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Michael Jordan In His Own Words
12 mei 2024 · 1 uur 36 min
What I learned from reading Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil.
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Relationships run the world: Build relationships at Founders events
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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.
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Episode Outline:
Players who practice hard when no one is paying attention play well when everyone is watching.It's hard, but it's fair. I live by those words. To this day, I don't enjoy working. I enjoy playing, and figuring out how to connect playing with business. To me, that's my niche. People talk about my work ethic as a player, but they don't understand. What appeared to be hard work to others was simply playing for me.
You have to be uncompromised in your level of commitment to whatever you are doing, or it can disappear as fast as it appeared. Look around, just about any person or entity achieving at a high level has the same focus. The morning after Tiger Woods rallied to beat Phil Mickelson at the Ford Championship in 2005, he was in the gym by 6:30 to work out. No lights. No cameras. No glitz or glamour. Uncompromised. I knew going against the grain was just part of the process.
The mind will play tricks on you. The mind was telling you that you couldn't go any further. The mind was telling you how much… Lees meer -
#348 The Financial Genius Behind A Century of Wall Street Scandals: Ivar Kreuger
7 mei 2024 · 1 uur 16 min
What I learned from reading The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals by Frank Partnoy.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders
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.
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Episode Outline:
1. Ivar was charismatic. His charisma was not natural. Ivar spent hours every day just preparing to talk. He practiced his lines for hours like great actors do.
2. Ivar’s first pitch was simple, easy to understa… Lees meer -
#347 How Walt Disney Built His Greatest Creation: Disneyland
29 april 2024 · 1 uur 18 min
What I learned from reading Disney's Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders
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.
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(8:00) When in 1955 we heard that Disney had opened an amusement park under his own name, it appeared certain that we could not look forward to anything new from Mr. Disney.
We were quite wrong.
He had, instead, created his masterpiece.
(13:00) This may be the greatest product launch of all time: He had run eight months of his television program. He hadn't named his new show Walt Disney Presents or The Wonderful World of Walt Disney.
It was called simply Disneyland, and every weekly episode was an advertisement for the still unborn park.
(15:00) Disneylan… Lees meer -
#346 How Walt Disney Built Himself
22 april 2024 · 1 uur 47 min
What I learned from rereading Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders
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?
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(2:00) Disney’s key traits were raw ingenuity combined with sadistic determination.
(3:00) I had spent a lifetime with a frustrated, and often unemployed man, who hated anybody who was successful.
— Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)
(6:00) Disney put excelence before any other consideration.
(11:00) Maybe the most important thing anyone ever said to him: You’re crazy to be a professor she told Ted. What you really want to do is draw. Ted’s notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him. Here was a man who could draw such pictures. He should earn a living doing that.
— Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #161)
(14:00) A quote about Edwin Land that would apply… Lees meer -
#345 George Lucas
12 april 2024 · 1 uur 59 min
What I learned from rereading George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders
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.
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Join this email list if you want early access to any Founders live events and conferences
Join my personal email list if you want me to email you my top ten highlights from every book I read
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(0:01) George Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most: himself.
(1:00) George Lucas is the Thomas Edison of the modern film industry.
(1:30) A list of biographies written by Brian Jay Jones
(6:00) Elon Musk interviewed by Kevin Rose
(10:15) How many people think the solution to gaining quality control, improving fiscal responsibility, and stimulating technological innovation is to start their own special-effects company? But that’s what he did.
(17:00) When I finally discovered film, I really fell madly in love with it. I ate it. I slept it. 24 hours a day. There was no going back.
(18:00) Those on the margins often come to control the center. (Game of Thrones)
(21:00) As soon as I made my first film, I thought, Hey, I’m good at this. I know how to do this. From then on, I’ve never questioned it.
(23:00) He was becomi… Lees meer -
Steven Spielberg
4 april 2024 · 1 uur 39 min
What I learned from reading Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders
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.
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Join my personal email list if you want me to email you my top ten highlights from every book I read
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Episode Outline: Whatever is there, he makes it work.Spielberg once defined his approach to filmmaking by declaring, "I am the audience.""He said, 'I want to be a director.' And I said, 'Well, if you want to be a director, you've gotta start at the bottom, you gotta be a gofer and work your way up.' He said, 'No, Dad. The first picture I do, I'm going to be a director.' And he was. That blew my mind. That takes guts."One of his boyhood friends recalls Spielberg saying "he could envision himself going to the Academy Awards and accepting an Oscar and thanking the Academy.” He was twelve.He was disappointed in the world, so he built one of his own.Spielberg remained essentially an autodidact. Spielberg followed his own eccentric path to a professional directing career. Universal Studios, in effect, was Spielberg's film school. Giving him … Lees meer -
#344 Quentin Tarantino
30 maart 2024 · 1 uur 6 min
What I learned from reading Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino.
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Some questions other subscribers asked SAGE:
I need some unique ideas on how to find new customers. What advice do you have for me?
What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors?
How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent?
What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?
Can you give me more ideas about how to avoid competition from Peter Thiel?
Have any of history's greatest founders regretted selling their company?
What is the best way to fire a bad employee?
How did Andrew Carnegie know what to focus on?
Why was Jay Gould so smart?
What was the biggest unlock for Henry Ford?
Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffetts best ideas?
If Charlie Munger had a top 10 rules for life what do you think those rules would be?
What did Charlie Munger say about building durable companies that last?
Tell me about Cornelius Vanderbilt. How did he make his money?
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(9:00) Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive.
(14:00) On the ride home, even if I didn't have questions, my parents would talk about the movie we had just seen. These are some of my fondest memories.
(14:00) He has a comprehensive database of the history of movies in his head.
(17:00) 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)
(25:00) Robert Rodriguez interviews Quentin Tarantino in the Director’s Chair
(26:00) Like most men who never knew their father, Bill collected father figures. (Kill Bill 2)
(27:00) When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, No, I went to films.
(29:00) Invest Like the Best #348 Patr… Lees meer -
#343 The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness: David Ogilvy
24 maart 2024 · 32 min
What I learned from reading Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness: Being Very Good Is No Good,You Have to Be Very, Very, Very, Very, Very Good by David Ogilvy and Ogivly & Mather.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes
Some questions other subscribers asked SAGE:
I need some unique ideas on how to find new customers. What advice do you have for me?
What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors?
How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent?
What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?
