Founders

The best interview I've ever done about Founders

What I learned from the first 6 years of making Founders. I recorded a new episode with Patrick. It should be out soon. Follow Invest Like the Best in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss it.  ---- 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

#318 Alistair Urquhart (Listen to this when you’re stressed)

What I learned from reading The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific by Alistair Urquhart. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (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 ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#317 Ed Catmull (Founder of Pixar)

What I learned from rereading Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull.  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:00) Walt Disney created a made-up world, used cutting-edge technology to enable it, and then told us how he’d done it. (7:30) Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #187) (7:30) Both Einstein and Disney inspired me, but Disney affected me more because of his weekly visits to my family's living room. (7:45) Every time some technological breakthrough occurred, Walt Disney incorporated it. (9:30) His dad was the son of an Idaho dirt farmer. His dad was one of 14 kids. 5 of his dad's siblings died as infants. His dad was the first person in his family ever to go to college. He had to work while he was going to college and pay his own way. His dad built the family house with his own hands. (10:30) 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) (12:30) The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis (Founders #274) (14:00) George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones (Founders #35) (15:00) We [Ed Catmull and George Lucas] worked with a blinders on intensity. George had relentless practicality. He wasn't some hobbyist trying to bring technology into filmmaking for the heck of it. His interest in computers began and ended with their potential to add value to his filmmaking process. (19:00) George Lucas believed in the future and his ability to shape it. (20:30) The storyteller is the most powerful person in the world. — Steve Jobs (20:30) The art of storytelling is critically important. Most of the entrepreneurs who come talk to us can't tell a story. Learning to tell a story is incredibly important because that's how the money works. The money flows as a function of the stories — Don Valentine (22:30) Steve used the phrase insanely great products to explain what he believed in. (26:30) This guy told me that the way to establish his authority in the room was to arrive last. His thinking was this would establish him as the most powerful player in the room since he could afford to keep everyone else waiting. All it ended up establishing was that he had never met anyone like Steve jobs. (38:30) If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better. (42:00) Everything associated with our name needed to be good. Quality is the best business plan. (42:30) Steve understood that every interaction a customer had with Apple could increase or decrease his or her respect for the company. As he put it, a corporation "could accumulate or withdraw credits" from its reputation, which is why he worked so hard to ensure that every single interaction a customer might have with Apple-from using a Mac to calling customer support to buying a single from the iTunes store and then getting billed for it-was excellent. — Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (Founders #265) (48:30) Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos (Founders #282) (52:30) People discover and realize their visions over time and through dedicated, protracted struggle. (53:30) If you’re sailing across the ocean and your goal is to avoid weather and waves, then why the hell are you sailing? You have to embrace that sailing means that you can’t control the elements and that there will be good days and bad days and that, whatever comes, you will deal with it because your goal is to eventually get to the other side. You will not be able to control exactly how you get across. That’s the game you’ve decided to be in. If your goal is to make it easier and simpler, then don’t get in the boat. (59:00) It is difficult to understand people who deviate so radically from the norm like Steve did. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#316 Bugatti

What I learned from reading The Bugatti Story by L’Ebe Bugatti. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:01) If there was a prototype operation for what Enzo Ferrari envisioned it had to be what the legendary Ettore Bugatti built in Molsheim. — Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates. (Founders #220) (7:00) Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A. J. Baime. (Founders #97) (14:30) I determined to build a car of my own. I had realized by then that I was completely taken by mechanics. My ideas gave me no rest. (16:00) The two inventors described to each other a singular experience: Each had imagined a perfect new product, whole, already manufactured and sitting before him, and then spent years prodding executives, engineers, and factories to create it with as few compromises as possible. — Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264) (22:00) Faster progress would be made in all fields if conceit did not cause us to forget or disdain the work done by others before us. There is a tendency to believe that nothing worthy of note has been done in the past, and this has an unfortunate bearing on our judgment; thus the present trend toward mediocrity. (23:45) I was hypnotized, drawn more and more to the mechanics of motors. These exciting problems had me completely under their sway, and so began for me the hard uphill task, the thankless labor of constructing and destroying and beginning again, without a break or rest,  and for days, months, years even, until success finally rewarded all my efforts. (27:00) Bugatti made no attempt to compete with the low price models already on the market. The price of the Bugatti was higher than any other car of equal horsepower. (37:00) Bugatti is the personification of Paul Graham’s essay How To Do Great Work(Founders #314) -Work on what you have a natural aptitude for and a deep curiosity about. -Make a commitment to be the best in the world at what you do. -Care deeply about making truly great work. (42:00) All the finest trophies were won easily by engaging in every important race without pause. (44:00) Nothing is too good. Nothing is too dear. You've got to win whatever the cost. You work day and night if necessary. (44:30) There was a factory. However Molsheim was more than that. It was a house and a family. It was a little world where the attitude to things and the relations between people were out of the ordinary. (45:30) The personality of its founder continued to show in even the smallest details and unexpected ways. (46:00) You get the feeling of being suddenly confronted with something unusual and beyond classification. (49:30) His starting point was always to create the most extraordinary things. (50:30) Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300) (52:00) The root principle was to do things your way. It didn't matter how other people did it. As long as it works and it is exciting people will follow you. (58:30) A human life, by its very nature, has to be devoted to something or other, to a glorious or humble enterprise, an illustrious or obscure destiny. This is a strange but inexorable condition of things. — The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gasset ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#315 Balenciaga

