reality, hacking away at the components.  

[24:34] Land had an extraordinary curiosity about everything and the discipline to satisfy it.  

[28:14] Eisenhower wanted to know what the Russians were up to. Land told Eisenhower, “Well, why don’t we take a look and find out.”  

[31:53] One of Land’s tenets: “If you can state a problem, then you can solve it. From then on it’s just hard work.”  

[45:13] Land on why he had to sue Kodak: This would be our obligation even if one-step photography were but one component of our business. Where it is our whole field and where we have dedicated our whole scientific and industrial career to bringing this previously non-existent field to full technological and commercial fruition, our manifest duty to our shareholders is vigorously to assert our patents.  

[53:26] Kodak underestimated somebody you should never underestimate. 

[59:47] A summary of Land’s philosophy on building a technology company: Creation of a new technology requires that a single individual have in mind the objective to be reached. This master plan must be supported by the efforts of many others but the single dominant individual must constantly assure himself that the individual efforts complement one another and create support for an integrated system.  

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita.  

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[0:01] Forty years ago, a small group gathered in a burned-out department store building in war-devastated downtown Tokyo. Their purpose was to found a new company, their optimistic goal was to develop the technologies that would help rebuild Japan's economy.

[5:00] I was born the first son and fifteenth-generation heir to one of Japan's finest and oldest sake-brewing families. The Morita family has been making sale for three hundred years. Unfortunately, the taste of a couple of generations of Morita family heads was so refined and their collecting skills so acute that the business suffered while they pursued their artistic interests, letting the business take care of itself, or, rather, putting it in other hands. They relied on hired managers to run the Morita company, but to these managers the business was no more than a livelihood, and if the business did not do well, that was to be regretted, but it was not crucial to their personal survival. In the end, all the managers stood to lose was a job. They did not carry the responsibility of the generations, of maintaining the continuity and prosperity of the enterprise and the financial well-being of the Morita family. 

[8:18] Tenacity, perseverance, and optimism are traits that have been handed down to me through the family genes.

[9:25] I was taught that scolding subordinates and looking for people to blame for problems—seeking scapegoats—is useless. These concepts have stayed with me and helped me develop the philosophy of management that served me very well.

[10:28] I had to teach myself because the subjects I was really interested in were not taught in my school in those days.

[14:09] The emperor, who until now had never before spoken directly to his people, told us the immediate future would be grim. He said that we could “pave the way for a grand peace for all generations to come," but we had to do it "by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable."

[23:58] When some of my relatives came to see me, they were so shocked by the shabby conditions that they thought I had become an anarchist. They could not understand how, if I was not a radical, I could choose to work in a place like that.

[24:28] Ibuka and I had often spoken of the concept of our new company as an innovator, a clever company that would make new high technology products in ingenious ways.

[29:36] We were engineers and we had a big dream of success. We thought that in making a unique product, we would surely make a fortune. I then realized that having unique technology and being able to make unique products are not enough to keep a business going. You have to sell the products, and to do that you have to show the potential buyer the real value of what you are selling. 

[32:20] There was an acute shortage of stenographers because so many people had been pushed out of school and into war work. Until that shortage could be corrected, the courts of Japan were trying to cope with a small, overworked corps of court stenographers. We were able to demonstrate our machine for the Japan Supreme Court, and we sold twenty machines almost instantly! Those people had no difficulty realizing how they could put our device to practical use; they saw the value in the tape recorder immediately.

[38:03] Marketing is really a form of communication. We had to educate our customers to the uses of our products.

[39:15] We would often have the market to ourselves for a year or more before the other companies would be convinced that the product would be a success. And we made a lot of money, having the market all to ourselves.

[40:20] The public does not know what is possible, but we do. So instead of doing a lot of market research, we refine our thinking on a product and its use and try to create a market for it by educating and communicating with the public.

[42:33] Everybody gave me a hard time. It seemed as though nobody liked the idea [the Walkman]. “It sounds like a good idea, but will people buy it if it doesn't have recording capability? I don't think so." I said, “Millions of people have bought car stereo without recording capability and I think millions will buy this machine.”

[46:38] "We definitely want some of these. We will take one hundred thousand units." One hundred thousand units! I was stunned. It was an incredible order, worth several times the total capital of our company. When he told me that there was one condition: we would have to put the Bulova name on the radios. That stopped me. We wanted to make a name for our company on the strength of our own products. We would not produce radios under another name. When I would not budge, he got short with me. "Our company name is a famous brand name that has taken over fifty years to establish," he said. "Nobody has ever heard of your brand name. Why not take advantage of ours?" I understood what he was saying, but I had my own view. “Fifty years ago," I said, “your brand name must have been just as unknown as our name is today. I am here with a new product, and I am now taking the first step for the next fifty years of my company. Fifty years from now I promise you that our name will be just as famous as your company name is, today."

[49:04] When I attended middle school, discipline was very strict, and this included our physical as well as our mental training. Our classrooms were very cold in winter; we didn't even have a heater; and we were not allowed to wear extra clothes. In the navy,I had hard training. In boot camp every morning we had to run a long way before breakfast. In those days I did not think of myself as a physically strong person, and yet under such strict training I found I was not so weak after all, and the knowledge of my own ability gave me confidence in myself that I did not have before. It is the same with mental discipline; unless you are forced to use your mind, you become mentally lazy and you will never fulfill your potential.

[52:06] 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. 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.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."

[54:21] Nobody can live twice, and the next twenty or thirty years is the brightest period of your life. You only get it once. When you leave the company thirty years from now or when your life is finished, I do not want you to regret that you spent all those years here. That would be a tragedy. I cannot stress the point too much that this is your responsibility to yourself. So I say to you, the most important thing in the next few months is for you to decide whether you will be happy or unhappy here.

[59:40] My argument again and again was that by saving money instead of investing it in the business you might gain profit on a short-term basis, but in actual fact, you would be cashing in the assets that had been built up in the past.

[1:00:00] One must prepare the groundwork among the customers before you can expect success in the marketplace. It is a time-honored Japanese gardening technique to prepare a tree for transplanting by slowly and carefully binding the roots over a period of time, bit by bit, to prepare the tree for the shock of the change it is about to experience. This process, called Nemawashi, takes time and patience, but it rewards you, if it is done properly, with a healthy transplanted tree. Advertising and promotion for a brand-new, innovative product is just as important.

[1:01:19] If Japanese clients come into the office of a new and struggling company and see plush carpet and private offices and too much comfort, they become suspicious that this company is not serious, that it is devoting too much thought and company resources to management's comfort, and perhaps not enough to the product or to potential customers. Too often I have found in dealing with foreign companies that such superfluous things as the physical structure and office decor take up a lot more time and attention and money than they are worth.

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.

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Such was the beginning of a revolution [0:01]

The economic benefits arise not from innovation itself, but from the entrepreneurs who eventually discover ways to put innovations to practical use. [15:30]

the basic idea was around for decades [17:30]

Malcom's early life and first business [23:00]

McLean had an obsessive focus on cutting costs [33:00]

the beginning of Malcom McLean's idea [37:00]

McLean's definition of total commitment [41:00]

McLean's fundamental insight [48:00]

fixing the business by focusing on the customer's real problem [53:40]

the surprising reason containers are standardized [1:00:00]

Daniel K. Ludwig and Malcom McLean [1:07:00]

Malcom McLean sells his business [1:13:00]

Starting another business [1:21:00]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich. 

Microsoft had offered Mark between $1 million and $2 million to go work for them. Amazingly, Mark had turned them down (1:25)

Maybe he knew he was about to cross a line. But he had never been very good at staying in the lines. From Mark's history, it was obvious that he didn't like the sandbox. He seemed the type of kid that wanted to kick out all the sand. (8:01)

He didn't care what time it was. To guys like Mark time was another weapon of the establishment. The great engineers and hackers didn't function under the same time constraints as everyone else. (11:23)

Mark wondered: If people want to go online and check out their friends couldn't they build a website that did just that? (14:36) 

Mark. Founder. Master and Commander. Enemy of the State. (21:19)

Instead of attacking Baylor head on they made a list of schools within 100 miles of it and dropped Facebook in those schools first. Within days the kids at Baylor begged for Facebook on their campus. (24:20)

Mark Zuckerberg had found his place in the world (32:38)

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“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

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What I learned from rereading George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.

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(0:01) George Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most: himself.

(1:00) George Lucas is the Thomas Edison of the modern film industry.

(1:30) A list of biographies written by Brian Jay Jones

(6:00) Elon Musk interviewed by Kevin Rose

(10:15) How many people think the solution to gaining quality control, improving fiscal responsibility, and stimulating technological innovation is to start their own special-effects company? But that’s what he did.

(17:00) When I finally discovered film, I really fell madly in love with it. I ate it. I slept it. 24 hours a day. There was no going back.

(18:00) Those on the margins often come to control the center. (Game of Thrones)

(21:00) As soon as I made my first film, I thought, Hey, I’m good at this. I know how to do this. From then on, I’ve never questioned it.

(23:00) He was becoming increasingly cranky about the idea of working with others and preferred doing everything himself.

(34:00) Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

(42:00) The film Easy Rider was made for $350,000. It grossed over $60 million at the box office.

(45:00) The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233)

A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95)

Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing by Randall Stross. (Founders #77)

(47:00) What we’re striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released, and be completely free. That’s very hard to do in the world of business. You have to have the money in order to have the power to be free.

(49:00) You should reject the status quo and pursue freedom.

(49:00) People would give anything to quit their jobs. All they have to do is do it. They’re people in cages with open doors.

(51:00) Stay small. Be the best. Don’t lose any money.

(59:00) That was a very dark period for me. We were in dire financial strait. I turned that down [directing someone else’s movie] at my bleakest point, when I was in debt to my parents, in debt to Francis Coppola, in debt to my agent; I was so far in debt I thought I’d never get out. It took years to get from my first film to my second film, banging on doors, trying to get people to give me a chance. Writing, struggling, with no money in the bank… getting little jobs, eking out a living. Trying to stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted.

(1:02:00) “Opening this new restaurant might be the worst mistake I've ever made."

Stanley [Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus] set his martini down, looked me in the eye, and said, "So you made a mistake. You need to understand something important. And listen to me carefully: The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled."

His words remained with me through the night. I repeated them over and over to myself, and it led to a turning point in the way I approached business.

Stanley's lesson reminded me of something my grandfather Irving Harris had always told me:

“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. 

(1:05:00) My thing about art is that I don’t like the word art because it means pretension and bullshit, and I equate those two directly. I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m a craftsman. I don’t make a work of art; I make a movie.

(1:06:00) I know how good I am. American Graffiti is successful because it came entirely from my head. It was my concept. And that’s the only way I can work.

(1:09:00) Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda. (Founders #281)

(1:21:00) The budget for Star Wars was $11 million. In brought in $775 million at the box office alone!

(1:25:00) Steven Spielberg made over $40 million from the original Star Wars. Spielberg gave Lucas 2.5% of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Lucas gave Spielberg 2.5% of Star Wars. That to 2.5% would earn Spielberg more than $40 million over the next four decades.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. 

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[0:01] Why Ben Franklin wrote an autobiography

[4:50] Ben Franklin's early education and first job 

[7:30] starting out in the printing business 

[11:00] Writing had been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement 

[16:45] his humble arrival in Philadelphia 

[25:00] Ben Franklin's time in London 

[29:00] how the mind of Benjamin Franklin worked 

[34:30] the opportunity to start your his own business

[41:15] industry is virtuous 

[46:20] Ben understood branding 

[48:15] Ben Franklin creates the first subscription library 

[54:30] Ben Franklin's 13 virtues

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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. 

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“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

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Chung Ju-yung grew up so poor he had to eat tree bark to survive. He founded Hyundai and became the richest person in Korea. When Chung was in his 80s, he wrote an autobiography that tells the devastating reality of growing up in dire poverty, how he escaped through manual labor, and how he founded and grew one of the world's largest conglomerates. Along the way he shares advice like why you should emulate bedbugs, the importance of going where the money is, and why people called him "The Bulldozer."

This episode is what I learned from reading Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung.

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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. 

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. 

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(1:00) This is a 100 page biography of the human species

(1:00) The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant (Full Set) 

(2:30) Generations of men establish a growing mastery over the earth, but they are destined to become fossils in its soil.

(4:00) Ruthlessly prioritize how you spend your time.

(4:00) The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows.

(4:30) ALL OF THE NAPOLEON EPISODES:

Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294) 

The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Wordsedited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)

Napoleon and Modern War by Napoleon and Col. Lanza. (Founders #337) 

(8:00) Our job is to make our companies and ourselves better equipped to meet the test of survival.

(11:30) Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group.

(12:30) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191)

(14:30) In the end, superior ability has its way.

(16:30) Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.

(19:00) The imitative majority follows the innovating minority and this follows the originative individual, in adapting new responses to the demands of environment or survival.

(20:00) If you can identify an enduring human need you can build a business around that.

(21:00) In every age men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt.

(25:00) Survival at all costs: Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under.

(25:00) Victory in our industry is spelled survival. — Steve Jobs

(25:00) All that matters is to survive. The rest is just words. — Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson. (Founders #224)

(26:00) By being so cautious in respect to leverage and having loads of liquidity, we will be equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense while others scramble for survival. — The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham (Founders #227)

(27:00) History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.

(31:00) The Iron Law of Oligarchy

(32:00) Every advance in the complexity of the economy puts an added premium upon superior ability.

(33:00) The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215)

(34:00) Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman 

(37:00) All technological advances will have to be written off as merely new means of achieving old ends

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney.

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[4:43] Mike Ive influence on his son’s talent was purely nurturing. They were constantly keeping up a conversation about made-objects and hw they could be made better.

[6:39] I came to realize that what was really important was the care that was put into it. What I really despise is when I sense some carelessness in a product.

[9:24] Take big chances. Pursue a passion. Respect the work.

[11:47] His designs were incredibly simple and elegant. They were usually rather surprising but made complete sense once you saw them. You wondered why we had never seen such a product like that before.

[15:52] Grind it out. You can make something look like magic by going further than most reasonable people would go.

[17:34] The more I learned about this cheeky, almost rebellious company (Apple) the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had a reason for being that wasn’t just about making money.

[24:06] He was completely interested in humanizing technology. What something should be was always the starting point for his designs.

[33:29] Jony was very serious about his work. He had a ferocious intensity about it.

[41:52] It is very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.

[51:38] Jobs didn't want to compete in the broader market for personal computers. These companies competed on price, not features or ease of use. Jobs figured theirs was a race to the bottom. Instead, he argued, there was no reason that well-designed, well-made computers couldn’t command the same market share ad margins as a luxury automobile. A BMW might get you to where you are going in the same way a Chevy that costs half the price, but there will always be those who will pay for the better ride in the sexier car. Why not make only first class-products with high margins so that Apple could continue to develop even better first-class products?

[1:19:25] A great prompt for your thinking: What is your product better than? Are you just making a cheap laptop? Or are you making an iPad? Netbooks accounted for 20% of the laptop market. But Apple never seriously considered making one. “Netbooks aren’t better than anything,” Steve Jobs said at the time. “They’re just cheap laptops.” Jony proposed that the tablets in his lab could be Apple’s answer to the netbook.

[1:20:32] It’s great if you can find what you love to do. Finding it is one thing but then to be able to practice that and be preoccupied with it is another.

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton.

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Edward Thorp. 

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[0:01] Ed Thorp’s memoir reads like a thriller—mixing wearable computers that would have made James Bond proud, shady characters, great scientists, and poisoning attempts. The book reveals a thorough, rigorous, methodical person in search of life, knowledge, financial security, and, not least of all, fun. Thorp is also known to be a generous man, intellectually speaking, eager to share his discoveries with random strangers.  

[1:23] Ed Thorp is the first modern mathematician who successfully used quantitative methods for risk taking—and most certainly the first mathematician who met financial success doing it.  

[3:19] Ed was initially an academic, but he favored learning by doing, with his skin in the game. When you reincarnate as practitioner, you want the mountain to give birth to the simplest possible strategy, and one that has the smallest number of side effects, the minimum possible hidden complications. 

[4:33] As Warren Buffet said: “In order to succeed you must first survive.” You need to avoid ruin. At all costs. 

[6:48]  It is vastly less stressful to be independent—and one is never independent when involved in a large structure with powerful clients. It is hard enough to deal with the intricacies of probabilities, you need to avoid the vagaries of exposure to human moods. True success is exiting some rat race to modulate one’s activities for peace of mind. 

[7:51] Read the forward by Nassim Taleb 

[9:14] Ed’s 4 rules for learning 

First, rather than subscribing to widely accepted views—such as you can’t beat the casinos—I checked for myself. 

Second, since I tested theories by inventing new experiments, I formed the habit of taking the result of pure thought—such as a formula for valuing warrants—and using it profitably. 

