jp morgan

What I learned from reading Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses by David Landes.

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Listen to Invest Like the Best #292 David Senra: Passion and Pain. 

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(4:25) Success causes failure. As the family develops power and prestige, the heirs find many interesting and amusing things to do rather than run their business.

(6:00) Those on the margins often come to control the center.

(9:00) Great industrial leaders are always fanatically committed to their jobs. They are not lazy, or amateurs. — Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #306)

(9:50) For many of the great founders “Appetite comes with eating.”

(11:00)

Rothschild episodes:

Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild by Amos Elon. (Founders #197)

The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets by Niall Ferguson. (Founders #198)

JP Morgan episodes:

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

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

Rockefeller episodes:

Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller. (Founders #148)

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

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

(13:30) Mayer Rothschild thought that long term relationships were more valuable than immediate profit.

(15:45) Nathan Rothschild has extreme levels of self belief: When his prospective father-in-law asked for proof of his prospects, Nathan told him that if he was concerned about having his daughters provided for, he might just as well give them all to Nathan, and be done with it.

(19:00) The Rothschilds developed the technique of absolute direction to perfection.

(21:15) Wal-Mart stock is staying right where it is. We don’t need the money. We don’t need to buy a yacht. And thank goodness we never thought we had to go out and buy anything like an island. We just don’t have those lands of needs or ambitions, which wreck a lot of companies when they get along in years. Some families sell their stock off a little at a time to live high, and then—boom—somebody takes them over, and it all goes down the drain. One of the real reasons I’m writing this book is so my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will read it years from now and know this: If you start any of that foolishness, I’ll come back and haunt you. So don’t even think about it. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)

(26:00) If you want to build a family dynasty you need to have a bunch of kids. This is the number one factor for increasing the chance that your family dynasty outlives you.

(29:45) Larry Ellison didn’t have the methodical relentlessness that made Bill Gates so formidable and feared. By his own admission, Ellison was not an obsessive grinder like Gates: “I am a sprinter. I rest, I sprint, I rest, I sprint again.” Ellison had a reputation for being easily bored by the process of running a business and often took time off, leaving the shop to senior colleagues. — Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds. (Founders #124)

(36:13) A man always has two reasons for the things he does, a good one, and the real one. — J.P. Morgan

(38:00) Andrew Carnegie celebrated too quickly. He later admitted to Morgan that he had sold out too cheap, by $100 million. Morgan replied, “Very likely, Andrew.” — The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield. (Founders #142)

(38:35) Henry Villard had come to Morgan for help in taking over Edison's company. This was a mistake. Morgan was not by nature, a helper. He was a driver. He arranged a counter coup.

(41:45) Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. (Founders #278)

(43:30) “It is impossible to create an innovative product unless you do it yourself, pay attention to every detail, and then test it exhaustively. Never entrust the creation of a product to others, for that will inevitably lead to failure and cause you deep regret.”

—Sakichi Toyada

(45:00) You should make an effort to make something that will benefit society.

(45:30) Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary by Robert Price. (Founders #304)

(48:50) Mailman is a Gmail plugin that allows you to control when and what emails should land in your inbox. https://www.mailmanhq.com

(58:30)  Rockefeller believed that he would be rich and he believed that this was because God wanted him to be.

(58:45) Rockefeller’s competitors and associates were amateurs by comparison, and he saw them for what they were.

(1:01:00) Published railway tariffs were for the small man. They were not for major shippers who could play one railroad against another while promising steady cargo. (Rockefeller’s initial edge)

(1:03:15) His clincher was to offer the victim a look at the books of Standard. A potential seller was dumbfounded to learn that standard was able to sell at less than his own cost of production. They could kill him whenever they pleased.

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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

What I learned from rereading Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes

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Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  and check out these great episodes: 

#137 Bill Gurley: All Things Business and Investing
#88 Sam Hinkie: Data, Decisions, and Basketball
#204 Sam Hinkie: Find Your People

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[0:01] Frick had been the man Carnegie trusted above all others to manage the affairs of Carnegie Steel.

[2:00] Carnegie had delegated the job of holding the line on wages and other demands to Frick—a Patton to Carnegie's FDR.

[3:00] The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie.  (Founders #283)

[5:00] Here's a starter pack of essentials  for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making. —Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters (Founders #282)

[7:00] In less than half a century the United States had been transformed―from a largely agrarian and underdeveloped federation of competing interests, to a relatively cohesive economic juggernaut. The age of the Founding Fathers was over. The Age of the Titans had begun.

[12:00] By 1863 Carnegie was earning more than $45,000 a year from this and all his other investments, compared with a mere $2,400 from his railroad salary. Yet he understood that it was the contacts he made and the information he derived from his association with the railroad that made everything else possible.

[13:00] More control. Less costs. More profit.