What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson.  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:20) Among the masters of Parisian fashion, Balenciaga was the greatest. (3:00) Christian Dior called Balenciaga “the master of us all" and Coco Chanel said that Balenciaga was "the only couturier in the truest sense of the word. The others are simply fashion designers". (3:30) Jay Gould episodes #258 and #285  (5:00) For the next seventy-four years Balenciaga did a piece of sewing every day of his life. (5:20) Being prolific is underrated. — Paul Graham (Founders #314) (8:45) From the age of three to his mid-twenties he learned thoroughly every aspect of his trade. (17:00) Bernard Arnault (Founders #296) (23:00) What Dior told Boussac: 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.” (26:00) Balenciaga never commented on other designers. (28:00) Balenciaga had a religious like devotion to his craft: Balenciaga regarded making dresses as a vocation, like the priesthood, and an act of worship. He felt that he served God by suitably adorning the female form, which God had made beautiful. (29:00) Customers were called patrons. (30:00) His remoteness was not a pose but part of his dedication to his art. He worked fanatically hard. (31:00) His fundamental principles as a dressmaker: Make women happy. Make dresses the customer never wants to take off. Permanence. You should bequeath your dress to your daughter. And her to her daughter. Best material from the best textile creators. (33:00) You don’t wear a Balenciaga dress, you present it. (Make up your own terms!) (35:00) The essence of his creations was the work of human hands, bringing into existence the images projected on paper from his powerful and inventive brain. The archives of his firm survive intact, and they reveal the extent to which everything was done by hand: (37:00) Cut against the bias. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#314 Paul Graham (How To Do Great Work)

What I learned from reading How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (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. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#313 Christopher Nolan

What I learned from reading The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:00) The only way I know how to work is to sort of burrow in on one project very obsessively. (7:25) People will say to me, "There are people online who are obsessed with Inception or obsessed with Memento.” They're asking me to comment on that, as if I thought it were weird or something, and I'm like, Well, I was obsessed with it for years. Genuinely obsessed with it. So it doesn't strike me as weird. . . I feel like I have managed to wrap them the up in it way I try to wrap myself up. (8:30) The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Keegan and The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron. (Founders #311) (11:00) 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. — George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.  (15:30) Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride. (Founders #209) (22:45) Nolan is relentlessly resourceful. He wants to spend as as little money as possible so he can maintain as much control over the project as possible. (23:30) He makes his first movie on the weekends while he working a full-time job! (29:30) The efficiency of filmmaking is for me a way of keeping control. The pressure of time, the pressure of money. Even though they feel like restrictions at the time, and you chafe against them, they're helping you make decisions. They really are. If I know that deadline is there, then my creative process ramps up exponentially. (34:00) The result of making a billion dollar blockbuster: Suddenly his position at Warner Brothers went from solid to unassailable. (37:00) Stories can add to your own thinking but you need your own foundation to add them to first. (38:00) I know it's more fun when we're all together and we can do the thing together. That's why we keep it as a family business. (39:00) Rolls-Royce: The Magic of a Name: The First Forty Years of Britain s Most Prestigious Company by Peter Pugh. (Founders #287) (43:30) Every time a new feature or product was proposed, he decreed that the narrative should take the shape of a mock press release. The goal was to get employees to distill a pitch into its purest essence, to start from something the customer might see—the public announcement—and work backward. Bezos didn’t believe anyone could make a good decision about a feature or a product without knowing precisely how it would be communicated to the world. — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) (45:30) Once your children are born, you can never look at yourself through your own eyes anymore; you always look at yourself through their eyes. (49:30) I often have terrible luck with the weather, but my philosophy is to shoot no matter what the weather is, always shooting no matter what weather, just keeping going, keeping going. Letting everybody on the crew and cast know we're really serious about doing that, no matter what the conditions are, so they're not looking out the window first thing and going, Oh, we will or won't shoot today. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#312 Mark Twain

What I learned from reading Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. --- One of the best podcasts I've heard this year: Listen to Invest Like The Best #336 Jeremy Giffon Special Situations in Private Markets  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:20) A great way to think about power law people: Their absence leaves of void that no one else can fill. (8:00) His death would not have lengthened the life of the Confederacy or the Union, by a single day. It would, however, have reduced the literary inheritance of the United States by an incalculable amount. (11:20) Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss. (13:00) In another life Mark Twain would be a cocaine dealer. (17:30) I knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating. (21:15) The ad itself became legendary: “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” Hundreds of adventure-seeking young men quickly responded. (24:30) Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides (27:45) The purest veins were usually the deepest. (28:00) The trouble with this business is that everybody expects to find oil on the surface. If it was up near the top, it wouldn't be any trick to it. You've got to drill deep for oil. — The Big Rich (Founders #149) (32:30) Get the facts first, then you can distort them as much as you like. (33:30) People are attracted to confidence and repelled from nuance. (37:00) The whole point of the performance was not so much what was being said, as how it was being said. (47:30) Ambassador Burlingame gave the author a well-meaning piece of advice. “You have great ability; I believe you have genius,” Burlingame said. “What you need now is refinement of association. Seek companionship among men of superior intellect and character. Refine yourself and your work. Never affiliate with inferiors; always climb.” It was an admonishment Twain would take to heart and follow, virtually to the letter, for the next forty-four years. (53:00) When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it. — Jeff Bezos (57:30) Mark Twain produced a remarkable stream of novels, short stories, essays, and travel pieces that today stands as one of the great bodies of work in English literature. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#311 James Cameron

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. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#310 Walt Disney and Picasso

What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson.  --- (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) --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Michael Jordan (The Life)

What I learned from reading Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. --- (5:07) His competence was exceeded only by his confidence.(5:58) He worked at the game, and if he wasn't good at something, he had the motivation to be the best at it. (6:33) It seemed that he discovered the secret quite early in his competitive life: the more pressure he heaped on himself, the greater his ability to rise to the occasion. (14:06) At each step along his path, others would express amazement at how hard he competed. At every level, he was driven as if he were pursuing something that others couldn't see.(16:10) Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I'd close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it, and that got me going again. (19:29) Jordan could sense immediately that he had something the others didn't. (59:53) The Jordan Rules succeeded against the Bulls so well that they became textbook for guarding athletic scorers. The scheme helped Detroit win two NBA championships, but it also helped in the long run, by forcing Jordan to find an answer. "I think that 'Jordan Rules' defense, as much as anything else, played a part in the making of Michael Jordan," Tex Winter said. (1:16:35) 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. (1:19:56) I have always liked practice and I hate to miss it. When you miss that one day, you feel like you missed a lot. You take extra work to make up for that one day. I've always been a practice player. I believe in it.(1:29:47) Jordan presented a singleness of purpose that was hard to dent. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#309 Arnold Schwarzenegger (Before He Was Successful)