Third, when I set a worthwhile goal for myself, I made a realistic plan and persisted until I succeeded. 

Fourth, I strove to be consistently rational, not just in a specialized area of science, but in dealing with all aspects of the world. I also learned the value of withholding judgement until I could make a decision based on evidence.  

[11:15] I admired the heroes who, through extraordinary abilities and resourcefulness, achieved great things. I may have been inspired to mirror this in the future by using my mind to overcome obstacles. 

[14:29] They told us that my aunt Nona and her husband had been beheaded in front of their children. 

[16:45] At its core, this is a book about how to live well. 

[17:55] Ed develops simple systems for everything in his life. 

[20:37] If anyone knew whether physical prediction at roulette was possible, it should be Richard Feynman. I asked him, “Is there any way to beat the game of roulette?” When he said there wasn’t, I was relieved and encouraged. This suggested that no one had yet worked out what I believed was possible. With this incentive, I began a series of experiments. 

[21:15] “Try to figure out what your skill set is and apply that to the markets.” Thorp likes to stay within his circle of competence. This is a hallmark of people who are rational. In that sense, Thorp reminds me of Warren Buffett. A Dozen Things I learned from Ed Thorp  

[21:50] I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those gambling games or make those investments where I have an edge.  

[23:50] He wrote a book that sold over a million copies: Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One  

[26:48] In the abstract, life is a mixture of chance and choice. Chance can be thought of as the cards you are dealt in life. Choice is how you play them. 

[27:52] Ed’s philosophy on life: My thoughts then were much like I expected his to have been: that acknowledgment, applause, and honor are welcome and add zest to life but they are not ends to be pursued. I felt then, as I do now, that what matters is what you do and how you do it, the quality of the time you spend, and the people you share it with.  

[30:01] Even though the Goliath I was challenging had always won, I knew something no one else did: He was nearsighted, clumsy, slow, and stupid, and we were going to fight on my terms, not his.

[33:09] A good defense keeps other people from taking your money. 

[36:39] History doesn’t repeat, human nature does: The frauds, swindles, and hoaxes, a flood reported almost daily in the financial press, have continued unabated during the more than fifty years of my investment career. But then, hoaxes, scams, manias, and large-scale financial irrationalities have been with us from the beginnings of the markets in the seventeenth century. 

[40:24] You are unlikely to have an edge on anything you hear in the news.  

[46:24] As we chatted about compound interest, Warren gave one of his favorite examples of its remarkable power, how if the Manhattan Indians could have invested $24, the value then of the trinkets Peter Minuit paid them for Manhattan in 1626, at a net return of 8 percent, they could buy the land back now along with all the improvements. Warren said he was asked how he found so many millionaires for his partnership. Laughing, he said to me, “I told them I grew my own.”   

[52:07] How Ed selected employees: For this to work, I needed people who could follow up without being led by the hand, as management time was in short supply. Since much of what we were doing was being invented as we went along, and our investment approach was new, I had to teach a unique set of skills. I chose young smart people just out of university because they were not set in their ways from previous jobs. Better to teach a young athlete who comes fresh to his sport than to retrain one who has learned bad form. 

[57:13] Life is really about spending time well.  

[1:01:45] When Princeton Newport Partners closed, Vivian and I had money enough for the rest of our lives. Though the ending of PNP was traumatic for us all, and the future wealth destroyed was in the billions, it freed us to do more of what we enjoyed most: spend time with each other and the family and friends we loved, travel, and pursue our interests. Taking to heart the lyrics of the song “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later than You Think),” Vivian and I would make the most of the one thing we could never have enough of—time together. Success on Wall Street was getting the most money. Success for us was having the best life. 

[1:04:30] I learned at an early age to teach myself. This paid off later on because there weren’t any courses in how to beat blackjack, build a computer for roulette, or launch a market-neutral hedge fund. 

[1:07:19] As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Time is the stuff life is made of,” and how you spend it makes all the difference. 

[1:07:37] Whatever you do, enjoy your life and the people who share it with you, and leave something good of yourself for the generations to follow. 

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from rereading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen.

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[4:47] 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.

[8:56] Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55)

[10:00] Unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries William Walker was not afraid of Cornelius when he should have been.

[12:21] The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children.

[12:42] The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen

[12:54] 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.

[14:01] There is no problem you can't solve if you understand your business from A to Z.

[17:08]  Sam spotted an opportunity where others saw nothing.

[18:17] 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.

[18:42] 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)

[26:36] He was pure hustle.

[28:15] 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.”

[30:33] They don't write books about people that stopped there.

[32:48] 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)

[34:22] He seemed to strive for the sake of striving.

[34:44] If you're on a mans side you stay on that mans side or you're no better than a goddamn animal.

[35:11] The world is a mere succession of fortunes made and lost, lessons learned and forgotten and learned again.

[39:41] A man whose commitment could not be questioned, who fed his own brothers to the jungle.

[40:00] The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacificby Alistair Urquhart.

[41:02] Why the Founders of United Fruit were the Rockefellers of bananas.

[47:23] He kept quiet because talking only drives up the price.

[48:19] 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.

[53:30] He believed in the transcendent power of physical labor—that a man can free his soul only by exhausting his body.

[1:02:04] He disdained bureaucracy and hated paperwork. So seldom did he dictate a letter that he requires no full-time secretary.

[1:04:01] 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.

[1:05:02] Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. (Founders #245)

[1:08:00] Zemurray was the founder, forever on the attack, at work, in progress, growing by trial and error.

[1:10:44] 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.

[1:11:44] 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.

[1:13:04] His philosophy: Get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and blood in your eyes.

[1:17:02] For every move there is a counter move. For every disaster there is a recovery. He never lost faith in his own agency.

[1:17:57] A man focused on the near horizon of costs can sometimes lose sight of the far horizon of potential windfall.

[1:20:22] You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out.

[1:23:03] In a time of crisis the mere evidence of activity can be enough to get things moving.

[1:23:42] Zemurray was never heard to bitch or justify. He was a member of a generation that lived by the maxim: Never complain, never explain.

[1:27:08] The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relationsby Larry Tye

[1:28:14] He should link his private interest to a public cause.

[1:29:32] 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.

[1:32:28] 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.

—

“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from rereading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.

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[4:01] Jobs's return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business-the creation of new valuecannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.

[5:00] A really important sentence to understand one of the main points in Peter’s book: Apple's value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person.

[5:00] A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong personal loyalty, and plan ahead for decades.

[6:00] 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)

[7:00] Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.

[8:00] By creating new technologies we rewrite the plan of the world.

[9:00] The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula necessarily cannot exist; because every innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative.

The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.

[10:00] The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. —Steve Jobs

[11:00] Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.

[13:00] A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company's most important strength is new thinking.

[14:00] What follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.

[14:00] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233)

[17:00] Their casual way of conducting affairs did not appeal to me. — Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller (Founders #148)

[18:00] My number one repeated learning in life: There Are No Adults. Everyone's making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it. —Naval Ravikant

[19:00] Bill Gurley’s answer to the question For people who were there, does this feel like dot-com bust level unwiding yet? Yes.  Link to tweet

[21:00] Peter’s 4 principles for founders:

1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality.

2. A bad plan is better than no plan.

3. Competitive markets destroy profits.

4. Sales matters just as much as product.

[22:00] The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

[22:00] By “monopoly,” we mean the kind of company that’s so good at what it does that no other firm can offer a close substitute.

[24:00] Every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.

[25:00] Durability has always been a first rate virtue in Charlie’s eyes. — Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. (Founders #90)

[27:00] If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now?

[27:00] There is no shortcut to monopoly

[28:00] A substantive advantage makes your product difficult or impossible to replicate.

[30:00] The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors.

[32:00] Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

[32:00] Victory awaits him who has everything in order.

[33:00] 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. —Explore/Create My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark by Richard Garriott.

[35:00] Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it "wellroundedness," a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. She strives to be great at something substantive— to be a monopoly of one.

[36:00] Long-term planning is often undervalued by our indefinite short-term world.

[39:00] Monopoly businesses capture more value than millions of undifferentiated competitors.

[40:00] Most startups fail and most venture funds fail with them.

[43:00]  You cannot trust a world that denies the power law to accurately frame your decisions for you, so what's most important is rarely obvious. It might even be a secret.

[44:00] I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those games or make those investments where I have an edge. — A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)

[45:00] Schlep Blindness by Paul Graham  

[46:00] Great companies can be built on open but unsuspected secrets about how the world works.

[47:00] Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire by Peter Thielby Ryan Holiday

[48:00] The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that's hidden from the outside.

[51:00] Keith Rabois on Peter Theil insisting on focus

[54:00] Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true.

[56:00] Advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away; it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who cannot acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from rereading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. 

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[2:02] I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know, short as a morning run, and I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all...different.

[6:18] So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy... just keep going. Don't stop. Don't even think about stopping until you get there, and don't give much thought to where "there" is. Whatever comes, just don't stop. That's the precocious, prescient, urgent advice I managed to give myself, out of the blue, and somehow managed to take. Half a century later, I believe it's the best advice-maybe the only advice-any of us should ever give.

[10:32] They greeted my passion and intensity with labored sighs and vacant stares.

[16:48] Carter never did mess around. See an open shot, take it. I told myself there was much to learn from a guy like that.

[20:25] If I didn't, if I muffed this, I'd be doomed to spend the rest of my days selling encyclopedias, or mutual funds, or some other junk I didn't really care about.

[27:45] Bowerman was a genius coach, a master motivator, a natural leader of young men, and there was one piece of gear he deemed crucial to their development. Shoes. He was obsessed with how human beings are shod.

[32:30] Bowerman didn’t give a damn about respectability. He possessed a prehistoric strain of maleness. Today it’s all but extinct. He was a war hero, too. Of course he was.

[32:49] The most famous track coach in America, Bowerman never considered himself a track coach. He detested being called coach. He called himself a “Professor of Competitive Responses,” and his job, as he saw it, and often described it, was to get you ready for the struggles and competitions that lay ahead.

[35:40] In my mind he was Patton with a stopwatch. That is, when he wasn't a god.

[38:17] "Buck," he said, "how long do you think you're going to keep jackassing around with these shoes?" I shrugged. "I don't know, Dad."

[40:00] So why was selling shoes so different? Because, I realized, it wasn't selling. I believed in running.

[1:00:57] My life was out of balance, sure, but I didn't care. In fact, I wanted even more imbalance. Or a different kind of imbalance. I wanted to dedicate every minute of every day to Blue Ribbon. I'd never been a multitasker, and I didn't see any reason to start now. I wanted to be present, always. I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered.

[1:05:40] I spent a fair portion of each day lost in my own thoughts, tumbling down mental wormholes, to solve some problem or construct some plan.

[1:10:40] More than once, over my first cup of coffee in the morning, or while trying to fall asleep at night, I'd tell myself: Maybe I'm a fool? Maybe this whole damn shoe thing is a fool's errand? Maybe, I thought. Maybe.

[1:23:10] I told myself, Don’t forget this. Do not forget. I told myself there was much to be learned from such a display of passion, whether you were running a mile or a company.

[1:36:50] When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is-you're participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you're helping others to live more fully, and if that's business, all right, call me a businessman. Maybe it will grow on me.

[1:38:10] I asked myself: What are you feeling? It wasn't joy. It wasn't relief. If I felt anything, it was... regret? Good God, I thought. Yes. Regret. Because I honestly wished I could do it all over again.

[1:40:32] Of course, above all, I regret not spending more time with my sons. And yet I know that this regret clashes with my secret regret that I can't do it all over again. God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing.

[1:40:50] I'd like to share the experience, the ups and downs, so that some young man or woman, somewhere, going through the same trials and ordeals, might be inspired or comforted. Or warned. Some young entrepreneur, maybe, some athlete or painter or novelist, might press on. It's all the same drive. The same dream. It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. I'd tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years. I'd tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don't know what that means, seek it. If you're following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you've ever felt.

[1:42:22] Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn't mean stopping. Don't ever stop.

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What I learned from reading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc.

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“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

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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.

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[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.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. 

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(8:00) When in 1955 we heard that Disney had opened an amusement park under his own name, it appeared certain that we could not look forward to anything new from Mr. Disney.

We were quite wrong.

He had, instead, created his masterpiece.

(13:00) This may be the greatest product launch of all time: He had run eight months of his television program. He hadn't named his new show Walt Disney Presents or The Wonderful World of Walt Disney.

It was called simply Disneyland, and every weekly episode was an advertisement for the still unborn park.

(15:00) Disneyland is the extension of the powerful personality of one man.

(15:00) The creation of Disneyland was Walt Disney’s personal taste in physical form.

(24:00) How strange that the boss would just drop it. Walt doesn’t give up. So he must have something else in mind.

(26:00) Their mediocrity is my opportunity. It is an opportunity because there is so much room for improvement.

(36:00) Roy Disney never lost his calm understanding that the company's prosperity rested not on the rock of conventional business practices, but on the churning, extravagant, perfectionist imagination of his younger brother.

(41:00) Walt Disney’s decision to not relinquish his TV rights to United Artists was made in 1936. This decision paid dividends 20 years later. Hold on. Technology -- developed by other people -- constantly benefited Disney's business. Many such cases in the history of entrepreneurship.

(43:00) Walt Disney did not look around. He looked in. He looked in to his personal taste and built a business that was authentic to himself.

(54:00) "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."

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Today and Tomorrow by Henry Ford.

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“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

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What I learned from reading Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride. 

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What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?

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Episode Outline: 

Whatever is there, he makes it work.

Spielberg once defined his approach to filmmaking by declaring, "I am the audience."

"He said, 'I want to be a director.' And I said, 'Well, if you want to be a director, you've gotta start at the bottom, you gotta be a gofer and work your way up.' He said, 'No, Dad. The first picture I do, I'm going to be a director.' And he was. That blew my mind. That takes guts."

One of his boyhood friends recalls Spielberg saying "he could envision himself going to the Academy Awards and accepting an Oscar and thanking the Academy.” He was twelve.

He was disappointed in the world, so he built one of his own.

Spielberg remained essentially an autodidact. Spielberg followed his own eccentric path to a professional directing career. Universal Studios, in effect, was Spielberg's film school. Giving him an education that, paradoxically, was both more personal and more conventional than he would have received in an academic environment. Spielberg devised what amounted to his own private tutorial program at Universal, immersing himself in the aspects of filmmaking he found most crucial to his development.

At the time he came to Hollywood, generations of nepotism had made the studios terminally inbred and unwelcoming to newcomers. The studio system, long under siege from television, falling box-office receipts, and skyrocketing costs, was in a state of impending collapse.

When Steven was very discouraged trying to sell a script and break in, he always had a positive, forward motion, whatever he may have been suffering inside.

In the two decades since Star Wars and Close Encounters were released, science-fiction films have accounted for half of the top twenty box-office hits. But before George Lucas and Spielberg revived the genre there was no real appetite at the studios for science fiction. The conventional wisdom was science-fiction films never make money.

Your children love you. They want to play with you. How long do you think that lasts? We have a few special years with our children, when they're the ones who want us around. So fast, it’s a few years, then it's over. You are not being careful. And you are missing it.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Dream of Solomeo: My Life and the Idea of Humanistic Capitalism by Brunello Cucinelli.

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[4:00] I am reminded of Machiavelli: during his exile, he too spent his afternoons playing board games and drinking wine, while at night, in the austere silence of his studio, he engaged in solitary, literary conversations with the ancient scholars.

[6:00] The true meaning of my life seems to be a spontaneous drive and energy.

[7:00] I am driven by an immense desire: that my life, when it reaches its end, will not have been useless.

[7:00] Brunello Cucinelli by Om Malik 

[8:00] God assigns to all of us a mission to fulfill. Our task is first to discover the nature of our summons, then to follow it.

[11:00] We schedule time to think. Most people schedule themselves like a dentist. It's so easy to get so busy that you no longer have time to think- and you pay a huge price for that. —— All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)

[14:00] Try to be your son's teacher until he's ten years old; his father, until he's twenty; and his friend, for the rest of his life.

[14:00] The problem is not getting rich, it's staying sane. —Charlie Munger

[18:00] 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

[23:00] Postponing the reward increases the appreciation, a fact that has been forgotten in the current culture of impatience.

[29:00] I could see the humiliation in my father's eyes. His teary eyes were the source of inspiration for my life.

[33:00] I have always been firmly convinced that in order to successfully stand out you need to focus on one single project representing the dream of your life.

[36:00] A young man with no money and tons of enthusiasm.

[41:00] Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique by Jeffrey Trachtenberg. (Founders #288) 

[43:00] 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. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)

[48:00] Invention: A Life by James Dyson. (Founders #205)

[49:00] The greatest minds can convey deep and complex thoughts with words that are understandable to everyone.

[50:00] Enthusiastically build an extraordinary reality day after day.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Alfred Nobel: A Biography by Kenne Fant.