[15:00] Technology is just a better way to do something: As a result of the process for transforming iron to steel that bore his name (Bessemer), a quantity of steel that might formerly have taken as long as two weeks to produce could now be made in fifteen minutes.

[17:00] Carnegie starts his company during a financial panic. The best time to expand is when no one else dares to take the risk.

[20:00] Already the best but still wants to do better: Even his key employees were not spared Carnegie's heavy-handed management style. To almost every positive report Carnegie's response was "Good, but let us do better."

[21:00] Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves.

[21:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140)

[22:00] He could make steel more efficiently than any of them.

[24:00] Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist by Quentin Skrabec Jr. (Founders #75)

[24:00] Like Rockefeller, Henry Clay Frick used a lot of borrowed money to get his start in the coke business. There was a line in one of Rockefeller’s biographies where it said “he was the greatest borrower I’ve ever seen.”

[26:00] Frick knew his business down to the ground.

[26:00] LIke Carnegie, Frick expands his business during an economic panic. Frick, who would later recall this as one of the most grueling times in his life, proved as undaunted in the face of adversity as Carnegie had been.

[34:00] Carneige was accustomed to obedience from his subordinates, but if he expected unquestioned subservience from Henry Frick, he had gravely miscalculated.

[36:00] Frick was no puppet, but rather a man willing to take considerable risks in defense of his principles.

[37:00] Frick had ambition, a singleness of purpose, and a lack of self—doubt that even Carneige envied.

[38:00] 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.

[39:00] 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.

[39:00] Frick had always understood how essential new technologies were in driving costs down. Cost control became nearly an obsession.

[47:00] [Frick was shot] Only after he was finished with his day’s work did Frick permit himself to be carried from the office to an ambulance.

[49:00] You must not allow anything to discourage you in the least. Even if things do not go well for some time to come, or even if they should get much worse. Just keep at it, doing the best you can. Do not allow the fact that you are not getting along as well as you would like to lead you to put yourself in a compromising position.

[1:03:00] Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes. (Founders #83)

[1:04:00] J.P. Morgan understood the folly of a long-term battle with the Carnegie Company, a firm that controlled its own sources of raw materials, transport, and manufacture, and that was far more deeply capitalized than his or any other of the upstarts. They might stay in the game for a while, and they might put a dent in Carnegie's armor, but in the end, Carnegie would run them into the ground, every one.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes

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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

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

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes

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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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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes

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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

What I learned from reading Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush.

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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Outline: 

Pieces of the Action offers his hard-won lessons on how to operate and manage effectively within complex organizations and drive ambitious, unprecedented programs to fruition.

Stripe Press Books:

The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop

The Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993 by Jordan Mechner.] 

Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary

— Any exploration of the institutions that shape how we do research, generate discoveries, create inventions, and turn ideas into innovations inevitably leads back to Vannevar Bush.

— No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush.

— That’s why I'm going to encourage you to order this book —because when you pick it up and you read it —you're reading the words of an 80 year old genius. One of the most formidable and accomplished people that has ever lived— laying out what he learned over his six decade long career.

— A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95)

— Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing by Thierry Bardini

— I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug Engelbart’s ideas. —  The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #157)

— Bush points out that tipping points often rest with far-seeing, energetic individuals. We can be those individuals.

— I went into this book with little more than a name and came out with the closest thing to a mentor someone you've never met can be.

— We are not the first to face problems, and as we face them we can hold our heads high. In such spirit was this book written.

The essence of civilization is the transmission of the findings of each generation to the next.

This is not a call for optimism, it is a call for determination.

It is pleasant to turn to situations where conservatism or lethargy were overcome by farseeing, energetic individuals.

People are really a power law and that the best ones can change everything. —Sam Hinkie

There should never be, throughout an organization, any doubt as to where authority for making decisions resides, or any doubt that they will be promptly made.

You can drive great people by making the speed of decision making really slow. Why would great people stay in an organization where they can't get things done? They look around after a while, and they're, like, "Look, I love the mission, but I can't get my job done because our speed of decision making is too slow." — Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos by Jeff Bezos and Walter Isaacson.(Founders #155)

Rigid lines of authority do not produce the best innovations.

Research projects flowered in pockets all around the company, many of them without Steve's blessing or even awareness.

They'd come to Steve's attention only if one of his key managers decided that the project or technology showed real potential.

In that case, Steve would check it out, and the information he'd glean would go into the learning machine that was his brain. Sometimes that's where it would sit, and nothing would happen. Sometimes, on the other hand, he'd concoct a way to combine it with something else he'd seen, or perhaps to twist it in a way to benefit an entirely different project altogether.

This was one of his great talents, the ability to synthesize separate developments and technologies into something previously unimaginable. —Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (Founders #265)

He was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work.  —Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. (Founders #135)

Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. (Founders #143)

If a man is a good judge of men, he can go far on that skill alone.