What I learned from reading Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak by Barbara Outland Baker. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (6:30) He forced his sons to eat with silverware at perfect right angles. They had to keep their elbows to their waists. If the boys did not obey, the back of his hand was quick to strike their cheeks. (7:30) His life began to flourish through the art and science of bodybuilding. Arnold ate it, slept it, worked it, imagined it, thought it, believed it, and trusted it. Bodybuilding became his existence. (8:10) He had no time to waste on naysayers. He aligned only with those who shared his passion.  (8:15) He knew that to succeed according to his manic standards he needed to master an individual sport. (8:30) His intelligence did not show on his report cards yet he mastered his goals like a wizard. (If you do everything you will win) (8:50) His singular concentration provided a rock solid belief in his potential. (9:30) Not even his peers could understand the enormity of his lifetime dreams. (11:00) Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #193) (11:15) Gradually a conflict grew up in our relationship. She was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life. She had thought I would settle down, that I would reach the top in my field and level off. But that's a concept that has no place in my thinking. For me, life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer. (13:40) If you do everything you will win. (13:45) And I then saw very clearly what I could achieve, and that gave me a tremendous amount of motivation. (13:55) Instead of training two hours a day like most kids did, I would train twice a day, two hours. Totally abnormal. Sometimes three times a day and sometimes four times a day. I would go home during my lunch time, and then do, for an hour straight, just sit-ups to get that extra hour that no one else has gotten in, just to be ahead of everyone else. (16:20) Arnold was not a man of many surprises. He was clear in his focus, firm in his decisions, and egocentric at all costs. (17:55) Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners. — The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106) (21:20) He made it clear that his world was huge and I must learn to accept that other people and activities demanded his attention. (23:30) His family foundation was instrumental in setting up his intense motivation to succeed. This negative motivation pushes him to achieve the maximum potential in every activity. (27:30) No one could restrain his mutinous energy. (27:55) Arnold always felt self-confident, no matter the disparity in sophistication, income or status. (29:30) Francis could sell ice to the Eskimos, Lucas said later. He has charisma beyond logic. I can see now what kind of men the great Caesars of history were, their magnetism. — George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #35) (31:30) 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) (22:40) Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. — Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66) (33:10) Optimism is a moral duty. — Edwin Land A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein. (Founders #134) (33:50) A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.  — The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #283) (35:30) Stay public. You gotta promote, promote, promote, or it all dies. You just gotta be out there all the time. — Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219) (37:00) He maintained his rigorous training schedule. (38:30) He craved the interaction with each new expert and remembered every tip. Arnold already recognized that he had the ability to learn any content he chose. (38:45) The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets. — The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191) (39:15) Imitation precedes creation. — Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. (Founders #210) (44:35) Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141) Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #193) --- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#308 The Founder of Glock

What I learned from reading Glock: The Rise of America's Gun by Paul Barrett.    Listen to Invest Like the Best #292 David Senra: Passion and Pain.  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (5:22) What struck me is how his inexperience was a great advantage. He didn't assume anything about how to design a handgun because he's never designed one before. Consequently he designed the best one ever. He didn't know what was out of bounds. (8:20) Gaston Glock himself put it in an interview: "That I knew nothing was my advantage.” (8:55) He began disassembling the guns, putting them back together, and noted the contrasting methods used to make them. (9:00) More on Glock’s initial research process: I started intensive studies in such a manner that I visited the Austrian patent offices for weeks examining generations of handgun in innovation. (9:10) Learning from history of a form of leverage. (10:25) Crucially, the gun should have no more than 40 parts. This is one of the most important ideas in the book. He designed a product —and a company— based on limiting the amount of moving parts. (12:00) My intention was to learn as much as possible as fast as possible. (12:30) Move fast: I worked for two years, day and night, to bring the sample to the Army on time. (12:45) Difference for the sake of it and retention of total control. — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300) (15:00) The important thing that gave him his big price advantage was that he designed the pistol for complete production on computer controlled tools. (15:20) The book is all simplicity, focus, and differentiation. (15:30) Glock produced the simplest handgun with only 34 components. (18:30) He's got all these very unique and unusual forms of distribution. (18:35) How did a pistol produced by an obscure engineer in Vienna, a man who barely spoke English and had no familiarity with America, become in the space of a few years, an American icon? The answer to that question is distribution. (20:20) There's a lot of money to be made if we could convert U.S police departments from revolvers to pistols. (22:50) The only conventional thing about the Glock was the method of operation he adopted for his handgun. Glock borrowed his basic mechanics from John Moses Browning, the greatest gun designer of the late 19th century. (24:08) He objected to the Pentagon's insistence that the rights to manufacture the winning gun design would be open to competitive bidding. Glock intended to collect all profit from the production of his gun himself. (24:35) Quality will always bring you more money. (25:50) Glock's gross margins exceeded 65%. The Glock's simpler design and the computerized manufacturing methods allowed for larger profits. (27:45) Working by Robert Caro. (Founders #305) (30:40) David Ogilvy said the word FREE is magical to customers. (31:00) Glock began putting some of the country's most admired shooting instructors on contract to spread the word about the Austrian pistol. (32:00) Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves. + The deals worked financially because of the company's startingly low manufacturing costs. (32:30) Glock is just running Sam Colt’s playbook — just doing it 140 years later. — Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America by Jim Rasenberger. (Founders #147) (33:00) Sam Colt relentlessly pursued public contracts, regardless of the profit margin. “Government patronage, Sam Colt once said, is an advertisement, if nothing else.”  Gaston Glock became the Sam Colt of the 20th century. (34:30) Glock was able to focus. They put all of their effort and resources behind a single product: American handgun makers offered many diverse models in the fashion of the Detroit car companies. Glock saw that as competing with himself and resisted the temptation. (36:20) He evolved from a provincial manager of a radiator factory to a world traveling industrialist. (41:45) That was Glock's theme. I did it my way. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#307: The World's Great Family Dynasties: Rockefeller, Rothschild, Morgan, & Toyada