Can you give me more ideas about how to avoid competition from Peter Thiel?
Have any of history's greatest founders regretted selling their company?
What is the best way to fire a bad employee?
How did Andrew Carnegie know what to focus on?
Why was Jay Gould so smart?
What was the biggest unlock for Henry Ford?
Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffetts best ideas?
If Charlie Munger had a top 10 rules for life what do you think those rules would be?
What did Charlie Munger say about building durable companies that last?
Tell me about Cornelius Vanderbilt. How did he make his money?
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(0:01) But what did David actually mean by divine discontent? Here's an interpretation:
DON'T BOW YOUR HEAD.
DON'T KNOW YOUR PLACE.
DEFY THE GODS.
DON'T SIT BACK.
DON'T GIVE IN.
DON'T GIVE UP.
DON'T WIN SILVERS.
DON'T BE SO EASILY HAPPY WITH YOURSELF.
DON'T BE SPINELESS.
DON'T BE GUTLESS.
DON'T BE TOADIES.
DON'T GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.
AND DON'T EVER, EVER ALLOW A SINGLE SCRAP OF RUBBISH OUT OF THE AGENCY
(5:00) We have to work equally hard to replace the old patterns of self-defeating behaviors. An old Latin proverb tells us how: a nail is driven out by a nail, habit is overcome by habit.
(7:00) Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups… Lees meer -
#342 The Lessons of History (Will & Ariel Durant)
18 maart 2024 · 53 min
What I learned from reading The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
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(1:00) This is a 100 page biography of the human species
(1:00) The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant (Full Set)
(2:30) Generations of men establish a growing mastery over the earth, but they are destined to become fossils in its soil.
(4:00) Ruthlessly prioritize how you spend your time.
(4:00) The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows.
(4:30) ALL OF THE NAPOLEON EPISODES:
Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294)
The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Wordsedited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)
Napoleon and Modern War by Napoleon and Col. Lanza. (Founders #337)
(8:00) Our job is to make our companies and ourselves better equipped to meet the test of survival.
(11:30) Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group.
(12:30) The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191)
(14:30) In the end, superior ability has its way.
(16:30) Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed.
(19:00) The imitative majority follows the innovating minority and this follows the originative individual, in adapting new responses to the demands of environment or survival.
(20:00) If you can identify an enduring human need you can build a business around that.
(21:00) In every age men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt.
(25:00) Survival at all costs: Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under.
(25:00) Victory in our industry is spelled survival. — St… Lees meer -
#341 Cornelius Vanderbilt (Tycoon's War)
11 maart 2024 · 1 uur 6 min
What I learned from rereading Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins.
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(0:01) Vanderbilt was only interested in two things: making money and winning
(3:00) Cornelius Vanderbilt, the descendant of poor Dutch immigrants, would die in 1877 possessing more money than was held by the United States treasury.(3:00) The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles
(5:00) The NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. (Founders #329)
(6:00) “If I had learned education. I would not have had time to learn anything else.”
(7:00) Vanderbilt wrote nothing down, keeping every detail of his business dealings in his head, and at any given time he knew his income and expenditures down to the last cent.
(10:00) From Founders Notes. I asked the chat feature:
Tell me about Cornelius Vanderbilt. How did he make his money?
One trait it identified in Vanderbilt was this:
Vanderbilt's approach to business was often marked by a sly concealment of his intentions, keeping information close while simultaneously gathering intelligence on competitors. This strategic obfuscation allowed him to make moves that others often couldn't predict or comprehend until it was too late
(This feature will be available to Founders Notes subscribers very soon!)
(15:00) The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields (Founders #292)
(24:00) The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233)
(26:00) Gentlemen, you have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
(37:00) He's turning everyone against Walker by appealing to their interests. He’s not saying do this for me to get my ships back. He appeals to… Lees meer -
#340 Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant
1 maart 2024 · 1 uur 24 min
What I learned from reading Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim Grover and Winning: The Unforgiving Race to Greatness by Tim Grover.
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----(3:00) What I am giving you is insight into the mentality of those who have found unparalleled success by trusting their own instincts.
(3:00) Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)
(6:00) Michael was the best because he was relentless about winning. No matter how many times he won he always wanted more and he was always willing to do whatever it took to get it.
(6:00) Michael never cared about achieving mere greatness. He cared about being the best ever.
(7:00) These are the most driven individuals you'll ever know, with an unmatched genius for what they do: they don't just perform a job, they reinvent it.
(8:00) Alex Rodriguez interviews Kobe Bryant
(11:00) The most important thing, the one thing that defines and separates him from any other competitor: He's addicted to the exquisite rush of success and he'll alter his entire life to get it.
(11:00) The mind will play tricks on you. The mind was telling you that you couldn't go any further. The mind was telling you how much it hurt. The mind was telling you these things to keep you from reaching your goal. But you have to see past that, turn it all off if you are going to get where you want to be. —
—Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. (Founders #213)
(12:30) If one thing separated Michael from every other player, it was his stunning ability to block out everything and everyone else. He was able to shut out everything except his mission.
(14:00) At some point you made something simple into something complicated.
(16:00) Being at the extreme in your craft is very important in the age of leverage. The best person in the world at anything gets to do it for everyone.
(20:00) A 600 page biography of Kobe Bryant: The L… Lees meer -
Jay Z's Autobiography
25 februari 2024 · 2 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading Decoded by Jay Z.
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(1:39) I would practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep
(2:10) Even back then I though I was the best.
(2:57) Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography (Founders #219)
(4:32) Belief becomes before ability.
(5:06) Michael Jordan: The Life (Founders #212)
(5:46) The public praises people for what they practice in private.
(7:28) Lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers.
(7:50) Sam Walton: Made In America (Founders #234)
(9:50) He was disappointed in the world, so he built one of his own — from Steven Spielberg: A Biography (Founders #209)
(12:47) The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50)
(13:35) I'm not gonna say that I thought I could get rich from rap, but I could clearly see that it was gonna get bigger before it went away. Way bigger.
(21:10) Over 20 years into his career and dude ain’t changed. He’s got his own vibe. You gotta love him for that. (Rick Rubin)
(21:41) Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)
(25:27) I believe you can speak things into existence.
(27:20) Picking the right market is essential.
(29:29) All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason – they run out of money. —Don Valentine
(29:42) There are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes- you don’t have to go to business school for two years: high gross margins and cash flow. The other financial metrics you can forget. —Don Valentine
(31:54) I went on the road with Big Daddy Kane for a while. I got an invaluable education watching him perform.
