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    Explore " jay gould" with insightful episodes like "#285 Jay Gould (How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune)", "#283 Andrew Carnegie", "#268 John Malone (Cable Cowboy)", "#267 Thomas Edison" and "#258: Jay Gould (Dark Genius of Wall Street)" from podcasts like ""Founders", "Founders", "Founders", "Founders" and "Founders"" and more!

    Episodes (5)

    #285 Jay Gould (How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune)

    #285 Jay Gould (How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune)

    What I learned from reading American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune by Greg Steinmetz.

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    [0:01] A series of spectacular financial triumphs had made Gould fabulously rich. At age thirty-six, he was the most notorious businessman in the country.

    [1:00] Vanderbilt told a newspaper that Gould was "the smartest man in America." Rockefeller, when asked who he thought had the best head for business, answered "Jay Gould" without pausing to think.

    They  recognized Gould as a master of his craft. No one disputed that he was an extraordinary problem solver, an unparalleled negotiator, an expert communicator, a lightning-fast thinker, and a masterful tactician with a staggering memory.

    [2:00] Railroads changed America in the nineteenth century much as automobiles changed the country in the twentieth century and the internet has changed the twenty first century.

    [5:00] American Rascal shows the complex and quirky character of the nineteenth century's greatest robber baron. He was at once praised for his brilliance by Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and condemned for forever destroying American business values by Mark Twain. He lived a colorful life, trading jokes with Thomas Edison, figuring in Thomas Nast's best sketches, paying Boss Tweed's bail, and commuting to work in a 200-foot yacht.

    [6:00] I consider this part two in a two part series on Jay Gould. Make sure you listen to part 1: Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258)

    [9:00] He read whatever he could get his hands on. Jay was often nowhere to be found. He was off hiding somewhere with his books.

    [10:00] He would wake up at three to study by firelight.

    [10:00] My Life and Work by Henry Ford. (Founders #266)

    [12:35] “As you know. I’m not in the habit of backing out of what I undertake, and I shall write night and day until it is completed.”

    [13:00] Relentless and self-confident: Gould toyed with the idea of college. He visited Rutgers, Yale, Harvard, and Brown. He concluded college was an expensive indulgence. Why bother with college when he could teach himself from books?

    [13:00] I am determined to use all my best energies to accomplish this life's highest possibilities.

    [22:00] The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191)

    [22:00] All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin

    [26:00] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday. (Founders #31)

    [30:00] The good ones know more. — Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy (Founders #82)

    [37:00] The story of how Gould seized Erie shows his brilliance as a financial strategist, his deep understanding of law, a surprising grasp of human nature, and a mastery of political reality.

    [41:00] Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55)

    [42:00] There isn't any secret. I avoid bad luck by being patient. Whenever I'm obliged to get into a fight, I always wait and let the other fellow get tired first.

    [44:00] James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest by Michael P. Malone. (Founders #96)

    [52:00] Edison and Gould shared some traits. Both were born into poverty. Both thought about little beside their obsessions —inventions for Edison, money for Gould. Both worked all the time. Both had spent their childhoods reading anything that came their way.

    [53:00] Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson. (Founders #267)

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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

    #283 Andrew Carnegie

    #283 Andrew Carnegie

    What I learned from rereading The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. 

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    Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  

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    (1:01) 3 part series on Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick:

    Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73) 

    The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie (Founders #74) 

    Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist by Quentin Skrabec Jr. (Founders #75) 

    (2:00) What these guys all had in common is they were hell bent on knowing their business down to the last cent. They were obsessed with having the lowest cost structure in their industry.

    (2:00) Highlights from Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America:

    —Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves.

    —Frick knows his business down to the ground.

    —Frick’s rise from humble beginnings was obviously intriguing to him. It signaled to Carnegie that Frick was another of the fellow “fittest,” and those were the individuals with whom Carnegie sought to align himself.

    —Carnegie would repeat the mantra time and again: profits and prices were cyclical, subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled, and in Carnegie’s view, any savings achieved in the costs of goods were permanent.