What I learned from reading Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses by David Landes. ---- Listen to Invest Like the Best #292 David Senra: Passion and Pain.  Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- (4:25) Success causes failure. As the family develops power and prestige, the heirs find many interesting and amusing things to do rather than run their business. (6:00) Those on the margins often come to control the center. (9:00) Great industrial leaders are always fanatically committed to their jobs. They are not lazy, or amateurs. — Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #306) (9:50) For many of the great founders “Appetite comes with eating.” (11:00) Rothschild episodes: Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild by Amos Elon. (Founders #197) The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets by Niall Ferguson. (Founders #198) JP Morgan episodes: The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. (Founders #139) The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. (Founders #142) Rockefeller episodes: Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller. (Founders #148) Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254) (13:30) Mayer Rothschild thought that long term relationships were more valuable than immediate profit. (15:45) Nathan Rothschild has extreme levels of self belief: When his prospective father-in-law asked for proof of his prospects, Nathan told him that if he was concerned about having his daughters provided for, he might just as well give them all to Nathan, and be done with it. (19:00) The Rothschilds developed the technique of absolute direction to perfection. (21:15) Wal-Mart stock is staying right where it is. We don’t need the money. We don’t need to buy a yacht. And thank goodness we never thought we had to go out and buy anything like an island. We just don’t have those lands of needs or ambitions, which wreck a lot of companies when they get along in years. Some families sell their stock off a little at a time to live high, and then—boom—somebody takes them over, and it all goes down the drain. One of the real reasons I’m writing this book is so my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will read it years from now and know this: If you start any of that foolishness, I’ll come back and haunt you. So don’t even think about it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234) (26:00) If you want to build a family dynasty you need to have a bunch of kids. This is the number one factor for increasing the chance that your family dynasty outlives you. (29:45) Larry Ellison 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. — Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds. (Founders #124) (36:13) A man always has two reasons for the things he does, a good one, and the real one. — J.P. Morgan (38:00) Andrew Carnegie celebrated too quickly. He later admitted to Morgan that he had sold out too cheap, by $100 million. Morgan replied, “Very likely, Andrew.” — The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. (Founders #142) (38:35) Henry Villard had come to Morgan for help in taking over Edison's company. This was a mistake. Morgan was not by nature, a helper. He was a driver. He arranged a counter coup. (41:45) Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. (Founders #278) (43:30) “It is impossible to create an innovative product unless you do it yourself, pay attention to every detail, and then test it exhaustively. Never entrust the creation of a product to others, for that will inevitably lead to failure and cause you deep regret.” —Sakichi Toyada (45:00) You should make an effort to make something that will benefit society. (45:30) Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary by Robert Price. (Founders #304) (48:50) Mailman is a Gmail plugin that allows you to control when and what emails should land in your inbox. https://www.mailmanhq.com (58:30)  Rockefeller believed that he would be rich and he believed that this was because God wanted him to be. (58:45) Rockefeller’s competitors and associates were amateurs by comparison, and he saw them for what they were. (1:01:00) Published railway tariffs were for the small man. They were not for major shippers who could play one railroad against another while promising steady cargo. (Rockefeller’s initial edge) (1:03:15) His clincher was to offer the victim a look at the books of Standard. A potential seller was dumbfounded to learn that standard was able to sell at less than his own cost of production. They could kill him whenever they pleased. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#306 David Ogilvy (Confessions of an Advertising Man)

What I learned from reading Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy.  ---- Listen to one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- (4:15) When Fortune published an article about me and titled it: "Is David Ogilvy a Genius?," I asked my lawyer to sue the editor for the question mark. (4:45) The people who built the companies for which America is famous, all worked obsessively to create strong cultures within their organizations. Companies that have cultivated their individual identities by shaping values, making heroes, spelling out rites and rituals, and acknowledging the cultural network, have an edge (5:30) We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow in oak forests. (5:48) We hire gentlemen with brains. (6:16) Only First Class business, and that in a First Class way. (6:25) Search all the parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees. (9:45) Buy Ogilvy on Advertising (10:45) One decent editorial counts for a thousand advertisements. + 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. — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300) (15:22) It was inspiring to work for a supreme master. M. Pitard did not tolerate incompetence. He knew that it is demoralising for professionals to work alongside incompetent amateurs. (16:66) You have to be ruthless if you want to build a team of A players. It's too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players. The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can't indulge B players. (18:12) In the best companies, promises are always kept, whatever it may cost in agony and overtime. (18:33) I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principal responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work. (19:38) I admire people who work hard, who bite the bullet. (19:58) I admire people with first class brains. (20:23) I admire people who work with gusto. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, I beg you to find another job. Remember the Scottish proverb, "Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead." (20:50) I admire self-confident professionals, the craftsmen  who do their jobs with superlative excellence. (21:40) The best way to keep the peace is to be candid. (23:18) 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.  —  Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words. (Founders #299) (24:39) The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz. (Founders #206) (25:09) Claude Hopkins episodes: My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins. (Founders #170) Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. (Founders #207) (25:47) Talent is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. (26:49) The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked. (28:21) This podcast studies formidable individuals. (31:40) Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam by Michael R. Marrus. (Founders #116) (37:47) I doubt whether there is a single agency (or company) of any consequence which is not the lengthened shadow of one man. (39:51) Don't bunt. Aim out of the park. Aim for the company of immortals. (40:13) Most big corporations behave as if profit were not a function of time. When Jerry Lambert scored his first breakthrough with Listerine, he speeded up the whole process of marketing by dividing time into months. Instead of locking himself into annual plans, Lambert reviewed his advertising and his profits every month. The result was that he made $25,000,000 in eight years, where it takes most people twelve times as long. In Jerry Lambert's day, the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company lived by the month, instead of by the year. (41:30) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302) (41:36) I am an inveterate brain picker, and the most rewarding brains I have picked are the brains of my predecessors and my competitors. (43:27) We make advertisements that people want to read. You can't save souls in an empty church. (44:05) You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. (45:13) The headline is the most important element in advertisements. (47:47) Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley (48:15) Set yourself to becoming the best-informed man in the agency on the account to which you are assigned. If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read text books on the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroleum products. Read all the trade journals in the field. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, pumping gasoline and talking to motorists. Visit your client's refineries and research  laboratories. Study the advertising of his competitors. At the end of your second year, you will know more about gasoline than your boss. Most of the young men in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast   ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#305 Robert Caro on power, poverty, ruthlessness, & obsession