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[16:24] The self-awareness that would become so characteristic of him was awakening and with it the determination to be the master of every situation. He was not going to throw himself into the world and let luck or chance lead the way. 

[26:26] When it comes to serious matters, I have adopted the rule of acting seriously. 

[28:09] Alfred never forgot poverty. 

[30:04] Financial pressure was accelerating his development as an inventor. 

[39:15] Alfred asked her what she wished as a wedding present. The quick-witted young woman astonished him by replying without hesitation, “As much as Monsieur Nobel himself earns in one day.” Impressed and amused, Alfred agreed. The girl received a monetary gift of such size that she and her husband could enjoy it as long as their marriage lasted. The bank draft Alfred signed was for $110,000. 

[47:33] It would take many years for Alfred to accept the idea that sometimes business failures were inevitable, that steps forward in one market were very often followed by a decline in another. Alfred learned to steel himself so that the disappointments would not depress him into inaction. 

[51:18] Never do yourself what others could do better or equally well. 

[57:26] Nobel had a soul of fire. He worked hard, burned with ideas, and spurred his collaborators on with his contagious energy. 

[58:04] When he went somewhere he liked to get there fast. 

[59:17] Whatever a human being manages to accomplish during his or her lifetime, there are so utterly few whose names will remain on the pages of history for any extended amount of time. Rarer still are those whose renown grows after their death. Alfred Nobel belongs among these. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Wayby Richard Branson

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Business is a fluid, changing substance. A mutating, indefinable thing [0:45]

I just pick up the phone and get on with it [7:50]

smart ways to get initial traction [9:51]

to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent [14:19]

Richard Branson's early business philosophy [14:49]

the beginning of Virgin [19:00]

what he learned from going to jail [23:01]

the scope of Richard's ambition at 21 [24:44]

a model of compatible businesses [27:00]

how Richard Branson made his first fortune [29:00]

how Richard Branson gets Necker Island and the idea for Virgin Airways [34:45]

protecting the downside risk [38:40]

Richard Branson's view on public companies [46:12]

taking Virgin private, funding secured [52:00]

questioning the direction of his life at 40 years old [59:54]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. 

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[4:55] Players who practice hard when no one is paying attention play well when everyone is watching.

[9:47] It's hard, but it's fair. I live by those words. 

[12:49] To this day, I don't enjoy working. I enjoy playing, and figuring out how to connect playing with business. To me, that's my niche. People talk about my work ethic as a player, but they don't understand. What appeared to be hard work to others was simply playing for me.

[24:00] You have to be uncompromised in your level of commitment to whatever you are doing, or it can disappear as fast as it appeared. 

[24:26] 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. 

[37:01] I knew going against the grain was just part of the process.

[53:20] The mind will play tricks on you. The mind was telling you that you couldn't go any further. The mind was telling you how much it hurt. The mind was telling you these things to keep you from reaching your goal. But you have to see past that, turn it all off if you are going to get where you want to be.

[57:41] I would wake up in the morning thinking: How am I going to attack today?

[1:06:04] 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.

[1:06:22] In all honesty, I don't know what's ahead. If you ask me what I'm going to do in five years, I can't tell you. This moment? Now that's a different story. I know what I'm doing moment to moment, but I have no idea what's ahead. I'm so connected to this moment that I don't make assumptions about what might come next, because I don't want to lose touch with the present. Once you make assumptions about something that might happen, or might not happen, you start limiting the potential outcomes. 

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words by George Beahm.

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[1:05]

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

[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. (
(Founders #178)

[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.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman 

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The story of the greatest moneymaker of all time [0:01]

Simons prefers to move in silence [1:40]

Unknown Unknowns > Known Knowns / Wise people always know exactly why something won’t work. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. —Henry Ford [2:42]

A one word summary of the book: PERSISTENCE [4:15]

Simons’ early life / Only the arrogant are self-confident enough to push their creative ideas on others. —Nolan Bushnell [4:44]

Advice from his father: Do what you like in life, not what you feel you should do. [6:16]

Personality: Jim had a persistent and burning desire to be wealthy [7:20]

A seed has been planted + Jim’s existential crisis [9:55]

Lessons from codebreaking that Jim applies to his business later [14:08]

Jim Simons at 29 years of age: Fired, father of 3 young children, no idea what his future holds [20:00]

Jim Simons at 33 years of age: Genius and madness are next-door neighbors [21:44]

Jim Simons at 40 years of age: Jim finally makes the jump. Only misfits understand misfits [22:55]

Jim’s first trading style [28:00]

We all go through times like this: DON’T QUIT! [29:15]

Jim Simons at 44 years of age / Jim’s partner doesn’t see the point in developing automated trading system / Giant success followed by giants failures [34:30]

Back to being filled with self-doubt [37:15]

Our mind loves playing tricks on us [38:00]

Jim Simons studied the past to gain an information advantage [41:00]

Finally, the new strategy starts working! / Even with wild success people will tell you that you are wrong [46:55]

Business is like nature, it doesn’t care if you arrive at the right answer from the wrong reasoning. [52:50]

Emperors want empires [57:02]

Life advice from an 82 year old Jim Simons [1:02:40]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters; The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire.

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He was a film director, a producer, a test pilot, inventor, investor, and entrepreneur [0:01]

the start of Hughes Tool Company [13:00]

during a gold rush sell pickaxe's / great idea about leasing drill bits [19:00]

Howard Hughes Jr is on his own at 18 years old [26:00]

starting out in the movie business [32:00]

his first plane crash/divorce [38:00]

Howard Hughes goes broke [48:00]

Howard Hughes breaks the world record for the fastest flight around the world / Hitler was always an asshole [56:00]

Henry Kaiser and the birth of The Hercules [1:05:00]

his 4th plane crash and descent into madness [1:14:00]

Howard Hughe's M.O. on corruption and bribes [1:26:00]

I am not really interested in people. I am interested in science. –Howard Hughes [1:29:00]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from rereading Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger. 

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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. 

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Episode Outline: 

—Numerous other entrepreneurs had tried playing at rocket science before, Musk well knew. He wanted to learn from their mistakes so as not to repeat them.

—Elon announces that he wants to start his own rocket company and I do remember a lot of chuckling, some laughter, people saying things like, ‘Save your money kid, and go sit on the beach.’” The kid was not amused. If anything, the doubts expressed at this meeting, and by some of his confidants, energized him more.

—Musk was a siren, calling brilliant young minds to SpaceX with an irresistible song. He offered an intoxicating brew of vision, charisma, audacious goals, resources.

—When they needed something, he wrote the check. In meetings, he helped solve their most challenging technical problems. When the hour was late, he could often be found right there, beside them, working away.

—The iterative approach begins with a goal and almost immediately leaps into concept designs, bench tests, and prototypes. The mantra with this approach is build and test early, find failures, and adapt. This is what SpaceX engineers and technicians did.

—"Here was a man who was not interested in experts. He meets me, he thinks to himself, 'Here is a bright kid, let's employ him.' And he does. He risks little with the possibility of gaining much. It is *exactly* what I now do at Dyson

This attitude to employment extended to [Jeremy] Fry's thinking in everything, including engineering. He did not, when an idea came to him, sit down and process it through pages of calculations; *he didn't argue it through with anyone; he just went out and built it.* When I came to him to say, 'I've had an idea,' he would offer no more advice than to say, 'You know where the workshop is, go and do it.'  'But we'll need to weld this thing,' I would protest.

Well then, get a welder and weld it.' When I asked if we shouldn't talk to sure someone about, say, hydrodynamics, he would say, 'The lake is down there, the Land Rover is over there, take a plank of wood down to the lake, tow it behind a boat and look at what happens.' Now, this was not a modus operandi that I had encountered before. College had taught me to revere experts and expertise. Fry ridiculed all that; as far as he was concerned, *with enthusiasm and intelligence anything was possible.* It was mind-blowing. No research, no preliminary sketches. If it didn't work one way he would just try it another way, until it did. And as we proceeded I could see that we were getting on extremely quickly.  *The root principle was to do things your way.* It didn’t matter how other people did it. It didn’t matter if it could be done better.  As long as it works, and it is exciting, people will follow you."      — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson by James Dyson (Founders #300)

—Elon personally interviewed the first 3,000 employees of SpaceX.

—His people had to be brilliant. They had to be hardworking. And there could be no nonsense.

—SpaceX operated at its own speed.

—Pony Express ad: “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”

—I’ve never met a man so laser focused on his vision for what he wanted. He’s very intense, and he’s intimidating as hell.

—SpaceX had juice with the best students in space engineering. The freedom to innovate and resources to go fast summoned the best engineers in the land.

—Talent wins over experience and an entrepreneurial culture over heritage.

—He always made the most difficult decisions. He did not put off problems, but rather tackled the hardest ones first. And he had a vision for how aerospace could be done faster and for less money.

—He didn’t want to fail, but he wasn’t afraid of it.

—The speed SpaceX worked at relative to its peers could be jarring.

—No job is beneath us.

—No committees. No reports. Just done.

—Most of all he channeled an intense force to move things forward. Elon wants to get shit done.

—SpaceX likes to operate on its own terms and its own timeline.

—90% of the book is SpaceX failing.

—Elon spent much of the flight poring over books written about early rocket scientists and their efforts. He seemed intent to understand the mistakes they had made and learn from them.

—SpaceX is in this for the long haul and, come hell or high water, we are going to make this work.

—Who knows your customers? Find the person that knows your customers and then hire that person to sell your product to them.

—No work about work, just work. Shotwell wrote a plan of action for sales. Musk took one look at it and told her that he did not care about plans. Just get on with the job. “I was like, oh, OK, this is refreshing. I don’t have to write up a damn plan,” Shotwell recalled. Here was her first real taste of Musk’s management style. Don’t talk about doing things, just do things.

—Within its first three years, SpaceX had sued three of its biggest rivals in the launch industry, gone against the Air Force with the proposed United Launch Alliance merger, and protested a NASA contract. Elon Musk was not walking on eggshells on the way to orbit. He was breaking a lot of eggs.

—A Pegasus launch cost between $ 26 and $ 28 million. SpaceX’s price was $6 million. Musk wanted it front and center on the company’s website. This sort of transparency was radical at the time.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. 

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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. 

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Individuals come and go, but they leave their records and ideas behind them. These become a guide to all who follow.

Genius is the art of taking pains. 

The best ads ask no one to buy. That is useless. The best ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. They site advantages to users.

Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. The care nothing about your interests or your profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising. Ads say in effect, “Buy my brand. Give me the trade you give to others. Let me have the money." That doesn't work.

We learn that people judge largely by price. We often employ this factor. Perhaps we are advertising a valuable formula. To merely say that would not be impressive. So we state as a fact that we paid $100,000 for that formula. That statement when tried has won a wealth of respect.

The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific. Makers of safety razors have long advertised quick shaves. One maker advertised a 78-second shave.  The difference is vast. If a claim is worth making, make it in the most impressive way.

The product itself should be its own best salesman. Not the product alone, but the product plus a mental impression, and atmosphere, which you place around it. Samples are of prime importance. However expensive, they usually form the cheapest selling method. Samples serve numerous valuable purposes. They enable one to use the word "Free" in ads. That often multiplies readers. Samples pay for themselves in multiplying the readers of your ads.

Mail order advertising tells a complete story if the purpose is to make an immediate sale. You see no limitations there on the amount of copy. The motto is, "The more you tell the more you sell." And it has never failed to be proven wrong in any test we know.

Show health, not sickness. Don't show the wrinkles you propose to remove, but the face as it will appear. Your customers know all about the wrinkles. Show pretty teeth, not bad teeth. Talk of coming good conditions, not conditions that exist. We are attracted by sunshine, beauty, happiness, health, and success. Point the way to them, not the way out of the opposite.

I spend far more time on headlines than on writing. I often spend hours on a single headline. The identical ad run with various headlines differs tremendously in its returns. It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns by five or ten times over.

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. 

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It is clear that nothing short of a full-speed, all-out attempt would be worthwhile.

Once Leslie Groves accepted his new assignment, he embraced it completely. From his appointment in September 1942 until the end of the war, he worked at full speed, often fourteen hours a day or more. His remarkable energy and stamina frequently exhausted those who worked and traveled with him.

Groves's style was to delegate whatever he could and then put the screws to the delegees. He was a taskmaster.

The instructions to the project were that any individual in the project who felt that the ultimate completion was going to be delayed by as much as a day by something that was happening, it was his duty to report it direct to me. Urgency was on us right from the start.

When Marshall asked him if he ever praised anyone for a job well done, Groves said no. "I don't believe in it. No matter how well something is being done, it can always be done better and faster.”

Oppenheimer insisted that Los Alamos should have one director. He had learned enough about management from studying Groves to believe that while consensus was important, an organization needed a single leader.

The dual approaches reflected Groves's belief in pursuing multiple solutions to a problem until the problem is solved. 

In a frank assessment of his boss after the war, he called him, "the biggest S.O.B. I have ever worked for. He is the most demanding. He is the most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make timely, difficult decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know. He knows he is right and so sticks by his decision. He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard or even harder than he does. If I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss I would pick General Groves."

Groves had a reputation for competence. He was demanding, rough, and sometimes brutal with his staff, intolerant of delay and mental slowness. On the other hand, he never swore, rarely lost his temper, and never raised his voice. He was also prepared to let subordinates disagree if their arguments were sound. He disliked people who groveled.

Groves remained unflappable, accepting the unanticipated as normal.

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. 

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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. 

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A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players. —Steve Jobs 

There are no shortcuts around quality, and quality starts with people. —Steve Jobs 

Usually people never think that much about what they're doing or why they do it. They just do it because that's the way it has been done and it works. That type of thinking doesn't work if you're growing fast and if you're up against some larger companies. You really have to outthink them and you have to be able to make those paradigm shifts in your points of view. —Steve Jobs 

————
Steve Jobs answer to What advice would you give someone interested in starting their own company?

A lot of people ask me, "I want to start a company. What should I do?" My first question is always, "What is your passion? What is it you want to do in your company?" Most of them say, "I don't know."

My advice is go get a job as a busboy until you figure it out. You've got to be passionate about something. You shouldn't start a company because you want to start a company. Almost every company I know of got started because nobody else believed in the idea and the last resort was to start the company. That's how Apple got started. That's how Pixar got started. It's how Intel got started. You need to have passion about your idea and you need to feel so strongly about it that you're willing to risk a lot.

Starting a company is so hard that if you're not passionate about it, you will give up. If you're simply doing it because you want to have a small company, forget it.

It's so much work and at times is so mentally draining. The hardest thing I've ever done is to start a company. It's the funnest thing, but it's the hardest thing, and if you're not passionate about your goal or your reason for doing it, you will give up. You will not see it through. So, you must have a very strong sense of what you want.

You have to need to run such a business and know you can do it better than anyone else.

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There are no safe harbors. The only safe harbor is competency. Competency at doing something. —T.J. Rodgers founder of Cypress Semiconductor

The first time someone says, “The product you've made has changed my life," is the biggest sense of satisfaction you get. It motivates me more than anything else, by far. —Charles Geschke, founder of Adobe

Being detached from the customer is the ultimate death. —Michael Dell 

The faster you experiment and get rid of things that don't work and keep doing things that do work, the faster you get to the winning business model. —Michael Dell

The important things of tomorrow are probably going to be things that are overlooked today. —Andy Grove 

The best assumption to have is that any commonly held belief is wrong. —Ken Olsen 

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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

What I learned from reading The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. 

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[0:17] Morgan was the most influential of these businessmen. He wasn’t the richest but that didn’t matter; he was commanding in a way none could match. 

[0:38] Morgan had an aristocrat’s disdain for public sentiment and the conviction that his actions were to the country’s advantage, no explanations necessary. 

[0:50] Roosevelt thought big business was not only inevitable but essential. He also believed it had to be accountable to the public, and Roosevelt considered himself the public. 

[1:04] Each [Morgan and Roosevelt] presumed he could use his authority to determine the nation’s course. Each expected deference from the other along the way.

[2:18] “I’m afraid of Mr. Roosevelt because I don’t know what he’ll do,” Morgan said. “He’s afraid of me because he does know what I’ll do,” Roosevelt replied. 

[5:24] Morgan had trusted his father to set him on the right path and steer his career, even when his father was overbearing, Morgan never mounted a challenge. The creator of the biggest companies the world had ever known was very much the creation of paternal influence. 

[9:58] Morgan said he could do a year’s work in nine months, but not twelve. His impatience could be withering. 

[10:17] Roosevelt adopted his father’s motto, “Get action.” 

[10:35] Roosevelt never sat when he could stand. When provoked, he would thrust, and when he hit, he hit hard. 

[11:11] Theodore loved to row in the hottest sun, over the roughest water, in the smallest boat. 

[12:09] When they attacked Roosevelt, he would fire back with all the venom imaginable. “He was the most indiscreet guy I ever met.” 