    —On this issue the two men were of one mind. Frick had made his way in coke by the same reckoning that Carnegie had in rail and steel: if you knew your costs down to the penny, you were always on firm ground.

    (6:00) Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #115)

    (7:00) A sunny disposition is worth more than a fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine.

    (7:00) The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. (Founders #100)

    (8:00) The most important judge of your life story is yourself.

    (9:00) You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. —Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

    (10:00) Invest in technology, the savings compound, it gives you an advantage over slower moving competitors, and can be the difference between a profit and a loss.

    (17:00) He is working from sunrise to sunset for $1.20 a week and he is ecstatic about being able to help his family avoid poverty. 

    (18:00) Andrew Carnegie had manic levels of optimism.

    (20:00) Do not delay. Do it now. It is a great mistake not to seize the opportunity. Having got myself in, I proposed to stay there if I could.

    (21:00) I felt that my foot was upon the ladder and that I was about to climb.

    (21:00) Lesson from Andrew Carnegie’s early life: Focus on whatever job is in front of you at this very moment and do the best you can. You can never know what opportunities that will unlock in the future.

    (24:00) On the miracle of reading and having free access to a 400 volume personal library: In this way the windows were opened in the walls of my dungeon through which the light of knowledge streamed in. Every day's toil and even the long hours of night service were lightened by the book which I carried about with me and read in the intervals that could be snatched from duty. And the future was made bright by the thought that when Saturday came a new volume could be obtained.

    (26:00) To Colonel James Anderson, Founder of Free Libraries in Western Pennsylvania:

    He opened his Library to working boys and upon Saturday afternoons acted as librarian, thus dedicating not only his books but himself to the noble work. This monument is erected in grateful remembrance by Andrew Carnegie, one of the "working boys" to whom were thus opened the precious treasures of knowledge and imagination through which youth may ascend.

    (28:00) Running Down A Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley

    (36:00) Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258)

    (43:00) This policy is a true secret of success: Uphill work it will be.

    (46:00) Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket.

    (46:00) The most expensive way to pay for anything is with time.

    (48:00) The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it. It is surprising how few men appreciate the enormous dividends derivable from investment in their own business.

    (48:00) My advice to young men would be not only to concentrate their whole time and attention on the one business in life in which they engage, but to put every dollar of their capital into it.

    (51:00) The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow. (Founders #139)

    (52:00) Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean by Les Standiford. (Founders #247)

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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

    #268 John Malone (Cable Cowboy)

    #268 John Malone (Cable Cowboy)

    What I learned from reading Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux.

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    Outline:

    Thread of highlights from Cable Cowboy by @Loadlinefinance

    Malone was stalwart about building long term value through leveraged cash flow. Earnings didn’t count. He wasn’t constrained by quarterly expectations.

    Malone built the pipes, then bought the water that flows through them.

    Malone took spartan operations to another level. Absolutely no bureaucracy. No waste. We don’t believe in staff. Staff are people who second-guess people.

    Malone averaged one M&A deal every two weeks over 15 years. That’s insane. These guys were slinging billion dollar deals like bowls of breakfast cereal.

    One of the best parts of the book is Robichaux’s exploration of Malone’s complex personality. It’s not just a fawning glow piece.

    The beginning of industries are always filled with cowboys, pirates, and misfits.

    This book— by far — has been the most requested book for me to cover on Founders for years.

    Founders episodes on Andrew Carnegie:

    Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73)

    The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #74)

    Founders episodes on JP Morgan:

    The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow (Founders #139)

    The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield (Founders #142)

    Mavericks Lecture: John Malone

    Two Rockefeller podcasts:

    Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248)

    John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254)

    Bob when recruiting John: You've got a great future here. If you can create it.

    Malone's top executives were rough riders.

    In 1972 TCI had $19 million in annual revenue and its debt load was an obscene $132 million.

    Magness learned to listen instead of talk.

    Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. —Michael Jordan Driven From Within by Michael Jordan and Mark Vancil (Founders #213)

    That $2,500 loan turns into hundreds of millions of dollars for his grandsons.

    New employees were asked can you walk 10 miles in 10 below zero weather?

    The cable companies hardly paid any taxes because of the high depreciation on the equipment.

    He skimmed the company's numbers, looked up at Betsy and blurted out, I'm gonna hire the smartest son of a bitch I can find.

    Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher (Founders #242)

    Once you make a guy rich don’t expect him to work hard. Very unusual people do that.

    You can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is an industry developing parallel to the industry that you know about. Jay Gould saw the importance of the telegraph industry in part because telegraph lines were laid next to railraod tracks.

    Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson (Founders #267)

    Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr (Founders #258)

    1. You raise money so you can increase production. 

    2. Use your increased production to get better rates on transportation than other refiners. 

    3. Use your increased profits —because you have better transportation —to buy your competitors. 

    4. You continue to find secret sources of income. — John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke (Founders #254)

    Malone thinks about his industry more than anyone else.

    He blundered early by suggesting in a meeting that Amazon executives who traveled frequently should be permitted to fly business-class. Jeff slammed his hand on the table and said, “That is not how an owner thinks! That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”  — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179)

    Our experience has been that the manager of an already high-cost operation frequently is uncommonly resourceful in finding new ways to add to overhead, while the manager of a tightly-run operation usually continues to find additional methods to curtail costs, even when his costs are already well below those of his competitors. — Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders 1965-2018 by Warren Buffett (Founders #88)

    FedEx was fearful the bank would try to seize the mortgaged planes. The bank had a young officer keeping track of the situation. Every time he showed up at the airport, we would radio the planes not to land. It was all very touchy. — Overnight Success: Federal Express and Frederick Smith, Its Renegade Creator by Vance Trimble (Founders #151)

    How John described this point in his career: I'm the head of a little pipsqueak company in debt up to its ass, a couple million dollars in revenue, and not credit worthy to borrow from a bank. We're barely making it.

    Malone like the mathematics of it. Tax sheltered cash flow could be leveraged to land more loans, to create more tax sheltered cash flow.

    Stay in the game long enough to get lucky.

    Bowerman’s response to other coaches: “As a coach, my heart is always divided between pity for the men they wreck and scorn for how easy they are to beat.” —Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore. (Founders #153)

    "Forget about earnings. That's a priesthood of the accounting profession," he would preach, unrelentingly. "What you're really after is appreciating assets.”

    If you control distribution you get equity in return.

    My Life and Work by Henry Ford (Founders #266)

    Call Me Ted by Ted Turner

    When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this: Pick an industry where the founders of the industry—the founders of the important companies in the industry—are still alive and actively involved.  — The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50)

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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

    #267 Thomas Edison

    #267 Thomas Edison

    What I learned from reading Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson.

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    Outline:  

    He had known how to gather interest, faith, and hope in the success of his projects.

    I think of this episode as part 5 in a 5 part series that started on episode 263:

    #263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg.

    #264 Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. 

    #265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

    #266 My Life and Work by Henry Ford.

    Follow your natural drift. —Charlie Munger

    Warren Buffett: “Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.’ And Bill said the same thing.” —Focus and Finding Your Favorite Problems by Frederik Gieschen

    Focus! A simple thing to say and a nearly impossible thing to do over the long term.

    We have a picture of the boy receiving blow after blow and learning that there was inexplicable cruelty and pain in this world.

    He is working from the time the sun rises till 10 or 11 at night. He is 11 years old.

    He reads the entire library. Every book. All of them.

    At this point in history the telegraph is the leading edge of communication technology in the world.

    My refuge was a Detroit public library. I started with the first book on the bottom shelf and went through the lot one by one. I did not read a few books. I read the library.

    Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley

    Blake Robbins Notes on Runnin’ Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love

    Greatness isn't random. It is earned. If you're going to research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet — that's the good news. The bad news is that you now have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable in any subject you want because it's right there at your fingertips.

    Why his work on the telegraph was so important to everything that happened later in his life: The germs of many ideas and stratagems perfected by him in later years were implanted in his mind when he worked at the telegraph. He described this phase of his life afterward, his mind was in a tumult, besieged by all sorts of ideas and schemes. All the future potentialities of electricity obsessed him night and day. It was then that he dared to hope that he would become an inventor.

    Edison’s insane schedule: Though he had worked up to an early hour of the morning at the telegraph office, Edison began reading the Experimental Researches In Electricity (Faraday’s book) when he returned to his room at 4 A.M. and continued throughout the day that followed, so that he went back to his telegraph without having slept. He was filled with determination to learn all he could.

    All the Thomas Edison episodes:

    The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross (Founders #3)

    Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes. (Founders #83)

    The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Tripby Jeff Guinn. (Founders #190)

    Having one's own shop, working on projects of one’s own choosing, making enough money today so one could do the same tomorrow: These were the modest goals of Thomas Edison when he struck out on his own as full-time inventor and manufacturer. The grand goal was nothing other than enjoying the autonomy of entrepreneur and forestalling a return to the servitude of employee. —The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross

    Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr. (Founders #258)

    It's this idea where you can identify an opportunity because you have deep knowledge about one industry and you see that there is an industry developing  parallel to the industry that you know about. Jay Gould saw the importance of the telegraph industry in part because telegraph lines were laid next to railraod tracks.

    Edison describes the fights between the robber barons as strange financial warfare.

    You should build a company that you actually enjoy working in.

    Don’t make this mistake:

    John Ott who served under Edison for half a century, at the end of his life described the "sacrifices" some of Edison's old co-workers had made, and he commented on their reasons for so doing.

    "My children grew up without knowing their father," he said. "When I did get home at night, which was seldom, they were in bed."

    "Why did you do it?" he was asked.

    "Because Edison made your work interesting. He made me feel that I was making something with him. I wasn't just a workman. And then in those days, we all hoped to get rich with him.”

    Don’t try to sell a new technology to an exisiting monopoly. Western Union was a telegraphy monopoly: He approached Western union people with the idea of reproducing and recording the human voice, but they saw no conceivable use for it!

    Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)

    Passion is infectious. No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin. (Founders #24)

    For more detail on the War of the Currents listen to episode 83 Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes.

    From the book Empire of Light: And so it was that J. Pierpont, Morgan, whose house had been the first in New York to be wired for electricity by Edison but a decade earlier, now erased Edison's name out of corporate existence without even the courtesy of a telegram or a phone call to the great inventor.

    Edison biographer Matthew Josephson wrote, "To Morgan it made little difference so long as it all resulted in a big trustification for which he would be the banker."

    Edison had been, in the vocabulary of the times, Morganized.

    One of Thomas Edison’s favorite books: Toilers of The Sea by Victor Hugo

    “The trouble with other inventors is that they try a few things and quit. I never quit until I get what I want.” —Thomas Edison

    “Remember, nothing that's good works by itself. You've gotta make the damn thing work.” —Thomas Edison

    The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana Kingby Rich Cohen. (Founders #255)

    He (Steve Jobs) was always easy to understand.

    He would either approve a demo, or he would request to see something different next time.

    Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity, what he wanted to happen next.

    He was always trying to ensure the products were as intuitive and straightforward as possible, and he was willing to invest his own time, effort, and influence to see that they were.

    Through looking at demos, asking for specific changes, then reviewing the changed work again later on and giving a final approval before we could ship, Steve could make a product turn out like he wanted.

    Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda (Bonus episode between Founders #110 and #111)

    Charles Kettering is the 20th Century’s Ben Franklin. — Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd (Founders #125)

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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

    #258: Jay Gould (Dark Genius of Wall Street)

    #258: Jay Gould (Dark Genius of Wall Street)

    What I learned from reading Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

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    [2:40] John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254)

    [3:46] From the back cover: Though reviled for more than a century as Wall Street's greatest villain, Jay Gould was in fact its most original creative genius. Gould was the most astute financial and business strategist of his time and also the most widely hated. He was the undisputed master of the nation's railroads and telegraph systems at a time when these were the fastest-growing new technologies of the age. His failed scheme to corner the gold market in 1869 caused the Black Friday panic. He created new ways of manipulating markets, assembling capital, and swallowing his competitors. Many of these methods are now standard practice; others were unique to their circumstances and unrepeatable; some were among the first things prohibited by the SEC when it came into being in the 1930s.

    [5:59] If he was exceptional, it was as a strategist. He had a certain genius. Time and time again, Wall Street never saw him coming.

    [7:22] Jay was in fact the Michelangelo of Wall Street: a genius who crafted financial devices and strategies, and who leveraged existing laws, in stunningly original ways.

    [7:45] His success was profound, his productivity was astonishing, and his motivations and tactics were fascinating.

    [10:54] Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

    [11:11] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son.

    [11:43] All ambitious men want either to please their fathers or to punch them in the goddamn face.

    [15:05] Persistent. Deliberate in his study. Disciplined.

    [16:30] Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung (Founders #117)

    [20:07] Jay stated his outright belief that happiness consisted not so much in indulgence as in self-denial.

    [20:28] I am determined to use all my best energies to accomplish this life's highest possibilities.

    [21:12] I'm going to be rich. I've seen enough to realize what can be accomplished by means of riches, and I tell you I'm going to be rich. I have no immediate plan. I only see the goal. Plans must be formed along the way.

    [23:09] One decent editorial counts for 1000 advertisements. —  Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson and reading A History of Great Inventions by James Dyson. (Founders #200)

    [27:32] Jay would always remain acutely aware of the brevity of one's time on earth.

    [33:02] Great question to ask: Who would I rather be? Jay breaks down the tanner industry and who is in the best position:

    I’ve come to realize that it is the merchants who command the true power in this industry. The tanner appears to take the greatest share of capital, but merely processes that capital, his expenses being extensive, his risk real, and his labor heavy. The shippers deal with the next largest sums, but again have extensive expenses and much work to do. The brokers, meanwhile, take what seems the smallest share but is in fact the largest. Theirs is nearly pure profit made on the backs of the shippers and the tanner, never their hands dirtied.

    [38:39] He was aggressive and expansionist by temperament.

    [46:10] There are magician’s skills to be learned on Wall Street and I mean to learn them.

    [46:51] He fixated on the business and his own future and he appears to have cared little about the wider world.

    [47:10] He seemed to have approached all things with a machine like intensity that some found hard to take.

    [48:40] As I learned time and again, success in business often rests on a minute reading of the regulations that  impact your business. — Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. (Founders #188)

    [50:46] Action was his hobby.

    [50:48] He was relentless in his efforts to bring about the accomplishment of those things which he set about to do.

    [57:16] What finding your life’s work sounds like:

    We are at a moment where there is a particular, inevitable future waiting to be made.

    I see things very, very clearly. I feel inspired with an artist's conception. My road is laid out before me in the plainest of ways.

    He felt as if “all the wheels” had finally been installed on his life.

    Not only did he have professional focus, "but also the meaning that is family: a wife and child to fight wars and build castles for.

    Now that I am at this place, it is a puzzlement to me how I endured before. Everything prior seems to have been boxing in the dark, scraping without reason.

    Now I have my road to walk and my reason for walking it. Now the pieces fit, and this thing ambition is no longer blind but divine, a true and noble and necessary path."

    [58:33] Work and family would remain his two hallmarks to the end of his days.

    [59:56] He only wanted to be around A Players: Jay's abilities as an entrepreneurial talent scout, selecting the natural leaders from among the naturally led, the innovators from among the drones, would loom large in the making of his fortune.

    [1:04:18] No one could have guessed that these two unknowns would soon be notorious as the all time greatest tag team ever to wrestle Wall Street to its knees.

    [1:05:56] Both men (Fisk and Gould) had an inexhaustible capacity for work and both were unusually intelligent. They made a formidable combination when they joined forces.

    [1:07:51] The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations by Larry Tye. (Founders #256)

    [1:18:14] It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. —Warren Buffett

    [1:25:51] Things are not as they appear from the outside. —John D. Rockefeller

    [1:29:16]  Big Brown: The Untold Story of UPS by Greg Niemann. (Founders #192)

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    — Gareth

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