What I learned from reading Working by Robert Caro.  ---- Listen to one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best: Sam Hinkie: Find Your People  ---- [3:40] You can't get very deep into Johnson's life without realizing that the central fact of his life was his relationship with his father. [8:00] It was the hill country and his father's failures that taught him how terrible could be the consequences of a single mistake. [8:45] Lyndon Johnson wouldn't understand. He would refuse to understand. He would threaten you, would cajole you, bribe you or charm you. He would do whatever he had to do, but he would get that vote. [9:00] What mattered to him was winning because he knew what losing could be. What its consequences could be. [9:50] Robert Caro books I've read:  The Power Broker  The Path to Power Means of Ascent Master of The Senate (currently reading)  [11:00] About what I wanted to do with my life and my books (which are my life) [11:40] I am a reflection of what I do. — Steve Jobs [23:20] There are certain moments in your life when you suddenly understand something about yourself. I loved going through those files, making them yield up their secrets to me. [24:10] Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamn page. [27:50] Robert Caro snaps: No, that's not why highways get built where they get built. They get built there because Robert Moses wants them there. [28:15] Robert Moses had power that no one understood. Power that nobody else was even thinking about. [29:50] There are sentences that are said to you in your life that are chiseled into your memory. [34:00] Three of the editors took me to some fancy restaurant and told me they could make me a star. Bob Gottlieb said, Well, I don't go out for lunch but we can have a sandwich at my desk and talk about your book. So of course I picked him. [37:15] Robert Moses was a ruthless genius with savage energy. [38:30] Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age. — Paul Graham’s essays. (Founders #275-277) [42:30] in a couple of sentences these two men —idols of mine — had wiped away five years of doubt. [42:50] There is not a more mysterious craft than entrepreneurship. [48:15] I now had a picture of Lyndon Johnson's youth, that terrible youth, that character hardening youth. [54:00] I wasn't fully understanding what these people were telling me about the depth of Lyndon Johnson's determination, about the frantic urgency, the desperation, to get ahead, and to get ahead fast. As if the passions, the ambitions that he brought to Washington, strong though they were, were somehow intensified by the fact that he was finally there, in the place where he had always wanted to be. I wanted to show the contrast between what he was coming from the poverty, the insecurity —and what he was trying for. [55:15] I wanted to make the reader see the contrast between what he was coming from and what he was trying for. Something on the way to work had excited him and thrilled him so much that he'd break into a run every morning. [56:15] And as Lyndon Johnson came up Capitol Hill in the morning, he would be running. Well, of course he was running—from the land of poverty to this. Everything he had ever wanted, everything he had ever hoped for, was there. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#304: Sol Price (The Founder Who Taught Jim Sinegal, Sam Walton, Jeff Bezos, Bernie Marcus)

What I learned from reading Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary by Robert Price.  ---- [6:50] He believed in developing strong operating efficiencies, and he continually emphasized passing on savings to customers. [8:48] It's pretty incredible to think about that Sol's ideas have created trillions of dollars of value. [11:18] 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) [14:00] Stephen King on the belief and support he received from his wife: “Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference”— Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftby Stephen King. (Founders #210) [16:00] True education is gained through the discipline of life. —Henry Ford [19:45] Sol kept a small sign in his office: “Do it now.” [24:00] Sol finds an idea future generations of entrepreneurs will use: A membership retail store targeted to a specific niche. [24:45] When you have people driving far distances to save money that is a very good sign. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234) [26:45] Daniel Ek interview on the Acquired podcast.  [39:10] If you’re not spending 90% of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job. —Jim Sinegal. [39:45] You train an animal, you teach a person. [40:00] He was not a fan of training manuals because he believed that manuals were a substitute for thinking. [43:00] What does limited selection have to do with efficiency? Because payroll and benefits represent 80% of a retailer’s cost of operations, pricing advantage follows labor productivity. Fewer items result in reduced labor hours throughout all of the product supply channels. Put simply, the cost to deal with 4,500 items is a lot less than the cost to deal with 50,000 items. [50:21] The operating efficiencies of the warehouse concept and the direct delivery of products from the suppliers to Price Club made it possible to sell merchandise for less. [55:00] Costco and Sam's were expanding aggressively while Price Club remained tentative. [1:03:30] Sol was a poster child for the American dream. His immigrant parents were born in a small Russian village. Sol was the first in his family to graduate college. He earned a law degree. He became an exceptionally successful businessman and philanthropist, celebrated 70 years of marriage, was a good father who instilled high values in his sons, and he never walked away from responsibility. It doesn’t get much better than that. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#303 Rose Blumkin (Warren Buffett's Favorite Founder)