(33:12) Everything I do I learned from the guys who came before me. —Kobe
(34:15) I truly hate having discussions about who would win one on one or fans saying you’d beat Michael. I feel like Yo (puts his hands up like stop. Chill.) What you get from me is from him. I don’t get… Lees meer -
#339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer
20 februari 2024 · 1 uur 4 min
What I learned from reading The Days of Duveen by S.N. Behrman.
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(0:01) Duveen noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation.
(2:30) The great American millionaires of the Duveen Era were slow-speaking and slow-thinking, cautious, secretive, and maddeningly deliberate.
(3:30) How Larry Gagosian Reshaped The Art World by Patrick Radden Keefe. (Founders #325)
(4:30) Invest Like The Best #342 Will England: A Primer on Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds
(6:00) There is an old two-part rule that often works wonders in business, science, and elsewhere:
1. Take a simple, basic idea and
2. Take it very seriously. — the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. (Founders #329)
(10:00) The art dealer Joseph Duveen insisted on making the paintings he sold as scarce and rare as possible. To keep their prices elevated and their status high, he bought up whole collections and stored them in his basement. The paintings that he sold became more than just paintings—they were fetish objects, their value increased by their rarity. — The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.
(14:00) Duveen had enormous respect for the prices he set on the objects he bought and sold. Often his clients tried, in various ways, to maneuver him into a position where he might relax his high standards, but he nearly always managed to keep them.
(16:00) Wildcatters: A Story of Texans, Oil, and Money by Sally Helgesen. (Founders #338)
(18:00) You don’t need many customers if the few customers you do have are the riches people in the world.
(22:00) His enthusiasm was irrepressible.
(26:00) Duveen felt that his educational mission was … Lees meer -
#338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire
13 februari 2024 · 1 uur
What I learned from reading Wildcatters: A Story of Texans, Oil, and Money by Sally Helgesen.
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(0:01) Family and business were the same thing to him.
(1:00) We're one-hundred percent family owned, unincorporated, and independent, and we intend to stay that way.
(1:00) He possessed the directness and the utter simplicity of the old and the truly great.
(2:00) His unquestioning confidence in the worthiness of his enterprise made him seem impervious to doubts.
(5:00) The Morgans always believed in absolute monarchy. While Junius Morgan lived, he ruled the family and the business. Until Junius died his massive shadow dominated his son’s life. — The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. (Founders #139)
(8:00) Everywhere they looked, they saw opportunity without limits. The land itself was empty, and so these men built cities upon it and founded dynasties. They left behind them a world made in their own image.
(9:00) The old wildcatters had neither the time nor the inclination to question their own purposes, or to agonize about what the future consequences of their efforts might be. They just went out and did whatever was there to be done.
(10:00) 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: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burrough (Founders #149)
(14:00) Charlie’s surfing model. One thing I learned from having dinner with Charlie was the importance of getting into a great business and STAYING in it. There’s a tendency in human … Lees meer -
#337 Napoleon's Maxims and Strategy
5 februari 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
What I learned from reading Roots of Strategy by Thomas R. Phillips and Napoleon and Modern War by Napoleon and Col. Lanza.
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(0:01) Napoleon fought more battles than Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar combined.
(5:00) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)
(7:00) Insull: The Rise and Fall of A Billionaire Utility Tycoon by Forrest McDonald. (Founders #336)
(8:00) No one should believe more in your business than you do. If this is not the case you are in the wrong business.
(11:00) If you do everything you will win.
(13:00) Napoleon episodes:
Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294)
The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)
(14:00) What is the bigger number, five or one? One. One army, a real army, united behind one leader, with one purpose. A fist instead of 5 fingers. — Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones (YouTube)
(17:00) Keep your forces united. Be vulnerable at no point. Bear down with rapidity upon important points. These are the principles which insure victory.
(17:00) Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. Make them your models. This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study, you will reject all maxims opposed to those of these great commanders. [If Napoleon was alive you know he’d listen to Founders podcast]
(20:00) The Tao of Charlie Munger by Charlie Munger and David Clark (Founders #295)
(20:00) Advance orders tend to stifle initiative. A commander should be left free to adapt himself to circumstances as they occur.
(23:00) The art of war… Lees meer -
#336 How To Lose A Few Billion Dollars: Samuel Insull
1 februari 2024 · 1 uur 26 min
What I learned from reading Insull: The Rise and Fall of A Billionaire Utility Tycoon by Forrest McDonald.
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(0:01) Insull had been in the electric business as long as there had been an electric business.
(4:00) He awoke early, abruptly, completely, bursting with energy; yet he gained momentum as the day wore on, and long into the night. Sam had near-demonic energy.
(5:00) Sam's most obvious attribute was a capacity for racing through large quantities of reading material, effortlessly perceiving its important assumptions and generalizations, and thoroughly assimilating its salient details.
(7:00) He eagerly embraced platitudes:
• Idle hands are the devil's workshop
• Time is money
• Things are simply "done" or "not done"
• One reveres one's family
• Only that which is useful is good
• Survival of the fittest
(8:00) Opportunity handled well leads to more opportunity.
(12:00) He developed an ability to concentrate on a single subject and to completely shut out everything else, no matter how pressing.
(13:00) A theme from the robber baron era: How do we turn a luxury product into a necessity?
(18:00) If you do everything you will win. — Working by Robert Caro. (Founders #305) and The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)
(19:00) Insull reread every one of Edison's European contracts, and he took it upon himself to write weekly letters to Johnson, summarizing the fluctuations in the telephone situation and outlining Edison's shifting interests in connection with it. These letters proved to be the best selling points Johnson could have in recommending Insull to Edison.
(20:00) One of his most deep-rooted traits was that he was absolutely unable to imagine the possibility of his own failure; he entirely lack… Lees meer -
#335 How To Make A Few Billion Dollars: Brad Jacobs
23 januari 2024 · 1 uur 13 min
What I learned from reading How To Make A Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs.
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(0:01) I'm what's called a moneymaker. I've started five companies from scratch—seven if you include two spin-offs and turned them all into billion dollar or multibillion-dollar enterprises.
(2:00) I love working with outrageously talented people to deliver outsized returns for shareholders in public stock markets.
