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462 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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#306 David Ogilvy (Confessions of an Advertising Man)
5 juni 2023 · 48 min
What I learned from reading Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy.
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(4:15) When Fortune published an article about me and titled it: "Is David Ogilvy a Genius?," I asked my lawyer to sue the editor for the question mark.
(4:45) The people who built the companies for which America is famous, all worked obsessively to create strong cultures within their organizations. Companies that have cultivated their individual identities by shaping values, making heroes, spelling out rites and rituals, and acknowledging the cultural network, have an edge
(5:30) We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow in oak forests.
(5:48) We hire gentlemen with brains.
(6:16) Only First Class business, and that in a First Class way.
(6:25) Search all the parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees.
(9:45) Buy Ogilvy on Advertising
(10:45) One decent editorial counts for a thousand advertisements. + You simply cannot mix your messages when selling something new. A consumer can barely handle one great new idea, let alone two, or even several. — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300)
(15:22) It was inspiring to work for a supreme master. M. Pitard did not tolerate incompetence. He knew that it is demoralising for professionals to work alongside incompetent amateurs.
(16:66) You have to be ruthless if you want to build a team of A players. It's too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players. The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can't indulge B players.
(18:12) In the best compan… Lees meer -
#305 Robert Caro on power, poverty, ruthlessness, & obsession
29 mei 2023 · 55 min
What I learned from reading Working by Robert Caro.
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Listen to one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best: Sam Hinkie: Find Your People
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[3:40] You can't get very deep into Johnson's life without realizing that the central fact of his life was his relationship with his father.
[8:00] It was the hill country and his father's failures that taught him how terrible could be the consequences of a single mistake.
[8:45] Lyndon Johnson wouldn't understand. He would refuse to understand. He would threaten you, would cajole you, bribe you or charm you. He would do whatever he had to do, but he would get that vote.
[9:00] What mattered to him was winning because he knew what losing could be. What its consequences could be.
[9:50] Robert Caro books I've read:
The Power Broker
The Path to Power
Means of Ascent
Master of The Senate (currently reading)
[11:00] About what I wanted to do with my life and my books (which are my life)
[11:40] I am a reflection of what I do. — Steve Jobs
[23:20] There are certain moments in your life when you suddenly understand something about yourself. I loved going through those files, making them yield up their secrets to me.
[24:10] Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamn page.
[27:50] Robert Caro snaps: No, that's not why highways get built where they get built. They get built there because Robert Moses wants them there.
[28:15] Robert Moses had power that no one understood. Power that nobody else was even thinking about.
[29:50] There are sentences that are said to you in your life that are chiseled into your memory.
[34:00] Three of the editors took me to some fancy restaurant and told me they could make me a star. Bob Gottlieb said, Well, I don't go out for lunch but we can have a sandwich at my desk and talk about your book. So of course I picked him.
[37:15] Robert Moses was a ruthless genius with savage energy.
[38:30] Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to b… Lees meer -
#304: Sol Price (The Founder Who Taught Jim Sinegal, Sam Walton, Jeff Bezos, Bernie Marcus)
22 mei 2023 · 1 uur
What I learned from reading Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary by Robert Price.
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[6:50] He believed in developing strong operating efficiencies, and he continually emphasized passing on savings to customers.
[8:48] It's pretty incredible to think about that Sol's ideas have created trillions of dollars of value.
[11:18] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. —Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)
[14:00] Stephen King on the belief and support he received from his wife: “Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference”— Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftby Stephen King. (Founders #210)
[16:00] True education is gained through the discipline of life. —Henry Ford
[19:45] Sol kept a small sign in his office: “Do it now.”
[24:00] Sol finds an idea future generations of entrepreneurs will use: A membership retail store targeted to a specific niche.
[24:45] When you have people driving far distances to save money that is a very good sign. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)
[26:45] Daniel Ek interview on the Acquired podcast.
[39:10] If you’re not spending 90% of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job. —Jim Sinegal.
[39:45] You train an animal, you teach a person.
[40:00] He was not a fan of training manuals because he believed that manuals were a substitute for thinking.
[43:00] What does limited selection have to do with efficiency? Because payroll and benefits represent 80% of a retailer’s cost of operations, pricing advantage follows labor productivity. Fewer items result in reduced labor hours throughout all of the product supply channels. Put simply, the cost to deal with 4,500 items is a lot less than the cost to deal with 50,000 items.
[50:21] The operating efficiencies of the warehouse concept and the direct delivery of products from the suppliers to Price Club made it possible to sell merchandi… Lees meer -
#303 Rose Blumkin (Warren Buffett's Favorite Founder)
15 mei 2023 · 33 min
What I learned from reading The Women of Berkshire Hathaway: Lessons from Warren Buffett's Female CEOs and Directors by Karen Linder.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas—A New Blueprint for Homebuilding
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Episode outline:
Mr. Buffett, we're going to put our competitors through a meat grinder. — Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. (Founders #182)
There are several "Going Out of Business" advertisements from competitors' stores framed and hanging on the wall.
As a general rule, bet on the quality of the business, not on the quality of the management-unless, of course, you've got a Mrs. B. in your hand. If that is the case, go all in. She was a business genius. — The Tao of Charlie Munger (Founders #295)
Retirement is fatal. — David Ogilvy (Founders #189)
Business like raising a child, you want a good one. A child needs a mother and a business needs a boss.
What is your favorite thing to do on a nice evening? Drive around to check the competition and plan my next attack.
He was 52 and famous. I was 33 and a junior account executive. Early on, he wrote a letter to one of my clients. After listing eight reasons why some ads prepared by the company’s design department would not be effective, he delivered his ultimate argument: The only thing that can be said in favor of the layouts is that they are “different.” You could make a cow look different by removing the udder. But that cow would not produce results. So began my “David” file. Almost everyone who worked at the agency kept one. — The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising by Kenneth Roman. (Founders #169)
Buffet said: If she ran a popcorn stand I’d wanna be in business with her. She's just plain smart. She's a fierce competitor and she's a tireless worker.
Buffett “on how Mrs. B ran her business: One question I always ask myself in appraising a business is how I would like, assuming … Lees meer -
#302 Napoleon (The Mind of Napoleon)
8 mei 2023 · 50 min
What I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold.
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(3:45) A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree.
(4:45) He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present.
(5:15) Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine.
(6:05) Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294)
(9:25) To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing.
(10:00) To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all.
(10:55) The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent.
(11:45) The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. — Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299)
(12:55) The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late.
(16:10) The worst way to live according to Napoleon:
When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all.
(17:45) Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and Da… Lees meer -
#301 Tiger Woods
1 mei 2023 · 1 uur 4 min
What I learned from reading Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas
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[3:00] He was someone no one had ever seen or will ever see again.
[5:20] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. — Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)
[7:15] His output was enormous, much greater than that of nine tenths of other composers. He was a mature artist in most forms at the age of twelve. There was never a month, often scarcely a week, when he did not produce a substantial score. — Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)
[7:50] Tiger's opponents were never people; it was always history.
[14:05] I've always been a practice player. I believe in it. — Michael Jordan: The Lifeby Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212)
[17:00] Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc. (Founders #293)
[18:30] Tiger was filling his mind with words that were intended to make him great. He wrote some of the messages from the self-help cassettes on a sheet of paper that he taped to his bedroom wall:
I believe in me
I will own my own destiny
I smile at obstacles
I am first in my resolve
I fulfill my resolutions powerfully
My strength is great
I stick to it, easily, naturally
My will moves mountains
I focus and give it my all
My decisions are strong
I do it with all my heart
Tiger listened to those tapes so often that he wore them out.
[31:50] People would ask him how did you get so good Tiger? And he would answer, practice, practice, practice.
[32:10] The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think. —The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen.
[36:45] The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy o… Lees meer -
#300 James Dyson (Against the Odds)
24 april 2023 · 1 uur 21 min
What I learned from reading Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson for the 4th time. You can also find the book on Book Finder.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain
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Episode Outline:
[4:30] Invention: A Life by James Dyson (Founders #205)
[2:41] I am a creator of products, a builder of things, and my name appears on them. That is how I make a living and they are what have made my name at least familiar in a million homes.
[11:00] Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Definitive Biography of The Engineer, Visionary, and Great Briton by L.T.C. Rolt. (Founders #201)
[13:10] After the idea there is plenty of time to learn the technology. My first cyclonic vacuum cleaner was built out of cereal packets and masking tape long before I understood how it worked.
[14:15] Difference for the sake of it. In everything. Because it must be better. From the moment the idea strikes, to the running of the business. Difference, and retention of total control.
[18:00] I would not be dragged into something I didn't want to do.
[22:40] They were all running round and round the track like a herd of sheep and not getting any quicker. Difference itself was making me come in first.
[23:34] As I grew more and more neurotic about being caught from behind I trained harder to stay in front. To this day it is the fear of failure, more than anything else, which makes me keep working at success.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was unable to think small, and nothing was a barrier to him. The mere fact that something had never been one before presented, to Brunel, no suggestion that the doing of it was impossible. He was fired by an inner strength and self-belief almost impossible to imagine in this feckless age. While I could never lay claim to the genius of a man like that —I have tried to be as confident in my vision as he was. And at times in my life when I have encountered difficulty and self-doubt I have looked to hi… Lees meer -
#299 Steve Jobs (Make Something Wonderful)
17 april 2023 · 2 uur 1 min
What I learned from reading Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com
You can read, reread, and search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast.
You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you.
A few questions I've asked SAGE recently:
What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?
Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas)
How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent?
What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors?
Get access to Founders Notes here.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain
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(3:48) He gave an extraordinary amount of thought to how best to use our fleeting time.
(4:24) He imagined what reality lacked and set out to remedy it.
(7:27) Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Video and My Notes.
(10:02) Edwin Land episodes:
Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264)
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)
(13:23) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.
(14:10) One from Many: VISA a… Lees meer -
#298 I had lunch with Sam Zell
10 april 2023 · 1 uur 30 min
What I learned from having lunch with Sam Zell and reading Zeckendorf: The Autobiography of The man Who Played a Real-Life Game of Monopoly and Won the Largest Real Estate Empire in History by William Zeckendorf.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com
You can read, reread, and search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast.
You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you.
A few questions I've asked SAGE recently:
What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?
Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas)
How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent?
What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors?
Get access to Founders Notes here.
Episode Outline:
[27:31] Start of episode on Zeckendorf’s autobiography
[27:44] 26 years of work was now moving down the chute.
[28:36] The secret of any great project is to keep it moving, keep it from losing momentum.
[34:55] If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. (Founders #297)
[36:21] Zeckendorf: Revisiting the legacy of a master builder
[45:08] This ruthless industry has created far more bankruptcies than it has billionaires. — Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger. (Founders #243)
[48:49] If you want to know whether you are destined to be a success or a failure in life, you can easily find out. The test is simple and it is infallible: Are you able to save money? If not, drop out. You will lose. You may think not, but you will lose as sure as you live. The seed of success is not in you… Lees meer -
#297 Yvon Chouinard (Patagonia)
3 april 2023 · 1 uur
What I learned from rereading Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard.
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[3:45] One of my favorite sayings about entrepreneurship is: If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, “This sucks. I’m going to do my own thing.”
[4:32] The original intent for writing Let My People Go Surfing was for it to be a philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia. We have always considered Patagonia an experiment in doing business in unconventional ways.
[7:48] MeatEater Podcast #188 Yvon Chouinard on Belonging to Nature
[7:55] The first part of our mission statement, “Make the best product,” is the cornerstone of our business philosophy. “Make the best” is a difficult goal. It doesn’t mean “among the best” or the “best at a particular price point.” It means “make the best,” period.
[9:58] When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I’ll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can’t be sold on its merits. I’d be competing head-on in the cola wars, on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me. I’d much rather design and sell products so good and unique that they have no competition.
[14:32] We were like a wild species living on the edge of an ecosystem: adaptable, resilient, and tough.
[14:49] I believe the way towards mastery of any endeavor is to work towards simplicity. The more you know, the less you need.
[15:49] The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
[17:59] Complexity is often a sure sign that the functional needs have not been solved. Take the difference between the Ferrari and the Cadillac of the 1960s. … Lees meer -
A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast
29 maart 2023 · 3 uur 10 min
David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert — of the Acquired podcast — invited me to San Francisco for a discussion on our mutual obsession: spending every waking hour studying the history of entrepreneurship and sharing those lessons on our podcasts.
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This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Get in touch with Tiny by emailing hi@tiny.com.
[3:00] David’s time with Charlie Munger
[5:30] Henry Flagler after Standard Oil
[8:30] What makes a great biography, and how to capture all sides of complex characters?
[11:00] Studying history is a form of leverage to achieve success
[13:00] How do we figure out what the true story is for an episode we're doing?
[20:30] Silicon Valley should focus more on durability than growth
[21:30] How David got into reading biographies and podcasting
[25:40] What were each of their influences before starting Acquired and Founders?
[35:30] How to suck less over time
[37:30] What motivates, Ben, David, and David to get better?
[45:00] Dead ends: business model changes, paid podcasts, changing the name to “Adapting”, and Senra's “Autotelic”
[51:30] “You’re not advertising to a standing army, you’re advertising to a moving parade”
[56:00] Comparison of podcasting business models
[1:00:10] Senra’s insane Readwise "healthy twitter" habit
[1:04:30] Is it possible for the ultra-wealthy not to mess up their kids?
[1:14:30] The fleeting moments you get to spend with your kids
[1:17:00] The value of building relationships with best-in-class peers
[1:19:30] How the book publishing industry works
[1:28:45] How to differentiate yourself as an investor in 2023?
[1:38:30] The greatest historical examples as content marketing
[2:02:00] The best businesses are cults (and Senra starts one on the episode)
[2:07:00] Senra gives feedback to Ben and David on Acquired episode format
[2:15:30] Steve Jobs’ … Lees meer -
#296 Bernard Arnault (The Richest Man in the World)
27 maart 2023 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai.
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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes
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[1:16] I am the boss. I shall be here on Monday morning and I shall be running the company in person.
[4:30] The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai
[5:01] I highly recommend listening to Acquired’s episode on LVMH. It is excellent.
[5:16] Business Breakdowns episode LVMH: The Wolf in Cashmere’s Conglomerate
[6:16] Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294)
[6:18] Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words by Napoleon and J. Christopher Herold.
[7:20] I’m not so dominant that I can’t listen to creative ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. — Driven From Within by Michael Jordan (Founders #213)
[9:00] “I am very competitive. I always want to win.” —Bernard Arnault
[10:39] What I'm interested is in doing.
[11:43] He believed in extreme discretion.
[11:56] I Had Dinner With Charlie Munger (Founders #295)
[16:17] Beneath his civilized appearance there lurked the spirit of an adventurer. He wanted more.
[17:45] He wanted to go far. He had an iron will. At a laboriously won tennis match he said “I may lose once but I never lose twice.” —Bernard Arnault
[19:45] Problems are just opportunities in work clothes.
[23:30] Arnault remained inflexible. He wanted control. There was no question of his becoming the Willots’ partner.
[24:15] Far from discouraging him, this consensus of opinion (that this would lead to failure) acted as a stimulus.
[24:25] “I remember people telling me, it does not make sense to put together so many brands. And it was a success, it was a recognized success, and for the last 10 yea… Lees meer -
#295 I had dinner with Charlie Munger
21 maart 2023 · 1 uur 18 min
What I learned from having dinner with Charlie Munger and rereading The Tao of Charlie Munger.
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(5:45) The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.
(8:48) He has never forgotten the importance of having friends in high places.
(9:04) Most people systematically undervalue their time. — Peter Thiel
(11:08) Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. Founders #251)
(12:23) Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #284)
(15:02) Charlie took the excess capital out of Blue Chip Stamp and invested it in profitable businesses.
(16:56) Charlie started seeing the advantages of investing in better businesses that didn't have big capital requirements and did have lots of free cash that could be reinvested in expanding operations or buying new businesses.
(17:38) Go for great.
(21:33) In everything I’ve done it really pays to go after the best people in the world. —Steve Jobs
(27:15) If you're in a good business just know that it's human nature to mess it up. Don't mess it up. Just stay there and let time do its work.
(27:34) One truly great business will make your unborn grandchildren wealthy.
(28:08) All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)
(34:39) I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.
(34:54) Charlie Munger on how he made $400 or $500 million by reading Barron’s for 50 years.
(35:11) One of the reasons Charlie and Warren have never worried about anyone mimicking their investment style is be… Lees meer -
#294 Napoleon
13 maart 2023 · 43 min
What I learned from reading Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell.
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[3:00] He could think quicker and along more individual and original lines than any of them.
[4:00] John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254)
[4:14] Miami meetup with Shane Parrish
[7:31] His life was enormously important, endlessly fascinating, and connected to some of the most controversial and constantly reinterpreted events in the world history.
[8:37] Paul Johnson’s books:
Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)
Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)
Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252) [10:54] Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226)
[12:20] He knew the importance of actively crafting his image in all available media.
[15:08] Napoleon found comfort and companionship in books
[17:02] The revolution was overturning age old hierarchies and giving worldwide prominence to previously obscure figures.
[17:24] Napoleon was ruthless.
[18:36] Only after that battle did I believe myself to be a superior man. And did the ambition come to me of executing the great things, which so far had been occupying my thoughts only as a fantastic dream.
[20:00] Many are the historical opportunities that have been lost for lack of talent or vision. In Napoleon's case, the man met his hour.
[20:13] He could see in a moment how to maneuver everything for maximum effect.
[21:03] Napoleon was a man of stone and iron.
[26:27] Napoleon was something new and the keenest observers understood it.
[29:06] I wanted to rule the world, who wouldn't have in my place?
[29:26] If papa could see us now.
[29:45] Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251)
[3… Lees meer -
#293: Ray Kroc (The Making of McDonald's)
7 maart 2023 · 52 min
What I learned from rereading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc.
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[2:00] I have always believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems.
[4:00] I was fascinated by the simplicity and effectiveness of the system they described that night.Each step in producing the limited menu was stripped down to its essence and accomplished with a minimum of effort.
[5:00] When I flew back to Chicago that fateful day in 1954, I had a freshly signed contract with the McDonald brothers in my briefcase. I was a battle-scarred veteran of the business wars, but I was still eager to go into action. I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns. But I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.
[6:00] It’s not what you do it’s how you do it:
Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique by Jeffrey Trachtenberg. (Founders #288)
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)
The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292)
[8:00] I never considered my dreams wasted energy. They were invariably linked to some form of action.
[10:00] For me, work was play.
[13:00] I vowed that this was going to be my only job. I was going to make my living at it and to hell with moonlighting of any kind. I intended to devote every ounce of my energy to selling, and that's exactly what I did.
[14:00] Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)
[20:00] This was the first phase of grinding it out—building my personal monument to capitalism. I paid tribute, in the feudal sense, for many years before I was able to rise with McDonald's on the foundation I had la… Lees meer -
#292 Daniel Ludwig (The Invisible Billionaire)
27 februari 2023 · 47 min
What I learned from rereading The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields.
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[2:00] Obsessed with privacy, Ludwig pays a major public relations firm fat fees to keep his name out of the papers.
[4:00] An associate speaks of his unlimited ingenuity in dreaming up new ways of doing things.
[5:00] Ludwig’s most notable characteristic, besides his imagination and pertinacity, is a lifelong penchant for keeping his mouth shut.
[5:00] I'm in this business because I like it. I have no other hobbies.
[6:00] Holding strongly to an opinion, purpose, or course of action, stubbornly or annoyingly persistent.
[8:00] Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger (Founders #243)
[10:00] At his peak, he owned more than 200 companies in 50 countries.
[23:00] War makes the demand for Ludwig's products and services skyrocket.
[25:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)
[28:00] He did not mellow as he grew richer and older.
[28:00] Some years later, the captain of a Ludwig ship made the extravagant mistake of mailing in a report of several pages held together by a paper clip. He received a sharp rebuke for his prodigality: "We do not pay to send ironmongery by air mail!"
[29:00] Ludwig’s tightfistedness, however, persisted after the Depression, putting him in sharp contrast to such free spenders as Onassis and Niarchos. It also was largely responsible for many of his innovations in the shipbuilding industry.
[29:00] Onassis: An Extravagant Life by Frank Brady. (Founders #211)
[30:00] Ludwig’s ridding his ships of any feature that did not contribute to profits pleased his own obsessive sense of economy and kept him a step ahead of the competition. When someone asked why he didn't put a grand piano aboard his ships, as Stavros N… Lees meer -
#291 David Packard (Founder of HP)
20 februari 2023 · 47 min
What I learned from reading The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard.
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Do our products offer something unique?
Customer satisfaction second to none is the only acceptable goal.
What I learned from rereading Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters for the 3rd time (Founders #282)
In Silicon Valley, the ultimate career standard was set by David Packard: start a company in a garage, grow it into the leading innovator in its field, then take it public, then take it into the Fortune 500 (or better yet, the Fortune 50), then become the spokesman for the industry, then go to Washington, and then become an historic global figure. Only Packard had accomplished all of this; he had set the bar, and the Valley had honored his achievement by making him the unofficial "mayor" of Silicon Valley.
—The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)
Gates read the encyclopedia from beginning to end when he was only seven or eight years old. — Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)
My father wouldn't let me quit.
Given equally good players and good teamwork, the team with the strongest will to win will prevail.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. (Founders #278)
That was a very important lesson for me —that personal communication was often necessary to back up written instructions.
Insisting On The Impossible: The Life Of Edwin Land by Victor McElheny
More businesses die from indigestion than starvation.
I found, after much trial and error, that applying steady, gentle pressure from the worked best.
Bill and I knew we didn't want to be a “me too… Lees meer -
#290 Bill Gates
13 februari 2023 · 47 min
What I learned from rereading Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 292 The Business of Gaming with Mitch Lasky and 293 David Senra Passion and Pain !
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Gates read the encyclopedia from beginning to end when he was only seven or eight years old.
Gates had an obsessive personality and a compulsive need to be the best.
Everything Bill did, he did to the max. What he did always went well, well beyond everyone else.
You want to maneuver yourself into doing something in which you have an intense interest. — Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.
Gates devoured everything he could get his hands on concerning computers and how to communicate with them, often teaching himself as he went.
A young man with no money and tons of enthusiasm. — The Dream of Solomeo: My Life and the Idea of Humanistic Capitalism by Brunello Cucinelli. (Founders #289)
He consumed biographies to understand how the great figures of history thought.
The idea that some people were super successful was interesting. What did they know? What did they do? What drove those kinds of successes?
Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft by Paul Allen. (Founders #44)
“I’m going to make my first million by the time I'm 25.” It was not said as a boast, or even a prediction. He talked about the future as if his success was predestined.
Gates and Allen were convinced the computer industry was about to reach critical mass, and when it exploded it would usher in a technological revolution of astounding magnitude. They were on the threshold of one of those moments when history held its breath... and jumped, as it had done with the development of the car and the airplane. They could either lead the revolution or be swept along b… Lees meer -
#289 Brunello Cucinelli
7 februari 2023 · 53 min
What I learned from reading The Dream of Solomeo: My Life and the Idea of Humanistic Capitalism by Brunello Cucinelli.
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This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Quick and straightforward exits for Founders.
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[4:00] I am reminded of Machiavelli: during his exile, he too spent his afternoons playing board games and drinking wine, while at night, in the austere silence of his studio, he engaged in solitary, literary conversations with the ancient scholars.
[6:00] The true meaning of my life seems to be a spontaneous drive and energy.
[7:00] I am driven by an immense desire: that my life, when it reaches its end, will not have been useless.
[7:00] Brunello Cucinelli by Om Malik
[8:00] God assigns to all of us a mission to fulfill. Our task is first to discover the nature of our summons, then to follow it.
[11:00] We schedule time to think. Most people schedule themselves like a dentist. It's so easy to get so busy that you no longer have time to think- and you pay a huge price for that. —— All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. (Founders #286)
[14:00] Try to be your son's teacher until he's ten years old; his father, until he's twenty; and his friend, for the rest of his life.
[14:00] The problem is not getting rich, it's staying sane. —Charlie Munger
[18:00] What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who n… Lees meer -
#288 Ralph Lauren
31 januari 2023 · 1 uur 1 min
What I learned from reading Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique by Jeffrey Trachtenberg.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 311 John Fio — Creating Magic for Consumers, episode 307 Jeremiah Lowin: Explaining the New AI Paradigm, and episode 293 The Business of Gaming.
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[2:01] When I lumped him together with a handful of other designers during casual conversation, he snapped: “Don't put me with those designers. My business is not compared to anybody else's."
[3:00] In practice Ralph Lauren is a tough, intensely ambitious businessman.
[3:00] Ralph has always possessed immense self-confidence; it is central to his character, an asset as valuable as his sense of color, fabric, style.
[4:00] Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie. (Founders #199)
[7:00] Few outsiders understood fully how lucrative the licensing business had become. Ralph would have been a successful designer in his own right. However, he would never have qualified as one of the world's richest men without licensees willing to pay him 5 to 7 percent of sales.
[7:00] His privately held fashion empire was on the brink of bankruptcy. Geffen surmised that the company should be transformed from a manufacturing firm to a design, marketing, and licensing company. "You guys stink at manufacturing," he said. "You need to get out of that business." Instead, Geffen continued, the company needed to focus on what it really knew: how to design and market the Calvin Klein brand name. — The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells The New Hollywood by Tom King
[14:00] When my customers come to me, they like to cross the threshold of some magic place; they feel a satisfaction that is perhaps a trace vulgar but that delights them: they are privileged characters who are incorporated into our legend. For them this is a far greate… Lees meer -
#287 The Founder of Rolls-Royce
23 januari 2023 · 32 min
What I learned from rereading Rolls-Royce: The Magic of a Name: The First Forty Years of Britain s Most Prestigious Company by Peter Pugh.
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[2:31] Henry Royce had known poverty and hardship all his life. The only university he had graduated from was the one of hard knocks.
[3:00] Rolls on Royce: I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Mr. Royce and in him I found the man I had been looking for for years.
[5:00] A great product has to be better than it has to be. Relentlessness wins because, in the aggregate, unseen details become visible. All those unseen details combine to produce something that's just stunning, like a thousand barely audible voices all singing in tune. — Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham (Founders #277)
[6:00] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. — Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)
[9:00] This ability to observe, think about and then improve on existing machines (products) was to be a consistent theme throughout Royce’s life.
[10:00] Many times our position was so precarious that it seemed hopeless to continue.
[12:00] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #287)
[12:00] Some have tried to give the impression that it was almost by chance that Royce became involved in designing a motor car. Royce was not a man to rely on chance. He saw that the motor car had a great future and that it would be an ideal product for his business.
[12:00] This part is excellent: There was nothing revolutionary about Royce’s car. He had taken the best of current automobile design and improved on every aspect of it. I do not think that Royce did anything of a revolutionary nature in hi… Lees meer -
#286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger
16 januari 2023 · 1 uur 11 min
What I learned from reading 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.
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Follow the podcast Gamecraft to learn more about the history of the video game industry.
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[2:01] Buffett and Munger have a remarkable ability to eliminate folly, simplify things, boil down issues to their essence, get right to the point, and focus on simple and timeless truths.
[3:00] The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191)
[4:00] Warren Buffet or Charlie Munger are the very wise grandfather figure that I never had.
[5:00] To try to live your life totally free of mistakes is a life of inaction. —Warren Buffett
[5:00] The sign above the players' entrance to the field at Notre Dame reads ´Play Like a Champion Today.' I sometimes joke that the sign at Nebraska reads 'Remember Your Helmet.' Charlie and I are 'Remember Your Helmet' kind of guys.' We like to keep it simple. (You must structure your life and business to be able to survive the inevitable bad decisions you’re going to make.)
[5:00] Wisdom is prevention. —Charlie Munger
[6:00] We make actual decisions very rapidly, but that's because we've spent so much time preparing ourselves by quietly sitting and reading and thinking. —Charlie Munger
[7:00] If you get into the mental habit of relating what you're reading to the basic underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom. —Charlie Munger
[7:00] At Berkshire, we don't have any meetings or committees, and I can think of no better way to become more intelligent than sit down and read. I hate meetings, frankly. I have created something that I enjoy: … Lees meer -
#285 Jay Gould (How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune)
10 januari 2023 · 1 uur
What I learned from reading American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune by Greg Steinmetz.
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[0:01] A series of spectacular financial triumphs had made Gould fabulously rich. At age thirty-six, he was the most notorious businessman in the country.
[1:00] Vanderbilt told a newspaper that Gould was "the smartest man in America." Rockefeller, when asked who he thought had the best head for business, answered "Jay Gould" without pausing to think.
They recognized Gould as a master of his craft. No one disputed that he was an extraordinary problem solver, an unparalleled negotiator, an expert communicator, a lightning-fast thinker, and a masterful tactician with a staggering memory.
[2:00] Railroads changed America in the nineteenth century much as automobiles changed the country in the twentieth century and the internet has changed the twenty first century.
[5:00] American Rascal shows the complex and quirky character of the nineteenth century's greatest robber baron. He was at once praised for his brilliance by Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and condemned for forever destroying American business values by Mark Twain. He lived a colorful life, trading jokes with Thomas Edison, figuring in Thomas Nast's best sketches, paying Boss Tweed's bail, and commuting to work in a 200-foot yacht.
[6:00] I consider this part two in a two part series on Jay Gould. Make sure you listen to part 1: Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258)
[9:00] He read whatever he could get his hands on. Jay was often nowhere to be found. He was off hiding somewhere with his books.
[10:00] He would wake up at three to study by firelight.
[10:00] My Life and Work by Henry Ford. (Founders #266)
[12:35] “As you know. I’m not in the habit of backing out of what I undertake, and I s… Lees meer -
#284 Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick
2 januari 2023 · 1 uur 7 min
What I learned from rereading Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and check out these great episodes:
#137 Bill Gurley: All Things Business and Investing#88 Sam Hinkie: Data, Decisions, and Basketball#204 Sam Hinkie: Find Your People
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[0:01] Frick had been the man Carnegie trusted above all others to manage the affairs of Carnegie Steel.
[2:00] Carnegie had delegated the job of holding the line on wages and other demands to Frick—a Patton to Carnegie's FDR.
[3:00] The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #283)
[5:00] Here's a starter pack of essentials for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making. —Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters (Founders #282)
[7:00] In less than half a century the United States had been transformed―from a largely agrarian and underdeveloped federation of competing interests, to a relatively cohesive economic juggernaut. The age of the Founding Fathers was over. The Age of the Titans had begun.
[12:00] By 1863 Carnegie was earning more than $45,000 a year from this and all his other investments, compared with a mere $2,400 from his railroad salary. Yet he understood that it was the contacts he made and the information he derived from his association with the railroad that made everything else possible.
[13:00] More control. Less costs. More profit.
[15:00] Technology is just a better way to do something: As a result of the process for transforming iron to steel that bore his name (Bessemer), a quantity of steel that might formerly have taken as long as two weeks to produce could now be made in fifteen minutes.
[17:00] Carnegie starts his company during a financial pani… Lees meer -
#283 Andrew Carnegie
26 december 2022 · 52 min
What I learned from rereading The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie.
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(1:01) 3 part series on Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick:
Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73)
The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie (Founders #74)
Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist by Quentin Skrabec Jr. (Founders #75)
(2:00) What these guys all had in common is they were hell bent on knowing their business down to the last cent. They were obsessed with having the lowest cost structure in their industry.
(2:00) Highlights from Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America:
—Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves.
—Frick knows his business down to the ground.
—Frick’s rise from humble beginnings was obviously intriguing to him. It signaled to Carnegie that Frick was another of the fellow “fittest,” and those were the individuals with whom Carnegie sought to align himself.
—Carnegie would repeat the mantra time and again: profits and prices were cyclical, subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled, and in Carnegie’s view, any savings achieved in the costs of goods were permanent.
—On this issue the two men were of one mind. Frick had made his way in coke by the same reckoning that Carnegie had in rail and steel: if you knew your costs down to the penny, you were always on firm ground.
(6:00) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #115)
(7:00) A sunny disposition is worth more than a fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like th… Lees meer -
#282 Jeff Bezos Shareholder Letters
19 december 2022 · 1 uur 10 min
What I learned from rereading Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters (for the 3rd time!)
Read Jeff's letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations
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[2:30] Amazon hopes to create an enduring franchise
[3:00] Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh trade-offs differently than some companies.
[4:00] We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.
[4:00] We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture.
[4:00] We set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way.
[5:00] Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool that we have.
[5:00] We are working to build something important, something that matters to our customers, something that we can all tell our grandchildren about. Such things aren't meant to be easy.
[6:00] "To read Bezos’ shareholder letters is to get a crash course in running a high-growth internet business from someone who mastered it before any of the playbooks were written." — From CB Insights
[7:00] Common themes repeated in Jeff’s letters:
More innovation is ahead of us.
It is still early. The opportunity —if we execute well — is enormous.
We will move quickly.
We will endure. Amazon will be a durable, long-lasting company.
We will focus on cash flow.
Once in a lifetime opportunities will be risky. Jeff gave himself a 30% chance of success— at best.
Customer obsession is our North Star. It is what we will bet the company on.
We will be BOLD.
We will have a frugal, lean culture that Sam Walton would approve of.
This will be hard. All valuable things are.
We will have to learn along the way.
[8:00] Sam Walton: Made In America b… Lees meer -
#281 Working with Steve Jobs
13 december 2022 · 41 min
What I learned from rereading Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda.
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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best
[2:01] We're going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because perfection is not attainable. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because, in the process, we will catch excellence.
[2:01] I'm not remotely interested in being just good.
[3:00] Gentlemen, this is the most important play we have. It's the play we must make go. It's the play that we will make go. It's the play that we will run again, and again, and again.
[4:00] In any complex effort, communicating a well-articulated vision for what you're trying to do is the starting point for figuring out how to do it.
[4:00] A significant part of attaining excellence in any field is closing the gap between the accidental and intentional, to achieve not just a something, or even an everything, but a specific and well-chosen thing.
[6:00] Every day at Apple was like going to school, a design-focused, high-tech, product-creation university.
[8:00] A story about Steve’s clarity of thought.
[9:00] Although Steve's opinions and moods could be hard to anticipate, he was utterly predictable when it came to his passion for products. He wanted Apple products to be great.
[11:00] The decisiveness of Steve Jobs.
[16:00] Steve wasn't merely interested in paying lip service to this goal. He demanded action. Steve found the time to attend a demo review so he could see it. His involvement kept the progress and momentum going.
[17:00] Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Hack away the unessential.
[17:00] People do not care about your product as much as you do. You have to make it simple and easy to use right from the start.
[18:00] Steve Jobs believed that stripping away nonessential… Lees meer -
The Founder of Kinkos — Paul Orfalea
9 december 2022 · 1 uur 15 min
What I learned from reading Copy This!: How I turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and 100 square feet into a company called Kinkos by Paul Orfalea.
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Two episodes I recommend:
Paul Orfalea - It's About the Money episode 299
David Senra - Passion & Pain episode 292
[5:23] I've never met a more circular, out-of-the-box thinker. It's often exhausting trying to keep up with him.
[6:21] I graduated from high school eighth from the bottom of my class of 1,200. Frankly, I still have no idea how those seven kids managed to do worse than I did.
[9:29] I also have no mechanical ability to speak of. There isn't a machine at Kinko's I can operate. I could barely run the first copier we leased back in 1970. It didn't matter. All I knew was that was I could sell what came out of it.
[11:24] Building an entirely new sort of business from a single Xerox copy machine gave me the life the world seemed determined to deny me when I was younger.
[14:04] The A students work for the B students, the C students run the companies, and the D students dedicate the buildings.
[24:02] I learned to turn a lot of busywork over to other people. That's an important skill. If you don't develop it, you'll be so busy, busy, busy that you can't get a free hour, not to mention a free week or month, to sit back and think creatively about where you want to be heading and how you are going to get there.
[25:07] There's no better way to stay "on" your business than to think creatively and constantly about your marketing: how you are marketing, who you are marketing to, and, always, how you could be doing a better job at it. You'd be amazed what kind of business you can generate by a seemingly simple thing like handing out flyers.
[27:18] The phone rang. It was one of our store managers calling to ask me how to handle a bounced check. I hel… Lees meer -
#280 Jimi Hendrix
6 december 2022 · 55 min
What I learned from reading Starting At Zero: His Own Story by Jimi Hendrix.
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----[0:01] He was also a compulsive writer, using hotel stationery, scraps of paper, cigarette cartons, napkins—anything that came to hand.
[0:01] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)
[1:00] He always claimed that for him life and music were inseparable.
[5:00] I liked to be different.
[5:00] The Autobiography of Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. (Founders #259)
[6:00] Bob Dylan:
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 really set me apart in these days was my repertoire.
It was more formidable than the rest of the players.
There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing.
[7:00] Anthony Bourdain on Jimi Hendrix: I often compare the experience of going to Japan for the first time, going to Tokyo for the first time, to what Eric Clapton and Pete Townsend must have gone through, the reigning guitar gods of England, what they must have gone through the week that Jimi Hendrix came to town. You hear about it, you go see it.A whole window opens up into a whole new thing.And you think what does this mean? What do I have left to say? What do I do now?
[12:00] The first guitarist I was aware of was Muddy Waters. I heard one of his records when I was a little boy, and it scared me to death. Wow! What was all that about?
[15:00] I loved my music, man. You see, I wasn't ever interested in any other things, just the music. I was trying to play like Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. Trying to learn everything and anything.
[16:00] My first gig was at an armory, a National Guard place, and we earned thirty-five cents apiece and three hamburgers.
[16:00] It was so hard for me at first. I knew about three songs, and when it was time for us to play… Lees meer -
#279 What I Learned Before I Sold to Warren Buffett
29 november 2022 · 56 min
What I learned from reading What I Learned Before I Sold to Warren Buffett: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Developing a Highly Successful Company by Barnett Helzberg Jr.
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[5:00] Then, right there on the sidewalk I told one of the most astute businessmen in America why he ought to consider buying our family's 79-year-old jewelry business.
"I believe that our company matches your criteria for investment, I said. To which he replied, simply, "Send me the information. It will be confidential.”
My conversation with Buffett lasted no more than half a minute.
[8:00] My dream buyer for the family business all along was Warren Buffet.
[11:00] "This can be the fastest deal in history," Buffett said.
"But what about due diligence?" I asked, surprised at how fast the negotiations were moving.
Most suitors demand to see every scrap of paper you've ever generated and to interview every top manager.
That wasn't Buffett's way. "I can smell these things, Buffett said. "This one smells good.”
[12:00] First A Dream by Jim Clayton. (Founders #91)
[13:00] Buffett on his management technique: “Managers run their own shows.
They don't have to report to central management. When we get somebody who is a .400 hitter we don't start telling them how to swing.”
[14:00] I was always taught that many, many people were out there developing ideas I could use. I have found that to be true throughout my life. These thoughts and ideas have all been borrowed or stolen from many wise people.
Think of the world as your garden of marvelous people and ideas with unlimited picking rights for you.
[17:00] Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux. (Founders #268)
[23:00] Despite missteps, entrepreneurs are a special breed who do not give up on the larger goals.
[24:00] It's not hard to express the quality we're looking for in metaphors. The best is p… Lees meer -
#278 Peter Thiel
22 november 2022 · 57 min
What I learned from rereading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.
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[4:01] Jobs's return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business-the creation of new valuecannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.
[5:00] A really important sentence to understand one of the main points in Peter’s book: Apple's value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person.
[5:00] A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong personal loyalty, and plan ahead for decades.
[6:00] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Founders #31)
[7:00] Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.
[8:00] By creating new technologies we rewrite the plan of the world.
[9:00] The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula necessarily cannot exist; because every innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative.
The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.
[10:00] The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. —Steve Jobs
[11:00] Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.
[13:00] A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company's most important strength… Lees meer -
#277 Paul Graham's Essays Part 3
17 november 2022 · 48 min
What I learned from reading Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas From The Computer Age by Paul Graham
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[4:00] How To Make Wealth by Paul Graham
[4:01] Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.[6:00] All a company is is a group of people working together to do something people want.
[7:00] It turns out, though, that there are economies of scale in how much of your life you devote to your work. In the right kind of business, someone who really devoted himself to work could generate ten or even a hundred times as much wealth as an average employee.
[8:00] And the people you work with had better be good, because it's their work that yours is going to be averaged with.
[9:00] In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208)
[10:00] A very able person who does care about money will ordinarily do better to go off and work with a small group of peers.
[10:00] Paul Graham’s Essays (Founders #275)
[11:00] What is technology? It's technique. It's the way we all do things.
[12:00] Sam Walton got rich not by being a retailer, but by designing a new kind of store.
[12:00] Sam Walton epiosdes
#150 Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance H. Trimble.
#234 Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton.
[13:00] Use difficulty as a guide not just in selecting the overall aim of your company, but also at decision points along the way. At Viaweb one of our rules of thumb was run upstairs. Suppose you are a littl… Lees meer -
#276 Paul Graham’s Essays Part 2
9 november 2022 · 42 min
What I learned from reading Paul Graham’s essays.
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[4:01] You don't want to start a startup to do something that everyone agrees is a good idea, or there will already be other companies doing it. You have but that you know isn't to do something that sounds to most other people like a bad idea.
[5:20] The independent-minded are often unaware how different their ideas are from conventional ones, at least till they state them publicly.
[6:20] Founders find themselves able to speak more freely with founders of other companies than with their own employees.
[7:40] There are intellectual fashions too, and you definitely don't want to participate in those. Because unfashionable ideas are disproportionately likely to lead somewhere interesting. The best place to find undiscovered ideas is where no one else is looking.
[8:30] How much does the work you're currently doing engage your curiosity? If the answer is "not much," maybe you should change something.
[9:00] How To Think For Yourself by Paul Graham
[9:00] How To Work Hard by Paul Graham
[10:00] Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham
[11:00] Paul on Twitter: "Maybe better founders could have..." Presumably Patrick knows what he means by that, but in case it's not clear, he's describing the empty set. If Patrick and John Collison had to work long hours to build something great, you will too. Link to tweet
[13:00] Less is more but you have to do more to get to less. — Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. (Founders #245)
[13:00] If great talent and great drive are both rare, then people with both are rare squared.
[14:30] Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
[15:30] Aliens, Jedis, & Cults
[16:30] How To Do What You Love by Paul Graham
[19:00] Fear's a powerful thing. I mean it's got a lot of firepower. If you can figure out a way to wrestle that fear to push you from behind rather than to stand in front of you, that's very powerful. I a… Lees meer -
#275 Paul Graham
3 november 2022 · 1 uur 20 min
What I learned from reading Paul Graham’s essays.
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[4:52] My father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it.
[5:49] Do what you love doesn't mean, do what you would like to do most this second.
[7:41] To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.
[8:00] You should not worry about prestige. This is easy advice to give. It’s hard to follow.
[10:22] You have to make a conscious effort to keep your ideas about what you want from being contaminated by what seems possible.
[12:18] Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail.
[16:46] How To Do What You Love by Paul Graham
[16:34] What Doesn’t Seem Like Work by Paul Graham
[17:16] If something that seems like work to other people doesn't seem like work to you, that's something you're well suited for.
[17:42] Michael Jordan said what looked like hard work to others was play to him. Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212) and Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil. (Founders #213)
[20:53] How Not to Die by Paul Graham
[23:00] All that matters is to survive. The rest is just words. — Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson (Founders #224)
[24:49] You have to assume that running a startup can be demoralizing. That is certainly true. I've been there, and that's why I've never done another startup.
[27:31] If a startup succeeds, you get millions of dollars, and you don't get that kind of money just by asking for it. You have to assume it takes some amount of pain.
[28:17] So I'll tell you now: bad shit is coming. It always is in a startup. The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of disaster happening are one in a thousand.
So don't get demoralized. When the disaster strikes, just say to your… Lees meer -
#274 Jim Clark (Silicon Graphics, Netscape)
28 oktober 2022 · 53 min
What I learned from rereading The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis
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[1:23] Maybe somewhere in a footnote, it would be mentioned that he came from nothing, grew up poor, dropped out of high school, and made himself three or four billion dollars.
[7:41] She explained that the shares in Netscape that Clark had given them had made them rich.
"And you have to understand," she said, “that when this happened, we were poor. I was ready to cook the cat."
I assumed this was a joke, and laughed. I assumed wrong.
[12:48] He was expelled from school and left town. One time he came home talking about nothing but computers. No one in Plainview had even seen a computer except in the movies.
[13:21] I remember him telling me when he came back from the Navy, ‘Mama, I’m going to show Plainview.’
[14:42] In under eight years this person, considered unfit to graduate from high school, had earned himself a Ph.D. in Computer Science.
[15:05] I grew up in black and white. I thought the whole world was shit, and I was sitting in the middle of it.
[17:17] If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, “This sucks. I’m going to do my own thing. — Yvon Chouinard
[17:56] The most powerful paragraph in the book: One day I was sitting at home and, I remember having the thought ‘You can did this hole as deep as you want to dig it.’ I remember thinking ‘My God, I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this fucking hole.’ You can reach these points in life when you say, ‘Fuck, I’ve reached some sort of dead-end here. And you descend into chaos. All those years you thought you were achieving something. And you achieved nothing. I was thirty-eight years old. I’d just been fired. … Lees meer -
#273 Kobe Bryant (Mamba Mentality)
26 oktober 2022 · 31 min
What I learned from rereading The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant.
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Episode outline:
If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns and they spread themselves out. That's totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody. Greatness isn't easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time.
You can't achieve greatness by walking a straight line.
Respect to those who do achieve greatness and respect to those who are chasing that elusive feeling.
May you find the power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own.
He dedicates a lot of time in this book to the importance of learning from and studying the great people that came before you.
Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby (Founders #272)
His dissection of the game was at another level. In my entire career, I’ve never seen a player as dedicated to being the best. His determination is unparalleled. He unquestionably worked harder than anyone else I have ever played with.
Kobe knew that to be the best you need a different approach from everyone else.
If I wanted to implement something new into my game, I'd see it and try incorporating it immediately. I wasn't scared of looking bad or being embarrassed.
I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me.
If something has worked for other greats before you, and if something is working for you, why change it up and embrace some new fad? Stick with what works, even if it's unpopular.
Kobe men… Lees meer -
#272 Kobe Bryant (The Life)
19 oktober 2022 · 56 min
What I learned from reading Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby.
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[9:15] Notes from The Redeem Team documentary:
30 seconds into the first practice Kobe is diving for loose balls. That set the tone.
Players go clubbing. Come back at 5:30am and see Kobe working out. "This motherfucker Kobe was already drenched in sweat. Yeah he’s different"— LeBron James. By the end of the week the whole team was on Kobe’s schedule.
Understand the responsibility. I know I’m not going to fucking lose. I am not going to fucking lose. Not when I’m wearing this (team USA jersey) and not at this time in my career. You’re going to have to fucking shoot me. That’s how I want you to play. — Coach K
At one point you will have a grandkid on your lap and they will ask you weren’t you in the Olympics ? What did you do? You wanna say: Well son, we lost to that fucking Greek team? —Coach K
When you’re in the Olympic village you're around people who are the best in the world at what they do. That is more special that celebrities in LA because this is athlete to athlete — I understand what they put their body through to get here. There’s so much respect and mutual admiration. —Kobe
What Kobe told team USA going into the 4th quarter: Just think about the play in front of you.
[12:07] At every turn his declarations of future greatness have been met with head shaking and raised eyebrows.
[14:33] It's almost like Kobe's insane level of dedication was like compensation for the bad decision making of his father.
[15:15] 4 parts to Kobe’s blueprint:
Master the fundamentals
Improve your weaknesses
Study the greats
Concentrate
[15:12] Listening to Founders is like watching game tape of history's greatest entrepreneurs.
[15:40] I used to watch their moves and then… Lees meer -
#271 Vannevar Bush (Engineer of the American Century)
13 oktober 2022 · 53 min
What I learned from reading Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary.
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[7:31] Acts of importance were the measure of his life and they are the reason that his life deserves study today.
[8:10] Suspicious of big institutions Bush objected to the pernicious effects of an increasingly bureaucratic society and the potential for mass mediocrity.
[8:20] He believed the individual was still of paramount importance.
"The individual to me is everything," he wrote "I would restrict him just as little as possible."
He never lost his faith in the power of one.
[8:57] Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush (Founders #270)
[9:32] Dee Hock — founder of VISA episodes:
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock (Founders #260)
Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock. (Founders #261)
[9:55] Edwin Land episodes:
Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264)
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)
[10:00] Vannevar Bush and Edwin Land both had a profound belief in the individual capacity for greatness.
[12:15] Bush came from an American line of can do engineers and tinkerers, a line beginning with Franklin,… Lees meer -
#270: Vannevar Bush (Pieces of the Action)
6 oktober 2022 · 1 uur 5 min
What I learned from reading Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush.
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Outline:
Pieces of the Action offers his hard-won lessons on how to operate and manage effectively within complex organizations and drive ambitious, unprecedented programs to fruition.
Stripe Press Books:
The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop
The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993 by Jordan Mechner.]
Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary
— Any exploration of the institutions that shape how we do research, generate discoveries, create inventions, and turn ideas into innovations inevitably leads back to Vannevar Bush.
— No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush.
— That’s why I'm going to encourage you to order this book —because when you pick it up and you read it —you're reading the words of an 80 year old genius. One of the most formidable and accomplished people that has ever lived— laying out what he learned over his six decade long career.
— A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95)
— Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini
— I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug Engelbart’s ideas. — The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #157)
— Bush points out that tipping points often rest with far-seeing, energetic individuals. We can be those individuals.
— I went into this book with little more than a name and came out with the closest thing to a mentor someone you've never met can be.
— We are not the first to face problems… Lees meer -
#269 Sam Zell
29 september 2022 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell.
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[6:37] I have an embedded sense of urgency. What I can’t figure out is why so many other people don’t have it.
[6:50] I was willing to trade conformity for authenticity.
[8:26] Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. —Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66)
[9:36] Once I have formed my opinion, I have to trust my perspective enough to act on it. That means putting my own money behind it. My level of commitment is usually high. And I stay with my decision even when everyone is telling me I’m wrong, which happens a lot.
[10:37] Long term relationships reflect the most important lesson imparted to me by my father. He taught me simply how to be. He often told me that nothing was more important than a man’s honor. A good name. Reputation is your most important asset.
[11:10] When I was younger my career competed with my role as a husband and father and my career often won.
[11:37] Childhood does not allow itself to reconquered. — Leading By Design: The Ikea Story (Founders #104)
[12:20] The personality types that stay in the game for as long as Sam has —and he's been in the game for 50 years — usually describe entrepreneurship as a calling and an obsession.
[12:35] The great thing about entreprenuership is that you get to spend your time building something you enjoy. Most people don’t get to do this. They are stuck in jobs they hate. I had the time of my life. —Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)
[13:29] Business is not a battle to be waged — it’s a puzzle to be solved.
[14:33] Optimize for irreverence.
[16:54] Swimming Across by Andy S. Grove (Founders #159)
[18:11]… Lees meer -
#268 John Malone (Cable Cowboy)
22 september 2022 · 1 uur 1 min
What I learned from reading Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux.
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Outline:
Thread of highlights from Cable Cowboy by @Loadlinefinance
Malone was stalwart about building long term value through leveraged cash flow. Earnings didn’t count. He wasn’t constrained by quarterly expectations.
Malone built the pipes, then bought the water that flows through them.
Malone took spartan operations to another level. Absolutely no bureaucracy. No waste. We don’t believe in staff. Staff are people who second-guess people.
Malone averaged one M&A deal every two weeks over 15 years. That’s insane. These guys were slinging billion dollar deals like bowls of breakfast cereal.
One of the best parts of the book is Robichaux’s exploration of Malone’s complex personality. It’s not just a fawning glow piece.
The beginning of industries are always filled with cowboys, pirates, and misfits.
This book— by far — has been the most requested book for me to cover on Founders for years.
Founders episodes on Andrew Carnegie:
Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73)
The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #74)
Founders episodes on JP Morgan:
The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow (Founders #139)
The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield (Founders #142)
Mavericks Lecture: John Malone
Two Rockefeller podcasts:
Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248)
John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254)
Bob when recruiting John: You've got a great future here. If you can create it.
Malone's top executives were rough riders.
In 1972 TCI had $19 millio… Lees meer -
#267 Thomas Edison
15 september 2022 · 1 uur 10 min
What I learned from reading Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson.
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Outline:
He had known how to gather interest, faith, and hope in the success of his projects.
I think of this episode as part 5 in a 5 part series that started on episode 263:
#263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg.
#264 Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos.
#265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
#266 My Life and Work by Henry Ford.
Follow your natural drift. —Charlie Munger
Warren Buffett: “Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.’ And Bill said the same thing.” —Focus and Finding Your Favorite Problems by Frederik Gieschen
Focus! A simple thing to say and a nearly impossible thing to do over the long term.
We have a picture of the boy receiving blow after blow and learning that there was inexplicable cruelty and pain in this world.
He is working from the time the sun rises till 10 or 11 at night. He is 11 years old.
He reads the entire library. Every book. All of them.
At this point in history the telegraph is the leading edge of communication technology in the world.
My refuge was a Detroit public library. I started with the first book on the bottom shelf and went through the lot one by one. I did not read a few books. I read the library.
Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley
Blake Robbins Notes on Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love
Greatness isn't random. It is earned. If you're going to research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet — that's the good news. The bad news is that you now have zero excuse for not being the… Lees meer -
#266 Henry Ford's Autobiography
8 september 2022 · 1 uur 14 min
What I learned from rereading My Life and Work by Henry Ford.
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[7:45] True education is gained through the discipline of life.
[8:00] Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. (Founders #263)
[9:40] Reading this book is like having a one-sided conversation with one of the greatest entrepreneurs to ever live who just speaks directly to you and tells you, “Hey this is my philosophy on company building.”
[12:40] His main idea is that business exists for one reason and one reason only —to provide service for other people.
[12:50] Everything I do is serving my true end — which is to make a product that makes other people's lives better.
[13:47] A sale is proof of utility.
[15:00] The sense of accomplishment from overcoming difficulty is satisfying in a way that a life of leisure and ease will never be.
[16:00] I think Amazon's culture is largely based on one thing. It's not based on 14. It's based on customer obsession. That is what Bezos would die on the hill for. —Invest Like The Best: Ravi Gupta
[20:04] Later Bezos recalled speaking at an all-hands meeting called to address the assault by Barnes & Noble. “Look, you should wake up worried, terrified every morning,” he told his employees. “But don’t be worried about our competitors because they`re never going to send us any money anyway. Let’s be worried about our customers and stay heads-down focused.” — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179)
[20:40] Henry Fords philosophy: Get rid of waste, increase efficiency through thinking and technology, drop your prices and make more money with less profit per car, watch your costs religiously, when needed bring that business process in house, and always focus on service.
[21:15] Money comes naturally as the result of service. —Henry Ford
[21:56] Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)
[22:10] Churchill … Lees meer -
#265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader
30 augustus 2022 · 1 uur 26 min
What I learned from rereading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
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[3:11] His mind was never a captive of reality.
[5:16] A complete list of every Founders episode on Steve Jobs and the founders Steve studied: Steve Jobs’s Heroes
[7:15] Steve Jobs and The Next Big Thing by Randall Stross (Founders #77)
[9:05] Steve Job’s Commencement Address
[9:40] Driven and curious, even when things were tough, he was a learning machine.
[10:20] He learned how to manage himself.
[12:45] Anything could be figured out and since anything could be figured out anything could be built.
[14:10] It was a calculation based on arrogance. — The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #255)
[18:00] We were no longer aiming for the handful of hobbyists who liked to assemble their own computers. For every one of them there were a thousand people who would want the machine to be ready to run.
[17:40] He was a free thinker whose ideas would often run against the conventional wisdom of any community in which he operated.
[19:55] He had no qualms about calling anyone up in search of information or help.
[20:40] I've never found anybody who didn't want to help me when I've asked them for help.
I've never found anyone who's said no or hung up the phone when I called. I just asked.
Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask.
[21:50] First you believe. Then you work on getting other people to share your belief.
[24:55] All the podcasts on Edwin Land:
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)The Instant Image: Edwin… Lees meer -
#264 The Story of Edwin Land and Polaroid
24 augustus 2022 · 54 min
What I learned from rereading Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos.
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(0:01) The most obvious parallel is to Apple Computer.
Both companies specialized in relentless, obsessive refinement of their technologies. Both were established close to great research universities to attract talent.
Both fetishized superior, elegant, covetable product design. And both companies exploded in size and wealth under an in-house visionary-godhead-inventor-genius.
At Apple, that man was Steve Jobs. At Polaroid, the genius was Edwin Land.
Just as Apple stories almost all lead back to Jobs, Polaroid lore always seems to focus on Land.
(1:22) Both men were college dropouts; both became as rich as anyone could ever wish to be; and both insisted that their inventions would change the fundamental nature of human interaction.
(1:37) Jobs expressed his deep admiration for Edwin Land. He called him a national treasure.
(3:12) All the podcasts on Edwin Land:
Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid (Founders #40)
(4:07) Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli
(5:51) Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovat… Lees meer -
#263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It
18 augustus 2022 · 1 uur 12 min
What I learned from rereading Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg.
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[0:01] Why is Polaroid a nutty place? To start with, it’s run by a man who has more brains than anyone has a right to. He doesn’t believe anything until he’s discovered it and proved it for himself. Because of that, he never looks at things the way you and I do. He has no small talk. He has no preconceived notions. He starts from the beginning with everything. That’s why we have a camera that takes pictures and develops them right away.
[1:33] More books on Edwin Land:
Insisting on The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land by Victor McElheny
The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein
Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Chris Bonanos
[2:18] “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (Founders #214)
[5:17] This guy started one of the great technology monopolies and ran it for 50 years.
[7:35] He lived his life more intensely than the rest of us.
[8:53] His interest in our reactions was minimal — polite, sometimes kind, but limited by the great drain of energy necessary to sustain his own part.
[9:30] He never argued his ideas. If people didn’t believe in them, he ignored those people. —A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95)
Loomis was not someone you could argue with. He would listen patiently to an opposing opinion. But his consideration was nothing more than that-an act of politeness on his part.” — Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science… Lees meer -
#262 Herbie Cohen (World's Greatest Negotiator)
12 augustus 2022 · 59 min
What I learned from reading The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen.
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[1:20] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #255)
[2:42] You Can Negotiate Anything: How to Get What You Want by Herb Cohen.
[3:57] Even our heroes falter.
[6:01] Once you see your life as a game, and the things you strive for as no more than pieces in that game, you'll become a much more effective player.
[7:20] He was proving what would become a lifelong principle: Most people are schmucks and will obey any type of authority.
[7:34] Power is based on perception; if you think you got it, you got it, even if you don't got it.
[7:54] Nolan Bushnell to a young Steve Jobs: “I taught him that if you act like you can do something, then it will work. I told him, ‘Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.” from Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)
[10:30] Life is a game and to win you must consider other people as players with as much at stake as yourself. If you understand their motivations, you can control the action and free yourself from every variety of jam. Focus less on yourself and more on others. Everyone has something at stake. If you address that predicament you can move anyone from no to yes.
[14:01] Those who can live with ambiguity and still function do the best.
[14:21] Ambiguity is the constant companion of the entrepreneur.
[15:26] Don't bitch. Don't complain. Just play the cards that you've been dealt.
[20:12] Most people try to blend in. Herbie went the other way. When they zig, I zag.
[21:49] It meant Sharon had failed to understand an essential part of an ancient code. If you have a problem with your brother, you deal with it inside the family. Don't rat. Don't turn your brother in to the cops. It was another one of his big lessons. L… Lees meer -
#261 Dee Hock's Autobiography of a Restless Mind Volume One and Two
4 augustus 2022 · 39 min
What I learned from rereading Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1 and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock.
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[4:39] Quotes: Abraham Lincoln | Pythagoras | Mark Twain | Socrates | Napoleon | Leonardo da Vinci
[6:15] One should not read like a dog obeying its master, but like an eagle hunting its prey.
[6:48] Humility and generosity have no enemies.
[7:12] Powerful writing should take one side and stick to it tenaciously, ignoring the other even though it may have merit. Objective writing is impotent.
[8:02] The essential reward of anything well done is to have done it.
[8:07] What becomes known is worthless until it is shared.
[9:25] No dream is so great as the person you might become by remaining true to it.
[11:04] The wise make great use of adversity. The foolish whine about it.
[12:02] Impatience is a perpetual barrier between desire and realization.
[12:46] There are two ways to look at opposition: I want to do it and they will not let me or they want to prevent me and I won’t let them.
[13:54] When we fully attend to management of self, excellent management of all else is unavoidable.
[14:43] A meaningful life cannot be made from denial. It must be made from affirmation.
[15:16] We are each the author of our own life. Whatever we write, masterpiece or trash, it will be published and widely read throughout our life and for decades thereafter.
[16:21] The wise do not feel demeaned by asking for advice or diminished by following it.
[16:37] A wise man goes forth to meet difficulty on rather than agonizing at its approach.
[21:27] Superb design and sluggish effort can never compete with modest design and diligent effort.
[21:45] It is both foolish and weak to defer confronting what cannot be avoided.
[22:04] I have done many great things perfectly—the ones I imagined but never at… Lees meer -
#260 One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
3 augustus 2022 · 1 uur 21 min
What I learned from rereading One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock.
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[2:00] I feel compelled to open my life to new possibilities.
[2:54] Life is a magnificent, mysterious Odyssey to be experienced.
[3:12] One From Many (Founders #42)
[3:30] Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1 by Dee Hock and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock
[5:12] Patrick Collison tweet on Dee Hock
[7:51] He thought from first principles and questioned everything, even down to the nature of money itself.
[8:26] He saw a better way of doing things and he didn't listen to folks who said it couldn't be done.
[9:32] Today's magic was yesterday's dream.
[13:27] Chaordic 1. The behavior of any self-organizing, self-governing, organ, organization, or system that harmoniously exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos. 2. Patterned by chaos and order in a way not dominated by either. 3. Blending of diversity, chaos, complexity and order characteristic of the fundamental organizing principles of evolution and nature.
[17:05] That Hock boy is a little strange, he'll read anything.
[23:01] None of it seemed demeaning. It was life. It was making a living. It was what proud men did without whining.
[24:14] 76 year old Dee Hock describing the 20 year old version of Dee Hock: Thus, at twenty, newly married, unemployed, eager to learn but averse to being taught, emerged an absurdly naive, idealistic, young man—an innocent lamb hunting the lion of life. The hungry lion was swift to pounce.
[30:39] If you don’t zero in on your bureaucracy every so often, you will naturally build in layers. You never set out to add bureaucracy. You just get it. Period. Without even knowing it. So you always have to be looking to eliminate it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton (Founders #234)
[31:… Lees meer -
#259 Bob Dylan
27 juli 2022 · 1 uur 18 min
What I learned from reading Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan.
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[0:51] No one could block his way and he didn't have any time to waste.
[2:38] Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. —Bob Dylan
[3:01] The best talk on YouTube for entrepreneurs: Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley
[3:21] Estée: A Success Story by Estée Lauder (Founders #217)
[7:52] Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody.
[8:12] We may be in the same genre but we don't put out the same product.
[16:34] What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire. It was more formidable than the rest of the players. There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing.
[18:00] Bob spends a lot of time thinking about and studying history.
[20:34] I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.
[21:27] I walked over to the window and looked outside. The air was bitter cold but the fire in my mind was never out. It was like a wind vane that was constantly spinning.
[21:45] It is incredible how much reading this guy is going to do. He takes ideas from everything that he reads and applies it to his work.
[22:30] Towering figures that the world would never see the likes of again, men who relied on their own resolve, for better or worse, every one of them prepared to act alone, indifferent to approval—indifferent to wealth or love, all presiding over the destiny of mankind and reducing the world to rubble. Coming from a long line of Alexanders and Julius Caesars, Genghis Khans, Charlemagnes and Napoleons, they carved up the world. They would not be denied and were impossible to reckon with—ru… Lees meer