What I learned from reading The Women of Berkshire Hathaway: Lessons from Warren Buffett's Female CEOs and Directors by Karen Linder.  ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas—A New Blueprint for Homebuilding  ---- Episode outline: Mr. Buffett, we're going to put our competitors through a meat grinder. — Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. (Founders #182) There are several "Going Out of Business" advertisements from competitors' stores framed and hanging on the wall. As a general rule, bet on the quality of the business, not on the quality of the management-unless, of course, you've got a Mrs. B. in your hand. If that is the case, go all in. She was a business genius. —  The Tao of Charlie Munger (Founders #295) Retirement is fatal. — David Ogilvy (Founders #189) Business like raising a child, you want a good one. A child needs a mother and a business needs a boss. What is your favorite thing to do on a nice evening? Drive around to check the competition and plan my next attack. He was 52 and famous. I was 33 and a junior account executive. Early on, he wrote a letter to one of my clients. After listing eight reasons why some ads prepared by the company’s design department would not be effective, he delivered his ultimate argument: The only thing that can be said in favor of the layouts is that they are “different.” You could make a cow look different by removing the udder. But that cow would not produce results. So began my “David” file. Almost everyone who worked at the agency kept one. — The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising by Kenneth Roman. (Founders #169) Buffet said: If she ran a popcorn stand I’d wanna be in business with her. She's just plain smart. She's a fierce competitor and she's a tireless worker. Buffett “on how Mrs. B ran her business: One question I always ask myself in appraising a business is how I would like, assuming I had ample capital and skilled personnel, to compete with it. I'd rather wrestle grizzlies than compete with Mrs. B. They buy brilliantly, they operate at expense ratios on to t competitors don't even dream about, and they then pass on to their customers much of the savings. It's the ideal business—one built upon exceptional value to the customer that in turn translates into exceptional economics for its owners." She hired a chauffeur who drove her around Omaha each day. The driver took her to other stores. She looked in the windows and checked to see how many cars were in their parking lots. It didn't take long for her to plan her revenge. There was no looking back. She just swung. Aspiring business managers should look hard at the plain, but rare, attributes that produced Mrs. B’s incredible success. Students from 40 universities visit me every year, and I have them start the day with a visit to NFM. If they absorb Mrs. B’s lessons, they need none from me. ---- Join my email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#302 Napoleon (The Mind of Napoleon)

What I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas ---- (3:45) A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree. (4:45) He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present. (5:15) Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine. (6:05) Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294) (9:25) To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing. (10:00) To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all. (10:55) The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent. (11:45) The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. —  Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299) (12:55) The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late. (16:10) The worst way to live according to Napoleon: When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all. (17:45) Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214) (19:15) He must know himself. Until then, all endeavors are in vain, all schemes collapse. (20:15) Napoleon on George Washington: Britain refused to acknowledge either him or the independence of his country; but his success obliged them to change their minds and acknowledge both. It is success which makes the great man. (21:15) Washington saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretentions of superiority and won control over half of a continent. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnershipby Edward Larson. (Founders #251) (23:15) 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. (23:45) Warren Buffett: We are individually opportunity driven. — 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) (24:15) Imagination rules the world. (25:00) Ambition is a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases. (34:52) The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet. (35:30) Roots of Strategy: Book 1 (38:45) Robert Caro profiled two men who seeds were not high (in a tournament) they were without many advantages. And to get all the way to the top you probably had to sacrifice everything to the effort. The meta lesson is if you are not willing to pay that price presume someone else will. If you want something like the presidency (or being a billionaire) you should presume there is someone out there who will devote all their time, money, relationships, sense of ethics, everything in sacrifice of that one goal. Of course that person would win that race.  — Invest Like The Best Sam Hinkie Find Your People  (40:45) I do not want be roadkill on the modern-day Napoleon's path to glory. (43:15) The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen pushers. (44:05) A wasted life should be your greatest fear. (46:30) Make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory. (48:55) Paul Graham on Be Hard to Kill: The way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible. For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. —  Paul Graham’s essays (Founders #275) (51:30) Winning is the main thing. Keep the main thing, the main thing. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#301 Tiger Woods

What I learned from reading Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas ---- [3:00] He was someone no one had ever seen or will ever see again. [5:20] 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) [7:15] His output was enormous, much greater than that of nine tenths of other composers. He was a mature artist in most forms at the age of twelve. There was never a month, often scarcely a week, when he did not produce a substantial score. — Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240) [7:50] Tiger's opponents were never people; it was always history. [14:05] I've always been a practice player. I believe in it. — Michael Jordan: The Lifeby Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) [17:00] Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc. (Founders #293) [18:30] Tiger was filling his mind with words that were intended to make him great. He wrote some of the messages from the self-help cassettes on a sheet of paper that he taped to his bedroom wall: I believe in me I will own my own destiny I smile at obstacles I am first in my resolve I fulfill my resolutions powerfully My strength is great I stick to it, easily, naturally  My will moves mountains I focus and give it my all My decisions are strong I do it with all my heart Tiger listened to those tapes so often that he wore them out. [31:50] People would ask him how did you get so good Tiger? And he would answer, practice, practice, practice. [32:10] 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. [36:45] The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106) [40:15] That’s all training is. Stress. Recover. Improve. You’d think any damn fool could do it. But you don’t. You work too hard and rest too little and get hurt. — Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore. (Founders #153) [46:15] Money didn't motivate him. Nor did fame. He played for the hardware. He played for the win. [53:45] Robert Caro’s Books ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#300 James Dyson (Against the Odds)