(5:00) All of the successful people I know have rearranged their brains to prevail at achieving big goals in turbulent environments where conventional thinking often fails.
(5:00) The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places and they do this by thinking about business from first principles. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel (Founders #335)
(7:00) So much of success in business comes from keeping your head in a good place.
(8:00) I'm an ambitious person by nature and a dealmaker by inclination.
(9:00) Episode #295: I Had Dinner With Charlie Munger
(13:00) Listen to Think Big and Move Fast: Brad Jacobs on Invest Like the Best
(14:00) Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer. (Founders #20)
(15:00) If you want to make money in the business world, you need to get used to problems, because that's what business is.
(20:00) I am not surprised when things don’t go perfectly. That is the nature of the universe.
(21:00) Listen to this incredible conversation between Charlie Munger and John Collison on Invest Like The Best.
(28:00) Invest in technology. The savings compound, it gives you an advantage over a slower moving competitor, and can be the difference between a profit and a loss. (Lesson from Andrew Carnegie)
(31:00) How Larry Gagosian Reshaped … Lees meer -
#334 Oprah
16 januari 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
What I learned from reading the transcripts of Young Oprah on Her Life and Career and Oprah on Career, Life and Leadership.
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(1:00) Oprah fired her agent and replaced him with a Chicago lawyer named Jeffrey Jacobs. "I heard Jeff is a piranha. I like that. Piranha is good."
(3:00) I will just create. And if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, I’ll create something else. I don’t have any limitations on what I think I could do or be.
(4:30) Dr. Julie Gurner’s Ultra Successful newsletter
Dr Julie Gurner's Website
(7:00) Imitation precedes creation. — Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. (Founders #210)
(9:00) On getting demoted from anchor to talk show host: I was embarrassed by the whole thing because I had never failed before. It was that “failure” that led to the talk show. (Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss.)
(9:00) The talk show immediately felt right to her: This is what I should have been doing because it was like breathing to me. It was like breathing. I knew it was the right thing to do.
(10:00) Oprah has an intense, powerful belief in herself. And she has had that since she was 4.
(11:00) I truly believe that thoughts are the greatest vehicle to change power and success in the world. Everything begins with thoughts.
(12:00) If you actually have to choose between the most experienced person, or the most educated person, or the person who actually wants it the most, you always pick the person who wants it the most. — Josh Kushner on the Invest Like the Best podcast
(14:00) Visualize.
If in your mind's eye you see a successful venture, a deal made, a profit accomplished, it has a superb chance of actually happening. Projecting your mind into a successful situation is the most powerful means to achieve goals.… Lees meer -
#333 Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac Founder: Dietrich Mateschitz
8 januari 2024 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading The Red Bull Story by Wolfgang Fürweger and Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac by Duff McDonald.
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(1:30) "In literal financial terms, our sports teams are not yet profitable, but in value terms, they are," he says. "The total editorial media value plus the media assets created around the teams are superior to pure advertising expenditures."
(2:30) "It is a must to believe in one's product. If this were just a marketing gimmick, it would never work."
(5:00) He doesn't place a premium on collecting friends or socializing: "I don't believe in 50 friends. I believe in a smaller number. Nor do I care about society events. It's the most senseless use of time. When I do go out, from time to time, it's just to convince myself again that I'm not missing a lot."
(7:30) The most dangerous thing for a branded product is low interest. (Edwin Land: The test of an invention is the power of an inventor to push it through in the face of the staunch-not opposition, but indifference-in society. (Indifference is your enemy)
(9:00) Nike, Adidas and Vans episodes:
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. (Founders #186)
Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and The Family Feud That Forever Changed The Business of Sports by Barbara Smit. (Founders #109)
Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans by Paul Van Doren. (Founders #216)
(11:00) The lines between Red Bull, Red Bull athletes, and Red Bull events are blurry on purpose. To Mateschitz, it's just one big image campaign with many manifestations.
(12:00) He has no plans to sell or take Red Bull public. "It's not a question of money. It's a question of fun. Can you imagine me in a shareholders' meeting?”
(13:00) Red Bull’s Billionaire Maniac https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2… Lees meer -
#332 Jesus
24 december 2023 · 35 min
What I learned from reading Jesus: A Biography from a Believer by Paul Johnson.
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(3:00)
Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)
Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252)
Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226)
(10:00) Jesus was:
-observant
-detail oriented
-maintained intense eye contact
-confident
-decisive
-charismatic
-gifted communicator
(11:00) The most important step when starting anything new is recruiting the people who are going to help you on your mission.
(12:00) No prophet is acceptable in his hometown.
(16:00) Jesus emphasized the importance of humility, gentleness, non aggression. The importance of the pursuit of justice and righteousness. He encourages acts of compassion and forgiveness towards others. He focuses on inner purity, sincerity, and a genuine heart. He commends those who work towards reconciliation, harmony, and peace.
(17:00) Some of Jesus’s maxims:
Love your enemies.
If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.
Judge not and you will not be judged.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
(18:00) A summary of Jesus’s teaching in two words: Be kind.
(18:00) He turned compassion, which all of us feel from time to time for a particular person, into a huge overarching gospel of love. He taught the love of mankind as a whole.
(26:00) Jesus taught to change and improve yourself. He led by example and encouraged imitation. Those that changed themselves, changed the world.
(27:00) Jesus’s new 10 commandments:
1. Each of us must develop a true personality. Each of us is unique. Develop your character.
2. Abide by universality. See the human race as a whole.
3. Give equal consideration to all.
4. Use love in all your human relationships, at all times, and in every situation.
5… Lees meer -
#331 Christian Dior
18 december 2023 · 1 uur 1 min
What I learned from reading Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior and Creators by Paul Johnson.
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(4:00) The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai. (Founders #296)
(5:00) Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss.
(6:00) Dior was a nobody in his forties, with nothing in his design career to suggest genius.
(6:00) When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved. They discover what to work on as a result of a chance meeting, or by reading a book they happen to pick up. So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions.
— How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)
(7:00) Dior told him: “I am not interested in managing a clothing factory. What you need, and I would like to run, is a craftsman’s workshop, in which we would recruit the very best people in the trade, to reestablish in Paris a salon for the greatest luxury and the highest standards of workmanship. It will cost a great deal of money and entail much risk.”
(8:00) He spat in the face of postwar egalitarian democracy and said, in so many words, “I want to make the rich feel rich again.” His first collection turned out to be the most successful in fashion history.
