Founders

#26 My Life and Work: The Autobiography of Henry Ford

What I learned from My Life and Work: The Autobiography of Henry Ford. --- A theory of business (0:01) If an old idea works then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. The Lindy Effect. (7:30) All people are not equal (11:00)  "That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom" (15:00), "I quit my job on August 15th, 1899 and went into the automobile business" (19:30) Henry Ford's philosophy on constant change (25:00) Henry Ford's 3 conclusions about business (26:00) Traits of a prosperous business (29:45) I cannot discover that anyone knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. .We get some of our best results from letting fools rush in where angels fear to tread. (34:00) Fix the problem. Do not think money will be the solution. (40:00) Overcome fear. Be free. (44:00) Fuck your feelings (52:30) Henry Ford's 4 principles of business (56:00) ---- 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

#25 Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson

What I learned from reading Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson --- I am a creator of products, a builder of things. [0:01] This book is the story of 15 years of struggle to finally invent, own, and sell his own product. [1:35] This is the exposition of a business philosophy which is very different from anything you might have encountered before. [2:11] The first 75% to 80% of the book is just struggle after struggle. [2:47] Dyson had a bunch of people that he looked up to that motivated him as a young man. Thomas Edison is one of those people. [4:51] Such reverence has been accorded to the miserable wheel —that perhaps that alone can account for the fact it was never improved. Perhaps millions of people in the last few years had ideas for improving it. All I did was take things a little further than just having an idea. [6:10] The look of the product —the intangible style that sets one thing apart from another—is still closest to my heart. [7:04] After the idea there is plenty of time to learn the technology. My first cyclonic vacuum cleaner was built out of cereal packets and masking tape long before I understood how it worked. [8:09] The greatest lesson for aspiring inventors was yet to come. The actual making of money. Paper stuff in thick wads which they finally give to you because you have done something good. [8:40] The best kind of business is one where you could sell a product at a high price with a good margin and in enormous volumes. That type of investment is long term, high risk, and not very British. Or at least it looks like a high-risk policy. It is not so likely to prove hazardous to one’s financial health as simply following the herd. [9:25] Difference for the sake of it. In everything. Because is must be better. From the moment the ideas strikes, to the running of the business. Difference, and retention of total control. [10:39] This is not even a business book. If anything it is a book against business, against the principles that have filled the world with ugly, useless objects. [11:37] Everybody told James over and over and over again “Who are you to think that you could invent a better vacuum cleaner? If that was possible Hoover would have done it already." [12:44] We all want to make our mark. We all want to make beautiful things and a little money. We all have our own ideas about how to do it. What follows just happens to be my way.  [13:15] I have been a misfit throughout my professional life, and that seems to have worked for my advantage. Misfits are not born or made. They make themselves. [13:45] I took on the big boys at their own game, made them look very silly, just by being true to myself. [15:56] There was no dad to teach me how to run. There was no dad to tell me how great I was. Herb Elliot was a big name [in running] at the time, so I read a few books about him and discovered that his coach had told him that the way to develop stamina and strengthen the leg muscles was to run up and down sand dunes. This suited me fine. I would get up at six in the morning and run dunes for hours, or put on my running kit at ten o’ clock at night and not reappear until after midnight. Out there alone on the dunes I got a terrific buzz knowing that I was doing something that no one else was—they were all tucked away in bed. I knew I was training myself to do something better than anyone else would be able to do.  [18:14] Running is a wonderful thing. It isn’t like a team sport where you depend on other people. There is no question of your performance being judged. You either run faster than everyone else or you do not. In running your performance is absolute. I was out there [on the sand dunes] learning how to do something, and getting a visible result. [19:34] As I started to win by greater and greater margins I did it [run sand dunes] more and more because I knew the reason for my success was that out on the sand dunes I was doing something else no one else was doing. They were all running around the track like a herd of sheep and not getting any quicker. Difference itself was making me come in first. [20:50] I was learning about the physical and psychological strength that keeps you competitive. I was learning about obstinacy. I was learning how to overcome nerves, and as I grew more and more neurotic about being caught from behind, I trained harder to stay in front. To this day it is the fear of failure, more than anything else, that keeps me working at success. [21:31] The only way to make a genuine breakthrough was to pursue a vision with single-minded determination in the face of criticism. [22:26] Isambard Kingdom Brunel was unable to think small, and nothing was a barrier to him. The mere fact that something had never been done before presented, to Brunel, no suggestion that the doing of it was impossible—he was fired by an inner strength and self-belief almost impossible to imagine in this feckless age. I have tried to be as confident in my vision as he was. And at times in my life when I have