What I learned from reading Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson for the 4th time. You can also find the book on Book Finder.  ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain  ---- Episode Outline:  [4:30] Invention: A Life by James Dyson (Founders #205) [2:41] I am a creator of products, a builder of things, and my name appears on them. That is how I make a living and they are what have made my name at least familiar in a million homes. [11:00] Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Definitive Biography of The Engineer, Visionary, and Great Briton by L.T.C. Rolt. (Founders #201) [13:10] 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. [14:15] Difference for the sake of it. In everything. Because it must be better. From the moment the idea strikes, to the running of the business. Difference, and retention of total control. [18:00] I would not be dragged into something I didn't want to do. [22:40] They were all running round and round the track like a herd of sheep and not getting any quicker. Difference itself was making me come in first. [23:34] 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, which makes me keep working at success. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was unable to think small, and nothing was a barrier to him. The mere fact that something had never been one 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.  While I could never lay claim to the genius of a man like that —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. [30:33] The vision of a single man pursued with dogged determination that was nothing less than obsession. [36:30] The root principle was to do things your way. It didn't matter how other people did it. [41:38] 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. [49:30] A direct relationship with the customer is the holy grail. Do not abandon it. [52:00] One of 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, I have been trying to say, 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 and to inspire others to give their very best efforts to developing it, and to remain true to it, and to see it through all the way to its optimum point. To total fruition, if you like. [1:02:20] Before I went into production with the dual cyclone I had built 5,127 prototypes. [1:02:30] 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. [1:03:30] While it is easy, of course, for me to celebrate my doggedness now and say that it is all you need to succeed, the truth is that it demoralized me terribly. I would crawl into the house every night covered in dust after a long day, exhausted and depressed because that day's cyclone had not worked. There were times when I thought it would never work, that I would keep on making cyclone after cyclone, never going forwards, never going backwards, until I died. [1:06:20] I was broke, hungry and depressed. The outlook was very dreary. My doggedness and self-belief in the absence of any real evidence that they were justified was beginning to look more and more like insanity. [1:10:30] Persistent trial and error allows them to wake up one morning after many, many mornings with a world beating product. [1:13:15] I began to consider forgetting the whole thing and doing something else with my life. [1:16:00] The poor buggers were so wrong, to think that designers knew nothing about business, or about marketing, or is about selling. It is the people who make the things that understand them, and understand what the public wants. [1:21:30] Go further. There is nothing wrong with making the consumer laugh. Conventional looks do not make a product more marketable. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#299 Steve Jobs (Make Something Wonderful)

What I learned from reading Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com You can read, reread, and search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast.  You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you.  A few questions I've asked SAGE recently:  What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas)  How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain  ---- (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. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#298 I had lunch with Sam Zell

What I learned from having lunch with Sam Zell and reading Zeckendorf: The Autobiography of The man Who Played a Real-Life Game of Monopoly and Won the Largest Real Estate Empire in History by William Zeckendorf.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com You can read, reread, and search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast.  You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you.  A few questions I've asked SAGE recently:  What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs? Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas)  How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent? What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors? Get access to Founders Notes here.  Episode Outline:  [27:31] Start of episode on Zeckendorf’s autobiography [27:44] 26 years of work was now moving down the chute. [28:36] The secret of any great project is to keep it moving, keep it from losing momentum. [34:55] 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) [36:21] Zeckendorf: Revisiting the legacy of a master builder [45:08] This ruthless industry has created far more bankruptcies than it has billionaires. — Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger. (Founders #243) [48:49] If you want to know whether you are destined to be a success or a failure in life, you can easily find out. The test is simple and it is infallible: Are you able to save money? If not, drop out. You will lose. You may think not, but you will lose as sure as you live. The seed of success is not in you. — James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest by Michael P. Malone. [53:20] I brought energy and drive. I became the chief enthusiast. [1:08:42] I was also deeply in debt. Never, except for rare moments, have I ever had my head very far above the financial water and never have I Iet this trouble me. [1:10:51] The importance to me of being on the heights was that in an hour I could achieve what previously would've taken a year or more of effort to perform. [1:11:13] One way to succeed is by aiding and supporting the position of others through new or ingenious ideas or projects. This usefulness to others is in large part the reason for my own success. [1:14:44] Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. (Founders #269) [1:15:04] The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292) [1:21:28] The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw  [1:25:52] More businesses die from indigestion than starvation. — The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard. (Founders #291) [1:29:23] Wisdom is prevention. –Charlie Munger + Be hard to kill. —Paul Graham (Founders #275) ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#297 Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia)

What I learned from rereading Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ! ---- [3:45] 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.” [4:32] The original intent for writing Let My People Go Surfing was for it to be a philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia. We have always considered Patagonia an experiment in doing business in unconventional ways. [7:48] MeatEater Podcast #188 Yvon Chouinard on Belonging to Nature [7:55] 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. [9:58] 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. [14:32] We were like a wild species living on the edge of an ecosystem: adaptable, resilient, and tough. [14:49] I believe the way towards mastery of any endeavor is to work towards simplicity. The more you know, the less you need. [15:49] The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [17:59] 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. [21:29] Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. (Founders #186) [28:02] Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. (Founders #188) [28:55] 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. [31:33] 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. [35:47] I was still wondering why I was really in business. [38:17] We had to begin to make all of our decisions as though we would be in business for a hundred years. [39:02] Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita. (Founders #102) [39:13] Jeff Bezos on what he learned from Akio Morita and how it influenced the building of Amazon: "Right after World War II, Akio Morita, the guy who founded Sony, made the mission for Sony that they were going to make Japan known for quality. And you have to remember, this was a time when Japan was known for cheap, copycat products. And Morita didn’t say we’re going to make Sony known for quality. He said we’re going to make Japan known for quality. He chose a mission for Sony that was bigger than Sony. And when we talk about earth’s most customer-centric company, we have a similar idea in mind. We want other companies to look at Amazon and see us as a standard-bearer for obsessive focus on the customer as opposed to obsessive focus on the competitor." [42:13] Keep your company in Yarak: Super alert, hungry but not weak, and ready to hunt. [42:45] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [44:02] Jay Z: What am I here for? To be second best? I don’t think so. [44:13] The more you know, the less you need. [51:33] Teach, inform, and inspire. Do so relentlessly and the sales will follow. [53:04] I was taught by some wise people that if you manage the top line of your company-your customers, your products, your strategy-then the bottom line will follow. But if you manage the bottom line of the company and forget about the rest, you’ll eventually hit the wall because you'll take your eyes off the prize. — Steve Jobs In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208) [56:03] 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. [56:59] Huberman Lab Podcast [57:19]  I cannot imagine any company that wants to make the best product of its kind being staffed by people who do not care passionately about the product. [57:39] One of my all time favorite quotes: A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both. [58:56] You should not see change as a threat, rather as an opportunity to grow and evolve to a higher level. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired 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.  ---- 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!  ---- 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