[16:36] When one of the gentlemen complained later about Morgan’s interference in their roads, Morgan snapped: “Your roads? Your roads belong to my clients.” 

[19:26] John D. Rockefeller said his company was efficient. Critics said it was untouchable. 

[23:04] James J. Hill had built the Great Northern with deliberate thrift and brutal efficiency. His railroad would become among the most profitable in the Northwest. He didn’t need Morgan the way other railroad executives did. 

[25:52] “A soft, easy life is not worth living, it impairs the fiber of brain and heart and muscle. We must dare to be great.”, Roosevelt said. 

[29:18] Harriman secretly bought up shares in Northern Pacific. This was revenge. Hill and Morgan had effective control over the Northern Pacific, but they didn’t own a majority of the shares. Morgan had never found it necessary to own a company outright in order to exert influence. 

[35:02] The president had asked his attorney general to prosecute Northern Securities for violating the Sherman Act. Roosevelt should have warned him, Morgan grumbled. They could have worked out a deal in private. Presidents didn’t keep secrets from the captains of industry, and the House of Morgan had never before been surprised by the White House. 

[37:29] After Morgan left, Roosevelt marveled at the financier’s imprudence. “That is the most illuminating illustration of the Wall Street point of view. Mr. Morgan could not help regarding me as a big rival operator, who either intended to ruin all his interests or else could be induced to come to an agreement to ruin none.” 

[39:06] Roosevelt understood how panic could outrun reality. 

[47:00] People will love Roosevelt for the enemies he has made. 

[50:21] Morgan repeated the advice he had received from his father long ago: “There may be times when things are dark and cloudy in America, when uncertainty will cause some to distrust and others to think there is too much production, too much building of railroads, and too much development in other enterprises. In such times, and at all times, remember that the growth of that vast country will take care of all.” 

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“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

What I learned from reading Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, With an Introduction by Walter Isaacson.

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[2:38]  The whole point of moving things forward is that you run into problems, failures, things that don't work. You need to back up and try again. Each one of those times when you have a setback, you get back up and you try again. You're using resourcefulness; you're using self-reliance; you're trying to invent your way out of a box. We have tons of examples at Amazon where we’ve had to do this. 

[4:08] I would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid. 

[5:51]  I am often asked who, of the people living today, I would consider to be in the same league as those I have written about as a biographer: Leonardo da Vinci (#15), Benjamin Franklin (#115), Ada Lovelace, Steve Jobs (#5), and Albert Einstein. All were very smart. But that’s not what made them special. Smart people are a dime a dozen and often don’t amount to much. What counts is being creative and imaginative. That’s what makes someone a true innovator. And that’s why my answer to the question is Jeff Bezos. 

[8:26] One final trait shared by all my subjects is that they retained a childlike sense of wonder. At a certain point in life, most of us quit puzzling over everyday phenomena.  Our teachers and parents, becoming impatient, tell us to stop asking so many silly questions. We might savor the beauty of a blue sky, but we no longer bother to wonder why it is that color. Leonardo did. So did Einstein, who wrote to another friend, “You and I never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” We should be careful to never outgrow our wonder years—or to let our children do so. 

[11:50] Jeff’s childhood business heroes were Thomas Edison and Walt Disney. “I’ve always been interested in inventors and invention,” he says. Even though Edison was the more prolific inventor, Bezos came to admire Disney more because of the audacity of his vision. “It seemed to me that he had this incredible capability to create a vision that he could get a large number of people to share.” 

[17:49] Keeping his focus on the customer, he emailed one thousand of them to see what else they would like to buy. The answers helped him understand better the concept of “the long tail,” which means being able to offer items that are not everyday best sellers and don’t command shelf space at retailers. “The way they answered the question was with whatever they were looking for at the moment. And I thought to myself we can sell anything this way.”

[19:26] Every time a seismic shift takes place in our economy, there are people who feel the vibrations long before the rest of us do, vibrations so strong they demand action—action that can seem rash, even stupid. 

[22:00] “No customer was asking for Echo,” Bezos says. “Market research doesn’t help. If you had gone to a customer in 2013 and said, ‘Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen about the size of a Pringles can that you can talk to and ask questions, that also turns on your lights and plays music?’ I guarantee they’d have looked at you strangely and said, ‘No, thank you’”

[24:14] We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.  

[24:58] We are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren’t meant to be easy. 

[26:22] We are doubly blessed. We have a market-size unconstrained opportunity in an area where the underlying foundational technology we employ improves every day. That is not normal. 

[29:14] Start with the customer and work backward. That is the best way to create value. 

[32:19] Amazon’s culture is unusually supportive of small businesses with big potential, and I believe that’s a source of competitive advantage. 

[35:47] Seek instant gratification —or the promise of it—and chances are you’ll find a crowd there ahead of you.

[37:51] At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen experts asked me, “I’m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don’t you eliminate the source of dirt?” I felt like the Karate Kid.  

[39:21] When we are at our best, we don’t wait for external pressures. We are internally driven to improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to. We lower prices and increase value for customers before we have to. We invent before we have to. These investments are motivated by customer focus rather than by reaction to competition. 

[42:48] Outsized returns often come from betting against conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is usually right. Given a ten percent chance of a one hundred times payoff, you should take that bet every time. But you are still going to be wrong nine times out of ten. We all know that if you swing for the fences, you’re going to strike out a lot, but you’re also going to hit some home runs. The difference between baseball and business is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in awhile, when you step up to the plate, you can score one thousand runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.  

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell. 

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2. Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. 

Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy:

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3. I went to Notre Dame and spoke to the Art of Investing class. You can listen to the full conversation here. 

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(8:00) She knows the ecosystem in which she operates better than anyone.

(8:30) If Anna had a personal tag line it would be: I just have to make sure things are done right.

(16:00) He had a desk with nothing on it except a buzzer underneath, so that when he was done with you, which was in about five minutes, his assistant could come in and whisk you away.

(17:00) What is the number one thing you hope people learn from you? To be decisive and clear.

(19:00) The Vogue 100 is a private club whose members pay $100,000 a year just for access to Anna.

(29:00) She did not second guess herself.

(30:00) She was meticulous about everything.

(32:00) Her focus was singular. She was very clear minded about wanting to do work that she thought was the best.

(38:00) She knew that killing stories was necessary to let people know that you had standards.

(41:00) Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda. (Founders #281)

(44:00) Anna ran the magazine with iron fisted discipline.

(48:00) With Anna you get two minutes. The second minute is a courtesy.

(49:00) It is slothful not to compress your thoughts. — Winston Churchill

(52:00) Anna intentionally builds relationships with the most powerful people in her industry.

(52:00) Anna saw the potential for the industry and how she can expand the power and the influence that her individually, and Vogue as a brand, by just combining all these people that are already in the ecosystem and then intentionally putting them together. When they work together it becomes stronger. And as a result of what she created, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

(53:30) The power she has cannot be understated. The way in which she accumulated the power was fascinating. She aligned everybody's interest, with her at the center.

(1:05:00) She's not just building up a personal brand. She's not just building up Vogue. She's building up the entire industry.

(1:06:00) Relationships last longer than money.

(1:06:00) Resist any cheapening of the brand, however popular and lucrative it might be in the short term.

(1:08:00) Anna told him don't spend any time and money building out the perfect store in New York. Just roll racks into the unfinished space and start selling clothes. (He ignored this advice and went out of business)

(1:11:00) More resources:

Front Row: Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief by Jerry Oppenheimer 

The September Issue (Documentary)

The Devil Wears Prada (Movie)

73 Questions with Anna Wintour

73 More Questions with Anna Wintour 

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. 

[0:01] This book is about the rise, fall, and resurrection of an American banking empire—the House of Morgan. 

[1:56] What gave the House of Morgan its tantalizing mystery was its government links. Much like the Rothschilds it seemed insinuated into the power structure of many countries, especially the United States. 

[2:46] They practiced a brand of banking that has little resemblance to standard retail banking. 

[3:43] They have weathered wars and depressions, scandals and hearings, bomb blasts and attempted assassinations. 

[4:44] Contrary to the usual law of perspective, the Morgans seem to grow larger as they recede in time. 

[5:41] I was struck that the old Wall Street—elite, clubby, and dominated by small, mysterious partnerships—bore scant resemblance to the universe of faceless conglomerates springing up across the globe. 

[6:49] Only one firm, one family, one name rather gloriously spanned the entire century and a half that I wanted to cover: J.P. Morgan. 

[8:13] I am a firm believer that most people who do great things are doing them for the first time. —Marc Andreessen 

[12:22] He carried the scars of early poverty. Like many who have overcome early hardship by brute force, he was always at war with the world and counting his injuries. 

[14:22] My capital is ample but I have passed too many money panics unscathed, not to have seen how often large fortunes are swept away, and that even with my own I must use caution.

[14:48] His annual savings were staggering. He spent only $3,000 of a total annual income of $300,000.

[18:05] J.P’s dad’s advice: You are commencing upon your business career at an eventful time. Let what you now witness make an impression not to be eradicated. Slow and sure should be the motto of every young man. 

[18:40] Junius Morgan reminds me of Tywin Lannister. 

[21:19] Perhaps the contrast between his own steady nature and Pierpont’s unruly temper made Junius fret unduly about his boy. With granite will, he began to mold Pierpont. 

[23:03] The Rothschilds are mentioned 30 times in this book. They had an influence on how Junius wanted to set up the Morgan family. 

[25:08] Junius lectured Pierpont: Never, under any circumstances, do an action which could be called in question if known to the world. 

[25:55]  The railroads were the Internet of their day: More than just isolated businesses, railroads were the scaffolding on which new worlds would be built. 

[27:41]  Not for the last time, Pierpont contemplated retirement. He would assume tremendous responsibility, then feel oppressed. He never seemed to take great pleasure in his accomplishments. He craved a restful but elusive peace. 

[29:50] He made over $1 million, boasting to Junius: I don’t believe there is another concern in the country that can begin to show such a result. 

[31:19] He believed that he knew how the economy should be ordered and how people should behave. 

[32:24] He had trouble delegating authority and low regard for the intelligence of other people. “The longer I live the more apparent becomes the absence of brains.”

[33:48] Under his stern facade, Junius adored Pierpont; the obsessive grooming was a tacit acknowledgement of his son’s gifts.

[35:36] Pierpont was, by nature, a laconic man. He had no gift for sustained analysis; his genius was in the brief, sudden brainstorm. 

[38:40] Pierpont found Jack soft and rather passive, lacking the sort of gumption he had as a young man. 

[40:40] Pierpont was extremely attentive to details and took pride in the knowledge that he could perform any job in the bank. “I can sit down at any clerk’s desk, take up his work here he left it and go on with it. I don’t like being at any man’s mercy.” He never renounced the founder’s itch to know the most minute details of the business.

[41:31] The years change, but the point always remains the same: Morgan benefits from financial crises. 

[42:14] Virtually every bankrupt railroad east of the Mississippi eventually passed through such reorganization, or morganization, as it was called. The companies’ combined revenues approached an amount equal to half of the U.S. government’s annual receipts. 

[45:22] He has the driving power of a locomotive. He suggested something brutish and uncontrollable, but also something of superhuman strength.

[47:04] Carnegie celebrated too quickly. He later admitted to Morgan that he had sold out too cheap, by $100 million. Morgan replied, “Very likely, Andrew.”  

[52:15]  McKinley’s assassination would be a turning point in Pierpont’s life, for it installed in the presidency Theodore Roosevelt. Book: The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism

[53:05] The 1907 panic was Pierpont’s last hurray. He suddenly functioned as America’s central bank. He saved several trust companies and a leading brokerage house, bailed out New York City, and rescued the Stock Exchange. 

[54:33] Contemporaries saw Morgan as the incarnation of pure will.  

[1:02:39] This was Pierpont in a nutshell: He represented bondholders and expressed their wrath against irresponsible management. 

[1:07:37]  Andrew Carnegie after J. P. Morgan died: And to think he was not a rich man. 

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace by James Wallace.

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There would be an industry breakthrough unimagined at the time, and it would be made by a company that didn’t yet exist. [7:55]

Another corollary to Joys Law of Innovation was that the number of bright people in any company went down as the size went up. [10:47]

As Apple founder Steve Jobs liked to say: When you are at simplicity, there ain’t no complexity. [12:49]

Gates looks at everything as something that should be his. He acts in any way he can to make it his. It can be an idea, market share, or a contract. There is not an ounce of conscientiousness or compassion in him. The notion of fairness means nothing to him. The only thing he understands is leverage. [17:21]

I became convinced that Microsoft was building the last minicomputer. That the Microsoft Network was based on the notion that your competitors were the model — proprietary online services like America Online — and that the reality was that the Internet was going to be such a fundamental paradigm shift, that you needed to think about your strategies fundamentally differently. [28:08]

The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas. — Zero to One [29:25]

Most college kids knew much more than we did because they were exposed to it. If I had wanted to connect to the Internet, it would have been easier for me to get into my car and drive over to the University of Washington than to try and get on the Internet at Microsoft. [31:12]

For years , Gates had Kahn in his sights. Kahn recalled that he once had found Gates at an industry conference in the late 1980s sitting alone in a corner, looking at a photograph in his hands. “It was a picture of me,” said Kahn. [41:16]

It’s not in Microsoft’s bones to cooperate with other companies. [42:47]

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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. 

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“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

David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert — of the Acquired podcast — invited me to San Francisco for a discussion on our mutual obsession: spending every waking hour studying the history of entrepreneurship and sharing those lessons on our podcasts. 

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Follow Acquired in your podcast player here or at Acquired.fm 

This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Get in touch with Tiny by emailing hi@tiny.com. 

[3:00] David’s time with Charlie Munger

[5:30] Henry Flagler after Standard Oil

[8:30] What makes a great biography, and how to capture all sides of complex characters?

[11:00] Studying history is a form of leverage to achieve success

[13:00] How do we figure out what the true story is for an episode we're doing?

[20:30] Silicon Valley should focus more on durability than growth

[21:30] How David got into reading biographies and podcasting

[25:40] What were each of their influences before starting Acquired and Founders?

[35:30] How to suck less over time

[37:30] What motivates, Ben, David, and David to get better?

[45:00] Dead ends: business model changes, paid podcasts, changing the name to “Adapting”, and Senra's “Autotelic”

[51:30] “You’re not advertising to a standing army, you’re advertising to a moving parade”

[56:00] Comparison of podcasting business models

[1:00:10] Senra’s insane Readwise "healthy twitter" habit

[1:04:30] Is it possible for the ultra-wealthy not to mess up their kids?

[1:14:30] The fleeting moments you get to spend with your kids

[1:17:00] The value of building relationships with best-in-class peers

[1:19:30] How the book publishing industry works

[1:28:45] How to differentiate yourself as an investor in 2023?

[1:38:30] The greatest historical examples as content marketing

[2:02:00] The best businesses are cults (and Senra starts one on the episode)

[2:07:00] Senra gives feedback to Ben and David on Acquired episode format

[2:15:30] Steve Jobs’ 1997 product matrix

[2:17:00] The moral imperative to market products that help people

[2:23:00] Ray Kroc and Steve Jobs: deeply flawed founders

[2:23:30] The founders we idolize are world-builders

[2:28:00] When yachts and jets are underpriced assets

[2:32:00] How to compete when money is cheap vs. when there are real interest rates

[2:39:30] When Ben and David have fixed broken episodes in post-production

[2:44:30] Why masters of craft are so interesting to study

[2:45:30] Should you listen to advice?

[2:51:00] David’s first job detailing cars

[2:52:30] The Cuban experience immigrating to Miami

[3:01:00] College entrepreneurship programs

[3:04:00] Ben’s experience learning UNIX as a kid

[3:08:30] David remembers Tim Ferriss guest lecturing in college

If you have scrolled this far and still haven't followed Acquired in your podcast player please do so here! 

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Definitive Biography of The Engineer, Visionary, and Great Briton by L.T.C. Rolt.

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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. 

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1. His career was to him a tremendous adventure.

2. I have always made it a rule, which I have found by some years experience a safe and profitable one, to have nothing to do with newspaper articles.

3. It is consoling to be thus reminded that the lunatic fringe is a hardy perennial and not a phenomenon peculiar to our day and age.

4. The livelihood of anybody relying upon their penmanship is generally precarious.

5. One whose high spirits seemed quite impervious to cold and discomfort.

6. The ready wit and the gaiety concealed a fire and a power which would drive him, undeterred by repeated disappointments, to achieve fame and fortune.

7. The name of Isambard Brunel would not mean what it does today if he had not displayed the same characteristics of dogged persistence and an unlimited capacity for hard work which distinguish the self-taught engineers.

8. A great man achieves eminence by his capacity to live more fully and intensely than his fellows and in so doing his faults as well as his virtues become the more obvious.