encountered difficulty and self-doubt I have looked to his example to fire me on. [22:55] I have told myself, when people tried to make me modify my ideas, that the Great Western Railway could not have worked as anything but the vision of a single man, pursued with dogged determination that was nothing less than obsession. Throughout my story I will return to Brunel, and to other designers and engineers, to show how identifying with them, and seeing parallels with every stage of my own life, enabled me to see my career as a whole and to know that it would all turn out the way it has. [24:59] Remember that I am celebrating only my stubbornness. I am claiming nothing but the virtues of a mule. [25:42] So my dream was to be a Isambard Kingdom Brunel. [26:40] The public has been easily convinced by advertising, and receptiveness to revolution has dwindled. Such ‘invention’ as is now allowed is the prerogative of multinationals, not people. Where are our Wright Brothers? Where have the Edisons gone? And the Henry Fords? They are not here. We have broken new frontiers, but where are the names? Who invented the space shuttle? The nuclear submarine? The wind farm? When you go for backing for your crazy scheme it is not enough to be a man, you have to be a group of men. And where is the fun in that? [26:56] I learnt a crucial business principle: The only way to make real money is to offer the public something entirely new, that has style value as well as substance, and which they cannot get anywhere else. [28:03] College had taught me to revere experts and expertise. Jeremiah Fry ridiculed all that; as far as he was concerned, with enthusiasm and intelligence anything was possible. It was mind-blowing. And as we proceeded I could see that we were getting on extremely quickly. The more I observed his method, the more it fascinated me. [31:07] I learned one of the most crucial business lessons of my life; to stint on investment in the early stages, to try to sell a half-finished product, is to doom from the start any project you embark on. [32:13] People do not want all-purpose; they want high-tech specificity. [34:11] You simply cannot mix your messages when selling something new. A consumer can barely handle one great new idea, let alone two, or even several. [34:20] Only by trying to sell the thing that you have made yourself, by dealing with consumers’ problems and the product’s failings as they arise, can you really come to understand what you have done. Only the man who has brought the thing into the world can presume to foist it on others, and demand a heavy price, with all his heart. [35:52] It was an interesting lesson in psychology, teaching me that the entrenched professional is always going to resist far longer than the private consumer. [36:26] Editorials are the very best way of convincing the public. One decent editorial counts for a thousand advertisements. [39:20] One fo the strains of this book is about CONTROL. If you have the intimate knowledge of a product that comes with dreaming it up and then designing it, then you will be the better able to sell it and then, reciprocally, to go back to it and improve it. From there you are in the best possible position to convince others of its greatness. To see it through all the way to its optimum point. To total fruition, if you like. [42:04] I was stopped by one of them with the words I was to hear over and over and over again for the next ten years. ‘But James, your idea can’t be any good. If there were a better kind of vacuum cleaner, Hoover would have invented it.' [48:07] We always want to create something new out of nothing, and without research, and without long hard hours of effort. But there is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence—and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap. [51:38] A vacuum cleaner designed entirely by me, incorporating innovations up to the very latest point at which my technology had arrived, to be produced and marketed and sold under my own exclusive direction was, to be frank, what this whole thing had been all about. [1:02:48] It was a fantastic environment to work in, for it was just engineers and designers, and no one to mess us around. There were no salesmen, no advertising people, no marketing managers, to interfere and try to guide us in their direction. We had nothing to do but deduce our own dream product. [1:04:48] Everyday products sell. Although it is harder to improve a mature product, if you succeed there is no need to create a market. Try out current products in your own home, and make a list of things that you don’t like about them. I found about 20 things wrong with my Hoover Jr. at the first attempt. [1:07:19] Total control. From the first sprouting of the idea, through research and development, testing and prototyping, model making and engineering drawings, tooling, production, sales and marketing, all the way into the homes, it is most likely to succeed if the original visionary (or mule) sees it right through. [1:11:43] On 2 May 1992, I found myself looking at the first, fully operational, visually perfect, Dyson Dual Cyclone. I was thirty-one years old when I tore the bag off my Hoover and stuck a cereal packet in the hole. 2 May 1992 was my forty-fifth birthday. [1:12:24] We were selling more vacuum cleaners than anyone else despite costing twice as much. [1:14:32] In other words: if you make something, sell it yourself. And so we did. And absolutely nothing went bang. Except, of course, everyone else’s market slice. [1:17:57] Encourage employees to be different, on principle. This is part of my anti-brilliance campaign. Very few people can be brilliant. Those who are, rarely do anything worthwhile. You are just as likely to solve a problem by being unconventional and determined as by being brilliant. And if you can’t be unconventional, be obtuse. Be deliberately obtuse, because there are 5 billion people out there thinking in train tracks, and thinking what they have been taught to think. [1:21:18] ---- 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

#24 No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet

What I learnd by reading No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin.  --- When Danny was excited about something, you couldn't help but get excited too (3:00) Steve Jobs had one speed: GO! (6:00) Danny joins Israel's special forces (10:00) "Life is too short to be bored. Only boring people are bored." (19:00) The idea for Akamai (22:00) "If he didn't know something, he'd go learn it." (28:00) Building a company the right way (31:00) Finding a business model (35:00) Passion is worth $500,000 (38:30) The first product (42:00) "My goal was to express it in layman's terms so that your grandmother could understand it." (44:00) Finding the right price/model (45:00) The best salesperson (48:10) "Hi, this is Steve Jobs, and I want to buy your company." (54:00) "I have this company of one hundred ten people, headed by one of the biggest businessmen around with lots of money in the bank, and I'm just a graduate student." (57:00) "In less than one year, a tiny startup out of MIT had grown to a company with a market valuation than that of General Motors" (58:30) The last day of Danny's life (1:00:00) ---- 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

#23 The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

What I learned from reading The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis --- He grew up poor, dropped out of high school, and made himself 3 or 4 billion dollars (0:01), New Growth Theory (8:00), "Growth is just another word for change." (11:15), "The notion of what constituted useful work had broadened." (15:00), "If everyone was patient there'd be no new companies." (18:00), Turning his life around at 38 (21:00), Jim's idea to avoid the Innovator's Dilemma (30:00), The beginning of Netscape (33:00), The fast eat the slow (38:00), The people you don't want (40:00), The difference between a pig and a chicken /"They had wanted to be chickens; Clark forced them to be pigs" (43:00), All chips on 00 / Diversification is for idiots (48:00), Moving the goalposts / "Mama, I'm going to show Plainview." (56:00) ---- 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

#22 How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story

What I learned from reading How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story by Billy Gallagher.  --- I'm not going to work for someone else (0:01) Early design decisions of Snapchat (7:45) Evan idolized Steve Jobs and Edwin Land (10:00) How Snapchat convinced people to download the app (13:00) How Facebook created the environment for Snapchat to grow (16:00) The problem of standard (21:00) Evan on conforming (23:00) Mark Zuckerberg's first move on Snapchat (27:00) A great quote from Jeff Bezos (34:30) Digital Dualism (36:30) Snapchat Stories (39:00) Evan's framework for Snapchat and the Internet Everywhere (44:45) Learning from messaging apps in Asia (50:00) Brands are not social. People are. (55:00) Evan's philosophy on the distinction between privacy and secrecy (59:00) ---- 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

#21 Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

What I learned from reading Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner. --- [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.” ---- 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

#20 Danny Meyer (The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business)

What I learned from reading Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer.  This is not a typical business book (0:30) Why don't you just do what you've been thinking about doing your whole life? (4:00) How Danny learned from other founders on what to do and what to avoid (8:00) The smartest business decision I ever made (18:00) Optionality as a non-negotiable (20:00) Inadequate focus on core product (23:30) The founding of Shake Shack is an example of this great quote from Jeff Bezos: "We know from our past experiences that big things start small. The biggest oak starts from an acorn. If you want to do anything new you’ve got to be willing to let that acorn grow into a little sapling and finally into a small tree and maybe one day it will be a big business on its own." (27:00) Advice from Stanley Marcus (Neiman Marcus): "The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled." (38:00) ---- 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

#19 Becoming Steve Jobs

What I learned from reading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. --- Learning from great company-builders (0:30) Steve Jobs verbal mastery (5:00) The failed negotiations between NeXT and IBM (10:00)  "But how can he be a turnaround expert when he eats his lunch alone in his office, with food served to him on china that looks like it came from Versailles?" (18:00) "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 one company [Disney] that's ever done it well, and they were not interested in telling the world how lucrative it was." (22:00)  Bill Gates on Steve's simplicity (29:00) Steve Jobs on being an artist (33:00) Apple pays half billion dollars to rehire Steve Jobs (34:00) "The company is one of the most amazing inventions of humans, this abstract construct that is incredibly powerful." (38:00) Unlocking secrets (42:00) Who gives a fuck about the channel? (45:00) "It's not about how fast you do something, it's about doing your level best." (52:00) Deep Restlessness (55:00) "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." (59:00) Bill Gates on the negotiations between Pixar and Disney (1:08:00) ---- 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

#18 Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

What I learned from reading Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. --- I had always avoided thinking of myself as a businessman. I was a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier, and a blacksmith. We simply enjoyed making good tools and functional clothes. [0:01]  One day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and would probably be one for a long time. I knew that I would never be happy playing by the normal rules of business; I wanted to distance myself as far as possible from this pasty-faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I had to be a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms. [0:32]  One of my favorite sayings about entrepreneurship is: 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. [1:00] Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. [1:18] I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percent. I like to throw myself passionately into an activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me. Once I reach that 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different. [4:05] Tom Brokaw on Yvon: It’s been helpful to me to be Yvon’s friend. He makes me think about things in new ways. [5:36]  Can a company that wants to make the best-quality outdoor clothing in the world be the size of Nike? Can a ten-table, three-star French restaurant retain its third star when it adds fifty tables? The question haunted me throughout the 1980s as Patagonia evolved. [7:35] I continued to practice my MBA theory of management, management by absence, while I wear-tested our clothing and equipment in the most extreme conditions of the Himalayas and South America. [10:13]  Throughout the book he’s has a really beautiful idea of comparing business and organizing human labor, to nature. Part of this idea is he intentionally puts Patagonia through a lot of stress because he feels you need stress to grow. [11:42]  Doing risk sports had taught me another important lesson: Never exceed your limits. You push the envelope, but you don’t go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means. The same is true for business. The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to have it all, the sooner it will die. [18:05]  I did not yet know what we would do to get our company out of the mess it was in. But I did know we had to look to the Iroquois and their seven-generation planning, and not to corporate America, as models of stewardship and sustainability. As part of their decision process, the Iroquois had a person who represented the seventh generation in the future. If Patagonia could survive this crisis we had to begin to make all our decisions as though we would be in business for a hundred years. [19:12]  The first part of our mission statement, “Make the best product,” is the cornerstone of our business philosophy. “Make the best” is a difficult goal. It doesn’t mean “among the best” or the “best at a particular price point.” It means “make the best,” period. [24:05] The functionality driven design is usually minimalist. Or as Dieter Rams maintains, “Good design is as little design as possible.” Complexity is often a sure sign that the functional needs have not been solved. Take the difference between the Ferrari and the Cadillac of the 1960s. The Ferrari’s clean lines suites its high-performance aims. The Cadillac really didn’t have any functional aims. It didn’t have steering, suspension, aerodynamics, or brakes appropriate to its immense horsepower. All it had to do was convey the idea of power, creature comfort, of a living room floating down the highway to the golf course. So, to a basically ugly shape were added all manner of useless chrome: fins at the back, breasts at the front. Once you lose the discipline of functionality as a design guidepost, the imagination runs amok. Once you design a monster, it tends to look like one too. [25:53] When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I’ll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can’t be sold on its merits. I’d be competing head-on in the cola wars, on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me. I’d much rather design and sell products so good and unique that they have no competition. [27:15] There are different ways to address a new idea or project. If you take the conservative scientific route, you study the problem in your head or on paper until you are sure there is no chance of failure. However, you have taken so long that the competition has already beaten you to market. The entrepreneurial way is to immediately take a forward step and if that feels good, take another, if not, step back. Learn by doing, it is a faster process. [32:40] Nonfiction marketing. Our branding efforts are simple: tell people who we are. We don’t have to create a fictional character. Writing fiction is so much more difficult than nonfiction. Fiction requires creativity and imagination. Nonfiction deals with simple truths. [34:00] It’s okay to be eccentric, as long as you are rich; otherwise, you’re just crazy. [36:19] Quality, not price, has the highest correlation with business success. Whenever we are faced with a serious business decision, the answer almost always is to increase quality. [37:37] We never wanted to be a big company. We want to be the best company, and it’s easier to try to be the best small company than the best big company. [40:20] We don’t hire the kind of people you can order around. We don’t want drones who will simply follow directions. We want the kind of employees who will question the wisdom of something they regard as a bad decision. We do want people who, once they but into a decision and believe in what they are doing, will work like demons to produce something of the highest possible quality. [43:57]  Systems in nature appear to us to be chaotic but in reality are very structured, just not in a top-down centralized way. A top-down centralized system like a dictatorship takes an enormous amount of force and work to keep the hierarchy in power. All top-down systems eventually collapse, leaving the system in chaos. A familial company like ours runs on trust rather than on authoritarian rule. [44:52]  The lesson to be learned is that evolution (change) doesn’t happen without stress, and it can happen quickly. Just as doing risks sports will create stresses that lead to a bettering of one’s self, so should a company constantly stress itself in order to grow. [50:29]  I believe the way toward mastery of any endeavor is to work towards simplicity. The more you know, the less you need. [56:01]  ---- 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

#17 Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

What I learned from reading The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone.    ---- 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

#16 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller

What I learned from reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow.  [0:01] Rockefeller was a unique hybrid in American business, both the instinctive first-generation entrepreneur who founded the company and the analytical second-generation manager who extends and develops it.  [0:30] Having created an empire of unfathomable complexity, he was smart enough to see that he had to submerge his identity in the organization.  [0:43] Don’t say that I out to do this or that. We ought to do it. Never forget that we are partners. Whatever is done for the general good is done for the good of us all. —John D. Rockefeller.  [0:55] He preferred outspoken colleagues to weak-kneed sycophants.  [1:14] That he created one of the first multinational corporations, selling kerosene around the world and setting a business pattern for the next century, was arguable his greatest feat.  [2:48] The spot chosen for the new refinery tells much about Rockefeller’s approach to business. . . Able to ship by water or over land, Rockefeller gained the critical leverage he needed to secure preferential rates on transportation which was why he agonized over plant locations throughout his career.  [6:02] This is before the invention of the car. Kerosene was the main byproduct of oil. People used it to have lighting in their houses. Before Rockefeller, only rich people were able to do this. After Rockefeller, everyone could do it.  [6:41] There’s a lot of people making money in refining. People hear about other people making money in refining. They follow in like lemmings and this causes refining capacity to be triple the amount that is actually needed. By then 90% of refineries were operating in the red.  [7:46] “So many wells were flowing that the price of oil kept falling, yet they went right on drilling.” — John D. Rockefeller.  [8:08] “Often-times the most difficult competition comes, not from the strong, the intelligent, the conservative competitor, but from the man who is holding on by the eyelids and is ignorant of his costs, and anyway he's got to keep running or bust!” —John D. Rockefeller  [8:57] As someone who tended toward optimism, seeing opportunity in every disaster, he studied the situation exhaustively instead of bemoaning his bad luck.  [10:55] Rockefeller is hated for the creation of a cartel. He is hated for succeeding at it. There are many people trying to do very similar things. They would criticize Rockefeller for what they were attempting to do themselves.  [14:46] From the outset, Rockefeller’s plans had a wide streak of megalomania. He said, “The Standard Oil company will someday refine all the oil and make all the barrels.”  [15:35] Rockefeller decided that the leading men [executives] would receive no salary but would profit solely from the appreciation of their shares and rising dividends which Rockefeller thought a more potent stimulus to work.  [17:10] He was pretty crazy. He had three daughters and a son. By the time he had his son, he had more money than he could spend in a lifetime. His son remembers growing up and only wearing dresses because his dad refused to buy new clothes.  [17:38] Rockefeller never allowed his office decor to flaunt the prosperity of the business, lest it arouse unwanted curiosity.  [19:33] His strategy would be to subjugate one part of the battlefield, consolidate his forces, and then move briskly onto the next conquest.  [19:54] The year revealed both his finest and most problematic qualities as a businessman: His visionary leadership, his courageous persistence, his capacity to think in strategic terms, but also his lust for domination, his messianic, self-righteousness, and his contempt for those shortsighted mortals who made the mistake of standing in his way.  [20:50] Rockefeller had such a fanatical desire to control expenses. He’d show up to work at 6:30 in the morning and leave at 10 at night and the entire time he was rooting out inefficiencies. If he could save a penny he would. As a result, even if someone was in the same business Rockefeller’s business was much more profitable —even before he built his cartel.  [23:34] Rockefeller was extremely secretive. He equated silence with strength. He didn’t like people who bragged or told other people what their intentions were.  [25:06] The depressed atmosphere only strengthened his resolve.  [28:57] One Rockefeller biographer called the drawback an instrument of competitive cruelty unparalleled in industry.  [30:55] One other factor tempted the railroads to come to terms with Rockefeller. In a far-sighted, tactical maneuver he had begun to accumulate hundreds of tank cars —what you would ship oil in if you don't want to use barrels—which would be in perpetual and perpetually short supply.  [32:05] One of Rockefeller’s strengths in bargaining situations was that he figured out what he wanted and what the other party wanted and crafted mutually advantageous terms. Instead of ruining the railroads, Rockefeller tried to help them prosper albeit in a way that fortified his own position.  [37:57] This is the insane part. Between February 17th and March 28th, Rockefeller swallowed up 22 of his 26 competitors. This makes him the world’s largest oil refiner at 31 years old.  [40:32] Rockefeller was dedicated to secrecy: Many of these competitors didn’t even know they were being bought by Standard Oil.  [47:24] Rockefeller would constantly overpay for competitors just to knock them out of the business.  [47:58] He was now living a fantasy of extravagant wealth that would have dwarfed the most feeble daydreams of his father. Few people beyond the oil business had ever heard of him.  [48:26] It is very hard to compete with somebody you don’t even know exists.  [48:56] It is a lot smarter to make money quietly so you don’t invite competition.  [49:11] The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power [49:52] Books are the original links: If you read Sam Walton's book you realize he was the Jeff Bezos of his day. Or said another way Jeff Bezos is the Sam Walton of his day. Bezos read Sam Walton’s book, was inspired, and outright copied a lot of Sam’s ideas.  [50:51] The reason I think it is so interesting to explore the history of entrepreneurship is that you see the same ideas over and over again just applied in different fields.  [56:53] Taking for granted the growth of his empire, he hired talented people as found, not as needed.  [57:10] Many employees said he never lost his temper racist voice, uttered a profane or slang word, or acted discourteously.  [57:20] Rockefeller seldom granted appointments to strangers and preferred to be approached in writing.  [57:25] He constantly expounds on this idea that you shouldn't waste time nor money. That they were very much interrelated. He didn't waste his time talking to people...what people call networking now. He just worked. He came up with his ideas and then worked every day to enact those ideas.  [58:08] He wants the sort of person to persist in a flawed situation.  [58:15] Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.  [59:51] Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed.  [1:00:02] A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.  [1:01:00] 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?  ---- 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

#15 Leonardo da Vinci: The Biography

What I learned from reading Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.  ---- 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

#14 The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal

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) ---- 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

#13 Elon Musk and Why SpaceX Will Colonize Mars

What I learned from reading The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why by Tim Urban. In the most recent 1% of our species short existence, we have become the first life on earth to know about the situation (4:38) The total market for satellite manufacturing, the launches that carry them to space, and related equipment and services has ballooned from $60 billion in 2004 to over $200 billion in 2015 (8:41) Here is what SpaceX does: it takes things to space for people for money. Here is what SpaceX really does: it is an innovation machine trying to solve one big problem. The astronomical cost of space travel (9:13) For 1% we can buy life insurance (20:35) Up until 25 years ago there had never been such a thing as a global brain of god like information access and connectivity on this planet (23:26) Musk has said he doesn't care that much about your degree. Just raw talent, personality, and passion for the SpaceX mission (31:21) For domestic launches the ULA charges the government and the US taxpayer $380 million per launch. For a similar launch, the US government pays SpaceX $133 million (40:14) Life has to be about more than just solving problems. There have to be things that inspire you. (45:55) ---- 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

#12 Elon Musk & How Tesla Will Change The World

What I learned by reading How Tesla Will Change The World by Tim Urban Kindle version: The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why. ---- 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

#11 The Cook & The Chef: Elon Musk's Secret Sauce

What I learned from reading The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why by Tim Urban Read The Cook & The Chef: Elon Musk's Secret Sauce on WaitButWhy.  Quotes from this episode:  Which leaves only two options: create or copy  Conventional wisdom: If something is both a good idea and possible, it's already been done. I'm fascinated by those rare people in history who managed to dramatically change the world during their short time here, and I've always liked to study those people and read their biographies. Those people know something the rest of us don't and we can learn something valuable from them.  Musk calls this reasoning from first principles. One of the most important parts of this podcast.  Conventional wisdom screamed at the top of its lungs for him to stop.  Your entire life runs on the software in your head. Why wouldn't you obsess over optimizing it? We mistake the chef's originality for brilliant ingenuity.  The reason these outrageously smart people are so humble about what they know is that they are aware that unjustified certainty is the bane of understanding and the death of effective reasoning.  Conventional wisdom worships the status quo and always assumes that everything is the way it is for a good reason. And history is one long record of status quo dogma being proven wrong again and again, every time some chef comes around and changes things.  ---- 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

#10 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

What I learned from reading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. The best teacher I ever had, one of the finest men I ever knew, spoke of the Oregon Trail often. It’s our birthright, he’d growl. Our character, our fate—our DNA. “The cowards never started, the weak died along the way—that leaves us.” [0:35] Some outsized sense of possibility mixed with a diminished capacity for pessimism. [1:03] I found it difficult to say what or who exactly I was, or might become. Like all my friends I wanted to be successful. I didn’t know what that meant. [2:11] Deep down I was searching for something else, something more. I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know. And I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all . . .different. [2:35] I asked myself: What if there were a way, without being an athlete, to feel what athletes feel? To play all the time, instead of working? Or to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing? [4:23] The only answer was to find some prodigious, improbable dream that seemed worthy, that seemed fun, that seemed like a good fit, and chase it with a single-minded dedication and purpose. [4:47] Maybe my Crazy Idea just might . . . work? Maybe. No, no, I thought. It will work. By God, I’ll make it work. No maybes about it. [5:29] So much about those days has vanished. Faces, numbers, decisions that once seemed pressing and irrevocable, they’re all gone. [6:39] What remains is this one comforting certainty, this one anchoring truth that will never go away. At 24 I did have a Crazy Idea, and somehow, despite being dizzy with existential angst, and fears about the future, and doubts about myself, as all young men and women in their mid-twenties are, I did decide that the world is made up of crazy ideas. History is one long processional of crazy ideas. The things I loved most — books, sports, democracy, free enterprise — started as crazy ideas. [7:03] 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. Whatever comes, just don’t stop. [7:45] That is the 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. [8:08] I knew Japanese cameras had made deep cuts into the camera market, which had once been dominated by Germans. I argued in my paper that Japanese running shoes might do the same thing. [9:00] He was impressed. It took balls to put together an itinerary like that, he said. Balls. He wanted in. [12:01] Carter never did mess around. See an open shot, take it—that was Carter. I told myself there was much I could learn from a guy like that as we circled the earth. [12:14] What Phil was doing was looked upon by most of his family as crazy and extremely dangerous. [12:37] Go home, a faint inner voice told me. Get a normal job. Be a normal person. Then I heard another faint voice equally emphatic, “No. Don’t go home. Keep going. Don’t stop.” [14:15] Bill 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. [15:55] He always had some new scheme to make our shoes softer and lighter. One ounce sliced off a pair of shoes is equivalent to 55 pounds over one mile. [16:42] Lightness, Bowerman believed, directly translated into less burden, more energy, and more speed. Lightness was his constant goal. [17:11] Frugality carried over to every part of the coach’s makeup. [17:56] Bowerman didn’t give a damn about respectability. He possessed a prehistoric strain of maleness. Today its all but extinct. He was a war hero, too. Of course, he was. [18:47] Bowerman never considered himself a track coach. He detested being called coach. He called himself a professor of competitive responses. His job, as he saw it, was to get you ready for the struggles and competitions that lay ahead. [19:41] In my mind, he was Patton with a stopwatch. [20:00] He had tested me. He had broken me down and remade me just like a pair of shoes. [23:31] The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. [23:57] He always went against the grain. Always. He was the first college coach to emphasize rest, to place as much value on recovery as on work. [24:12] He [his Dad] said he hadn’t sent me to Oregon and Stanford for me to become a door to door shoe salesman. How long do you think you’re going to keep jackassing around with these shoes? I shrugged. I don’t know, Dad. [26:19] My sales strategy was simple. I drove all over to various track meets. Between races, I’d chat up the coaches and runners, and show them my wares. The response was always the same. I couldn’t write orders fast enough. [28:17] I’d been unable to sell encyclopedias, and I’d despised it to boot. I’d been slightly better at selling mutual funds, but I’d felt dead inside. So why was selling shoes so different? Because I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed if people got out and ran a few miles every day the world would be a better place. And I believed these shoes were better to run in. People sensing my belief wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief is irresistible. [28:44] Johnson believed that runners are God’s chosen, that running, done right, in the correct spirit and with the proper form, is a mystical exercise, no less than meditation or prayer, and thus he felt called to help runners reach their nirvana. [33:18] Not even the Yahweh of running, Bowerman, was as pious about the sport as Blue Ribbon’s Part-Time Employee Number Two. [33:43] I shook my head. I tell the man Blue Ribbon is sinking like the Titanic, and he responds by begging for a berth in first class. [35:58] At the time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about generals, samurai, shoguns, along with biographies of my three main heroes—Churchill, Kennedy, Tolstoy. . . I wasn’t that unique. Throughout history, men have looked to the warrior for a model of Hemingway’s cardinal virtue, pressurized grace.[37:03] Each new customer got his, or her own index card. Each index card contained that customer’s personal information, shoe size, and shoe preferences. He had hundreds and hundreds of customer correspondents, all along the spectrum of humanity, from high school track starts to octogenarian weekend joggers. [40:17] In all the world there had never been such a sanctuary for runners, a place that didn’t just sell them shoes but celebrated them and their shoes. [42:54] I wanted what everyone wants. To be me, full-time. [45:29] 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. [45:59] If my life was to be all work and no play, I wanted my work to be play. [46:15] Phil Knight is in his 5th year in business and still has a full-time job. How many people would be willing to do that? [46:51] Right before my thirty-first birthday I made the bold move and went full-time at my company. [48:21] When you read this book you really feel like you get to know Phil Knight and you were there throughout his struggles. [49:39] I struggle to remember. I close my eyes and think back, but so many precious moments from those nights are gone forever. Numberless conversations, breathless laughing fits. Declarations, revelations, confidences. They’ve all fallen into the sofa cushions of time. I remember only that we always sat up half the night, cataloging the past, mapping out the future. I remember that we took turns describing what our little company was, and what it might be, and what it must never be. How I wish, on just one of those nights, I’d had a tape recorder. Or kept a journal. [49:50] For the first eight years of Blue Ribbon they are selling other people’s shoes. [54:00] This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. No more selling someone else’s brand. No more working for someone else. If we are going to succeed or fail we should do so on our own terms. [56:05] How he felt after the IPO: I asked myself. What are you feeling? If I felt anything, it was . . . regret. Good God, I thought. Yes. Regret. Because I honestly wished I could do it all over again. [59:31] Above all, I regret not spending more time with my sons. [1:01:42] God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing. [1:02:01] 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. [1:02:06] I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties 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. [1:02:34] I’d like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that they will always have a bulls-eye on their backs. The better they get, the bigger the bulls-eye. It’s not one man’s opinion; it’s the law of nature. [1:03:10] I’d like to remind them that America isn’t the entrepreneurial Shangri-La people think. Free enterprise always irritates the kinds of trolls who live to block, to thwart, to say no. Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned, outnumbered. They’ve always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrepreneurial, not more. A Harvard Business School study recently ranked all the countries in the world in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit. America ranked behind Peru. [1:03:27] Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop. [1:04:23] ---- 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

#9 I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford

What I learned from reading I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Snow. ---- 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

#8 The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company

What I learned from reading The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone. ---- 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

#7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's

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

#6 Sam Walton

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

#5 Steve Jobs

What I learned from reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. ---- 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

#4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

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

#3 The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Edison Invented The Modern the Modern World

What I learned from reading The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross Edison starts his first business at 12 years old (11:00) Edison's discipline (20:00) Edison's rivalry with Alexander Graham Bell (38:00) Edison's friendship with Henry Ford (1:00:00) Edison's stoic nature (1:15:00)  The death of Thomas Edison (1:21:00) ---- 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

#2 Walt Disney

What I learned from reading Walt Disney based on the book Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler.   ---- 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

#1 Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, & the Quest for a Fantastic Future

What I learned from reading Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance The conventional wisdom of the time said to take a deep breath and wait for the next big thing to arrive in due course. Musk rejected that logic by throwing $100 million into SpaceX, $70 million into Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity. Short of building an actual money crushing machine, Musk could not have picked a faster way to destroy his fortune. He became a one-man-ultra-risk taking venture capital shop and doubled down on making super-complex physical goods in two of the most expensive places in the world, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. [2:13] What Musk has developed that so many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack is a meaningful worldview. He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. He’s less a CEO chasing riches than a general marshaling troops to secure victory. [9:17] The life that Musk has created to manage all of these endeavors is preposterous. [9:53] He felt as if the public had lost some of its ambition and hope for the future. [14:34] His fears that mankind had lost much of its will to push the boundaries were reinforced one day when Musk went to the NASA website. He expected to find a detailed plan for exploring Mars and instead found bupkis. [14:58] The men were heading to Russia at the height of its freewheeling post-Soviet days when rich guys could apparently buy space missiles on the open market. [24:32] Musk wheeled around and flashed a spreadsheet he’d created. “Hey guys, I think we can build this rocket ourselves.” [27:53] Some of these people had spent years on the island going through one of the most surreal engineering exercises in human history. They had been separated from their families, assaulted by the heat, and exiled on their tiny launchpad outpost— sometimes without much food — for days on end as they waited for the launch windows to open and dealt with the aborts that followed. So much of that pain and suffering and fear would be forgotten if this launch went successfully. [32:17] It took six years-about four and half more than Musk had once planned — and five hundred people to make this miracle of modern science and business happen. [34:38] Well that was freaking awesome. There are a lot of people who thought we couldn’t do it. There are only a handful of countries on Earth that have done this. It’s normally a country thing, not a company thing. My mind is kind of frazzled, so it’s hard for me to say anything, but this is definitely one of the greatest days in my life. [35:19] To avoid bankruptcy Musk made a last-ditch effort to raise all the personal funds he could and put them into the company. “It was like the fucking Matrix,” Musk said, describing his financial maneuvers. [42:53] The 2008 period told him everything he would ever need to know about Musk’s character. He saw a man who arrived in the United States with nothing, who had lost a child, who was on the verge of having his life’s work destroyed. “He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met. What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. He didn’t just survive. He kept working and stayed focused.” [48:37] ---- 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