#296 Bernard Arnault (The Richest Man in the World)

What I learned from reading The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ! ---- [1:16] I am the boss. I shall be here on Monday morning and I shall be running the company in person. [4:30] The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai [5:01] I highly recommend listening to Acquired’s episode on LVMH. It is excellent. [5:16] Business Breakdowns episode LVMH: The Wolf in Cashmere’s Conglomerate [6:16] Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294) [6:18] Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words by Napoleon and J. Christopher Herold. [7:20] 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) [9:00] “I am very competitive. I always want to win.” —Bernard Arnault [10:39] What I'm interested is in doing. [11:43] He believed in extreme discretion. [11:56] I Had Dinner With Charlie Munger (Founders #295) [16:17] Beneath his civilized appearance there lurked the spirit of an adventurer. He wanted more. [17:45] He wanted to go far. He had an iron will. At a laboriously won tennis match he said “I may lose once but I never lose twice.” —Bernard Arnault [19:45] Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. [23:30] Arnault remained inflexible. He wanted control. There was no question of his becoming the Willots’ partner. [24:15] Far from discouraging him, this consensus of opinion (that this would lead to failure) acted as a stimulus. [24:25] “I remember people telling me, it does not make sense to put together so many brands. And it was a success, it was a recognized success, and for the last 10 years now, every competitor is trying to imitate. I think they are not successful, but they try.” —Bernard Arnault [30:43] “In business, I think the most important thing is to position yourself for long-term and not be too impatient, which I am by nature, and I have to control myself.” —Bernard Arnault [33:35] He had such an appetite for victory and such a capacity for work that he was bound to succeed. [35:26] “People think of politicians having true power, but that’s less and less true. After all, they are often constrained or being edged into a corner by a whole series of contingencies ... I’m lucky in that I can say, ‘I want my group to be in such and such a situation in 10 or 20 years’ time’ and then formulate a plan to make that happen.” –Bernard Arnault [42:37] Those on the margins often come to control the center. [43:10] Invest Like the Best episode Doug Leone —Lessons From A Titan [48:31] Difference for the sake of it. In everything. Because it must be better. From the moment the idea strikes, to the running of the business. Difference, and retention of total control. — Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [1:01:20] My relationship to luxury goods is really very rational. It is the only area in which it is possible to make luxury profit margins. [1:02:45] Arnault wants to take power everywhere and immediately. [1:07:40] Arnault is an iron fist in an iron glove. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I 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

#295 I had dinner with Charlie Munger

What I learned from having dinner with Charlie Munger and rereading The Tao of Charlie Munger. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- 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) ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#294 Napoleon

What I learned from reading Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ! [3:00] He could think quicker and along more individual and original lines than any of them. [4:00] John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254) [4:14] Miami meetup with Shane Parrish [7:31] His life was enormously important, endlessly fascinating, and connected to some of the most controversial and constantly reinterpreted events in the world history. [8:37] Paul Johnson’s books: Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240) Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252) [10:54] Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226) [12:20] He knew the importance of actively crafting his image in all available media. [15:08] Napoleon found comfort and companionship in books [17:02] The revolution was overturning age old hierarchies and giving worldwide prominence to previously obscure figures. [17:24] Napoleon was ruthless. [18:36] Only after that battle did I believe myself to be a superior man. And did the ambition come to me of executing the great things, which so far had been occupying my thoughts only as a fantastic dream. [20:00] Many are the historical opportunities that have been lost for lack of talent or vision. In Napoleon's case, the man met his hour. [20:13] He could see in a moment how to maneuver everything for maximum effect. [21:03] Napoleon was a man of stone and iron. [26:27] Napoleon was something new and the keenest observers understood it. [29:06] I wanted to rule the world, who wouldn't have in my place? [29:26] If papa could see us now. [29:45] Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251) [32:15] You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. [35:30] The Empire was increasingly coming to resemble a skyscraper built in haste without a proper foundation. [35:58] Driven: An Autobiography by Larry Miller. (Founders #168) [39:24] The key to victory was to plan and pursue a war exactly contrary to what the enemy wants. [39:49] Hardcore History Ghosts of the Ostfront series [41:08] The distracted do not beat the focused. [42:36] Success is never permanent. The same person that built the empire, destroyed it. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#293: Ray Kroc (The Making of McDonald's)

What I learned from rereading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ! [2:00] I have always believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems. [4:00] I was fascinated by the simplicity and effectiveness of the system they described that night.Each step in producing the limited menu was stripped down to its essence and accomplished with a minimum of effort. [5:00] When I flew back to Chicago that fateful day in 1954, I had a freshly signed contract with the McDonald brothers in my briefcase. I was a battle-scarred veteran of the business wars, but I was still eager to go into action. I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns. But I was convinced that the best was ahead of me. [6:00] It’s not what you do it’s how you do it: Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique by Jeffrey Trachtenberg. (Founders #288) Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290) The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292) [8:00] I never considered my dreams wasted energy. They were invariably linked to some form of action. [10:00] For me, work was play. [13:00] I vowed that this was going to be my only job. I was going to make my living at it and to hell with moonlighting of any kind. I intended to devote every ounce of my energy to selling, and that's exactly what I did. [14:00] Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242) [20:00] This was the first phase of grinding it out—building my personal monument to capitalism. I paid tribute, in the feudal sense, for many years before I was able to rise with McDonald's on the foundation I had laid. [21:00] Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect. [26:00] I was putting every cent I had and all I could borrow into this project. [28:00] Perfection is very difficult to achieve and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald's. Everything else was secondary. [29:00] If my competitor was drowning, I'd put a hose in his mouth. [44:00] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow. (Founders #248) John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254) [47:00] The advertising campaign we put together was a smash hit. It turned Californians into our parking lots as though blindfolds had been removed from their eyes. [48:00] Authority should go with the job. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#292 Daniel Ludwig (The Invisible Billionaire)

What I learned from rereading The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ! ---- [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. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast