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#162 Chuck Yeager
11 januari 2021 · 1 uur 20 min
What I learned from reading Yeager: An Autobiography by General Chuck Yeager.
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[10:14] I was a competitive kid. I always tried to do my best. I never thought of myself as being poor or deprived in any way. We managed to scrape by. Kids learned self-sufficiency. Mom and Dad taught us by example. They never complained. I had certain standards that I lived by. Whatever I did, I determined to do the best I could at it.
[13:22] The sense of speed and exhilaration makes you so damned happy that you want to shout for joy.
[17:15] In nearly every case the worst pilots die by their own stupidity.
[26:04] I sensed that he was a very strong and determined person, a poor boy who had started with nothing and would show the world what he was really made of.
[38:48] Every muscle in my body is hammering at me. I just want to let go of his guy and drop in my tracks—either to sleep or to die. I don’t know why I keep hold of him and struggle to climb. It’s the challenge, I guess, and a stubborn pride knowing that most guys would’ve let go of Pat before now.
[40:57] Chuck is the most stubborn bastard in the world, who doesn’t dabble in gray areas. He sees in black and white. He simply said, “I’m not going home.”
[45:26] The Germans began to come up to challenge us and ran into a goddamn West Virginia buzzsaw.
[50:30] If you love the hell out of what you’re doing, you’re usually pretty good at it, and you wind up making your own breaks. I wasn’t a deep, sophisticated person, but I lived by a basic principle: I did only what I enjoyed. I wouldn’t let anyone derail me by promises of power or money into doing things that weren’t interesting to me.
[55:38] Yeager would rely on himself. I couldn’t teach him enough.
[1:03:31] My life was flying and pilots. I didn’t spend a whole helluva lot of time doing or thinking about anything else. We were an obsessed bunch, probably because we were so isolated.
[1:17:29] Living to a ripe old age is not an end in itself; the trick is to enjoy the ye… Lees meer -
#161 Dr. Seuss
4 januari 2021 · 1 uur 7 min
What I learned from reading Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay Jones.
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[6:32] Both his parents would inspire and encourage Ted’s love for books. Reading was a pastime the entire family took seriously.
[9:24] Ted came to appreciate the considerable discipline and commitment it took to hone expertise.
[10:15] He was an inspiration. Whatever you do, he taught me, do it to perfection.
[10:53] No matter what discipline you are in there’s a common denominator in how we approach our craft. The attention to detail, the level of commitment. Those things are the same across the board. That is my message. Don’t look at what I did but how I did it. The how. And then you can transfer that over to any profession and any discipline. —Kobe Bryant.
[20:07] Unlike many of his classmates, Ted wasn’t entirely certain what to do next.
[22:51] You’re not very interested in the lecture she told him plainly —then leaned in and pointed at one of his drawings. I think that is a very good flying cow.
[23:04] Maybe the most important thing anyone ever said to him: You’re crazy to be a professor she told Ted. What you really want to do is draw.
[23:48] Ted’s notebooks were always filled with these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him. Here was a man who could draw such pictures. He should earn a living doing that.
[26:57] I don’t know. But I know one thing. My policy is to laugh my god damned head off. Occasionally I depress myself and work myself into one of those delightful funks. And I seek out subway tracks on which to toss myself. And then it strikes me as very comical and I laugh instead.
[30:08] The money he earned through his advertising work would buy him his artistic freedom. What would eventually become the Dr. Suess empire would be laid on a foundation built and paid for with Standard Oil money.
[33:01] To his increasing distress, the responses were all negative. He would later recall being rejected by 27 publis… Lees meer -
#160 Peter Cundill
28 december 2020 · 1 uur 10 min
What I learned from reading Routines and Orgies: The Life of Peter Cundill, Financial Genius, Philosopher, and Philanthropist by Christopher Risso-Gill.
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Excellence as a goal in itself had been drummed into him from early boyhood.
I’m convinced that to achieve real greatness a person needs above all to have passion but at the same time immense discipline, concentration, patience and an unshakeable determination to become a master of his craft.
There is a choice of courses in life: either to seek equilibrium or to enjoy the heights and suffer the depths.
You need to get into some situations which make your gut tight and your balls tingle.
Do the unappealing things first.
Once you have done your homework properly and are absolutely convinced that an investment is right you should not hesitate or wait for others to share the adventure. The price at which you start buying will almost invariably be imperfect but that should never discourage you.
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit. (Aristotle)
The more that I think about the way the Greeks, especially the Spartans, regarded the subject of exercise and the necessity of maintaining peak levels of physical fitness, the more I am convinced that the health of the mind and the spirit are either bolstered or hampered by the condition of the body.
Concentrate with absolute clarity on one thing at a time.
The mantra is patience, patience, and more patience. Think long term and remember that the big rewards accrue with compound annual rates of return. Lees meer----
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“I have listened to every episode released and look… -
#159 Andy Grove (Intel)
21 december 2020 · 1 uur 10 min
What I learned from reading Swimming Across by Andrew S. Grove.
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[0:01] I was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1936. By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazis’ “Final Solution,” the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive Communist regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint.
[3:02] Some 200,000 Hungarians escaped to the West. I was one of them.
[8:05] A subtle and compelling commentary on the power to endure.
[10:03] He dedicates this book to his mom. He says: To my mother, who gave me the gift of life more than once.
[13:03] People avoided looking at us. Even people whom we knew wouldn’t meet our eyes. It was as if a barrier was growing between us and everyone else.
[14:01] My mother returned in a couple of hours, shaken up. She told me that the man who came for her was a policeman who arrested her along with the superintendent’s wife. Feeding Jewish people was against the law. The policeman told her that she should have bid me a more proper good-bye because she probably would not see me again.
[18:35] There was so much pressure in my chest that I could barely breathe. After a while, my mother came back for me. She was very tense and angry. She carried me to bed and we went to sleep. Later on that night, some more Russians came into our cellar. My mother yelled at them something about how all three of the women had already done it today.
[23:02] An emaciated man, filthy and in a ragged soldier’s uniform, was standing at the open door. I thought: This must be my father. His arms and legs were like sticks.
[25:49] There was nothing to be done. The Communist government called all the shots. They increasingly interfered with our daily life. They took away my parents’ business, they uprooted me from my school.
[28:09] I always had a tight feeling in my chest when we went by because… Lees meer -
#158 Walt Disney (Disneyland)
14 december 2020 · 52 min
What I learned from reading Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow.
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[1:29] In Disney's Land, popular historian Richard Snow brilliantly presents the entire spectacular story, a wild ride from vision to realization that reflects the uniqueness of the man determined to build “the happiest place on earth” with a watchmaker's precision, an artist's conviction, and the desperate, high-hearted recklessness of a riverboat gambler.
[4:13] When he reached middle age it seemed that we were going to witness an all too familiar process—the conversion of the tired artist into the tired businessman. When in 1955 we heard that Disney had opened an amusement park under his own name, it appeared certain that we could not look forward to anything new from Mr. Disney. We were quite wrong. He had, instead, created his masterpiece.
[4:58] Walt Disney was an obsessive with soul in the game.
[5:26] Disney’s father didn’t believe children should have toys.
[14:50] One small enterprise did please him, though, and it had little to do with the art he had done so much to invent and of which he was the undisputed master.
[15:09] He was dismayed to find the man whose work he had long admired “seemed totally uninterested in movies and seemed wholly, almost weirdly concerned with the building of a miniature railroad engine and a string of cars. All of his zest for invention, for creative fantasies, seemed to be going into this plaything.”
[17:15] Disney on his nervous breakdown: “I had a hell of a breakdown. I went to pieces. I kept expecting more from the artists and when they let me down, I got worried. Costs were going up and it was always way over what they figured the picture would bring in. I just got very irritable. I got to a point that it couldn't talk on the telephone. I would begin to cry.”
[17:49] The money wasn't coming in. His last successful feature, Bambi, was six years in the past.
[22:19] Why would you want … Lees meer -
#157 The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
7 december 2020 · 58 min
What I learned from reading The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson.
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[0:29] This is the story of those pioneers hackers, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Who they were, how their minds worked, and what made them so creative.
[8:41] She developed a somewhat outsize opinion of her talents as a genius. In her [Ada Lovelace] letter to Babbage, she wrote, “Do not reckon me conceited but I believe I have the power of going just as far as I like in such pursuits.”
[14:10] The reality is that Ada’s contribution was both profound and inspirational. More than any other person of her era, she was able to glimpse a future in which machines would become partners of the human imagination.
[16:37] Alan Turing was slow to learn that indistinct line that separated initiative from disobedience.
[20:15] If a mentally superhuman race ever develops its members will resemble John Von Neumann.
[23:40] His [William Shockley] tenacity was ferocious. In any situation, he simply had to have his way.
[28:38] Bob Noyce described his excitement more vividly: “The concept hit me like the atom bomb. It was simply astonishing. Just the whole concept. It was one of those ideas that just jolts you out of the rut, gets you thinking in a different way.
[29:06] Some leaders are able to be willful and demanding while still inspiring loyalty. They celebrate audaciousness in a way that makes them charismatic Steve Jobs, for example; his personal manifesto dressed in the guise of a TV ad, began, “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes.” Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos has the same ability to inspire. The knack is to get people to follow you, even to places that they may not think they can go, by motivating them to share your sense of mission.
[38:26] As Grove wrote in his memoir, Swimming Across, “By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, G… Lees meer -
#156 Theodore Roosevelt
30 november 2020 · 57 min
What I learned from reading Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt
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[0:20] He was scratched, bruised, and hungry, but gritty and determined as a bulldog.
[2:44] Not the least extraordinary part of the story is that during these same six days after catching the thieves, Theodore in odd moments read the whole of Anna Karenina.
[3:56] He impressed me and puzzled me. And when I went home I told my wife that I'd met the most peculiar, and at the same time, the most wonderful man I'd ever come to know. I could see that he was a man of brilliant ability and I could not understand why he was out there on the frontier.
[4:35] Roosevelt has been a supporting character in a lot of the biographies that I've read for this podcast:
#135 Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power #139 The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance#142 The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism#145 The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
That piqued my interest and I knew I had to read a biography of him.
[7:53] The underlining theme would be the same as that of my earlier work—the creative effort, the testing, and the struggle, the elements of chance and inspiration involved in any great human achievements.
[9:22] Teddy Roosevelt had a life motto: Get Action!
[15:17] He is brimming full of mischief and has to be watched all the time.
[16:15] I felt great admiration for men who were fearless and I had a great desire to be like them.
[16:44] There runs a theme of the pleasure and pride in being the first to see or do something, an eagerness to set himself apart from the others, to distinguish himself, to get out ahead of them; or simply be alone, absorbed in private thoughts.
[18:15] He has learned at an early age what a precarious, unpredictable thing life is—and how very vulnerable he is. He must be… Lees meer -
#155 Jeff Bezos (Shareholder Letters and Speeches)
23 november 2020 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, With an Introduction by Walter Isaacson.
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[2:38] The whole point of moving things forward is that you run into problems, failures, things that don't work. You need to back up and try again. Each one of those times when you have a setback, you get back up and you try again. You're using resourcefulness; you're using self-reliance; you're trying to invent your way out of a box. We have tons of examples at Amazon where we’ve had to do this.
[4:08] I would much rather have a kid with nine fingers than a resourceless kid.
[5:51] I am often asked who, of the people living today, I would consider to be in the same league as those I have written about as a biographer: Leonardo da Vinci (#15), Benjamin Franklin (#115), Ada Lovelace, Steve Jobs (#5), and Albert Einstein. All were very smart. But that’s not what made them special. Smart people are a dime a dozen and often don’t amount to much. What counts is being creative and imaginative. That’s what makes someone a true innovator. And that’s why my answer to the question is Jeff Bezos.
[8:26] One final trait shared by all my subjects is that they retained a childlike sense of wonder. At a certain point in life, most of us quit puzzling over everyday phenomena. Our teachers and parents, becoming impatient, tell us to stop asking so many silly questions. We might savor the beauty of a blue sky, but we no longer bother to wonder why it is that color. Leonardo did. So did Einstein, who wrote to another friend, “You and I never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” We should be careful to never outgrow our wonder years—or to let our children do so.
[11:50] Jeff’s childhood business heroes were Thomas Edison and Walt Disney. “I’ve always been interested in inventors and invention,” he says. Even though Edison was the more prolific inventor, Bezos came to admire Disney more because of the audac… Lees meer -
#154 Charles Schulz (Charlie Brown)
19 november 2020 · 53 min
What I learned from reading My Life with Charlie Brown by Charles Schulz.
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[0:24] Beginning with the first strip published on October 2nd, 1950, until the last published on Sunday, February 13th, 2000, the day after his death, Schultz wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered by hand every single one of the daily and Sunday strips to leave his studio, 17,897 in all for an almost fifty-year run.
[4:08] If there were one bit of advice I could give to a young person, it would be to do at least one task well. Do what you do on a high plain.
[5:54] Slow consistent growth over a long period of time:
Year / # of newspapers1950 71952 401958 3551971 11001975 14801984 2000
[12:00] There are certain seasons in our lives that each of us can recall, and there are others that disappear from our memories, like the melting snow.
[14:05] I used my spare time to work on my own cartoons. I tried to never let a week go by without having something in the mail working for me.
[21:03] You don’t work all of your life to do something so you don’t have to do it.
[22:09] On where ideas come from: Most comic strip ideas are like that. They come from sitting in a room alone and drawing seven days a week, as I’ve done for 40 years.
[25:03] When he is 73: People come up to me and say: “Are you still drawing the strip?” I want to say to them, “Good grief—who else in the world do you think is drawing it?” I would never let anybody take over. And I have it in my contract that if I die, then my strip dies.
[30:15] At the point he is writing this he is making $30 to $40 million a year. The total earning of Peanuts is well over $1 billion.
[32:37] But as the year went by, I could almost say that drawing a comic strip for me became a lot like a religion. Because it helps me survive from day to day. I always have this to fall back upon. When everything seems hopeless I know I can come to the studio and think: Here’s where I’m at home. This is where I belong —in this room, drawing pictures.
[40:01] If you… Lees meer -
#153 Bill Bowerman (Nike)
12 november 2020 · 1 uur 18 min
What I learned from reading Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore.
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[0:01] Take a primitive organism, any weak, pitiful organism. Say a freshman. Make it lift, or jump or run. Let it rest. What happens? A little miracle. It gets a little better. It gets a little stronger or faster or more enduring. That's all training is. Stress. Recover. Improve. You would think any damn fool could do it, but you won't.
[0:25] You work too hard and you rest too little and get hurt.
[1:38] You cannot just tell somebody what’s good for him. He won’t listen. He will not listen. First, you have to get his attention.
[4:14] From the book Shoe Dog. Phil Knight on Bowerman: I look back over the decades and see him toiling in his workshop, Mrs. Bowerman carefully helping, and I get goosebumps. He was Edison in Menlo Park, Da Vinci in Florence, Tesla in Wardenclyffe. Divinely inspired. I wonder if he knew, if he had any clue, that he was the Daedalus of sneakers, that he was making history, remaking an industry, transforming the way athletes would run and stop and jump for generations. I wonder if he could conceive at that moment all that he'd done. All that would follow. I know I couldn't.
[8:02] Are you in this simply to do mindless labor or do you want to improve? You can’t improve if you’re always sick or injured.
[9:17] Bowerman was decades ahead of putting just as much of an importance on your recovery as you do on your training.
[12:11] In theory, as a coach, he should have been as interested in motivating the lazy as in mellowing the mad, but he wasn’t. “I’m sorry I can’t make them switch brains,” he said. But I can’t.” That left him free to be absorbed by the eager.
[17:00] One of the things that makes him so interesting is that he was willing to think from first principles. If he arrived at different collusion he thought was right it didn't matter if 90% of the people in his field were doing it another way.
[… Lees meer -
#152 Katherine Graham (Washington Post)
5 november 2020 · 1 uur 3 min
What I learned from reading Personal History by Katherine Graham.
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[1:02] A few minutes later there was the ear-splitting noise of a gun going off indoors. I bolted out of the room and ran around in a frenzy looking for him. When I opened the door to a downstairs bathroom, I found him. It was so profoundly shocking and traumatizing —he was so obviously dead.
[3:56] Katherine Graham was the first-ever female CEO of a fortune 500 company.
[5:30] This book is the inner monologue of someone not at all comfortable with herself and where she fits in with others.
[8:55] Katherine's mom on having a second wind: The fatigue of the climb was great but it is interesting to learn once more how much further one can go on one’s second wind. I think that is an important lesson for everyone to learn for it should also be applied to one’s mental efforts. Most people go through life without ever discovering the existence of that whole field of endeavor which we describe as second wind. Whether mentally or physically occupied most people give up at the first appearance of exhaustion. Thus they never learn the glory and the exhilaration of genuine effort.
[13:42] When an idea is right, nothing can stop it.
[17:47] Advice from her Father that she still remembers 60 years later: What parents may sometimes do in a helpful way is to point out certain principles of action. I do not think I would be helpful in advising you too strongly. I do not even feel the need of doing that because I have so much confidence in your having really good judgment. I believe that what I can do for you once in a while is to point out certain principles that have developed in my mind as sound and practical, leaving it for you yourself to apply them if your own mind grasps and approves the principles.
[26:14] Have a problem? Look at it from a different perspective: I had deplored the fact we had the bad luck to live in a world with Hitler, to which Phil responded, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a privilege to ha… Lees meer -
#151 Frederick Smith (FedEx)
29 oktober 2020 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble.
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[0:01] At age thirty Frederick Wallace Smith was in deep trouble. His dream of creating Federal Express had become too expensive and was fast fizzling out. He had exhausted his father’s millions. He was in hock for 15 or 20 million more. He appeared in danger of losing his cargo jets and also his wife. His own board of directors had fired him as CEO. Now the FBI accused him of forging papers to get a $2 million bank loan and was trying to send him to prison. He thought of suicide.
[1:08] At any risk, at any cost, he refused to let his Federal Express dream die.
[6:23] I believe that a man who expects to win out in business without self-denial and self-improvement stands about as much chance as a prizefighter would stand if he started a hard ring battle without having gone through intensive training. Natural ability, even when accompanied by the spirit to win, is never sufficient.
[7:32] It was push and drive he inherited from his father. He had to be doing something all the time.
[9:19] Fred is one of those people who never gives up if he wants something and you say no. He just goes on and on and on.
[10:50] And one of the greatest qualities that he has, that anybody can have, is he’s a voracious reader. You could talk to Fred Smith about government or literature, a whole range of things kids his age didn’t know much about.
[11:38] Like Nike, the idea for FEDEX started as a term paper: There is no great mystery to the “hub and spoke” concept. As Smith visualized the plan, the “hub” would be located in a middle America location with “spokes” radiating out to Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, and other cities. Fred Smith thought of his system as similar to the telephone network, where all calls are connected through a “central switchboard” routing process.
[18:40] He wanted to do something that nobody else had done. That was his main obje… Lees meer -
#150 Sam Walton (America's Richest Man)
24 oktober 2020 · 54 min
What I learned from reading Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance H. Trimble.
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[3:11] Charlie Munger on Sam Walton: It's quite interesting to think about Walmart starting from a single store in Arkansas – against Sears Roebuck with its name, reputation and all of its billions. How does a guy in Bentonville, Arkansas, with no money, blow right by Sears, Roebuck? And he does it in his own lifetime – in fact, during his own late lifetime because he was already pretty old by the time he started out with one little store. He played the chain store game harder and better than anyone else. Walton invented practically nothing. But he copied everything anybody else ever did that was smart – and he did it with more fanaticism. So he just blew right by them all.