(18:00) I envisioned my fashion house as a craftsman’s workshop rather than a clothing factory.
(19:00) A fortune teller tells Dior he must do found his fashion house in spite of his fears and doubts: She ordered me sternly to accept the Boussac offer at once. You must create the house of Christian Dior, whatever the conditions, she told me. Nothing anyone will offer you later will compare with the chance which is open to you now.
(22:00… Lees meer -
#330 Les Schwab (Charlie Munger recommended this book)
11 december 2023 · 1 uur 37 min
What I learned from rereading Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab.
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(8:00) I didn't know how to ride a bike. We never had one. All the other young kids delivered newspapers on a bike.
He's got no money. He doesn't have a bike. So he ran his routes for two months in order to get enough money to buy his first bike. He’d run nine or 10 miles a day.
(8:00) I was too proud to complain.
(10:00) For a poor boy, money was much more important than pride.
(10:00) Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. (Founders #269)
(13:00) I was young. I was cocky. But the same cockiness helped me a lot in going through life.
(15:00) The very first sentence describing his very first day in business is mind blowing: I had never fixed a flat tire in my life.
(15:00) the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger (Founders #329)
(29:00) Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance H. Trimble (Founders #150)
(35:00) I always knew that if we fixed all the flat tires in town, we'd have all the tire business in town.
(40:00) If we become complacent, then brother, it's all over with.
(52:00) Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc (Founders #293)
(56:00) If you’re not serving the customer, or supporting the folks who do, we don’t need you. —Sam Walton
(1:00:00) The company paid low wages and had a lower overhead. The flaw was they didn’t get —with the low pay— near the quality of employees we had.
(1:01:00) Life is hard for the man who thinks he can take a shortcut.
(1:06:00) Decision making should always be made at the lowest possible level.
(1:08:00) Whatever you do, you must do it with gusto, you must do it in volume. It is a case of repeat, repeat, repeat.
(1:08:00) Charlie Munger analyzes why Les Schwab was successful.
(1:11:00) Extreme success is likely to be c… Lees meer -
#329 Charlie Munger (the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack)
5 december 2023 · 1 uur 54 min
What I learned from reading the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger.
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Listen to this incredible conversation between Charlie Munger and John Collison on Invest Like The Best.
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(2:00) The practical wisdom of Poor Charlie's Almanack, this ode to curiosity, generosity, and virtue will similarly compound at successive generations of entrepreneurial readers extend his lessons to their own circumstances.
(12:00) Education is the process whereby the ability to lead a good life is acquired. — Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252)
(22:00) Trust is one of the greatest economic forces on earth.
(29:00) Charlie is content to trust his own judgment when it runs counter to the wisdom of the herd.
(31:00) Animated: Charlie Munger: The Psychology of Human Misjudgement
(31:30) Aim for durability. Durability has always been a first rate virtue in Charlie’s eyes.
(32:00) Charlie only focuses on great businesses and great businesses have moats.
(33:00) Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin. (Founders #183)
(42:00) You can flourish in a niche: People who specialize in the business world —and get very good because they specialize— frequently find good economics that they wouldn't get any other way.
(45:00) Being so well known has advantages of scale. This is what you might call an informational advantage. It increases social proof.
(46:30) Business Breakdowns episode on Coca Cola
(49:00) Occasionally scaling down and intensifying gives you a big advantage. (You can find great profit margins this way)
(50:00) Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)
(51:00) Scale and fanaticism combined is very powerful. (Think Sam Walton)
(57:00) I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those games or make those investments where… Lees meer -
Reflections from my dinner with Charlie Munger
29 november 2023 · 31 min
Reflections from my dinner with Charlie Munger.
Order the new updated version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
Charlie Munger episodes:
#295 I had dinner with Charlie Munger
#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger 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.
#221 Charlie Munger Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe.
#90 Charlie Munger Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger
#79 Charlie Munger Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor by Tren Griffin
#78 Charlie Munger Tao of Charlie Munger: A Compilation of Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway's Vice Chairman on Life, Business, and the Pursuit of Wealth With Commentary by David Clark Lees meer----
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#328 Tom Murphy (Buffett's favorite manager)
22 november 2023 · 43 min
What I learned from reading The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike.
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(5:00) Tom Murphy] gave me one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received. He said, 'Warren, you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow'...You haven't missed the opportunity. Just forget about if for a day. If you feel the same way tomorrow, tell them then-but don't spout off in a moment of anger." 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)
(5:15) Thirty years ago Tom Murphy, then CEO of Cap Cities, drove this point home to me with a hypothetical tale about an employee who asked his boss for permission to hire an assistant.
The employee assumed that adding $20,000 to the annual payroll would be inconsequential.
But his boss told him the proposal should be evaluated as a $3 million decision, given that an additional person would probably cost at least that amount over his lifetime, factoring in raises, benefits and other expenses (more people, more toilet paper).
And unless the company fell on very hard times, the employee added would be unlikely to be dismissed, however marginal his contribution to the business.
— A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers From Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Peter Bevelin. (Founders #202)
(7:30) The autobiography of the founder of CBS: As It Happened A Memoir by Bill Paley
(9:00) The goal is not to have the longest train, but to arrive at the station first, using the least fuel.
(10:00) Tom Murphy’s simple formula:
1. Focus on industries with attractive economic characteristics… Lees meer -
#327 Ted Turner
14 november 2023 · 1 uur 27 min
What I learned from reading Ted Turner's Autobiography.
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Listen to Art of Investing #4 David Senra Lessons from the Founder Historian.
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(9:00) My net worth dropped by about 67 million per week, or nearly 10 million per day, every day for two and a half years.
(10:00) Once to drive home a point about the difficulties of attracting good loyal employees he told me: Jesus only had to pick 12 disciples and even one of those didn't turn out well.
(10:00) Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise .
(11:00) Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141)
(13:30) The problem isn't getting rich, it's staying sane. — Charlie Munger
(17:00) I learned a lesson that would stick with me throughout my career. When the chips are down in the pressure's on it's amazing to how creative people can be.
(20:00) My father always maintained many of the different billboard businesses as separate legal entities. (He didn’t want to dilute ownership of his main company and separate entities allowed for periodic reorganization to offset capital gains liabilities.
(20:30) When you own an asset your job is to maximize its value.
(23:00) He combines the assets he has in a way his competitors can not.