9. It is not in freedom from faults but in the ability to transcend and master them that greatness lies.

10. Isambard Brunel threw into the work all that unsparing energy which was to distinguish his whole life. For as much as thirty-six hours at a time he would not leave the tunnel, pausing only for a brief cat-nap.

11. The Brunels were not men to sit down with folded hands and bewail their misfortune.

12. Spurred on by Brunel's unconquerable determination, the work went forward.

13. Iť's a gloomy perspective and yet bad as it is I cannot with all my efforts work myself up to be down hearted.

14. Never Despair has always been my motto – we may succeed yet. Persevere.

15. This time he was going to win, but it would be a great struggle.

16. He never lost faith in himself.

17. He determined then to make perfection of his work the supreme goal and from that resolve he never subsequently wavered.

18. He knew that it would be so because, as any artist or craftsman must, he had alrcady conccived the completed work in his imagination

19. For it was an inviolable rule of Brunel's that he would never, under any circumstances, accept an appointment which involved divided responsibility. In any work upon which he engaged there could be only one engineer and he must have the full responsibility for the work and for the conduct of his staff.

20. Plain, gentlemanly language seems to have no effect upon you. I must try stronger language and stronger measures. You are a cursed, lazy, inattentive, apathetic vagabond, and if you continue to neglect my instructions, and to show such infernal laziness, I shall send you about your business. I have frequently told you, amongst other absurd, untidy habits, that that of making drawings on the back of others was inconvenient; by your cursed neglect of that you have again wasted more of my time than your whole life is worth.

21. Experiment was the breath of life to Brunel and for him precedents only existed to be questioned.

22. Brunel rejected precedent and proceeded from first principles.

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray.

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[0:01]  I have my periods of restlessness when my brain is crowded with ideas tingling to my fingertips when I am excited and cannot stop for anybody. Let me alone, let me work as I like even if I have to sit up all night all night or even for two nights. When you see me flagging, getting tired, discouraged put your hands over my eyes so that I go to sleep and let me sleep as long as I like until I wake. Then I may hand around, read novels and be stupid without an idea in my head until I get rested and ready for another period of work. But oh, do not do as you often do, stop me in the midst of my work, my excitement with “Alex, Alex, aren’t you coming to bed? It’s one o’clock, do come.” Then I have to come feeling cross and ugly. Then you put your hands on my eyes and after a while I go to sleep, but the ideas are gone, the work is never done. 

[1:20]  Books are the original links: So many times Edwin Land referenced what he learned from studying the life of Alexander Graham Bell—from being motivated as Bell persevered through struggles to how to market a brand new product. 

[3:06] Alexander Graham Bell had a lifelong passion for helping and teaching the deaf.  

[4:13]  Alex asserted his independence early. Exasperated by being the third Alexander Bell in a row, he decided to add Graham to his own name. 

[4:32] He often retreated into solitude, particularly when he was preoccupied with a project.  

[5:27] Alex’s school record was unimpressive. Chronically untidy and late for class, Alex often skipped school altogether. Outside the classroom he demonstrated the ingenuity and single-mindedness that would shape his later career.  

[8:03] He complained of headaches, depression, and sleeplessness. Perhaps this wasn’t surprising considering the undisciplined intensity of his work habits. In a pattern that would last a lifetime, he would sit up all night reading or working obsessively on sound experiments. 

[9:54] A note he left himself: A man’s own judgement should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself. Many men do this or that because someone else thought it right. 

[11:42] The problem Alexander was trying to solve that led to the invention of the telephone: Could they solve a puzzle with which amateur engineers all over the United States were grappling? Nearly thirty years after its first commercial application, the telegraph system was still limited to sending one message at a time. The race was on to increase its capacity. Alex was determined to join this race. 

[12:39] Samuel Morse is mentioned over and over again in this book just like Alexander Graham Bell is mentioned over and over again in books on Edwin Land and just like Edwin Land is mentioned over and over again in books on Steve Jobs. This speaks to this instinctual nature that we have to want to learn from the life stories of other people— to collect that knowledge and push it down the generations.

[17:42] Other inventors were on the same track as he was. A professional electrician and inventor named Elisha Gray had successfully transmitted music over telegraph wires. Thomas Edison was already bragging that he was close to introducing the quadruplex telegraph.  

[23:43]  Inventor and Yankee entrepreneur had found one another. Alex was unaware that Gardiner Hubbard was on the hunt for a multiple telegraph device; Gardiner Hubbard had no idea that his daughter’s teacher [Alex] spent his nights crouched over a table covered with electromagnets and length of wire. Alex had the ideas Hubbard needed; Hubbard had the access to capital to finance them. 

[25:06] It is a neck and neck race between Mr. Gray and myself who shall complete our apparatus first. He has the advantage over me in being a practical electrician—but I have reason to believe that I am better acquainted with the phenomena of sound than he is—so that I have an advantage here. The very opposition seems to nerve me to work and I feel with the facilities I have now I may succeed. I shall be seriously ill should I fail in this now I am so thoroughly wrought up. 

[27:02] Thomas Watson on what it was like working with Alexander Graham Bell: His head seemed to be a teeming beehive out of which he would often let loose one of his favorite bees for my inspection. A dozen young and energetic workmen would have been needed to mechanize all his buzzing ideas. 

[27:41] Alex meets with an older, wider inventor named Dr. Joseph Henry: He told the eager young inventor that his idea was the germ of a great invention. Since he lacked the necessary electrical knowledge he asked Dr. Henry should he allow others to work out the commercial application. Dr. Henry didn’t pause for a minute. If this young Scotsman was going to get the commercial payoff from his invention, he simply had to acquire an understanding of electricity. “GET IT!” he barked at the twenty-eight-year-old.  

[31:42] Drawing inspiration from the life of Samuel Morse: He was frustrated by his lack of technical knowledge that “Morse conquered his electrical difficulties although he was only a painter, and I don’t intend to give in either till all is completed.” 

[35:09] Alexander Graham Bell’s personality: He put tremendous demands on himself. His tendency to work around the clock, and to alternate between states of fierce focus on one goal and an inability to concentrate on anything, suggest a lack of balance in his temperament. He was erratic in his habits and intellectually obsessive, but it was his unconventional mind that made him a genius. He refused to be hemmed in by rules. He allowed his intuition to flourish. He relied on leaps of imagination, backed by a fascination with physical sciences, to solve the challenges he set himself. 

Comparing and contrasting Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell: Unlike Thomas Edison, the ruthless self-promoter who saw science as a Darwinian competition and who always announced his inventions before he had even got them working, Alex hated revealing anything until he was confident of its success. Edison was an ambitious self-made American; Alex was a cautious Scot more interested in scientific progress than commercial success. [I forgot to put this part in the podcast] 

[40:22] Struggle: When will this thing be finished? I am sick and tired of the nature of my work and the little profit that arises from it. Other men work their five or six hours a day, and have their thousands a year, while I slave from morning to night and night to morning and accomplish nothing but to wear myself out. I expect that the money will come in just in time for me to leave it to you in my will! I am sad at heart, and keep my feelings bottled up like wine in a wine cellar. 

[45:20] More struggle. Alex almost giving up again: Of one thing I am determined and that is to waste no more time and money on the telephone. Let others endure the worry, the anxiety and expense. I will have none of it. A feverish anxious life like that I have been leading will soon change my whole nature. I feel myself growing irritable, feverish, and disgusted with life. 

[49:37] What’s most important to Alex: “Yes, I hold it is one of the highest of all things, the increase of knowledge making us more like God.” He had bought a set of the new Encyclopedia Britannica and had announced he was going read it from start to finish. Nothing would dampen his irrepressible urge to explore, discover, and improve. 

[50:36]  Alexander Graham Bell on parenting: He believed that play is Nature’s method of educating a child and that a parent’s duty is to aid Nature in the development of her plan. 

[54:30] He never liked for anyone to knock on his door before entering the room. If he was following a train of thought and there was a tap on his door, his attention being diverted to the noise, he very often lost the thread and for days would not be able to pick it up again. Alex once said, “Thoughts are like the precious moments that fly past; once gone they can never be caught again.”  

[55:20] Any disturbance was such anathema to Bell that he never had a telephone installed in his own study. 

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What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. 

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[2:08] Answering to no one is the ultimate situation.

[3:02] Twitter thread on Michael Bloomberg by Neckar.Substack.com

[5:28] We never made the error that so many others have: mistaking their product for the device that delivers it.

[6:27] We knew our core product was data and analytics.

[7:01] We were motivated by an idea that we could build something new that just might make a difference.

[9:04] Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger

[10:05] I was willing to do anything that they wanted. I would have never left voluntarily.

[16:00] Street smarts and common sense were better predictors of career achievements.

[17:40] Almost all occupations have a big selling component: selling your firm, your ideas and yourself.

[18:20] It is the doers, the lean and hungry ones, those with ambition in their eyes and fire in their bellies, who go the furthest and achieve the most.

[21:36] Comparing John to Bill on leadership, I always thought John was more egalitarian, but less effective.

[22:55] It was a lowly start. We slaved in our underwear and an un-air conditioned, a bank vault.

[23:57] The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb

[24:22] Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman

[27:20] David Geffen biography: The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood

[30:07] It's said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. I believe that. You can never have complete mastery over your existence. You can't choose the advantages you start out with, and you certainly can't pick your genetic intelligence level. But you can control how hard you work. 

[31:20] Life, I've found, works the following way: Daily, you're presented with many small and surprising opportunities. Sometimes you seize one that takes you to the top. Most, though, if valuable at all, take you only a little way. To succeed, you must string together many small incremental advances-rather than count on hitting the lottery jackpot once. Trusting to great luck is a strategy not likely to work for most people. As a practical matter, constantly enhance your skills, put in as many hours as possible, and make tactical plans for the next few steps. Then, based on what actually occurs, look one more move ahead and adjust the plan. Take lots of chances, and make lots of individual, spur-of-the-moment decisions.

[32:12] Don't devise a Five-Year Plan or a Great Leap Forward. Central planning didn't work for Stalin or Mao, and it won't work for an entrepreneur either.

[34:16] I truly pity people who don't like their jobs. They struggle at work, so unhappily, for ultimately so much less success, and thus develop even more reason to hate their occupations. There's too much delightful stuff to do in this short lifetime not to love getting up on a weekday morning.

[38:48] Did I want to risk an embarrassing and costly failure? Absolutely. Happiness for me has always been the thrill of the unknown, trying something that everyone says can't be done, feeling that gnawing pit in my stomach that says danger ahead. I want action.

[40:28] Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

[41:37] I rented a one room temporary office. It was about a hundred square feet of space with a view of an alley, a far cry from my previous place of employment. I deposited  $300,000 of my Salomon Brothers windfall into a corporate checking account. And fifteen years later, I had a billion-dollar business.

[45:25] By endurance we conquer.

[46:50] Zero to One by Peter Thiel

[47:14] Made In Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita

[51:19] The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

[54:35] Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games

[58:30] Each news story is a product demo. More demos lead to more revenue. More revenue leads to more stories and then even more revenue.

[1:03:24] He's got a lot of these like roundabout ways to get in front of potential customers. He’s repurposing the information that his unique business collects.

[1:15:53] When it comes to competition, being one of the best is not good enough. Do you really want to plan for a future in which you might have to fight with somebody who is just as good as you are? I wouldn't. —Jeff Bezos

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds.

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[0:01] Although much of my time with him coincided with a period of adversity for Oracle, I never once saw Ellison downcast. His unquenchable optimism and almost messianic self belief never faltered.

[5:06] The single most important aspect of my personality is my questioning of conventional wisdom. My doubting of experts just because they are experts. My questioning of authority. While that can be very painful in terms of your relationships with your parents and teachers it is enormously useful in life. 

[12:19] People — teachers, coaches, bosses — want you to conform to some standard of behavior they deem correct. They measure and reward you on how well you conform — arrive on time, dress appropriately, exhibit a properly deferential attitude — as opposed to how well you do your job. Programming liberated me from all that.

[16:34] I had always believed that at the top of these companies there must be some exceptionally capable people who make the entire technology industry work. Now here I was, working near the top of a tech company, and those capable people were nowhere to be found. The senior managers I saw were conformist, bureaucratic, and very reluctant to make decisions. 

[23:08] Oracle’s first product reflected Larry Ellison’s desire to do something no one else was doing: The opportunity was huge. We had a chance to build the world’s first commercial relational database. Why? Because nobody else was even trying. The other relational database projects were pure research efforts. If we could build a fast and reliable relational database, we would have it made. I thought that relational was clearly the way to go. It was very cool technology. And I liked the fact it was risky. The bigger the apparent risk, the fewer people will try to go there. We would surely lose if we had to face serious competition. But if we were all alone in pursuit of our goal of building the first commercial relational database system, we had a chance to win.

[26:03] Larry is a sprinter. Not a grinder: Although he always talked about technology and Oracle with passion and intensity, he didn’t have the methodical relentlessness that made Bill Gates so formidable and feared. By his own admission, Ellison was not an obsessive grinder like Gates: “I am a sprinter. I rest, I sprint, I rest, I sprint again.” Ellison had a reputation for being easily bored by the process of running a business and often took time off, leaving the shop to senior colleagues.

[30:55] If you speak out in support of small, unimportant innovations that fly in the face of widely held beliefs—I do it all the time—you are likely to be dismissed as stupid or arrogant, and that’s pretty much the end of it. However, if you defend a really big idea that challenges widely held beliefs, you’re likely to generate a mass of hatred, and you just might pay for it with your life. When Galileo defended Copernicus, he was ridiculed, imprisoned, and then threatened with death unless he recanted. Charles Darwin cautiously postponed publishing On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man for more than twenty years, but that judicious delay did not save him from vicious personal attacks coming from all ranks of contemporary society.

[37:09] Ellison on mistakes he made before the near death experience of Oracle: I was interested in the technology. I wasn’t interested in sales or accounting or legal. If I wasn’t interested in something, I simply ignored it. I just wasn’t paying proper attention to my job. I was doing only the things that interested me. It was the same problem I had in school. But this happened in my forties. I wasn’t a kid anymore.

[38:40] Surviving Oracle’s near death experience made Larry Ellison stronger. It made him happier: After Oracle’s crisis, looking into the abyss and surviving, I felt emotionally strong enough to take a more realistic look at myself. I was tired of striving to be the person I thought I should be. If I was to have any chance at happiness, I had to understand and accept who I really was. 

[42:12] Larry Ellison’s core business philosophy: Larry Ellison says he’s happy only when everyone else thinks he’s wrong. The core of his business philosophy is that you can’t get rich by doing the same thing as everyone else. “In 1977, everyone said I was nuts when I said we were going to build the first commercial relational database. In 1995, everybody said I was nuts when I said that the PC was a ridiculous device — continuously increasing in complexity when it needs to become easier to use and less expensive.”

[50:56] Larry’s great story about how duplication of effort costs Oracle a ton of money.

[53:13] Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives. —Charlie Munger: One of the worst ideas I can remember was when Ray decided we didn’t do enough selling through partners. The sales force convinced him that the way to fix this was to pay more money to the sales force if the deal went through a partner than if the deal came directly to Oracle. For example , if you sold a million - dollar deal directly, Oracle would get a million dollars and you would get a $ 100,000 commission. But if you sold a million - dollar deal through a partner, Oracle would get $ 600,000 and you would get a $ 120,000 commission. Needless to say, our sales force pushed as many deals as they could through partners that year, so the partners were happy. The sales force got higher commission payments for going through partners, so they were happy. The only loser was Oracle.

[57:57] Ellison’s strategy: 1. Pick a fight. 2.Burn the boats: Once I’m finally certain of the right direction, I pick a fight, as I did with Gates. It helps me make my point, and it makes it impossible to do an about—face and go back. Once a course has been plotted, I sail a long way off and burn my boats. It’s win or die.

[1:01:20] Larry Ellison on Bill Gates: Bill and I used to be friends, insofar as Bill has friends. Back in the eighties and early nineties , all the people in the PC software industry hated Bill because they feared Bill. But Oracle didn’t compete with Microsoft very much back then , so we got on pretty well. As I got to know Bill, I developed a great respect for the thoroughness of his thinking and his relentless, remorseless pursuit of industry domination. I found spending time with Bill intellectually interesting but emotionally exhausting; he has absolutely no sense of humor. I think he finds humor an utter waste of time — an unnecessary distraction from the business at hand. I don’t have anything like that kind of focus or single mindedness.

[1:06:13] Larry Ellison on why Larry Ellison does what Larry Ellison does: My sister told me that whenever I got too close to a goal I’d raise the bar for fear of actually clearing it. We’re endlessly curious about our own limits. The process of self—discovery is one of testing and retesting yourself. I won the Sydney—to—Hobart. Can I win the America’s Cup? I’ll find out. The software business is a more difficult test; it’s a much higher stakes game; there are more people playing this game; it’s a lot more interesting game; and it’s a lot more exciting. If I wasn’t doing this, I’m not sure what else I would be doing with my life.

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What I learned from reading Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden. 

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(5:00) It was better for the world that he had known failure and suffered moments of self doubt.

(6:00) There was something in Churchill's character that simply wouldn't allow him to give up. He was a dangerous optimist.

(8:00) History likes winners.

(9:30) The adventures and ordeals of those early years were essential to the making of a man who triumphed in the second world war.

(10:00) At 40 he was largely written off as a man whose best days were behind him. (Churchill shares a lot of parallels with Steve Jobs)

(10:30) He fashioned his career as a grand experiment to prove that he could work his will on his times. Persevering in that approach, despite repeated setbacks and often harsh ridicule of those who didn't share his high opinion of himself.

(13:00) At the heart of this story is an irrepressible spirit.

(17:30) Little men let events take their course. I like things to happen. And if they don't happen, I like to make them happen.

(15:00) In every age there are great men. Why not us? And why not now?

(19:30) Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

(22:00) While other politicians were content to get their information from a scattering of newspapers, Churchill devoured whole shelves.

(23:00) Winston Churchill wanted to be the dominant political figure of his time.

(23:30) Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson

(26:30) Listen to Invest Like The Best #343 David Senra 

(30:00) If a man is sure of himself it only sharpens him and makes him more effective.

(35:00) Another thing Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill had in common: High Energy. This story about Steve Jobs in incredible. 

(36:00) The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) 

(44:00) Churchill to his son: “Your idle and lazy life is very offensive to me. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence."  — The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) 

(48:00) Larry Ellison: I know that most people think trying to build a hard wing of this size is crazy. But that’s the beauty of the idea. The other side isn’t trying to build one. So we’ll have a wing, and they won’t. — The Billionaire and The Mechanic(Founders #126) 

(50:30) Winston's opponents never tired of saying that he was unreasonable.

(58:00) All of the Winston Churchill episodes: 

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) 

Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) 

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. (Founders #319)

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown.

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Rick Rubin on Lex Fridman Podcast #275

Rick Rubin on The Peter Attia Drive Podcast #57

Shangri-La Documentary

Rick’s podcast Broken Record

[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)

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. 

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[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.

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“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

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“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

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What I learned from reading the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. 

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Listen to this incredible conversation between Charlie Munger and John Collison on Invest Like The Best. 

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(2:00) The practical wisdom of Poor Charlie's Almanack, this ode to curiosity, generosity, and virtue will similarly compound at successive generations of entrepreneurial readers extend his lessons to their own circumstances.

(12:00) Education is the process whereby the ability to lead a good life is acquired.  — Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252)

(22:00) Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on earth.

(29:00) Charlie is content to trust his own judgment when it runs counter to the wisdom of the herd.

(31:00) Animated: Charlie Munger: The Psychology of Human Misjudgement

(31:30) Aim for durability. Durability has always been a first rate virtue in Charlie’s eyes.

(32:00) Charlie only focuses on great businesses and great businesses have moats.

(33:00) Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin. (Founders #183)

(42:00) You can flourish in a niche: People who specialize in the business world —and get very good because they specialize— frequently find good economics that they wouldn't get any other way.

(45:00) Being so well known has advantages of scale. This is what you might call an informational advantage. It increases social proof.

(46:30) Business Breakdowns episode on Coca Cola 

(49:00) Occasionally scaling down and intensifying gives you a big advantage. (You can find great profit margins this way)

(50:00) Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)

(51:00) Scale and fanaticism combined is very powerful. (Think Sam Walton)

(57:00) I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those games or make those investments where I have an edge. — A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)

(1:08:00) The best thing a human being can do is help another human being know more.

(1:14:00) Optimism is a moral duty. — Edwin Land

(1:17:00) You want to maximize the playing time of your top players.

(1:17:00) The game of competitive life often requires maximizing the experience of the people who have the most aptitude and the most determination as learning machines.

(1:22:00) The most important rule in management is get the incentives right.

(1:25:00) Never, ever think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni.

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[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

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“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

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“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

What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. 

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(3:30) Disney made use of the new technologies throughout his creative life.

(4:45) Lists of Paul Johnson books and episodes: 

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) 

Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252) 

(5:55) Picasso was essentially self-taught, self-directed, self-promoted, emotionally educated in the teeming brothels of the city, a small but powerfully built monster of assured egoism.

(7:30) Most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end. If you are both killer and poet, you get rich. — Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #306)

(10:00) Whatever you do, you must do it with gusto, you must do it in volume. It is a case of repeat, repeat, repeat. — Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab. (Founders #105)

(11:30) Picasso averaged one new piece of artwork every day of his life from age 20 until his death at age 91. He created something new every day for 71 years.

(15:30) Power doesn't always corrupt. But what power always does is reveal. — Working by Robert Caro (Founders #305)

(17:30) Many people find it hard to accept that a great writer, painter, or musician can be evil. But the historical evidence shows, again and again, that evil and creative genius can exist side by side in the same person. In my judgment his monumental selfishness and malignity were inextricably linked to his achievement.

He was all-powerful as an originator and aesthetic entrepreneur precisely because he was so passionately devoted to what he was doing, to the exclusion of any other feelings whatever.

He had no sense of duty except to himself, and this gave him his overwhelming self-promoting energy. Equally, his egoism enabled him to turn away from nature and into himself with a concentration which is awe-inspiring.

(21:30) It shows painfully how even vast creative achievement and unparalleled worldly success can fail to bring happiness.

(24:00) Walt Disney (at age 18) wanted to run his own business and be his own master. He had the American entrepreneurial spirit to an unusual degree.

(27:00) Recurring theme: Knowing what you want to do but not knowing how to do it—yet.

(26:20) All creative individuals build on the works of their predecessors. No one creates in vacuum.

(28:30) Why Walt Disney moved to Hollywood: The early 1920s, full of hope and daring, were a classic period for American free enterprise, and for anyone interested in the arts—Hollywood was a rapidly expanding focus of innovation.

(28:00) Filmaker episodes: 

Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride. (Founders #209)

George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #35) 

(30:10) The relentless resourcefulness of a young Walt Disney!

(34:30) This is wild: It is significant that Mickey Mouse, in the year of his greatest popularity, 1933, received over 800,000 fan letters, the largest ever recorded in show business, at any time in any century.

(36:00) Something that Disney does his entire career —he has this in common with other great filmmakers— he is always jumping on the new technology of his day.

(37:00) Lack of resources is actually a feature. It’s the benefit. — Kevin Kelly on Invest Like the Best #334

(38:45) Imagination rules the world. — The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)

(41:15) Disney put excellence before any other consideration.

(41:45) Disney hired the best artists he could get and gave them tasks to the limits of their capacities.

(47:45) Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. (Founders #158)

(49:30) I Had Lunch With Sam Zell (Founders #298)

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“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

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What I learned from reading Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp.

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[0:01] When I built my first hotel I knew nothing about the hotel business. 

[4:28] He refused to settle for the pragmatic dictum of maturity. Issy also skipped skepticism and "Let's be sensible." People said he was naïve, with a kind of glandular optimism. Perhaps. But as it turned out naïveté served him well. 

[6:32] Early on he made some audacious statements that sounded like pipe dreams. He told me once that his aim was to make the name Four Seasons a worldwide brand, synonymous with luxury, like Rolls-Royce.

[8:39]Once, when Dad was excavating a basement with horse and plough, he broke his shoulder. But he shrugged it off and uncomplainingly kept on working, something I never forgot. 

[26:52] I decided to go ahead. I foresaw only one difficulty, but it loomed large: How do you build a two-hundred-room resort without any money? This was literal fact. My earnings barely covered my rising family costs. 

[35:23] I asked Sir Gerald Glover, "How do you keep your lawn so perfect?"  “No problem”, he replied. “You just cut it every week for three hundred years.” 

[43:48] I owe my success to my freedom. I think for me independence has an incalculable value. 

[44:44] All business proceeds on belief: Trying to run a company without a set of beliefs is like trying to steer a ship without a rudder. 

[56:03] The experience made me realize what I would really like to do: create a group of the best hotels in the world. And what we really want to do is usually what we do best.

[56:51] We will not be all things to all people. We will specialize. 

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“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

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What I learned from reading The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson.

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[0:29] This is the story of those pioneers hackers, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Who they were, how their minds worked, and what made them so creative. 

[8:41] She developed a somewhat outsize opinion of her talents as a genius. In her [Ada Lovelace] letter to Babbage, she wrote, “Do not reckon me conceited but I believe I have the power of going just as far as I like in such pursuits.” 

[14:10] The reality is that Ada’s contribution was both profound and inspirational. More than any other person of her era, she was able to glimpse a future in which machines would become partners of the human imagination. 

[16:37] Alan Turing was slow to learn that indistinct line that separated initiative from disobedience.

[20:15] If a mentally superhuman race ever develops its members will resemble John Von Neumann. 

[23:40] His [William Shockley] tenacity was ferocious. In any situation, he simply had to have his way. 

[28:38] Bob Noyce described his excitement more vividly: “The concept hit me like the atom bomb. It was simply astonishing. Just the whole concept. It was one of those ideas that just jolts you out of the rut, gets you thinking in a different way. 

[29:06] Some leaders are able to be willful and demanding while still inspiring loyalty. They celebrate audaciousness in a way that makes them charismatic Steve Jobs,  for example; his personal manifesto dressed in the guise of a TV ad, began, “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes.” Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos has the same ability to inspire. The knack is to get people to follow you, even to places that they may not think they can go, by motivating them to share your sense of mission. 

[38:26] As Grove wrote in his memoir, Swimming Across, “By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazi’s final solution, the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive Communist regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint. 

[39:10] Grove had a blunt, no-bullshit style. It was the same approach Steve jobs would later use: brutal honesty, clear focus, and a demanding drive for excellence. 

[39:40] Grove’s mantra was “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” 

[40:24]  Engineering the game was easy. Growing the company without money was hard. 

[42:40] Vannevar Bush was a man of strong opinions, which he expressed and applied with vigor, yet he stood in all of the mysteries of nature, had a warm tolerance for human frailty, and was open-minded to change 

[47:17] Gate was also a rebel with little respect for authority. He did not believe in being deferential. 

[47:51] Jobs later said he learned some important lessons at Atari, the most profound being the need to keep interfaces friendly and intuitive. Instructions should be insanely simple: “Insert quarters, avoid Klingons.” Devices should not need manuals. That simplicity rubbed off on him and made him a very focused product person. 

[48:47]  Steve Jobs’ interesting way to think about a new market: 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. 

Innovation will come from people who are able to link beauty to engineering, humanity to technology, and poetry to processors. [57:21]

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“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

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What I learned from reading Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary.

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[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)

A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)

The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)

Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)

[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.

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“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

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“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

What I learned from reading The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Keegan and The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron.

(4:00) I watched Titanic at the Titanic. And he actually replied: Yeah, but I madeTitanic at the Titanic.

(7:10) I like difficult. I’m attracted by difficult. Difficult is a fucking magnet for me. I go straight to difficult. And I think it probably goes back to this idea that there are lots of smart, really gifted, really talented filmmakers out there that just can’t do the difficult stuff. So that gives me a tactical edge to do something nobody else has ever seen, because the really gifted people don’t fucking want to do it.

(7:20) At 68 years old, Cameron wakes up at 4:45 AM and often kick boxes in the morning.

(7:45) Self doubt is not something Cameron has a lot of experience with. His confidence preceded his achievements.

(9:00) I was going through this stuff, chapter and verse, and making my own notes and all that. I basically gave myself a college education in visual effects and cinematography while I was driving a truck.

(16:00) Every idea is a work in progress.

(17:30) He's been on a planet of his own making ever since.

(18:00) The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron

(22:00) Cameron's career has been built on questioning accepted wisdom and believing in the power of the individual.  His outlook is that we can take fate in our own hands.

(27:00) All creative individuals build on the works of their predecessors. No one creates an a vacuum. — Walt Disney and Picasso (Founders #310)

(31:00) Cameron would go to the library at the University of Southern California, photocopying graduate student theses on esoteric filmmaking subjects.

He filled two fat binders with technical papers.

For the cost of a couple hundred dollars in photocopying, he essentially put himself through a graduate course in visual effects at the top film school in the country without ever meeting a single professor.

(34:00) Cameron had only been at Corman's for a matter of days, but he was already taking charge. He seems constitutionally incapable of doing otherwise. (What a line!)

He had a very commanding presence.

(35:30) Your mediocrity is my opportunity.

(37:40) Cameron finds writing torture. He does it anyway.

(43:00) Cameron is willing to let ideas marinate for decades.

(43:45) "I like doing things I know others can’t.” That's part of what attracts him to shooting movies in water.  "Nobody likes shooting in water. It's physically taxing, frustrating, and dangerous. But when you have a small team of people as crazy as you are, that are good at it, there is deep satisfaction in both the process of doing it and the resulting footage."

(49:15)  I was stunned by Jim's allegiance to the project and the extent of his physical abilities. Jim was there for every minute of it. It was beyond belief, his commitment to what we were doing.

(55:30) I'd just made T2 for Carolco and I admired how they rolled, being their own bosses, mavericks, entrepreneurs. I’d been fed up with the studio system. So I figured I could set up a structure which would allow me to call the shots myself.

(57:30) Mute the world. Build your own world.

(1:04:50) Opportunity is a strange beast. It commonly appears after a loss.

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“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

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“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

What I learned from reading Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher.

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[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.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson.

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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)

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Jesus: A Biography from a Believer by Paul Johnson. 

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(3:00) 

Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) 

Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252)

Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)

Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226) 

(10:00) Jesus was:

-observant

-detail oriented

-maintained intense eye contact

-confident

-decisive

-charismatic

-gifted communicator

(11:00) The most important step when starting anything new is recruiting the people who are going to help you on your mission.

(12:00) No prophet is acceptable in his hometown.

(16:00) Jesus emphasized the importance of humility, gentleness, non aggression. The importance of the pursuit of justice and righteousness. He encourages acts of compassion and forgiveness towards others.  He focuses on inner purity, sincerity, and a genuine heart. He commends those who work towards reconciliation, harmony, and peace.

(17:00) Some of Jesus’s maxims:

Love your enemies.

If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.

Judge not and you will not be judged.

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

(18:00) A summary of Jesus’s teaching in two words: Be kind.

(18:00) He turned compassion, which all of us feel from time to time for a particular person, into a huge overarching gospel of love. He taught the love of mankind as a whole.

(26:00) Jesus taught to change and improve yourself. He led by example and encouraged imitation. Those that changed themselves, changed the world.

(27:00) Jesus’s new 10 commandments:

1. Each of us must develop a true personality. Each of us is unique. Develop your character.

2. Abide by universality. See the human race as a whole.

3. Give equal consideration to all.

4. Use love in all your human relationships, at all times, and in every situation.

5. Show mercy.

6. Balance. Keep your head even when others are losing theirs.

7. Cultivate an open mind.

8. Pursue truth.

9. Judiciously use your power.

10. Show courage.

(34:00) Join my personal email list to get updates about the new Founders conference

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham.

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(2:00) All you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in.

(2:10) Doing great work means doing something important so well that you expand people's ideas of what's possible.

(4:15) How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions.  —How to Do What You Love by Paul Graham

(5:10) Always preserve excitingness. (Let what you are excited about guide you)

(8:15) If you're excited about some possibility that everyone else ignores, and you have enough expertise to say precisely what they're all overlooking, that's as good a bet as you'll find.

(9:15) How To Work Hard by Paul Graham

(10:05) When you follow what you are intensely interested in this strange convergence happens where you're working all the time and it feels like you're never working.

(10:20) You can't tell what most kinds of work are like except by doing them. You may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are at it.

(13:00) When it comes to figuring out what to work on, you're on your own.

(14:00) Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. (Founders #312)

(17:15) One sign that you're suited for some kind of work is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious or frightening.

(17:50) Make what you are most excited about.

(19:00) If you're interested, you're not astray.

(19:30) Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300)

(20:15) At each stage do whatever seems most interesting and gives you the best options for the future. I call this approach "staying upwind." This is how most people who've done great work seem to have done it.

(22:50) In many projects a lot of the best work happens in what was meant to be the final stage.

(25:00) A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy

(26:00) Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem.

(26:30) The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.

(27:10) Something that grows exponentially can become so valuable that it's worth making an extraordinary effort to get it started.

(27:30) Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version)

(30:00) If you don't try to be the best, you won't even be good. This observation has been made by so many people in so many different fields that it might be worth thinking about why it's true.

(36:00) Originality isn't a process, but a habit of mind. Original thinkers throw off new ideas about whatever they focus on.

(38:00) Change breaks the brittle.

(43:45) What might seem to be merely the initial step — deciding what to work on — is in a sense the key to the whole game.

(45:00) Being prolific is underrated. + Examples of outlandishly prolific people

(48:30) Just focus on the really important things and ignore everything else.

(50:30) One of the most powerful kinds of copying is to copy something from one field into another. History is so full of chance discoveries of this type that it's probably worth giving chance a hand by deliberately learning about other kinds of work. You can take ideas from quite distant fields if you let them be metaphors.

(51:30) Seek out the best colleagues.

(54:30) Solving hard problems will always involve some backtracking.

(56:30) Don't marry someone who doesn't understand that you need to work, or sees your work as competition for your attention. If you're ambitious, you need to work; it's almost like a medical condition; so someone who won't let you work either doesn't understand you, or does and doesn't care.

(57:50) The prestige of a type of work is at best a trailing indicator and sometimes completely mistaken. If you do anything well enough, you'll make it prestigious.

(58:00) Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what's worth paying attention to.

If you asked an oracle the secret to doing great work and the oracle replied with a single word, my bet would be on "curiosity."

The whole process is a kind of dance with curiosity.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading A Success Story by Estee Lauder.

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You can probably reach out with comparative ease and touch a life of serenity and peace. You can wait for things to happen and not get too sad when they don’t. That’s fine for some but not for me. Serenity is pleasant, but it lacks the ecstasy of achievement. [0:10]

I’ve always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. I kept my eye on the target. I never allowed my eye to leave the target. I always believed that success comes from not letting your eyes stray from that target.  [1:10]

Beauty is an ancient industry: Women have always enhanced their looks. It has always been so. It will always be so. [4:18] 

Lessons from here mother: The secret is to imagine yourself as the most important person in the room. Imagine it vividly enough and you will become that person. [6:01] 

You could make a thing wonderful by enhancing its outward appearance. Little did I know I’d be doing the same thing, multiplied by a billionfold. [8:45]

Everything has to be sold aggressively. [9:05]

I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and sell it hard. [9:39] 

My drive and persistence were always there, and those are the qualities for building a successful business. [10:38] 

The moment she realizes she could make beauty her life’s work: This is the story of bewitchment. Uncle John [a skin specialist] had worlds to teach me. Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams seriously? Teach her secrets? I could think of nothing else. [12:09]

The humble beginning of the Estee Lauder empire: This was my first chance at a real business. I would have a small counter in a beauty salon. Whatever I sold would be mine to keep. No partners. I would risk the rent, but if it worked, I would start the business I always dreamed about. Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever became a success without taking chances. [15:30]

Sales technique of the century: Now the big secret. I would give the woman a sample of whatever she did not buy as a gift. I just knew, even though I had not yet named the technique, that gift with a purchase was very appealing. The idea was to convince a woman to try a product. She would be faithful forever.  [16:30]

I didn’t need bread to eat but I worked as though I did, for the pure love of the venture. For me, teaching about beauty was an emotional experience. [18:52]

I was single-minded in the pursuit of my dream. [21:01] 

Despite all the nay sayers, there was never a single moment when I considered giving up. That was simply not a viable alternative. [22:12]

Word of mouth was what built the foundation of her business: Women were telling women. They were selling my cream before they even go to the salon. Tell-a-Woman was the word-of-mouth campaign that launched Estee Lauder Cosmetics. [22:41]

Great packaging does not copy or study. It invents. [24:50]

Sak’s Fifth Avenue placed an $800 order. This was her response: Breaking that first barrier was perhaps the single most exciting moment I have ever known. [26:16] 

“Missionaries make better products.” — Jeff Bezos:  I was a woman on a mission. I had to show as many women as I could reach how to stay beautiful. [28:07] 

The free sample sales technique she pioneered in the beauty industry: The gift to the customer —the free something that would sell everything else. You give people a product to try. If they like the quality, they buy it. They haven’t been lured in by an advertisement but convinced by the product itself. [29:10]

We took the money we planned to use on advertising and invested it instead in enough material to give away large quantities of our products. [30:00] 

A great story about how Estee Lauder convinced more women to buy perfume. [32:59] 

A great story about how Estee Lauder expanded into Europe. [36:31] 

Be determined and sell!: It’s not enough to have the most wonderful product in the world. You must be able to sell it. One woman with definite ideas, pride in her product, and a hands-on approach could lay the foundation for a strong business. [40:57] 

Our unique style has come from years of trial and error. Truths have emerged that have worked for us. Let me share them with you. [41:24] 

Keep an eye on the competition. This doesn’t mean copying them, as I’ve made clear. Being interested in other people’s ideas for the purpose of saying, “We can do it better,” is not copying. Innovation doesn’t mean inventing the wheel each time; innovation can mean a whole new way of looking at old things. [42:10] 

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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

What I learned from rereading Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton.

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[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.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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“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

What I learned from rereading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

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[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)

A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)

The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)

Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid (Founders #40)

[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.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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“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

What I learned from reading I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Snow.

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The Republic of Tea: The Story of the Creation of a Business, as Told Through the Personal Letters of Its Founders.

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A business is born (0:01)

don't start a business unless you are the first customer (22:49)

what it is like to fall in love with an idea (25:31)

starting a business is like making a movie (27:15)

on slowing down (32:32)

the problem with being able to argue both sides of an idea (37:00)

editing & narrowing your focus (46:51)

ideas in the form of action (51:39)

history doesn't repeat, human nature does (57:00)

the doubts of nascent entrepreneurship (59:51)

Steve Jobs had one speed: Go (1:07:39)

be the customer, not the seller (1:16:21)

Bill finally gets it (1:22:00)

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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

What I learned from reading 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

How is it that Charlie—who trained as a meteorologist and a lawyer and never took a single college course in economics, marketing, finance, or accounting—became one of the greatest business and investing geniuses of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? Therein lies the mystery. [0:44]

Charlie Munger was learning this important investment skill while playing poker with his army buddies. That’s where he learned to fold his hand when the odds were against him and bet heavy when the odds were with him, a strategy he later adapted to investing. [11:12] 

Charlie thought a lot about business during that time. He made a habit of asking people what was the best business they knew of. He longed to join the rich elite clientele his silk-stocking law firm served. He decided that each day he would devote one hour of his time at the office to work on his own real estate projects, and by doing so he completed five. He has said that the first million dollars he put together was the hardest money he ever earned. It was also during that period that he realized he would never become really rich practicing law; he’d have to find something else. [12:18]

Warren, in summing up Charlie’s impact on his investment style over the last fifty-seven years, said, “Charlie shoved me in the direction of not just buying bargains, as Ben Graham had taught me. This was the real impact that he had on me. It took a powerful force to move me on from Graham’s limiting view. It was the power of Charlie’s mind.” [15:33]

Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant. [17:39]

“People are trying to be smart—all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it’s harder than most people think.” [17:58]

All good things in life come from compounding. [19:34]

This important investment philosophy assumes that one is better off buying a business with exceptional business economics working in its favor and holding it for many years than engaging in a lot of buying and selling. [19:42]

Charlie knows that time is a good friend to a business that has exceptional economics working in its favor, but for a mediocre business time can be a curse. [20:25]

Andrew Carnegie says in his autobiography you should study how the great fortunes are made. It's not a scattershot approach. They identified the best business possible and they put all their energy and effort into it. That's certainly what Andrew Carnegie did. [22:39]

Charlie makes the point that Berkshire Hathaway probably has the most successful investment record in humanity. That is a hell of a statement and he is probably right. [26:10]

Charlie advocates keeping $10 million in cash, and Berkshire keeps $72 billion sitting around in cash, waiting for the right deal to show up. The lousy return their cash balances are getting is a trade-off—poor initial rate of return in exchange for years of high returns from finding excellent businesses selling at a fair price. This is an element of the Munger investment equation that is almost always misunderstood. Why? Because most investors cannot image that sitting on a large pool of cash year after year, waiting for the right investment, could possibly be a winning investment strategy, let alone one that would make them superrich. [27:11]

“I think that, every time you see the word EBITDA, you should substitute the word ‘bullshit earnings.’ ” [28:52]

You have to wait for the right company—one with a durable competitive advantage—that is selling at the right price. And when Charlie says wait, he means wait as long as it takes, which can mean years. Warren got out of the stock market in the late 1960s, and he waited five years before he found anything he was interested in buying. [31:10]

When Charlie and Warren say that they intend to hold an investment forever, they mean forever! Who on Wall Street would ever make such a statement? That’s one of the reasons Charlie and Warren have never worried about anyone mimicking their investment style—because no other institution or individual has the discipline or patience to wait as long as they can. [31:46] 

Charlie and Warren’s theory is that a company with a durable competitive advantage has business economics that will expand the underlying value of the business over time, and the more time passes, the more the company’s value will expand. Thus, once the purchase is made, it is wisest to sit on the investment as long as possible, because the longer we own the company, the more it grows in value, and the more it grows in value, the richer we become. [34:48]

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying: ‘It’s the strong swimmers who drown.’ ” [36:14] 

One is actually better off reading a hundred business biographies than a hundred books on investing. Why? Because if we learn the history of a hundred different business models, we learn when the businesses had tough times and how they got through them; we also learn what made them great, or not so great. [38:44]

“In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables—like the discount warehouses of Costco.” [41:53]

“If you’re not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50% two or three times a century you’re not fit to be a common shareholder and you deserve the mediocre result you’re going to get compared to the people who do have the temperament, who can be more philosophical about these market fluctuations.” [46:23] 

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day—if you live long enough—most people get what they deserve.” [48:42]

He implemented a self-education regime for one hour a day to learn such things as real estate development and stock investing. It was slow going at first, but after a great number of years and thousands of books read, he started to see how different areas of knowledge interplay with each other and how knowledge, like money, can compound, making one more and more aware of the world in which he or she lives. He has often said that he is a much better investor at ninety than he was at fifty, a fact he attributes to the compounding effect of knowledge. [49:09]

There is another point that I’ve noticed with men and women who truly excel at their craft or profession: they keep on learning and improving themselves long after most people would have retired. [54:02]

“Look at this generation, with all of its electronic devices and multitasking. I will confidently predict less success than Warren, who just focused on reading. If you want wisdom, you’ll get it sitting on your ass. That’s the way it comes.” [54:16] 

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time—none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads—and how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” [55:04]

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up, and boy, does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” [55:22]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner.

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[0:35] For a new generation, Carmack and Romero personified an American dream: they were self-made individuals who had transformed their personal passions into a big business, a new art form, and a cultural phenomenon.

[1:19] His (John Carmack) game and life aspired to the elegant discipline of computer code.

[1:40] Romero wants an empire. I just want to create good programs.

[3:07] No matter what Romero suffered he could always escape back into games.

[4:55] Romero’s stepdad smashed Romero’s face into the machine as punishment for playing video games.

[5:24] He beat Romero until the boy had a fat lip and a black eye. Romero was grounded for two weeks. The next day he snuck back to the arcade.

[7:40] One afternoon his father left to pick up groceries. Romero wouldn't see him again for two years.

[8:53] Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark. (Founders #32)

[10:20] Arcade games were bringing in $5 billion a year. Home systems were earning $1 billion. His stepfather did not believe game development to be a proper vocation. You'll never make any money making games he often said.

[11:28] A business is just an idea or service that makes somebody's life better. —Richard Branson

[12:58] Richard Garriott came to fame in the early eighties through his own initiative + Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark by Richard Garriott.

[13:20] Ken and Roberta Williams also pioneered the Ziploc distribution method, turning their homemade graphical role-playing games into a $10 million–a–year company.

[14:19] Carmack quickly distinguished himself when he was only seven years old. He scored nearly perfect on every standardized test placing himself at a ninth grade comprehension level.

[15:03] The Cook and The Chef by Tim Urban

[16:05] Carmack had never worked on a computer before but took to the device as if it were an extension of his own body.

[16:39] All they desired is be able to create their own world.

[17:08] The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich.  (Founders #14)

[17:44] He read the passage about computers in the encyclopedia a dozen times.

[18:36] He relished this ability to create things out of thin air. As a programmer he didn't have to rely on anyone else.

[18:54] A book that inspired John Carmack: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Stephen Levy

[20:35] When Carmack finished the book he had one thought: I'm supposed to be in there.

[21:09] If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, “This sucks. I’m going to do my own thing.” —Let My People Go Surfing (Founders #18)

[22:48] Carmack was sentenced to one year in juvenile detention. Most of the kids were in for drugs. Carmack was in for an Apple II.

[24:24] Carmack knows what he wants to do with his life and then he eliminates everything else that’s not that.

[24:32] Carmack relished the freelance lifestyle. He was in control of his time, slept as late as he wanted, and, even better, answered to no one.

[27:16] How id Software was born.

[31:26] Super Mario Brothers 3 sold 17 million copies. The equivalent of 17 platinum records —something only artists like Michael Jackson had pulled off.

[33:20] Carmack was of the moment. His ruling force was focus. Time existed for him not in some promising future or sentimental past but in the present condition. He kept nothing from the past—no pictures, no records, no games, no computer disks. He kept nothing but what he needed at the time. His bedroom consisted of a lamp, a pillow, a blanket, and a stack of books. There was no mattress.

[35:58] Shareware dated back to a guy named Andrew Fluegelman. In 1980, Fluegelman wrote a program called PC-Talk and released it online with a note saying that anyone who liked the wares should feel free to send him some “appreciation” money. Soon enough he had to hire a staff to count all the checks. Fluegelman called the practice “shareware,” “an experiment in economics.”

[37:42] Then he got an idea. Instead of giving away the entire game, why not give out only the first portion, then make the player buy the rest of the game directly from him? No one had tried it before, but there was no reason it couldn’t work.

[38:26] There was no advertising, no marketing and virtually no overhead except for the low cost of floppy discs and Ziploc bags, because there were no other people to pay off. Scott could price his games much lower than most retail title. $15 to $20 as opposed to 30 to 40 for every dollar he brought in Scott was pocketing 90 cents. By the time he contacted Romero, he had earned $150,000 by word of mouth alone.

[38:54] I just love the fact that he could do it on his own. By himself. He doesn't have to ask permission. He doesn't have to deal with publishing. He just makes something people like and then they can pay him directly.

[39:50] They didn’t need any help getting motivated. Carmack seemed almost inhumanly immune to distraction.

[40:45] All of science and technology and culture and learning and academics is built upon using the work that others have done before.

[41:23] They start spending nights and weekends developing their own games. They still have day jobs.

[42:19] The first Keen trilogy was now bringing in fifteen to twenty thousand dollars per month. It wasn’t just pizza money anymore, it was computer money. Carmack was only twenty years old, Romero, twenty-three, and they were in business.

[43:31] Carmack’s maxim on problem solving: Try the obvious approach first; if that fails, think outside the box.

[44:45] They didn’t seem to have a business bone in their bodies. When they told Williams how much they were making he blurted out “You’re telling me you’re making fifty thousand dollars a month just from shareware?”

[50:30] I think it takes a certain level of discipline to have a company that's making millions of dollars a year and yet not expand out and try to add all these unnecessarily expenses. (A mistake made a lot in the history of entrepreneurship)

[53:39] The more business responsibilities they had, things like order fulfillment and marketing, the more they would lose their focus —making great games.

[53:55] The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179)

[55:28]  Innovate, optimize, then jettison anything that gets in the way.

[58:49] The more shareware was distributed, the more potential customers ID would be able to collect. We don't care if you make money off the shareware demo they told the retailers. Move it in mass quantities. The retailers couldn't believe their ears. No one had ever told them not to pay royalties.

[59:23] Take the money that you might have given me in royalties and use it to advertise the fact you're selling Doom.

[1:02:19] Even though only an estimated 1% of people who downloaded shareware bought the remaining game, $100,000 worth of orders were rolling in every day.

[1:05:56] Why, they wanted to know, did they need GTI? Ron didn’t relent. “Look,” he said, “maybe you’ll sell a hundred thousand copies of Doom in shareware, but I believe if you give me a retail version of Doom and, let’s call it for lack of a better term, Doom II, I think I could sell five hundred thousand or more units.”

[1:08:16] For Carmack it wasn't the cash that was intriguing. It was the opportunity to get back into the trenches.

[1:10:53] Romero spelled out his new life code: It was time to enjoy ID’s accomplishments, no more crunch mode, no more bloodshot nights, no more death schedules. Carmack remained quiet.

[1:14:06] Carmack said Romero was pushed out of ID because he wasn't working hard enough.

[1:14:21] The main point of conflict between Carmack and Romero: Romero wants an empire. Carmack just wants to create good programs.

[1:24:15] He's just making colossal mistake after colossal mistake. Not adhering to anything that had previously made him successful.

[1:25:50] All those things Carmack had berated him about: The hyperbole, the lack of focus, the dangers of a large team— had come back with vengeance.

[1:27:56] My favorite paragraph in the book: “In the information age, the barriers just aren’t there. The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.”

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Inside the Contrarian Mind of Billionaire Mogul Sam Zell by Ben Johnson.

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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. 

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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. 

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Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube (Video coming soon!) 

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“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

What I learned from reading The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike.

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[0:30] The failure of business schools to study men like Henry Singleton is a crime— Warren Buffett

[2:40]Buffett and Singleton: Separated at birth?

[8:35]The Singular Henry Singleton

[14:40] Supremely indifferent to criticism

[19:50] Teledyne breaks up huge business into a bunch of small profit centers

[29:30] Risk is controlled. Divisions will remain relatively small.

[32:00} Building a cash generating machine 

[36:30] Bet heavily when you have an edge.

[44:00] Singleton has found a way to run a multibillion dollar company in an entrepreneurial, innovative way.

[50:16] Singleton had a different focus: Capital allocation.

[50:37] Getting Rich vs Staying Rich 

[55:18] What the people profiled in this book have in common

[59:00] Early career and the founding of Teledyne

[1:00:38] How Henry Singleton thought about acquisitions

1:02:00] Actions express priority

[1:07:12] Ruthlessly cut fat

[1:11:20] Stay within your cirlce of competence and bet heavy

[1:16:30] Singleton on Time Management

[1:19:19] If everyone is doing them, there must be something wrong with them. — Henry Singleton

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd

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[3:06] If you had to summarize Charles Kettering this is the way you would do it: “As symbol of progress and the American way of life—as creator of ideas and builder of industries and employment—as inspirer of men to nobler thoughts and greater accomplishments—as foe of ignorance and discouragement—as friend of learning and optimistic resolve—Charles F. Kettering stands among the great men of all time.”

[3:36] He was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive developments were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. He was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. He developed  the world's first aerial missile. He led the advancement of practical, lightweight two-stroke diesel engines, revolutionizing the locomotive and heavy equipment industries.

[4:42] This is Ket talking about why it is so important to approach your work with the mindset that you are a professional amateur: We are simply professional amateurs. We are amateurs because we are doing things for the first time. We are professional because we know we are going to have a lot of trouble. The price of progress is trouble. And I don’t think the price is too high.

[6:52] There is a quote from Thomas Edison that says “We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.” Ket has that same belief. This is Ket echoing Thomas Edison: “In reality, we have only begun to knock a few chips from the great quarry of knowledge that has been given us to dig out and use. We are like the two fellows who started to walk from New York to San Francisco. When they got over into New Jersey, one said: “We must be pretty nearly there. We have been walking a long, long time.” That is just how we are in what we know technically. We have just barely begun.

[9:57] I am enthusiastic about being an American because I came from the hills in Ohio. I was a hillbilly. 

[10:21] I thought the only thing involved in opportunity was whether I knew how to think with my head and how to do with my hands.

[13:37] One lesson from his childhood that stuck with him his whole life is that you need to only worry about things you can control. One of the older men is teaching him this through a story: Besides learning about water power and flour mills, he got from the wise old miller some bits of philosophy which he stored in his young mind. “A lot of people are bound to worry,” the miller once told him. “If you can do something about it, you ought to worry. I would think there was something wrong with you if you didn’t. But if you can’t do anything, then worrying is just like running this mill when there is no grist to grind. All that does is to wear out the mill.”

[14:49] He is not interested in rote memorization. He wants to understand the principles behind the thing. He wants to know the why.

[18:12] The man from whom he learned most was Hiram Sweet, the wagon maker. But Sweet was more than a wagon maker. He was, as Kettering said long afterward, “an engineer of such keen ability as to be remarkable. You would no more think of running across such a man in a small town than you would of flying without a flying machine.” Hiram Sweet had invented and built a self-computing cash register which was in daily use at the drugstore. He had also made an astronomical clock. “Where did you find out all this?” Kettering asked Sweet. “I work in this wagon shop ten hours a day,” he replied, “from six-thirty in the morning until five-thirty in the afternoon; and when I have no wagon work to do I work on Sweet’s head.” Years afterward, when Kettering had become a noted man, he recalled the days spent in Sweet’s wagon shop, “Letting him work on my head . . . I learned more from that old wagon maker than I did in college. The world was so wonderful and he knew so little about it that he hated to sleep.”

[20:22] Ket got what he said later was one of the important lessons he learned in college. He learned it from the eminent actor, Joseph Jefferson. Jefferson, together with his company, came to the university town to play his famous part of Rip Van Winkle.

One of the men asked him how often he had played the part of Rip Van Winkle. 

The great actor told just how many hundreds of times he had played Rip. 

“Don’t you get terribly tired doing it so often?” he was asked. 

“Yes, I did get tired after a while. But the people wanted Rip. And so I went on playing him. I said to myself, ‘It doesn’t matter how you feel. Your job is to entertain the audience.’ Then I made up my mind that I would try to portray Rip Van Winkle just a little better each time. And that constant effort at improving the part has kept up my interest and enthusiasm.”

[23:15] There is a time during Henry Ford’s third attempt at building an automobile manufacturing company. And he comes to see Charlie Sorensen.

He's like, “You know what? We're about to run out of money. I guess I'm just not going be able to accomplish this goal.”

There's this conversation that takes place between Henry and Charlie and at the end, Ford is fired back up. Ford was like “I felt like quitting at the beginning of the conversation. Now I don't.”

A few short years later, he winds up attaining his life goal of building a car so inexpensively that the average person can have it. I think that’s important.

There's so many times in Ford’s life story that he wants to quit, that he's disheartened.

[26:44] The obstacle of not knowing how never kept him from undertaking anything he thought needed to be done. “It is a fundamental rule with me,” he said once, “that if I want to do something I start, whether I know how or not. . . . As a rule you can find that out by trying.”

[28:04] Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement.

[36:18] Remembering the loyal support she (his wife) gave him during that trying period and afterward, Kettering said of her, “She was a great help in those early struggles, for she never got discouraged.” After she passes away from cancer he says she was the only thing in his life that he never tried to improve.

[41:19] How Ket and his partner financed their company: To get even that small endeavor under way Kettering and Deeds had to put in all the money they could scrape up, and they mortgaged everything they had. Deeds put a mortgage on his house and Kettering on a lot that he owned. Both borrowed money on their life insurance policies. They also put up their patents and the contract with Cadillac as collateral for a loan from the bank. Cadillac paid them some money in advance. They sold some preferred stock, too, and raised money in every way possible.

[42:09] All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise, we would never have anything new.

[45:29] Kettering admired The Wright Brothers and all they did in overcoming obstacles to successful flight. Those obstacles were psychological as well as physical, for it was commonly believed then that heavier-than-air flight was impossible.  “The Wright Brothers,” Kettering said, “flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.”

[46:08] I have always had a rule for myself. Never fly when the birds don’t, because they have had a lot of experience.

[49:22] The destruction of a theory is of no consequence for theories are only steppingstones. More great scientific developments have been made by stumbling than by what is thought of as science. In my opinion an ounce of experimentation is worth a pound of theory.

[50:57] Ket hates committees: Mrs. Kettering read about Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, she said to her husband, “How wonderful that he did it all alone!” 

“It would have been still more wonderful,” Kettering replied, “if he had done it with a committee.”

[51:30] We find that in research a certain amount of intelligent ignorance is essential to progress; for, if you know too much, you won’t try the thing.

[54:42] New ideas are the hardest things in the world to merchandise.

[56:03] So great was his respect for independent thought and initiative in others that it was often difficult for those working on a project to find out just what he himself thought ought to be done in a given circumstance. He was careful not to stamp out a spark of fire in anyone. Instead, he would fan it to a bright glow. 

[57:31] He has been an inspiration to me and to the whole organization, particularly in directing our thoughts and our imagination and our activities toward doing a better job technically and the tremendous importance of technological progress.

[1:00:07] You have to try things: Action without intelligence is a form of insanity, but intelligence without action is the greatest form of stupidity in the world.

[1:00:19] In putting out new things troubles are not the exception. They are the rule. That is why I have said on so many occasions that the price of progress is trouble.

[1:03:16] Let the competition think you are crazy. By the time they get it it will be too late: If you will help them keep on thinking that, we’ll not be bothered with competition during the years in which we are working out the bugs and developing a really good locomotive.

[1:05:14] It is not what two groups do alike that matters. It’s what they do differently that is liable to count.

[1:05:47] There are no places in an industrial situation where anyone can sit and rest. It is a question of change, change, change all the time. You can’t have profit without progress.

[1:06:18] We don’t know enough to plan new industries: You can’t plan industries, because you can’t tell whether something is going to be an industry or not when you see it, and the chances are that it grows up right in front of you without ever being recognized as being an industry. Who planned the automobile industry? Nobody thought anything of it at all. It grew in spite of planning.

[1:08:22] Because the field of human knowledge is so far from complete, he thinks our schools ought to teach that we know very little about anything.

[1:09:04] The greatest thing that most fellows are lacking today is the fool trait of jumping into something and sticking at it until they come out all right.

[1:09:54] He seems to have a complete absence of any timidity whatsoever. 

[1:10:54] I can conceive of nothing more foolish than to say the world is finished. We are not at the end of our progress but at the beginning. 

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas

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He seemed eager to sum up the lessons he had learned and tell people how he applied them in his life. [0:01]

He worked long hours over drawings in his room. Never revealing a project until he completed it. [5:32]

Walt Disney's first business: Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists [9:34]

Walt Disney's second business: Laugh-O-Gram Films [13:30]

Walt Disney's third business: The Walt Disney Company [17:03]

"Should the idea or name be exploited in any other way, such as toys or merchandise we shall share equally." / Jeff Bezos on the importance of sleep [21:08]

Committees throttle creativity [25:31]

It is normal to doubt yourself when you are creating something. Walt Disney doubted the quality of Steamboat Willie. What would go on to be one of the most famous cartoons ever created. [33:28]

People don't know what is good until the public tells them/Or how to get film distributors to come to you [37:10]

The power of licensing Disney characters [42:06]

Advice from Charlie Chaplin [47:17]

You can't top pigs with pigs [52:29]

A most unusual response to financial calamity [57:42]

The Army takes over Disney's studio [1:00:53]

An amazing meeting with the founder of Bank of America [1:04:00]

Coming up with the idea for Disneyland [1:09:30]

Maniacal focus on the customer [1:18:00]

Disneyland prints money [1:22:30]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific by Alistair Urquhart.

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(4:00) I hope that this book will be inspirational and offer hope to those who suffer adversity in their daily lives.

(10:00) You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251)

(13:30) When you reach a large goal or finally get to the top, the distractions and new assumptions can be dizzying. First comes heightened confidence, followed quickly by overconfidence, arrogance, and a sense that “we’ve mastered it; we’ve figured it out; we’re golden.” But the gold can tarnish quickly. Mastery requires endless remastery. In fact, I don’t believe there is ever true mastery. It is a process, not a destination. — The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106)

(15:30) Invaders are always organized.

(23:00) Stay at the front and do not look back.

(29:00) Every morning I would tell myself over and over: Survive this day. Survive this day. Survive this day.

(32:00) On countless occasions I've seen two men with the same symptoms and same physical state and one will die and one will make it. I can only put that down to sheer willpower.

(35:00) Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts 

(41:00) Dan Carlin's Nightmares of Indianapolis podcast episode

(48:00) Alistair Urquhart was conscripted into the British military to fight during World War II. He was 19 years old.

He was sent to Singapore. The Japanese invaded and he was taken hostage.

He survived 750 days in the jungle working as a slave on The Death Railway and the bridge on the River Kwai.

Most of the time he worked completely naked.

He contracted dysentery, malaria, and tropical ulcers. A lot.

He was transferred to a Japanese hellship.

The ship was torpedoed.

Almost everyone on the ship died. He survived.

He spent 5 days adrift at sea until he was picked up by a Japanese whaling ship.

He was sent to Nagasaki and forced to work in a mine.

Two months later he was struck by the blast from the Atomic bomb.

He was freed by the US Marines shortly thereafter.

He returns home to Scotland and finds out his best friend died in the war and the girl he loved got married and moved to Canada.

At 90 years of age he wrote the book to inspire others to persevere when they are faced with hardships in their life.

I think it is a great book for entrepreneurs.

The story demonstrates the adaptability of humans, our fierce desire to survive, and puts the stress of building companies into the proper perspective.

The entire story only takes 3 hours and 14 minutes

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and The Family Feud That Forever Changed The Business of Sports by Barbara Smit.

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This story begins at a time in history when money and sports were still two separate worlds [0:01]

A family business struggling to survive / drafted into WWI / Adi Dassler’s EXTREME resourcefulness and personality / [3:15]

Early distribution and marketing of sports shoes [10:06]

The Dassler Brothers were opposites: Adi was the quiet craftsman with soul in the game. Rudolf was ostentatious and loud. [12:46]

The chronicle and biography of Adi Dassler: A story about someone obsessed with making high quality products [14:00]

Was Adi Dassler a Nazi? / My experience with the totalitarianism of the Castro regime / tearing up thinking of having to risk the lives of your children [24:30]

Adi Dassler reminds me of Henry Royce [29:30]

The difficulties of building a business during World War II [32:15]

Adi starting over at the age of 46 / How the Adidas stripes came about [38:15]

Athletes start requesting bribes to wear Adidas / How the payoffs happened [46:00]

Breaking into a new market was a slow, labor intensive process [50:45]

While Adidas and Puma are distracted fighting each other, opportunity opens up for Phil Knight and Nike / pursue your crazy idea / famous last words: “it’s just a toy”, “jogging isn’t a real sport”, “Nike is not a threat because we have more demand than we could service” [55:05]

If you have a business that makes you miserable, somewhere along the line you lost the plot. [1:06:45]

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from reading Constellation Software Inc. President's Letters by Mark Leonard.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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[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.

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“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

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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. 

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“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

What I learned from Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by  Colin Bryar and Bill Carr.

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[3:58] What is best for the customer? Do that: "Amazon believes that long-term growth is best produced by putting the customer first. If you held this conviction, what kind of company would you build?"

[7:05] Jeff skips the conferences and dinners: "95 percent of the time I spent with Jeff was focused on internal work issues rather than external events like conferences, public speeches, and sports matches."

[25:08] Don't encourage communication—eliminate it: "Jeff said many times that if we wanted Amazon to be a place where builders can build, we needed to eliminate communication, not encourage it. When you view effective communication across groups as a "defect," the solutions to your problems start to look quite different from traditional ones." (There is nothing conventional about Jeff) 

[27:29] Why companies must run experiments: "Time and time again, we learned that  consumers would behave in ways we hadn't imagined especially for brand-new features or products."

[30:16] Jeff on the importance of making decisions quickly: "Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you're good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure."

[30:48] Great anything is rare: "Great Two-Pizza team leaders proved to be rarities. Although we did identify a few such brilliant managers, they turned out to be notoriously difficult to find in sufficient numbers, even at Amazon." 

[34:30] A simple tip from Jeff on how to produce unique insights: "Jeff has an uncanny ability to read a narrative and consistently arrive at insights that no one else did, even though we were all reading the same narrative. After one meeting, I asked him how he was able to do that. He responded with a simple and useful tip that I have not forgotten: he assumes each sentence he reads is wrong until he can prove otherwise. He's challenging the content of the sentence, not the motive of the writer.”

[35:12] Why Amazon works backwards: "Working Backwards is a systematic way to vet ideas and create new products. Its key tenet is to start by defining the customer experience, then iteratively work backwards from that point until the team achieves clarity of thought around what to build."

[40:00] Working backwards on Kindle: "We were working forward, trying to invent a product that would be good for Amazon, the company, not the customer. When we wrote a Kindle press release and started working backwards, everything changed. We focused instead on what would be great for customers. An excellent screen for a great reading experience. An ordering process that would make buying and downloading books easy. A huge selection of titles. Low prices. We would never have had the breakthroughs necessary to achieve that customer experience were it not for the press release process, which forced the team to invent multiple solutions to customer problems."

[43:58] Patience. Then bet big: Our approach permits us to work patiently for multiple years to deliver a solution. Once we had a clear vision for how these products could become businesses that would delight customers, we invested big. Patience and carefully managed investment over many years can pay off greatly. 

[46:03] Have Steve Jobs level of belief in your products: "Jobs calmly and confidently told us that even though it was Apple's first attempt to build for Windows, he thought it was the best Windows application anyone had ever built."

[54:48] Amazon's Kindle strategy was influenced by Apple: "In digital, that meant focusing on applications and devices consumers used to read, watch, or listen to content, as Apple had already done with iTunes and the iPod. We all took note of what Apple had achieved in digital music in a short period of time and sought to apply those learnings to our long-term product vision."

[56:48] Good ideas are rare. When you find one bet heavily: "At some point in the debate, someone asked Jeff point blank: "How much more money are you willing to invest in Kindle?" Jeff calmly turned to our CFO, Tom Szkutak, smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and asked the rhetorical question, "How much money do we have?"

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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. 

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“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