[4:46] Sam Walton was no ordinary man. He was a genius in business, with an iron mind —some say pig-headed—unwilling to compromise any of his carefully thought out policies and principles.
[5:08] To him, making money was only a game. A test of his imagination and expertise to see how far he could drive a business concept. Wall Street had a hard time getting the drift of that Sam's idea, he readily admitted was absurdly simple: Buy cheap. Sell low. Every day. And do it with a smile!
[9:23] No one in the Walton household worked harder, except his father. ‘The secret is work, work work,” said Thomas Walton. “I taught the boys how to do it.” He was a bear for work, and would not tolerate sons who were not likewise industrious, ambitious, and decent.
[12:08] Sam was optimistic all the time. He felt the world was something he could conquer.
[15:13] A lesson the founder of JC Penney personally taught Sam: Boys we don't make a dime out of the merchandise we sell. We only make our profit out of the paper and string we save.”
[21:42] The lawyer saw Sam clenching and unclenching his fists, staring at his hands. Sam straightened up. “No,” he said. “I’m not whipped. I found Newport, and I found the sto… Lees meer -
#149 The Big Rich (Oil Billionaires)
18 oktober 2020 · 1 uur 11 min
What I learned from reading The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burrough.
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[3:12] There's truth behind legend. There really were poor Texas boys who discovered gushing oil wells and became overnight billionaires, patriarchs of squabbling families who owned private islands and colossal mansions and championship football teams, who slept with movie stars and jousted with presidents and tried to corner and international market or two.
[9:55] Their success raised a tantalizing question. What if there really was another Spindletop out there, and what if it were discovered not by a large company but by a single Texan working alone? One well, one fortune, it was the stuff of myth, the Eldorado of Texas Oil, and as a new decade dawned, a hoard of young second-generation oilmen would begin trying to find it.
[14:53] He first headed to the Houston public library where he read every book he could find on the geology of oil.
[17:51] Let me get a shave and a bath. Tomorrow's another day he would tell her.
[19:35] This is a metaphor for a lot in life. Not just oil: The trouble with this business is that everybody expects to find oil on the surface. If it was up near the top, it wouldn't be any trick to it. You've got to drill deep for oil.
[25:45] What Clint lacked in physical appeal, he made up for with a mind that whirred like a Swiss timepiece. Headstrong and independent, disdainful of his father's stuffy ways, young Clint was Tom Sawyer with an abacus.
[32:21] “Daddy, you cheated me!” he exclaimed.“ “I did not,” his father said. “People will try to get at you any way they can, and you might as well learn now.”
[33:46] If that dunce can make so much money we’ll go too.
[42:07] H.L. Hunt was a strange man, a loner who lived deep inside his own peculiar mind, a self-educated thinker who was convinced —absolutely convinced— that he was possessed of talents that bordered on the superhuman.
[49:30] Great fortunes are built on great convi… Lees meer -
#148 John D. Rockefeller (Autobiography)
11 oktober 2020 · 57 min
What I learned from Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller.
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[0:16] These incidents which come to my mind to speak of seemed vitally important to me when they happened, and they still stand out distinctly in my memory.
[2:43] That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better in life and work better in education. — Charlie Munger
[3:07] On Founders #16 I covered the biography of Rockefeller. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller.
[3:19] Rockefeller prioritized silence and using the element of surprise by not telling people what he was up to.
[3:54] The book I read for Founders #31 Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday.
[5:02] They woke up and saw for the first time that my mind had not been idle while they were talking so big and loud.
[5:35] He's attempting to buy out one of his competitors and he says, “I have ways of making money that you know nothing about.”
[6:00] One thing that he mentioned over and over again in this book is the importance of relationships. That relationships make life better.
[7:45] Having created an empire of unfathomable complexity, he was smart enough to see that he had to submerge his identity in the organization.
[13:01] We went pretty rapidly in those days. We had with us a group of courageous men who recognized the great principle that a business cannot be a great success that does not fully and efficiently accept and take advantage of its opportunities.
[15:52] It was a friendship founded on business, which Mr. Flagler used to say was a good deal better than a business founded on friendship, and my experience leads me to agree with him.
[18:09] Perhaps they will not be useless if even tiresome stories make young people realize how, above all other possessions, is the value of a friend in every department of life without any exception… Lees meer -
#147 Sam Colt
5 oktober 2020 · 1 uur 9 min
What I learned from reading Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America by Jim Rasenberger.
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[0:01] Sam Colt embodied the America of his time. He was big brash, voracious, imaginative, and possessed extraordinary drive and energy. He was a classic disruptor who not only invented a world-changing product but produced it and sold it in world-changing ways.
[1:59] He had solved one of the great technological challenges of the early 19th century.
[2:36] He was rich at 21. Poor at 31. Then rich again at 41.
[7:10] Sam Colt solved a 400-year-old problem. The guns of 1830 were essentially what they had been in 1430.
[7:53] There's a financial panic in 1819. This is a very important part in the life of Sam Colt. It may explain why he was such a hard worker, ruthless, and determined. The panic of 1819 bankrupts his family.
[10:48] What kind of person would do this voluntarily? He was set to embark on a 17,000-mile voyage across the Atlantic, around the horn of Africa, through the Indian ocean and to the city of Calcutta. Honeymoon was not quite the word to describe a 17,000-mile voyage to Calcutta in 1830.
[13:57] He bridled at being under any authority other than his own. His dogma was the gospel of self-determination. “It is better to be the head of a louse than the tail of a lion.”
[14:19] Self-determination took deep root in my heart and to has been the mark that has and shall control my destiny.
[16:14] Every cut of the jackknife an act of quiet vengeance not only against those who had flogged him but against the nameless forces that had snatched away his childhood with financial ruin and death.
[19:58] He saw a nation brimming with industry and ingenuity and hope. And at the same time, anxiety, fear and brutality.
[20:55] Nights went to [selling] nitrous oxide, days to improving his gun.
[22:31] This description of the book sold me on buying it: Brilliantly told, Revolver brings the brazenly ambitious and profoundly innovative industrialist and lea… Lees meer -
#146 Milton Hershey (Chocolate)
27 september 2020 · 49 min
What I learned from reading Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams by Michael D'Antonio.
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[0:01] Perhaps the only thing about Milton Hershey that is absolutely certain is that he believed in progress. He was always moving.
[2:51] This blew my mind. Only six universities held larger endowments. Which meant that the Milton Hershey School was richer than Cornell, Columbia, or the University of Pennsylvania.
[4:14] Milton’s father was unrealized ambition personified.
[5:44] One of the biggest things Milton learned from his father and something he avoided. His father had 1,000 schemes and never stuck to any of them. He didn’t know what perseverance meant.
[7:25] Rockefeller had arrived in Oil City in the same year as Hershey, 1860. But unlike Henry, he was possessed of extraordinary energy, remarkable financial savvy, and an uncanny ability to remain focused on his goals.
[8:00] Henry’s had a preference for talking about things rather than doing them. Even neighbors could see that the man was lazy. Milton was the direct opposite of these traits.
[8:37] This gives you an insight into why Milton would leave a large fortunes to orphans: Milton was denied the kind of stability children need to feel secure. He had been moved from place to place, and he listened to his parents argue with increasing frequency and anger. Milton went without proper shoes and the little family didn’t have enough to eat.
[9:14] He learned to channel all of his energy and passions into a single outlet: work.
[10:47] The main takeaway from this book: Milton Hershey had perseverance in abundance.
[12:43] Hershey experiences multiple business failures before he founds his first successful company.
[14:34] Things start to go bad. He realizes he has another “me too” product. He faced intense competition from hundreds of other candy retailers and wholesalers in the city. He doesn’t find success unit he actually innovates. Milton finds a way to turn a lux… Lees meer -
#145 William Randolph Hearst
20 september 2020 · 1 uur 6 min
What I learned from reading The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw.
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[0:20] There has never been —nor, most likely, will there ever again be — a publisher like William Randolph Hearst.
[0:26] Decades before synergy became a corporate cliche, Hearst put the concept into practice. His magazine editors were directed to buy only stories which could be rewritten into screenplays to be produced by his film studio and serialized, reviewed, and publicized in his newspapers and magazines. He broadcast the news from his papers over the radio and pictured it in his newsreels.
[1:42] Winston Churchill on William Randolph Hearst: “Hearst was most interesting to meet,” Churchill wrote. “I got to like him — a grave, simple child — with no doubt a nasty temper — playing with the most costly toys. A vast income always over spent: ceaseless building and collecting . . .two magnificent establishments, two charming wives; complete indifference to public opinion, a 15 million daily circulation, and extreme personal courtesy.”
[4:42] If public schools are rough-and-tumble they will do him good. So is the world rough-and-tumble. Willie might as well learn to face it. —George Hearst, William’s father.
[8:45] He didn’t care what the world thought. . .He was rather indifferent to the thoughts and feelings of people outside of his immediate family.
[10:20] Warren Buffett had this great idea that he came up with by observing his parents. Do you have an outer scorecard or an inner scorecard? Warren says you are going to have a hard time living a happy life if you don’t have an inner scorecard. His mom had an outer scorecard. She was very worried about what the outside world thought. Warren Buffett most admired his father. His father had an inner scorecard. If he could look himself in the mirror at the end of the day and say I’m comfortable with doing then he would accept it regardless if the people around him didn’t understand it. I think William Randolph Hearst had … Lees meer -
#144 Ernest Shackleton
13 september 2020 · 55 min
What I learned from reading Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.
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[0:58] All the men were struck, almost to the point of horror, by the way the ship behaved like a giant beast in its death agonies.
[1:27] His name was Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the twenty-seven men he had watched so ingloriously leaving the stricken ship were the members of his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
[2:02] Few men have borne the responsibility Shackleton did at that moment. Though he certainly was aware that their situation was desperate, he could not possibly have imagined then the physical and emotional demands that ultimately would be placed upon them, the rigors they would have to endure, the sufferings to which they would be subjected.
[2:52] Their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity: If they were to get out—they had to get themselves out.
[9:21] Shackleton returned to England a hero of the Empire. He was lionized wherever he went, knighted by the king, and decorated by every major country in the world.
[10:24] Making his primary argument for such an expedition, he wrote: It is the last great Polar journey that can be made. I feel it is up to the British nation to accomplish this, for we have been beaten at the conquest of the North Pole and beaten at the first conquest of the South Pole. There now remains the largest and most striking of all journeys—the crossing of the Continent.
[12:16] He was an explorer in the classic mold—utterly self-reliant, romantic, and swashbuckling.
[15:20] But the great leaders of historical record—the Napoleons, the Alexanders—have rarely fitted any conventional mold. Perhaps it’s an injustice to evaluate them in ordinary terms.
[17:00] When you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems no way out, get down on your knees, and pray for Shackleton.
[17:15] The motto of his family: BY ENDURANCE WE CONQUER.
[23:10] Shackleton said there once was a mouse who lived in a tavern. One night the mouse found a lea… Lees meer -
#143 Alfred Lee Loomis (the most interesting man you've never heard of)
6 september 2020 · 56 min
What I learned from reading Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II by James Conant.
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[0:01] Few men of Loomis’ prominence and achievement have gone to greater lengths to foil history.
[0:17] Independently wealthy, iconoclastic, and aloof, Loomis did not conform to the conventional measure of a great scientist. He was too complex to categorize—financier, philanthropist, society figure, physicist, inventor, dilettante—a contradiction in terms.
[0:42] He rose to become one of the most powerful figures in banking in the 1920s.
[4:42] The smile was a velvet glove covering his iron determination to get underway without any lost motion.
[5:29] He would dedicate himself to overcoming Germany’s scientific advantage.
[7:19] He had amassed a substantial fortune, which allowed him to act as a patron.
[8:06] Loomis was a bit stiff, with the bearing of a four-star general in civilian clothes. He was strong and decisive.
[10:15] He was enthusiastic about American know-how and was not inclined to sit idly by until the miliary finally determined it was time to take action—particularly if just catching up with the Germans proved to be a monumental task.
[13:30] He carried himself with composure, but his politeness was merely a habit; he was preoccupied.
[16:56]When duty called he helped reinvent modern warfare.
[20:21] He became an enthusiastic champion of the new armored tanks. He became such an expert on tank construction, he built a scaled-down model in his garage in order to see if he could make further improvements in the design. When his cousin came to visit, Loomis rolled into the rail station in his light armored tank to meet the train, kicking up dust and causing quite a scene.
[26:54] Loomis would later maintain that everybody on the Street knew the crash was coming, the only difference was that he and Thorne refused to bank on its being inevitably delayed.
[31:20] After the shock of the sinking of th… Lees meer -
#142 Teddy Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan
31 augustus 2020 · 51 min
What I learned from reading The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield.
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[0:17] Morgan was the most influential of these businessmen. He wasn’t the richest but that didn’t matter; he was commanding in a way none could match.
[0:38] Morgan had an aristocrat’s disdain for public sentiment and the conviction that his actions were to the country’s advantage, no explanations necessary.
[0:50] Roosevelt thought big business was not only inevitable but essential. He also believed it had to be accountable to the public, and Roosevelt considered himself the public.
[1:04] Each [Morgan and Roosevelt] presumed he could use his authority to determine the nation’s course. Each expected deference from the other along the way.
[2:18] “I’m afraid of Mr. Roosevelt because I don’t know what he’ll do,” Morgan said. “He’s afraid of me because he does know what I’ll do,” Roosevelt replied.
[5:24] Morgan had trusted his father to set him on the right path and steer his career, even when his father was overbearing, Morgan never mounted a challenge. The creator of the biggest companies the world had ever known was very much the creation of paternal influence.
[9:58] Morgan said he could do a year’s work in nine months, but not twelve. His impatience could be withering.
[10:17] Roosevelt adopted his father’s motto, “Get action.”
[10:35] Roosevelt never sat when he could stand. When provoked, he would thrust, and when he hit, he hit hard.
[11:11] Theodore loved to row in the hottest sun, over the roughest water, in the smallest boat.
[12:09] When they attacked Roosevelt, he would fire back with all the venom imaginable. “He was the most indiscreet guy I ever met.”
[16:36] When one of the gentlemen complained later about Morgan’s interference in their roads, Morgan snapped: “Your roads? Your roads belong to my clients.”
[19:26] John D. Rockefeller said his company was efficient. Critics said it was untouchable.
[23… Lees meer -
#141 Arnold Schwarzenegger (My Unbelievably True Life Story)
23 augustus 2020 · 1 uur 3 min
What I learned from reading Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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I decided that the best course for independence was to mind my own business and make my own money.I never felt that I was good enough, strong enough, smart enough. He let me know that there was always room for improvement. A lot of sons would have been crippled by his demands, but instead, the discipline rubbed off on me. I turned it into drive.I became absolutely convinced that I was special and meant for bigger things. I knew I would be the best at something - although I didn’t know what - and that it would make me famous. I never went to a competition to compete. I went to win. Even though I didn’t win every time, that was my mindset. I became a total animal. If you tuned into my thoughts before a competition, you would hear something like: “I deserve that pedestal, I own it, and the sea ought to part for me. Just get out of the fucking way, I’m on a mission. So just step aside and gimme the trophy.” I pictured myself high up on the pedestal, trophy in hand. Everyone else would be standing below. And I would look down.When you grow up in that kind of harsh environment, you never forget how to withstand physical punishment, even long after the hard times end. I find joy in the gym because every rep and every set is getting me one step closer to my goal. It gave Reg Park’s whole life story, from growing up poor in Leeds, England, to becoming Mr. Universe, getting invited to America as a champion bodybuilder, getting sent to Rome to star as Hercules, and marrying a beauty from South Africa. This story crystallized a new vision for me. I could become another Reg Park. All my dreams suddenly came together and made sense. I refined this vision until it was very specific. I was going to go for the Mr. Universe title; I was going to break records in powerlifting; I was going to Hollywood; I was going to be like Reg Park. The vision became so clear in my mind that I f… Lees meer -
#140 Bill Gates (the Making of the Microsoft Empire)
16 augustus 2020 · 55 min
What I learned from reading Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson.
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Microsoft had become the first software company to sell more than a billion dollars worth of software in a single year. Gates was the undisputed mastermind of that success, a brilliant technocrat, ruthless salesman, and manipulative businessman. Gates had slammed his fist into his palm and vowed to put several of his major software competitors out of business. By 1991, many of those competitors were in full retreat. I can do anything I put my mind to. Aggressive and stimulated by conflict; prone to change mood quickly; a dominating personality with outstanding powers of leadership. Mary Gates, in describing her son, has said that he has pretty much done what he wanted since the age of eight. Even as a child Gates had an obsessive personality and a compulsive need to be the best. Everything Bill did, he did to the max. Everything he did, he did competitively and not simply to relax. He was a very driven individual. Gates was immediately hooked. He found he had to compete for time on the computer with a handful of others who were similarly drawn to the room as if by a powerful gravitational force. Among them was Paul Allen. Gates devoured everything he could get his hands on concerning computers and how to communicate with them, often teaching himself as he went. Gates and a couple of other boys broke into the PDP-10 security system and obtained access to the company’s accounting files. They found their personal accounts and substantially reduced the amount of time the computer showed they had used. “It was when we got that free time that we really got into computers,” Gates said. “Then I became hardcore. It was day and night.” Gates was 13 years old. Although he was only in the ninth grade, he already seemed obsessed with the computer, ignoring everything else, staying out all night. He consumed biographies to understand how the great fig… Lees meer -
#139 J.P. Morgan
9 augustus 2020 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow.
[0:01] This book is about the rise, fall, and resurrection of an American banking empire—the House of Morgan.
[1:56] What gave the House of Morgan its tantalizing mystery was its government links. Much like the Rothschilds it seemed insinuated into the power structure of many countries, especially the United States.
[2:46] They practiced a brand of banking that has little resemblance to standard retail banking.
[3:43] They have weathered wars and depressions, scandals and hearings, bomb blasts and attempted assassinations.
[4:44] Contrary to the usual law of perspective, the Morgans seem to grow larger as they recede in time.
[5:41] I was struck that the old Wall Street—elite, clubby, and dominated by small, mysterious partnerships—bore scant resemblance to the universe of faceless conglomerates springing up across the globe.
[6:49] Only one firm, one family, one name rather gloriously spanned the entire century and a half that I wanted to cover: J.P. Morgan.
[8:13] I am a firm believer that most people who do great things are doing them for the first time. —Marc Andreessen
[12:22] He carried the scars of early poverty. Like many who have overcome early hardship by brute force, he was always at war with the world and counting his injuries.
[14:22] My capital is ample but I have passed too many money panics unscathed, not to have seen how often large fortunes are swept away, and that even with my own I must use caution.
[14:48] His annual savings were staggering. He spent only $3,000 of a total annual income of $300,000.
[18:05] J.P’s dad’s advice: You are commencing upon your business career at an eventful time. Let what you now witness make an impression not to be eradicated. Slow and sure should be the motto of every young man.
[18:40] Junius Morgan reminds me of Tywin Lannister.
[21:19] Perhaps the contrast between his own steady nature and… Lees meer -
#138 Alexander Graham Bell
2 augustus 2020 · 1 uur 1 min
What I learned from reading Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray.
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[0:01] I have my periods of restlessness when my brain is crowded with ideas tingling to my fingertips when I am excited and cannot stop for anybody. Let me alone, let me work as I like even if I have to sit up all night all night or even for two nights. When you see me flagging, getting tired, discouraged put your hands over my eyes so that I go to sleep and let me sleep as long as I like until I wake. Then I may hand around, read novels and be stupid without an idea in my head until I get rested and ready for another period of work. But oh, do not do as you often do, stop me in the midst of my work, my excitement with “Alex, Alex, aren’t you coming to bed? It’s one o’clock, do come.” Then I have to come feeling cross and ugly. Then you put your hands on my eyes and after a while I go to sleep, but the ideas are gone, the work is never done.
[1:20] Books are the original links: So many times Edwin Land referenced what he learned from studying the life of Alexander Graham Bell—from being motivated as Bell persevered through struggles to how to market a brand new product.
[3:06] Alexander Graham Bell had a lifelong passion for helping and teaching the deaf.
[4:13] Alex asserted his independence early. Exasperated by being the third Alexander Bell in a row, he decided to add Graham to his own name.
[4:32] He often retreated into solitude, particularly when he was preoccupied with a project.
[5:27] Alex’s school record was unimpressive. Chronically untidy and late for class, Alex often skipped school altogether. Outside the classroom he demonstrated the ingenuity and single-mindedness that would shape his later career.
[8:03] He complained of headaches, depression, and sleeplessness. Perhaps this wasn’t surprising considering the undisciplined intensity of his work habits. In a pattern that would last a lifetime, he would sit up all nig… Lees meer -
#137 P.T. Barnum
26 juli 2020 · 1 uur 3 min
What I learned from reading Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson.
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[1:23] He is known today primarily for his connection to the circus, but that came only in the last quarter of his long life. Less well known is that he was also a best-selling author, an inspirational lecturer on temperance and on success in business, a real-estate developer, a builder, a banker, a state legislator, and the mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
[1:54] In all endeavors he was a promoter and self-promotor without peer, a relentless advertiser and an unfailingly imaginative concoctor of events to draw the interest of potential patrons.
[3:16] Through hard work, a lot of brass, and a genius for exploiting new technologies related to communication and transportation, he became world famous and wealthy beyond his dreams.
[3:54] He led a rich, event-filled, exhilarating life, one indeed characterized by both struggles and triumphs. His life is well worth knowing.
[5:36] Barnum’s was 16 when his father died, leaving his family with debts: Barnum remembered the family returning from the cemetery “to our desolate home, feeling that we were forsaken by the world, and that but little hope existed for us this side of the grave.”
[6:22] He knew even then that he would only be happy working for himself.
[7:56] Like most persons who engage in a business which they do not understand, we were unsuccessful in the enterprise.
[8:16] He is running a lottery and learns something he will use later in his career: He began to develop his insight into the complicated nature of his customers, a realization that outwardly respectable people might have interests that were not entirely respectable.
[11:06] The day he became a showman. He starts a newspaper, gets sued for libel, goes to jail, and organizes a parade on the day he is released: His ability to marshal not just his own paper but also the goodwill of others was a harbinger of things to come. It was the first example of his flair for drawing atten… Lees meer -
#136 Estée Lauder
19 juli 2020 · 45 min
What I learned from reading A Success Story by Estee Lauder.
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You can probably reach out with comparative ease and touch a life of serenity and peace. You can wait for things to happen and not get too sad when they don’t. That’s fine for some but not for me. Serenity is pleasant, but it lacks the ecstasy of achievement. [0:10]
I’ve always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. I kept my eye on the target. I never allowed my eye to leave the target. I always believed that success comes from not letting your eyes stray from that target. [1:10]
Beauty is an ancient industry: Women have always enhanced their looks. It has always been so. It will always be so. [4:18]
Lessons from here mother: The secret is to imagine yourself as the most important person in the room. Imagine it vividly enough and you will become that person. [6:01]
You could make a thing wonderful by enhancing its outward appearance. Little did I know I’d be doing the same thing, multiplied by a billionfold. [8:45]
Everything has to be sold aggressively. [9:05]
I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and sell it hard. [9:39]
My drive and persistence were always there, and those are the qualities for building a successful business. [10:38]
The moment she realizes she could make beauty her life’s work: This is the story of bewitchment. Uncle John [a skin specialist] had worlds to teach me. Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams seriously? Teach her secrets? I could think of nothing else. [12:09]
The humble beginning of the Estee Lauder empire: This was my first chance at a real business. I would have a small counter in a beauty salon. Whatever I sold would be mine to keep. No partners. I would risk the rent, but if it worked, I would start the business I always dreamed about. Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever beca… Lees meer -
#135 Joseph Pulitzer (Politics & Media)
12 juli 2020 · 1 uur 7 min
What I learned from reading Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris.
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[0:20] Joseph Pulitzer was the midwife to the birth of the modern mass media. Pulitzer’s lasting achievement was to transform American journalism into a medium of mass consumption and immense influence.
[3:04] He was the pioneer of the modern media industry.
[5:06] Teddy Roosevelt tried to have Joseph Pulitzer put in jail.
[7:11] How one of Pulitzer’s adult sons viewed him: One of the strange differences between us two is the fact that you have never come near learning how to enjoy life.
[9:42] Joseph favored reading works of history and biography.
[10:12] Joseph understood fully the extent of the calamity [his father’s death]. He had been 9 years old when his older brother died, 10 when his younger brother and sister died, 11 when his father died, and 13 at the death of his last sister.
[11:50] At 17 years old Joseph escapes to America. A group of wealthy Boston businessmen recruit thousands of young Europeans to fight for the Union in the American Civil War. This scheme became Pulitzer’s escape route.
[13:18] Describing how he came to the United States: He was friendless, homeless, tongueless, and guideless.
[14:05] One of the places he slept when he was homeless was in the lobby of a hotel. They kept kicking him out. Later in life he buys the hotel.
[14:44] What he said about his job of tending mules: Never in my life did I have a more trying task. The man who has not cared for 16 mules does not know what work and trouble are.
[15:18] Pulitzer was a voracious reader. When he was not working he spent every free minute improving his mind.
[17:12] Edwin Land said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess". Joseph Pulitzer would have agreed with that.
[19:15]He was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work. Pulitzer was unwilling to put forward anything but his best effort.
[25:10] In only 5 years he had gro… Lees meer -
#134 Edwin Land (Polaroid vs Kodak)
1 juli 2020 · 1 uur 18 min
What I learned from reading A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein.
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[0:21] He died in 1991 with 535 patents to his credit, third in U.S. history. His honorary doctorate degrees, too numerous to list, come from the most distinguished academic institutions, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. He received virtually every distinction the scientific community has to offer, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and membership in the prestigious Royal Society of London. Land was included on Life’s list of the 100 most important Americans of the twentieth century.
[1:35] In so many ways, on so many occasions, Land’s life was a manifestation of the indefatigable can-do attitude he embraced and encouraged others to follow.
[2:15] Land has the well-grounded suspicion that good, careful, systematic planning can kill a creative company.
[2:34] Pick problems that are important and nearly impossible to solve, pick problems that are the result of sensing deep and possibly unarticulated human needs, pick problems that will draw on the diversity of human knowledge for their solution, and where that knowledge is inadequate, fill the gaps with basic scientific exploration—involve all the members of the organization in the sense of adventure and accomplishment, so that a large part of life’s rewards would come from this involvement.
[3:30] Steve Jobs was one of Land’s most dedicated fans: “Not only was [Land] one of the great inventors of our time,” said Jobs in a 1985 interview, “but, more importantly, he saw the intersection of art and science and business and built an organization to reflect that. . . . The man is a national treasure, I don’t understand why people like that can’t be held up as models. This is the most incredible thing to be—not an astronaut, not a football player—but this.”
[5:22] Land’s relative anonymity can perhaps best be explained … Lees meer -
#133 Edwin Land (Polaroid and The Man Who Invented It)
25 juni 2020 · 55 min
What I learned from reading Land’s Polaroid: A Company and The Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg.
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[1:14] He was revered to an extraordinary extent by most of the people who worked for him.
[1:36] Land did not earn a college degree, yet he has received more medals and scientific honors than most living Americans.
[3:36] Land's life seemed to be primarily a life of the mind. His great dramas were largely self created, played on the stage of Polaroid, which he constructed for himself.
[4:14] All of the people that you and I are studying on this podcast created their own world within the world.
[5:55] The end this book made me think of this quote by Steve Jobs: Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
[7:38] Peter [the author] worked with Edwin Land for 20 years. As a result this book —more than any other— has a lot of direct quotes from Land.
[7:50] “Nature doesn’t care.” By that he meant nothing in nature would help or hinder their progress to a solution except their own ingenuity. Nature offered no bar to the elegant solution over the awkward compromise if they had the imagination to seek it and the wit to discover it. Nature had no concern for the affairs of men.
[9:42] At 37 years old he had achieved everything to which he aspired except success.
[10:55] This product, this innovation, this creation— of one of the most important products ever made— came at a time when the company was almost out of business.
[12:42] Land said running his company felt like he was a physics professor leading his students on a g… Lees meer -
#132 Edwin Land (Steve Jobs's Hero)
20 juni 2020 · 1 uur 2 min
What I learned from reading The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker.
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[1:42] The word “problem” had completely departed from Edwin land's vocabulary to be replaced by the word “opportunity”.
[2:01] What was it about this man and his company that allowed such confidence and seeming lack of concern with the traditional top priorities of American business?
[2:38] There is something unique about Polaroid having to do both with the human dimension of the company, and with a unity of vision of its founder and guiding genius.
[3:36] Perhaps the single most important aspect of Land's character is his ability to regard things around him in a new and totally different way.
[4:14] Right from the beginning of his career Land had paid scant attention to what experts had to say, trusting his own instincts instead.
[4:49] Land has always believed that for any item sufficiently ingenious and intriguing, a new market could be created. Conventional wisdom has little capacity with which to evaluate a market that did not exist prior to the product that defines it.
[5:21] He feels that creativity is an individual thing. Not generally applicable to group generation.
[5:52] Land is a man deeply caught up in the creative potential of the individual.
[6:33] An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
[7:43] Apple founder Steve Jobs once hailed Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid and the father of instant photography, as "a national treasure" and once confessed to a reporter that meeting Land was "like visiting a shrine." By his own admission, Jobs modeled much of his own career after Land’s. Both Jobs and Land stand out today as unique and towering figures in the history of technology. Neither had a college degree, but both built highly successful and innovative organizations. Jobs and Land were both perfectionists with an almost fanatic attentiveness to detail, in addition to being consummate showmen and instinctive marketers. In many ways, E… Lees meer -
#131 Robert Friedland (Billionaire Miner)
15 juni 2020 · 1 uur 4 min
What I learned from reading The Big Score: Robert Friedland and The Voisey’s Bay Hustle by Jacquie McNish.
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[0:04] Promoting a stock is like making a movie. You've got to have stars, props, and a good script.
[2:22] He had learned that there was nothing that Robert Friedland could not sell.
[2:50] This book is about how Robert Friedland accidentally discovers the largest nickel deposit in history. He winds up selling that discovery for over $4 billion.
[3:50] Robert Friedland and Steve Jobs were friends in college. Robert influenced Steve.
[4:50] Friedland grinned as if he had just won an award. But the prize being handed down was a two year jail sentence for selling drugs. Police confiscated 24,000 tablets of LSD valued at $125,000.
[7:01] He is a very complicated character. He was involved in a lot of shady stuff on the way to becoming a billionaire. I was struck by the contrast between how the book describes Friedland and how he comes off in this sales presentation: China Is About To Ban The Internal Combustion Engine. He comes off as extremely likable and knowledgeable.
[9:42] At Reed College Friedland’s drug conviction no handicap. The prison term only added to his mystique. Steve talks about the mind expanding experience that taking acid was. He felt it allowed him to approach product creation from a broader perspective. He said Bill Gates would be more interesting if he had dropped acid.
[10:28] Friedland starts a cult. Even when he is in his early 20s Friedland is able to influence the thoughts of the people around him.
[11:21] Frieland turns his uncle’s farm into a collective. The farm drew a steady stream of students. Including an introverted freshman named Steve Jobs. Steve devoted himself to reviving the farm’s Apple orchard. The orchard would later inspire the name of Apple Computer.
[12:17] Robert Freidland’s influence on Steve Jobs: Robert was very much an outgoing, charismatic guy. A real salesman. He'd walk into a room and you would instantly n… Lees meer -
#130 Walter Chrysler
9 juni 2020 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading Life of an American Workman by Walter Chrysler.
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[0:56]The kitchen fire was the only heat we knew in the winter. Often I had to scamper barefoot across a floor where snow had drifted through the cracks of badly fitting windows.
[1:56] We never spent money on things we could get without spending.
[3:10] This book was written about a year before he had a stroke and about two years before he died. The book is full of memories of parents and friends long dead.
[3:29] The memories he chose to highlight made me think of this quote on books by Carl Sagan: What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
[4:10] And I think that is what this book is. It is Walter Chrysler speaking directly to you and I over 80 years after he died.
[5:18] On a few occasions his Dad would let him come to work with him [on the Union Pacific Railroad]. This is how Walt remembered that: The part of me that would be most tired would be my face. It was tired from grinning in my hours of ecstasy.
[6:35] He learned from his parents the need to be self sufficient. They built their own house. They raised their own food. They created their own jobs. If they wanted plumbing they made it themselves.
[7:00] He is very passionate about mechanics and understanding machines. He has to create his own tools because he is too poor to buy them.
[7:35] I went to work at 6 in the morning and was through at 10:30 at night.
[9:02] I was a cocky youngster and full… Lees meer -
#129 Felix Dennis (How to Get Rich)
4 juni 2020 · 59 min
What I learned from reading How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets by Felix Dennis.
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[0:01] How Felix started his first business with no money.
[4:30] Human nature does not change. We are cooperative animals. Those who wish to start a company cannot expect a free ride, but they might be surprised at the number of people willing to help them to some degree or another.
[5:11] This book was one of the most requested books for me to cover on the podcast. I was hesitant to read it because of the title. After reading it I think a better title would be How I Got Rich.
[7:36] A large part of this book is philosophical. He is asking us, “Is this really what you want?” He opens up about his drug addiction. About his addiction to prostitutes. About how he blew 100 million dollars and almost died.
[8:13] How To Get Rich sets to tell you about how I did it. How I got rich without the benefit of a college education or a penny of capital. It will expose the many errors I made along the way, which will contribute greatly to the length.
[10:51] My constant refrain when I was bumming rides from friends as a teenager was, “You don’t understand. I was born to be driven.”
[13:00] The key, I think, is confidence and an unshakeable belief that it can be done and that you are the one to do it. Tunnel vision helps. Being a bit of a shit helps. A thick skin helps.
[16:01] Nearly all the great fortunes acquired by entrepreneurs arose because they had nothing to lose. Nobody had bothered to tell them that such a thing could not be done or would be likely to fail. Or if they had told them then they weren’t listening. They were too busy proving those around them wrong.
[17:24] On trusting your instincts: The first few million dollars I ever made was the direct result of trusting my instincts— which were entirely at odds with conventional wisdom. I published a series of 8 full-page folded posters with articles printed on the back and charged the same pr… Lees meer -
#128 Henry Leland (Cadillac)
1 juni 2020 · 1 uur 10 min
What I learned from reading Master of Precision: Henry Leland by Ottilie Leland and Minnie Dubbs Millbrook.
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[0:17] Henry Leland laid the foundation for the future of American industry. He had established manufacturing procedures never previously so effectively employed and took a position of leadership. In the next decades would be comparable in statute with, although quite different from, William Durant, Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan.
[0:40] It should be pointed out that Leland's contribution to the development of the motor car was the establishment of high standards of manufacturing.
[2:33] Henry Leland always got deep satisfaction out of anything which was made right. He had—in high degree—the pride of craftsmanship that had marked the master workman down the centuries.
[3:07] He developed the Cadillac, the self-starter, The Lincoln car, held up high standards of performance for the industry, and established the first notable school of automotive mechanics.
[4:05] A lesson Henry Leland learned from his Father: He bequeathed a singularly trustful disposition to his son, who could never believe that other men were not inherently as good and honorable as he himself. He was several times to pay a stiff penalty for this faith in human nature.
[4:56] A lesson Henry Leland learned from his Mother: “There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. Hunt for the right way and then go ahead.” This simple admonition was to become a creed that would govern all of his actions as he rose in industry.
[6:10] He lives through the beginning of two industries in his life: Manufacturing in general and the automobile industry in specific.
[7:24] Henry Leland was not sure he wanted to become an apprentice machinist. The hours were long—10 hour days, 6 days a week—and most factories did not pay high wages. Moreover, farming was still the traditional American operation, which offered a possibility of independence and did not shut a man indoors with noisy machinery.
[9:06] Henr… Lees meer -
#127 Larry Ellison (Oracle)
26 mei 2020 · 59 min
What I learned from reading The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson
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[1:06] You want to know what I think about Larry Ellison? Well, I suppose he had some private sort of greatness but he kept it to himself. He never gave himself away. He never gave anything away. He just left you a tip. He had a generous mind. I don’t suppose anybody ever had so many opinions, but he never believed in anything except Larry Ellison.
[1:45] That was the way Ellison’s mind worked. He was like a search engine gone haywire.
[3:01] I asked Ellison how he had seen his adult life when he was a kid. What he thought was going to happen to him. “You mean did I anticipate becoming the fifth wealthiest person in the United States? No. This is all kind of surreal. I don’t even believe it. When I look around I say this must be something out of a dream.”
[3:57] Ellison is the Charles Foster Kane of the technological age. He is bright, brash, optimistic, and immensely appealing, yet somehow incomplete.
[4:31] He worked in the computer industry for several years but never had a job that suited what he saw as his superior intellectual gifts.
[6:08] The stockholder who benefited the most from Oracle’s performance was Larry Ellison, exactly what he intended. Ellison started the company because he wanted to be his own boss. And he stayed in control throughout his tenure at Oracle always holding onto enough stock that his power and authority could never be seriously challenged.
[7:57] To him there was now power greater than the human mind.
[8:23] What Larry reminds me of is a truth that Benjamin Franklin hit on 250 years ago. He says his mind was much improved by all the reading he did. There were very tangible results in Benjamin Franklin’s life when people found his conversations more enjoyable because he was a more interesting person to talk to—that led him being able to raise money for his business. It helped him close sales. Larry Elliso… Lees meer -
#126: Larry Ellison (The Billionaire and the Mechanic)
21 mei 2020 · 1 uur 9 min
What I learned from reading The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the America’s Cup, Twice by Julian Guthrie.
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[0:01] Larry Ellison to Steve Jobs: I’m talking about greatness, about taking a lever to the world and moving it. I’m not talking about moral perfection. I’m talking about people who changed the world the most during their lifetime.
[0:56] Larry’s choice for history’s greatest person could not have been more different from Gandhi (Steve Jobs’s choice): the military leader Napoleon Bonaparte.
[3:15] Steve liked to say the Beatles were his management model — four guys who kept each other in check and produced something great.
[3:47] Larry’s favorite history book was Will and Ariel Durant’s The Age of Napoleon, which he had read several times. Like his buddy Steve, and like Larry himself, Napoleon was an outsider who was told he would never amount to anything.
[6:09] Now the book is technically about the America’s Cup race. But that is not really what it is about. This books gives insights into extreme winners.
[7:50] Steve and Larry had found they had much in common. They both had adoptive parents. Both considered their adoptive parents their real parents. Both were “OCD,” and both were antiauthoritarian. They shared a disdain for conventional wisdom and felt people too often equated obedience with intelligence. They never graduated from college, and Steve loved to boast that he’d left Reed College after just two weeks while it took others, including Larry and their rival Bill Gates, months or even years to drop out.
[9:09] Steve Jobs: “Why do people buy art when they can make their own art?” Larry thought for a moment and replied, “Well , Steve , not everyone can make his own art. You can. It’s a gift.”
[10:46] What he (Steve Jobs) liked was designing and redesigning things to make them more useful and more beautiful.
[11:02] If Michael Jordan sold enterprise software he would be… Lees meer -
#125 Charles Kettering (inventor, engineer, founder)
15 mei 2020 · 1 uur 11 min
What I learned from reading Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd
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[3:06] If you had to summarize Charles Kettering this is the way you would do it: “As symbol of progress and the American way of life—as creator of ideas and builder of industries and employment—as inspirer of men to nobler thoughts and greater accomplishments—as foe of ignorance and discouragement—as friend of learning and optimistic resolve—Charles F. Kettering stands among the great men of all time.”
[3:36] He was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive developments were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. He was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. He developed the world's first aerial missile. He led the advancement of practical, lightweight two-stroke diesel engines, revolutionizing the locomotive and heavy equipment industries.
[4:42] This is Ket talking about why it is so important to approach your work with the mindset that you are a professional amateur: We are simply professional amateurs. We are amateurs because we are doing things for the first time. We are professional because we know we are going to have a lot of trouble. The price of progress is trouble. And I don’t think the price is too high.
[6:52] There is a quote from Thomas Edison that says “We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.” Ket has that same belief. This is Ket echoing Thomas Edison: “In reality, we have only begun to knock a few chips from the great quarry of knowledge that has been given us to dig out and use. We are like the two fellows who started to walk from New York to San Francisco. When they got over into New Jersey, one said: “We must be pretty nearly there. We have been walking a long, long time.” That is … Lees meer -
#124 Larry Ellison and Oracle
9 mei 2020 · 1 uur 12 min
What I learned from reading Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds.
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[0:01] Although much of my time with him coincided with a period of adversity for Oracle, I never once saw Ellison downcast. His unquenchable optimism and almost messianic self belief never faltered.
[5:06] The single most important aspect of my personality is my questioning of conventional wisdom. My doubting of experts just because they are experts. My questioning of authority. While that can be very painful in terms of your relationships with your parents and teachers it is enormously useful in life.
[12:19] People — teachers, coaches, bosses — want you to conform to some standard of behavior they deem correct. They measure and reward you on how well you conform — arrive on time, dress appropriately, exhibit a properly deferential attitude — as opposed to how well you do your job. Programming liberated me from all that.
[16:34] I had always believed that at the top of these companies there must be some exceptionally capable people who make the entire technology industry work. Now here I was, working near the top of a tech company, and those capable people were nowhere to be found. The senior managers I saw were conformist, bureaucratic, and very reluctant to make decisions.
[23:08] Oracle’s first product reflected Larry Ellison’s desire to do something no one else was doing: The opportunity was huge. We had a chance to build the world’s first commercial relational database. Why? Because nobody else was even trying. The other relational database projects were pure research efforts. If we could build a fast and reliable relational database, we would have it made. I thought that relational was clearly the way to go. It was very cool technology. And I liked the fact it was risky. The bigger the apparent risk, the fewer people will try to go there. We would surely lose if we had to face serious competition. But if we were all alone in pursuit of our goal of … Lees meer -
#123 Albert Champion (Record-Setting Racer to Dashing Tycoon)
2 mei 2020 · 1 uur 5 min
What I learned from reading The Fast Times of Albert Champion: From Record-Setting Racer to Dashing Tycoon, An Untold Story of Speed, Success, and Betrayal by Peter Joffre Nye.
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[0:01] A brief summary of the life of Albert Champion: Champion had been born in Paris April 2, 1878. By age twelve he was an errand and office boy for a Paris bicycle manufacturer. He became interested in bicycle racing, won the middle-distance championship in France, and went to the United States in 1899 for a series of races. He won the American and world championships, returned to France to study automobile manufacturing, and returned to the United States in 1900. He tried auto racing, almost lost a leg in a racing accident, and then organized the Champion company. His original backers kept the name and moved the company to Toledo at about the same time Champion joined Durant. In Flint, Champion became known as one of the most colorful and flamboyant figures in a town full of them. He lived to see both his new company, later named the AC Spark Plug Division (using his initials), and the company he had left, the Champion Spark Plug Company, become giants in their field. He was a multimillionaire when he died.
[2:55] His father dies at 47 years old: One of the turning points in Albert’s life is the early death of his father. He had to become the breadwinner of the family at 12 years old. The experience formed Albert’s character. For the rest of his life, he threw himself into work, forever escaping into the task at hand, keeping busy, always planning new projects, in time building up a business with factories in three countries and offices of his own.
[6:19] Albert Champion was a showman who was addicted to self-improvement: He was willing to put in the work necessary for self improvement. Champion practiced rising a unicycle everyday. He learned how to draw onlookers and hold their attention. Champion had discovered the value of self—improvement. He would apply that principle again a… Lees meer -
#122 Alfred Sloan (General Motors)
27 april 2020 · 1 uur 5 min
What I learned from reading My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan.
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[2:40] There are ideas worth billions in a $30 history book: Henry talked to me on several occasions about a book by the former chairman of General Motors. He told me he had learned a very important concept from that book, which he wished to use in the growth of Teledyne. . .during a very difficult economic time of recession, General Motors had needed additional funds to finance their growth and had a plan to sell bonds to the general public. The bond sale was a complete failure, and the chairman (Sloan) had written in his book that it had taught him an important lesson. It was that for a corporation to grow and to have a strong financial base, it needed to have, as part of itself, an interest in substantial financially oriented institutions. So General Motors had started GMAC and invested in other financial groups. As a result of his interest in this idea, Henry had decided that at some point, he would seek out financial organizations we could acquire. We began acquiring a number of financial and insurance companies, which was a significant change from our usual aerospace, metals, industrial and consumer company acquisitions.
[5:45] Alfred Sloan had a singular focus: General Motors and the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company, have been almost the sole interests of my business life.
[6:28] Alfred Sloan’s perspective on work: I simply took the view that we should go at the job vigorously and without hampering restrictions. I put no ceiling on progress.
[12:22] Billy Durant came up with the idea for General Motors. Alfred Sloan perfected it: Durant’s pioneer work has yet to receive the recognition it deserves. His philosophy was an emerging one in the Model T era and was afterward to be realized not by him but by others, including myself.
[19:08] The accumulated intelligence of mankind is what makes us special amongst all other species Everything is built upon the foundation before it: It has bee… Lees meer -
#121 Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan (General Motors)
20 april 2020 · 1 uur 22 min
What I learned from reading Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, A Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey.
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[0:01] They were oil and water in all respects. Billy Durant, the high school dropout, was the flamboyant dreamer and gambler, focused on personal relationships and risk. Alfred Sloan, the MIT engineer, was the stern organizer and manager, focused on data, logic, and profit.
[4:40] The paradox of this book in two sentences: Sloan’s most constant criticism of Durant was that he acted on instinct and whim rather than facts. Yet the achievements and decisions of Durant the dreamer were what made Sloan the manager’s spectacular career possible.
[6:50] Alfred Sloan telling us it is a lot harder to stay successful over a long period of time: “The perpetuation of an unusual success or the maintenance of an unusually high standard of leadership in any industry is sometimes more difficult than the attainment of that success or leadership in the first place.”
[10:45] Walter Chrysler left the highest paying job in the entire automobile industry because of Billy Durant’s wasted his time: More than once, Chrysler had been summoned by Durant only to be kept waiting then to discover that the urgent matter that needed to be discussed was nothing that couldn’t have been resolved quickly at the plant level rather than wasting top management’s time and brainpower.
[12:52] Sloan believed Billy Durant had no right to be distracted by the financial markets while Durant was supposed to be running General Motors: Sometimes I used to feel as if he were always holding a telephone in his hand. I think there were twenty telephones in his private office and a switchboard. He had private wires to brokers’ offices across the continent. In the same minute, he would buy in San Francisco, sell in Boston. It did not seem to me that the operating head of a corporation had any right to devote himself to the market, even if t… Lees meer -
#120 Billy Durant (Creator of General Motors)
12 april 2020 · 1 uur 11 min
What I learned from reading Billy Durant Creator of General Motors: The Story of the Flamboyant Genius Who Helped Lead America into the Automobile Age by Lawrence Gustin.
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[0:32] DURANT MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTOMOBILE PIONEER: Of all the colorful men who propelled the United States into the automobile age, Billy Durant was perhaps the most unusual, and from an organizational standpoint in the pioneering era, the most important. Durant had a hand in shaping the beginnings of three of the four major American automobile manufacturing corporations that exist today.
[4:16] HIS LIFE STORY HAS A SURPRISING END: The guy founded General Motors, Chrysler, and Frigidaire. Three gigantic, successful companies. How does he die with no money?
[6:04] DURANT TRIED TO PROTECT HIS INVESTORS: He had an attitude, not a common among men of big money. He tried to protect the people who invested with him, even if this protection would break him. Finally, it did. And when he was unable to save the dollars of his supporters he plunged from multimillionaire to bankruptcy.
[10:29] DURANT WAS SKEPTICAL OF AUTOMOBILES: Durant starts out as an automobile skeptic. He builds the General Motors of horse-drawn transportation and then takes that same playbook and uses it again to do the same thing in the automobile industry once he gets over his skepticism.
[17:08] IF SOMETHING IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR BUSINESS YOU NEED TO CONTROL IT: We have seen this over and over and over and over again in these stories throughout the history of entrepreneurship. If something is important to your business, you need to control it. Durant line up a big contract for the buggies only to find that Patterson chanced upon the same buyer and told him that since the product was actually being made at his factory, the buyer could save money by buying directly from him. Durant that from then on they would build all their own vehicles.
[19:12] DURANT ON SALES: Assume that the person you are talking to knows as much or m… Lees meer -
#119 The Dodge Brothers
6 april 2020 · 54 min
What I learned from reading The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy by Charles Hyde.
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This is the story of two small town machinists who became enormously successful automobile manufacturers in the early years of the auto industry [0:01]
Early life and first jobs [3:02]
Moving to Detroit: Arriving at the right place, at the right time, with the right skill set [6:28]
Horace Dodge is a gifted engineer like Henry Royce (Founders #81) was + Inventors and bicycle manufacturers [12:00]
How The Dodge Brothers first described their business [16:40]
Doing work for Ransom Olds, Founder of Oldsmobile [18:20]
Crucial decisions in the early days of the company [23:33]
In a gold rush don't dig for gold. Sell pick axes [24:44]
The Dodge Brothers almost bankrupted Ford for lack of payment [28:22]
The Dodge Brothers got very rich off of Henry Ford [33:28]
Why and how the Dodge Brothers built their own car [36:00]
Comparing The Dodge Brothers organizational structure with that of Ford and GM [41:00]
The Dodge Brothers view on advertising [43:04]
How and why they worked so well together [46:13]
A bond so tight it could only be separated by death [50:58]
Their greatest accomplishment [52:01] Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast -
#118 Forty Years With Henry Ford
1 april 2020 · 1 uur 20 min
What I learned by reading My Forty Years With Ford by Charles Sorensen.
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Henry Ford’s greatest achievement and his greatest failure [0:01]
Henry Ford had one, single idea [4:15]
Henry Ford’s management style [5:46]
The paradox of Henry Ford [8:27]
Henry Ford’s greatest advisor [11:30]
A great story about The Dodge Brothers [16:20]
Why and how Henry Ford bought out all of the shareholders of Ford [19:15]
Henry Ford would tell you to not divert your attention [27:15]
Henry Ford would tell you to not be afraid [28:20]
Henry Ford would tell you to be firm in what you want to accomplish but flexible in how you do it [31:45]
Why Henry Ford and The Ford Motor Company are worthy of study [36:20]
The difference between a pioneer and an expert [39:45]
Henry Ford would tell you not to worry about titles [47:40]
Henry Ford would tell you to focus on individual contact over collective speeches [49:52]
Henry Ford would tell you don't let your team grow stale [50:10]
Henry Ford would tell you that you can’t foresee everything. Even things that should be obvious. [50:50]
Henry Ford would tell you to never stop learning [51:32]
A description of Detroit and the early days of one of the most important industries ever created [55:14]
The story of the Model T: Henry ford was groping and fumbling toward a low-cost car. [59:14] Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast -
#117 : Chung Ju-yung founder of Hyundai (the most inspiring autobiography I've read)
26 maart 2020 · 1 uur 20 min
What I learned from reading Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung.
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For a long time I was known as the bulldozer. [0:01]
How Chung’s son remembers him: He had a wonderfully positive disposition and a rigorous work ethic. [3:15]
Memories of his father + Half century of struggle + Why he is writing this book [9:25]
Running away from home. Four times. [12:15]
A different level of poverty. [15:40]
How struggle shaped his personality + Why he had to run away for the last time [17:15]
On his own + Early jobs before the birth of Hyundai [19:24]
On simple tasks + The fundamental principle of his life + Hard work paying off [21:15]
Getting into the auto repair business + More struggle + More perseverance [25:55]
Why you should emulate bedbugs. [31:00]
Hyundai Auto Service Center + Hyundai Construction + Disaster strikes again + The Korean War [33:11]
His management style + Don’t waste time if you want to be remarkable [39:30]
Go where the money is: Hyundai must go abroad to escape poor domestic conditions. [42:15]
The beginning of Hyundai Motors + Chung had only one speed: GO! That is not always a good thing. [45:57]
Ships or how a great idea starts as a small idea [53:26]
Why determination is more important than intelligence [58:10]
Find something you love to do and do it until you die. [1:06:39]
Don’t covet luxury. [1:08:49]
Be diligent. [1:15:40]
Positive thinking is the road to happiness. [1:16:48] Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast -
#116 Sam Bronfman (Seagram's and the Bronfman family dynasty)
21 maart 2020 · 1 uur 7 min
What I learned from reading Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam by Michael R. Marrus.
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The story of Sam’s rise to fame and fortune from a hard life on the Canadian frontier is inherently dramatic and yet touches a familiar nerve in a broad spectrum of the population. There is something in Sam’s response to his disappointments that most people recognize in their themselves. [0:01]
I found out about the Bronfman family on Founders #53 Mike Ovitz when Mike Ovitz brokered a deal that led to Seagram buying MCA Universal for $5.7 billion. [2:58]
Generational Inflection Point: A single individual that changes the trajectory of his entire family for generations to come [3:35]
Why did his family have to flee Russia? [6:42]
Sam was ashamed of the poverty is family endured and NEVER forgot it [10:45]
Sam starts running his own hotel at 23 [14:35]
Sam figures out a new plan to overcome the powerful temperance movement / The good ones know more. — David Ogilvy [18:00]
The advantages of Sam’s mail order strategy + Copying and improving on his competitors [20:12]
Some people just want it more [22:23]
Sam would tell you to focus on the long term [24:26]
Sam would tell you don’t waste any opportunity and be a learning machine [31:50]
Sam would tell you to learn from the best [35:44]
Sam would tell you to think big and appeal to interest [37:20]
Sam’s view on money / Go First Class [42:04]
After prohibition is lifted Sam goes on a buying spree / Default aggressive [48:53]
Sam does something brilliant: He repositions whiskey as a luxury product [53:02]
Sam’s personal curriculum [57:30]
How Sam’s business survived WWII [59:00]
The company proved to be one of Sam’s shrewdest moves; bought with only $50 million in borrowed cash it was sold [by his heirs] in 1980 for $2.3 billion [1:03:35] Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in yo… -
#115 Ben Franklin: An American Life
16 maart 2020 · 46 min
What I learned from reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.
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He was, during his 84 year long life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist. [0:01]
On Founders #62 I covered Ben Franklin’s autobiography [4:10]
The family produced dissenters and nonconformists who were willing to defy authority, although not to the point of becoming zealots. They were clever craftsman and inventive blacksmiths with a love of learning. Avid readers and writers, they had deep convictions, but knew how to wear them lightly. [5:00]
The industrialist Thomas Mellon, who erected a statue of Franklin in his banks headquarters, declared that Franklin had inspired him to leave his family's farm and go into business. "I regard the reading of Franklin's Autobiography as the turning point of my life. Here was Franklin, poorer than myself, who by industry, thrift, and frugality, had become learned and wise, and elevated to wealth and fame. The maxims of poor Richard exactly suited my sentiments. I read the book again and again, and wondered if I might not do something in the same line by similar means." [13:10]
Franklin is learning how to deal with people and to change his behavior to get the outcome he desires: Being argumentative, he concluded, was a very bad habit because contradicting people produced disgusts and perhaps enemies. Later in his life he would wryly say of disputing: "Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it.”[17:50]
Ben Franklin understood marketing [22:10]
Ben Franklin would tell you to keep reading and learning so you are more interesting to talk to. This produces positive externalities. [23:50]
Franklin’s plan for his business and how to overcome an entrenched competitor [30:00]
Franklin would tell you it is foolish to avoid all criticism [33:28]
The Ben Franklin method for making difficult decisions [34:15]
As Franklin is building his business he is focused on self improvement: A list o… Lees meer -
#114 The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time
9 maart 2020 · 1 uur 20 min
What I learned from reading The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Timeby Michael Craig.
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Some Texas banker was playing poker with over $15 million on the table. 15 million on the table? This much cash would weigh over 250 pounds. [0:01]
Founders #38 Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos [4:12]
Poker players are misfits / Poker as a capital intensive business / How to avoid going over the edge [6:51]
The early life and personality traits of Andy Beal [12:20]
Other founders mentioned in this episode:
#59 Howard Hughes: Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters; The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire.
#65 Kirk Kerkorian: The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became The Greatest Deal Maker In Capitalist History.
#67 Conrad Hilton: The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty
[19:24]
Professional poker players were the ultimate independent businessmen. They had no bosses, no employees, and no set hours. [20:36]
He came. He saw. He was conquered. [26:01]
The entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster + Bet on yourself [28:20]
A young Andy Beal’s adventures in entrepreneurship [36:30]
Beal Aerospace [49:45]
How Andy Beal finds an edge in poker [55:04]
The difference between knowing and doing [1:07:49]
The benefits of facing tough competition: Andy had played abasing the best poker players in the world for nearly 300 hours. It was impossible to stick around against this level of competition and not improve. How can we simulate an environment like this for ourselves? [1:09:45]
What a bizarre, nonchalant way to start an important day [1:14:20] Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forw… -
#113 A.G. Gaston (Black Titan and the Making of a Black American Millionaire)
5 maart 2020 · 1 uur 8 min
What I learned from reading Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins and Elizabeth Gardner Hines
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The grandson of slaves, born into poverty in 1892 in the Deep South, A. G. Gaston died more than a century later with a fortune worth well over $130 million [0:01]
A 10 year old’s first business idea [5:35]
A.G. finds a blueprint to follow: A.B. Loveman [9:00]
The remarkable story of Carrie Tuggle and The Tuggle Institute [12:10]
The influence of Booker T. Washington [13:35]
The power of positive examples [15:27]
Joining the army for discipline and opportunity / Lessons from World War I [18:32]
Keep your eyes open. Study the people around you. How do they live? What makes them tick? What do they need? [25:05]
A. G. Gaston was relentless [27:20]
The parallels between Andrew Carnegie and A. G. Gaston [30:26]
Exhausted, depressed, and hopeless right before his big breakthrough [33:38]
And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under — Benjamin Franklin / Both Benjamin Franklin and A. G. Gaston valued industry and frugality [38:00]
A fundamental change in philosophy for a young entrepreneur [44:30]
A.G. starts a funeral insurance company / Inspiration from the life of Booker T. Washington [46:40]
CAP YOUR DOWNSIDE! [51:41]
Personality: Focus on only on what you can control and have a bias for action [54:00]
A.G. starts The Booker T. Washington Business College to help train potential employees [56:00]
A.G’s singular focus is on mastering his craft [57:50] Lees meer----
Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Garet…