(24:00) The more I learned about TV stations the more I realized that ours was a disaster. Of the 35 people who were on the payroll when we took over only two were still there a year later —the custodian and the receptionist.
(25:00) Ted Turner believed in the power of television more than almost anybody else.
(30:30) My dad taught me early on that longterm relationships with your customers and partners are very important. You never know how the guy who you're friendly with today might be able to help you tomorrow.
(31:00) Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux. (Founders #268)… Lees meer -
#326 Anna Wintour
6 november 2023 · 1 uur 12 min
What I learned from reading Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell.
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(8:00) She knows the ecosystem in which she operates better than anyone.
(8:30) If Anna had a personal tag line it would be: I just have to make sure things are done right.
(16:00) He had a desk with nothing on it except a buzzer underneath, so that when he was done with you, which was in about five minutes, his assistant could come in and whisk you away.
(17:00) What is the number one thing you hope people learn from you? To be decisive and clear.
(19:00) The Vogue 100 is a private club whose members pay $100,000 a year just for access to Anna.
(29:00) She did not second guess herself.
(30:00) She was meticulous about everything.
(32:00) Her focus was singular. She was very clear minded about wanting to do work that she thought was the best.
(38:00) She knew that killing stories was necessary to let people know that you had standards.
(41:00) Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda. (Founders #281)
(44:00) Anna ran the magazine with iron fisted disciplin… Lees meer -
#325 Larry Gagosian (Billionaire Art Dealer)
30 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 12 min
What I learned from reading How Larry Gagosian Reshaped The Art World by Patrick Radden Keefe.
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(4:00) The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them.
(5:45) We think of genius as being complicated, but geniuses have the fewest moving parts. Gagosian is simple. He's basically a shark, a feeding machine.
(6:00) A novice is easily spotted because they do too much. Too many ingredients, too many movements. Too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention.
(10:00) His own publicist described him as “A Real Killer”
(12:00) The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292)
(17:30) There is always a blueprint. Joseph Duveen was the art dealer to the Robber Barons.
Biographies of Duveen:
Duveen: A Life in Art
Secrets Of An Art Dealer
Duveen
The Artful Partners: The Secret Association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen
(18:00) Numerous friends of Gagosian caution me not to mistake this merry-go-round of parties and galas and super yacht cruises for a life of leisure. This guy is always working. This motherfucker works 24/7. The parties are marketing showcases in disguise.
(19:00) The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai. (Founders #296)
(19:30) The best way to raise the price of something is to say that you would never sell it.
(23:00) If Gagosian possesses one secret weapon that has equipped him for success it might be his disinhibition.
(33:00) The niche Gagosian pursued was seen —at the time —as low status. The secondary business was perceived as a backwater by dealers. It was considered a bit distasteful.
(42:00) He disdains formal meetings. He finds bureaucracy and protocol dull. There is no hierarchy. There is Larry and then everyone else.
(44:00) Ga… Lees meer -
#324 John D. Rockefeller (38 Letters Rockefeller Wrote to His Son)
21 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 46 min
What I learned from reading The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son by John D. Rockefeller.
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(5:00) My Influence had been extended to all corners of the oil industry. If I say that I have the power of life and death over oil producers and oil refiners, that is not a lie. I can make them wealthy or I can make them worthless.
(7:25) I never thought I would lose. As far as my nature is concerned, I do not meet competition. I destroy competitors.
(8:30) Retreat means surrender. Retreat will turn you into a slave. The war is inevitable. Let it come.
(9:00) Bring a steel like determination to face all kinds of challenges.
(13:45) I firmly believe that our destiny is determined by our actions and not by our origins.
(15:45) Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus. (Founders #232)
(21:00) The glory and success of the family cannot guarantee the future of a children and grandchildren.
(22:30) People of poor backgrounds will actively develop their abilities while also seizing various opportunities because they urgently need to rescue themselves.
(26:00) Luck is the remnant of design luck is the remnant of design. — Cyrus McCormick
(27:30) Rockefeller explains to his son, in writing, exactly what he was: A conqueror.
(28:00) Everyone is a designer and architect of his own destiny.
(29:00) If you do everything you will win: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything. — The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)
(32:00) Visionary businessmen are always good at finding opportu… Lees meer -
Mike Bloomberg
11 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 21 min
What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg.
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[2:08] Answering to no one is the ultimate situation.
[3:02] Twitter thread on Michael Bloomberg by Neckar.Substack.com
[5:28] We never made the error that so many others have: mistaking their product for the device that delivers it.
[6:27] We knew our core product was data and analytics.
[7:01] We were motivated by an idea that we could build something new that just might make a difference.
[9:04] Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger
[10:05] I was willing to do anything that they wanted. I would have never left voluntarily.
[16:00] Street smarts and common sense were better predictors of career achievements.
[17:40] Almost all occupations have a big selling component: selling your firm, your ideas and yourself.
[18:20] It is the doers, the lean and hungry ones, those with ambition in their eyes and fire in their bellies, who go the furthest and achieve the most.
[21:36] Comparing John to Bill on leadership, I always thought John was more egalitarian, but less effective.
[22:55] It was a lowly start. We slaved in our underwear and an un-air conditioned, a bank vault.
[23:57] The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer - The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb
[24:22] Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman
[27:20] David Geffen biography: The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood
[30:07] It's said that 80 percent of life is just showing up. I believe that. You can never have complete mastery over your existence. You can't choose the advantages you start out with, and you certainly can't pick your genetic intelligence lev… Lees meer -
#323 Jimmy Buffett
3 oktober 2023 · 1 uur 6 min
What I learned from reading Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way by Ryan White and A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett.
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(8:00) Q: What are you going to do with your life? A: Live a pretty interesting one.
(10:00) A lesson that his grandfather taught him: The only thing standing between Jimmy and the world would be a lack of imagination an an over abundance of caution. All he had to do was leap and the world would be his.
(13:00) There is a lot of Mark Twain in Jimmy Buffett. Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. (Founders #312)
(13:30) There was nothing normal about me. My drive was not normal. My vision of where I wanted to go in life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryptonite to me. — Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141)
(15:00) Jimmy Buffett and Warren Buffett: Their lives are illustrations of the power of compounding.
(16:30) A hit song was nice. But owning the publishing on a hit song was even better.
(17:30) Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)
(19:30) You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something. — Steve Jobs
(24:00) If you want to create and capture lasting value, don’t build an undifferentiated commodity business. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Futureby Peter Thiel (Founders #278)
(28:00) It is ironic that I was never categorizable and now I’m a category. — Jimmy Buffett
(28:00) Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody. What rea… Lees meer -
#322 Herb Kelleher (Southwest Airlines)
26 september 2023 · 43 min
What I learned from reading Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg and Herb’s Heroes by David Sanders.
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(2:30) Reality is chaotic; planning is ordered and logical. The two don’t square with one another.
(5:30) You undergo a lot of stress all the time. How do you handle it? I don’t handle it. I like it.
(7:30) He smoked 5 packs of cigarettes a day. He drank Wild Turkey Bourbon daily. He said “Wild Turkey and Phillip Morris cigarettes are essential to the maintenance of human life.”
(8:00) He built the most successful airline in history. Southwest was profitable for 47 straight years.
(9:30) All that matters is to survive. The rest is just words. — Charles de Gaulle
(18:00) Kelleher didn’t mince any words: “I told Lamar, you roll right over the son of a bitch and leave our tire tracks on his uniform if you have to.”
(27:30) No carrier knows its niche as well as Southwest.
(28:30) While other carriers have been lured by the temptation to step outside their niche, Southwest has maintained the discipline to stay focused on its fundamental reason for being.
(29:00) Herb on why he was conservative with debt: When there are bad times you aren't threatened by debt payments and debt payments are what put other airlines in and out of bankruptcy forever.
(30:00) Southwest is obsessed with keeping costs low to maximize profitability instead of being concerned with increasing market share.
(30:15) Southwest is willing to forgo revenue generating opportunities in markets that would disproportionately increase its costs.
(35:00) Keller has said on many occasions that a company is never more vulnerable to complacency than when it's at the height of its success. The number one threat is us h… Lees meer -
#321 Working with Jeff Bezos
21 september 2023 · 57 min
What I learned from reading Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr.
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(8:00) Principles Jeff Bezos would repeat: customer obsession, innovation, frugality, personal ownership, bias for action, high standards.
(10:30) Single threaded leadership: For each project, there is a single leader whose focus is that project and that project alone, and that leader oversees teams of people whose attention is focused on that one project.
(11:00) The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing. Every employee’s one thing was unique, and everyone knew I would evaluate him only on that one thing. I had started doing this just to simplify the task of managing people. But then I noticed a deeper result: defining roles reduced conflict. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Futureby Peter Thiel. (Founders #278)
(12:30) Jeff said many times: We need to eliminate communication, not encourage it. Communication is a sign of dysfunction.
(14:30) Jeff is insisted that instead of finding new and better ways to manage our dependencies, we figure out how to remove them.
(15:30) Jeff on decision making speed: “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you're good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure."
(16:30) The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody's part-time job.
(21:00) Even though you cannot h… Lees meer -
#320 The Making of Winston Churchill Part 2
15 september 2023 · 54 min
What I learned from reading Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden.
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(5:00) It was better for the world that he had known failure and suffered moments of self doubt.
(6:00) There was something in Churchill's character that simply wouldn't allow him to give up. He was a dangerous optimist.
(8:00) History likes winners.
(9:30) The adventures and ordeals of those early years were essential to the making of a man who triumphed in the second world war.
(10:00) At 40 he was largely written off as a man whose best days were behind him. (Churchill shares a lot of parallels with Steve Jobs)
(10:30) He fashioned his career as a grand experiment to prove that he could work his will on his times. Persevering in that approach, despite repeated setbacks and often harsh ridicule of those who didn't share his high opinion of himself.
(13:00) At the heart of this story is an irrepressible spirit.
(17:30) Little men let events take their course. I like things to happen. And if they don't happen, I like to make them happen.
(15:00) In every age there are great men. Why not us? And why not now?
(19:30) Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.
(22:00) While other politicians were content to get their information from a scattering of newspapers, Churchill devoured whole shelves.
(23:00) Winston Churchill wanted to be the dominant political figure of his time.
(23:30) Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson
(26:30) Listen to Invest Like The Best #343 David Senra
(30:00) If a man is sure of himself it only sharpens him and makes him more effective.
(35:00) Another thing Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill had in common: High Energy. This … Lees meer -
Sam Zemurray (The Fish That Ate the Whale)
12 september 2023 · 1 uur 30 min
What I learned from rereading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen.
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[4:47] This story can shock and infuriate us, and it does. But I found it invigorating, too. It told me that the life of the nation was written not only by speech-making grandees in funny hats but also by street-corner boys, immigrant strivers, crazed and driven, some with one good idea, some with thousands, willing to go to the ends of the earth to make their vision real.
[8:56] Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55)
[10:00] Unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries William Walker was not afraid of Cornelius when he should have been.
[12:21] The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children.
[12:42] The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen
[12:54] He was driven by the same raw energy that has always attracted the most ambitious to America, then pushed them to the head of the crowd. Grasper, climber-nasty ways of describing this kid, who wants what you take for granted. From his first months in America, he was scheming, looking for a way to get ahead. You did not need to be a Rockefeller to know the basics of the dream: Start at the bottom, fight your way to the top.
[14:01] There is no problem you can't solve if you understand your business from A to Z.
[17:08] Sam spotted an opportunity where others saw nothing.
[18:17] As far as he was concerned, ripes were considered trash only because Boston Fruit and similar firms were too slow-footed to cover ground. It was a calculation based on arrogance. I can be fast where others have been slow. I can hustle where others have been satisfied with the easy pickings of the trade.
[18:42] The kid on the streets is getting a shot at a dream. He sees the guy who gets rich and thin… Lees meer -
#319 The Making of Winston Churchill Part 1
5 september 2023 · 48 min
What I learned from reading Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard.
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(2:30) He was meant not just to fight for his country, but one day to lead it. Although he believed this without question, he still had to convince everyone else.
(3:30) He didn't even have a plan. Just the unshakeable conviction that he was destined for greatness.
(4:00) Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)
(4:30) Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden
(5:00) The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. (Founders #175)
(8:00) In his open pursuit of fame and popular favor, Churchill seemed far less Victorian than Rooseveltian.
(8:30) Winston advertises himself as simply and as unconsciously as he breathes. Churchill was widely criticized for being a self advertiser.
(9:30) “I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod."
(9:30) Churchill did not need encouragement. He only needed a chance.
(11:00) "I have faith in my star. That I am intended to do something in the world."
(12:30) "I do not believe the Gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending."
(13:30) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)
(17:30) Winston had spent the best years of his life composing his impromptu speeches.
(18:00) He had no one who believed in him quite as much as he believed in himself.
(20:30) He was defiantly determined to decide for himself where he would go and what he would do.
(27:00) From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed. — Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. (Founde… Lees meer -
The best interview I've ever done about Founders
3 september 2023 · 1 uur 21 min
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. Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
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#318 Alistair Urquhart (Listen to this when you’re stressed)
28 augustus 2023 · 48 min
What I learned from reading The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific by Alistair Urquhart.
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(4:00) I hope that this book will be inspirational and offer hope to those who suffer adversity in their daily lives.
(10:00) You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251)
(13:30) When you reach a large goal or finally get to the top, the distractions and new assumptions can be dizzying. First comes heightened confidence, followed quickly by overconfidence, arrogance, and a sense that “we’ve mastered it; we’ve figured it out; we’re golden.” But the gold can tarnish quickly. Mastery requires endless remastery. In fact, I don’t believe there is ever true mastery. It is a process, not a destination. — The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106)
(15:30) Invaders are always organized.
(23:00) Stay at the front and do not look back.
(29:00) Every morning I would tell myself over and over: Survive this day. Survive this day. Survive this day.
(32:00) On countless occasions I've seen two men with the same symptoms and same physical state and one will die and one will make it. I can only put that down to sheer willpower.
(35:00) Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts
(41:00) Dan Carlin's Nightmares of Indianapolis podcast episode(48:00) Alistair Urquhart was conscripted into the British military to fight during World War II. He was 19 years old.
He was sent to Singapore. The Japanese invaded and he was taken hostage.
He survived 750 days in the jungle working as a slave on The Death Railway and the bridge on the River Kwai.
Most of the time he worked completely naked.
He contracted dysentery, malaria, and tropical ulcers. A lot.
He was transferred to a Japanese hellship.
The ship was … Lees meer -
#317 Ed Catmull (Founder of Pixar)
21 augustus 2023 · 1 uur 5 min
What I learned from rereading Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull.
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(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) Th… Lees meer -
#316 Bugatti
14 augustus 2023 · 58 min
What I learned from reading The Bugatti Story by L’Ebe Bugatti.
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(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 t… Lees meer -
#315 Balenciaga
7 augustus 2023 · 36 min
What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson.
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(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 imag… Lees meer -
#314 Paul Graham (How To Do Great Work)
31 juli 2023 · 58 min
What I learned from reading How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham.
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(2:00) All you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in.
(2:10) Doing great work means doing something important so well that you expand people's ideas of what's possible.
(4:15) How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions. —How to Do What You Love by Paul Graham
(5:10) Always preserve excitingness. (Let what you are excited about guide you)
(8:15) If you're excited about some possibility that everyone else ignores, and you have enough expertise to say precisely what they're all overlooking, that's as good a bet as you'll find.
(9:15) How To Work Hard by Paul Graham
(10:05) When you follow what you are intensely interested in this strange convergence happens where you're working all the time and it feels like you're never working.
(10:20) You can't tell what most kinds of work are like except by doing them. You may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are at it.
(13:00) When it comes to figuring out what to work on, you're on your own.
(14:00) Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. (Founders #312)
(17:15) One sign that you're suited for some kind of work is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious or frightening.
(17:50) Make what you are most excited about.
(19:00) If you're interested, you're not astray.
(19:30) Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300)
(20:15) At each stage do whatever seems most interesting and gives you the best options for the future. I call this approach "staying upwind." This is how most people who've done great work seem to have done it.
(22:50) In many projects a lot of the best work happens in what was meant to be the final stage.
(25:00) A Mat… Lees meer -
#313 Christopher Nolan
25 juli 2023 · 49 min
What I learned from reading The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone.
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(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 fam… Lees meer -
#312 Mark Twain
19 juli 2023 · 55 min
What I learned from reading Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr.
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One of the best podcasts I've heard this year: Listen to Invest Like The Best #336 Jeremy Giffon Special Situations in Private Markets
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(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… Lees meer -
#311 James Cameron
12 juli 2023 · 1 uur 12 min
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.
(3… Lees meer -
#310 Walt Disney and Picasso
4 juli 2023 · 52 min
What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson.
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(3:30) Disney made use of the new technologies throughout his creative life.
(4:45) Lists of Paul Johnson books and episodes:
Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson.(Founders #226)
Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)
Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252)
(5:55) Picasso was essentially self-taught, self-directed, self-promoted, emotionally educated in the teeming brothels of the city, a small but powerfully built monster of assured egoism.
(7:30) Most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end. If you are both killer and poet, you get rich. — Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #306)
(10:00) Whatever you do, you must do it with gusto, you must do it in volume. It is a case of repeat, repeat, repeat. — Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab. (Founders #105)
(11:30) Picasso averaged one new piece of artwork every day of his life from age 20 until his death at age 91. He created something new every day for 71 years.
(15:30) Power doesn't always corrupt. But what power always does is reveal. — Working by Robert Caro (Founders #305)
(17:30) Many people find it hard to accept that a great writer, painter, or musician can be evil. But the historical evidence shows, again and again, that evil and creative genius can exist side by side in the same person. In my judgment his monumental selfishness and malignity were inextricably linked to his achievement.
He was all-powerful as an originator and aesthetic entrepreneur precisely because he was so passionately devoted to what he was doing, to the exclusion of any other feelings whatever.
He had no sense of duty except to himself, and this gave him his overwhelming self-pr… Lees meer -
Michael Jordan (The Life)
30 juni 2023 · 1 uur 39 min
What I learned from reading Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby.
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(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.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books feat… Lees meer -
#309 Arnold Schwarzenegger (Before He Was Successful)
26 juni 2023 · 40 min
What I learned from reading Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak by Barbara Outland Baker.
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(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 … Lees meer -
#308 The Founder of Glock
19 juni 2023 · 40 min
What I learned from reading Glock: The Rise of America's Gun by Paul Barrett. Lees meer
Listen to Invest Like the Best #292 David Senra: Passion and Pain.
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(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… -
#307: The World's Great Family Dynasties: Rockefeller, Rothschild, Morgan, & Toyada
12 juni 2023 · 1 uur 3 min
What I learned from reading Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses by David Landes.
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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
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(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. W… Lees meer