All the past episodes mentioned by Vannevar Bush in this book:

General Leslie Groves: The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215)

J. Robert Oppenheimer: The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb by James Kunetka. (Founders #215)

Alfred Lee Loomis: Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. (Founders #143)

J.P. 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)

Orville Wright: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. (Founders #239)

Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone. (Founders #241)

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

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

Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66)

Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd (Founders #125)

Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bellby Charlotte Gray. (Founders #138)

Difficulties are often encountered in bringing an invention into production and use.

An invention has some of the characteristics of a poem.It is said that a poet may derive real joy out of making a poem, even if it is never published, even if he does not recite it to his friends, even if it is not a very good poem. No doubt, one has to be a poet to understand this.In the same way, an inventor can derive real satisfaction out of making an invention, even if he never expects to make a nickel out of it, even if he knows it is a bit foolish, provided he feels it involves ingenuity and insight. An inventor invents because he cannot help it, and also because he gets quiet fun out of doing so. Sometimes he even makes money at it, but not by himself. One has to be an inventor to understand this. One evening in Dayton, I dined alone with Orville Wright. During a long evening, we discussed inventions we had made that had never amounted to anything. He took me up to the attic and showed me models of various weird gadgets. I had plenty of similar efforts to tell him about, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Neither of us would have thus spilled things except to a fellow practitioner, one who had enjoyed the elation of creation and who knew that such elation is, to a true devotee, independent of practical results.So it is also, I understand, with poets.

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

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)

If a company operates only under patents it owns, and infringes on no others, its monopoly should not be disturbed, and the courts so hold. An excellent example is Polaroid Corporation. Founded by Edwin Land, one of the most ingenious men I ever knew (and also one of the wisest), it has grown and prospered because of his inventions and those of his team.

I came to the realization that they knew more about the subject than I did. In some ways, this was not strange. They were concentrating on it and I was getting involved in other things.

P.T. Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson. (Founders #137)

We make progress, lots of progress, in nearly every intellectual field, only to find that the more we probe, the faster our field of ignorance expands.

All the books from Stripe Press

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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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

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

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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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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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Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

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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

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

What I learned from reading Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger.

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[1:26]  I can be extremely stubborn when I have a hunch about something.

[3:31] I knew all too well that markets can turn on a dime.

[5:40] Money that had once flowed freely dried up over night.

[6:41] I always listened to other people's ideas because that is how you happen upon the good ones.

[6:46] Logic is no match for bureaucracy.

[7:33] This ruthless industry has created far more bankruptcies than it has billionaires. Saying no is the most important judgment that you make.

[9:00] Time to Make the Donuts: The Founder of Dunkin Donuts Shares an American Journey (Founders #231)

[9:09] Sometimes the best lessons that you learn in life are from what you discover in the weaknesses of otherwise very good people.

[15:54] My father was terrible with money. His knack of mismanaging it, losing it, or not making it in the first place was an incredible source of stress within our family.

[19:09] The constant question mark that was my parents's checkbook balance made a lasting impression.

[24:31] His pride in my abilities formed the basis of the self-confidence that allowed me to start businesses, sell books, make crazy friends, and love women at an age when most others were busy with their homework.

[29:40]  The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King (Founders #37)

[30:12] I see opportunity where others saw nothing.

[31:34] He doesn't dilly-dally. This guy moves fast. It's not like I proved it once, let me try two or three times. He is like it worked once, it's gotta work over and over again, and he immediately starts to scale it.

[37:40] Don’t interrupt the compounding:  I was skating on razor thin margins that a busted toilet could threaten. But I prefer to remain on the edge as I kept my buildings running rather than sell any of them before they grew to the much higher value that I had a hunch they would one day achieve.

[40:45] The idea that builds his empire: By co-oping I would be dealing with tens of thousands of dollars in sales, rather than hundreds of dollars in rents.

[41:58] Once something works don't dilly dally. Go as fast as you possibly can.

[43:08] Lots of folks thought what I was doing was insane.

[43:17] I knew something that the market had not yet fully embraced.

[47:06] My advice to those with expanding businesses is that they must first make a decision about how they want to allocate their time and structure their business so that the balance reflects that.

[49:33] Children require attention and involvement. This takes you out of your self orientation and makes you invest in another person who can only pay you in one currency: Love.

[50:09]  If anyone had asked me in 1990 what the chances of my business survival was I would have said 1 in 100. I still consider it a miracle that we didn't go bankrupt.

[53:12] The main lesson is never delay discomfort. Waiting or ignoring a problem never solves it. Just run towards it.

[55:36] Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Founders #30)

[56:27] Every parent’s worst nightmare.

[1:06:25] Disaster usually rises when short-term profit takes precedence over lasting value creation.

[1:08:21] I don't pick investments. I pick jockeys, not horses.

[1:10:31] Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II (Founders #143)

[1:10:52] The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age (Founders #103)

[1:13:52]  Real security comes from adaptability.

[1:13:59]  Independent thinking in its simplest forms means not assuming that the status quo was the best answer, the right answer, or the most effective answer.

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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

What I learned from rereading The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.

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[3:40] Relentlessly Resourceful by Paul Graham

[4:11] If I were running a startup, this would be the phrase I'd tape to the mirror. "Make something people want" is the destination, but "Be relentlessly resourceful" is how you get there.

[5:35] Everybody engaged in complicated work needs colleagues. Just the discipline of having to put your thoughts in order with somebody else is a very useful thing. —Charlie Munger

[6:44] No bird soars in a calm.

[10:30] Neither ever chose to be anything other than himself.

[11:36] Wilbur was a little bothered by what others might be thinking or saying.

[11:46] What the two had in common above all was a unity of purpose and unyielding determination.

[15:09] Every mind should be true to itself —should think, investigate and conclude for itself.

[17:53] My Life in Advertising (Founders #170)

[19:33] Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace (Founders #174)

[19:39] Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire (Founders #140)

[23:56] I wish to avail myself of all that is already known.

[30:32] Like the inspiring lectures of a great professor, the book had opened his eyes and started him thinking in ways he never had.

[34:29] In no way did any of this discourage or deter Wilbur and Orville Wright, any more than the fact that they had had no college education, no formal technical training, no experience working with anyone other than themselves, no friends in high places, no financial backers, no government subsidies, and little money of their own. Or the entirely real possibility that at some point, like Otto Lilienthal, they could be killed.

[36:07] When once this idea has invaded the brain it possesses it exclusively.

[38:23] I’ve never found anybody that didn’t want to help me if I asked them for help. I called up Bill Hewlett when I was 12 years old. He answered the phone himself. I told him I wanted to build a frequency counter. I asked if he had any spare parts I could have. He laughed. He gave me the parts. And he gave me a summer job at HP working on the assembly line putting together frequency counters. I have never found anyone who said no, or hung up the phone. I just ask. Most people never pick up the phone and call. And that is what separates the people who do things, versus the people who just dream about them. You have to act. —Steve Jobs

[41:47] You wanted to start a company. You knew that it was going to be hard. What are you complaining for?

[42:17] Jay Z: Decoded (Founders #238)

[42:56] They had their whole heart and soul in what they were doing.

[46:28] You should follow your energy.

[53:49] The Wright brothers have blinders on mentality. They don't care what other people say. They just say I'm working at this. I don't care what other people think.

[54:16] The brothers proceeded entirely on their own and in their own way.

[58:21] This is the blueprint they are using: Test. Iterate. Test. Iterate. Work long hours. Concentrate and ignore the naysayers.

[1:00:31] Wilbur was always ready to jump into an argument with both sleeves rolled up. He believed in a good scrap. He believed it brought out new ways of looking at things and helped round off corners.

[1:00:57] Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire (Founders #180)

[1:02:26] Pour gasoline on promising sparks.

[1:04:14] It is very bad policy to ask one flying machine man, about the experiments of another, because every flying machine man thinks that his method is the correct one.

[1:08:46] Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Founders #210)

[1:10:26] They were always thinking of the next thing to do. They didn't waste much time worrying about the past.

[1:11:05] Look around, just about any person or entity achieving at a high level has the same focus. The morning after Tiger Woods rallied to beat Phil Mickelson at the Ford Championship in 2005, he was in the gym by 6:30 to work out. No lights. No cameras. No glitz or glamour. Uncompromised. — Driven From Within (Founders #213)

[1:12:56] They would have to learn to accommodate themselves to the circumstances.

[1:20:42] The best dividends on labor invested have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power.

[1:27:37] He went his way always in his own way.

[1:31:45] A man who works for the immediate present and its immediate rewards is nothing but a fool.

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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

What I learned from reading Decoded by Jay Z. 

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[1:39] I would practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep

[2:10] Even back then I though I was the best.

[2:57] Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography  (Founders #219)

[4:32] Belief becomes before ability.

[5:06] Michael Jordan: The Life (Founders #212)

[5:46] The public praises people for what they practice in private.

[7:28]  Lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers.

[7:50] Sam Walton: Made In America  (Founders #234)

[9:50] He was disappointed in the world, so he built one of his own — from Steven Spielberg: A Biography (Founders #209)

[12:47] The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50)

[13:35] I'm not gonna say that I thought I could get rich from rap, but I could clearly see that it was gonna get bigger before it went away. Way bigger.

[21:10] Over 20 years into his career and dude ain’t changed. He’s got his own vibe. You gotta love him for that. (Rick Rubin)

[21:41] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)

[25:27] I believe you can speak things into existence.

[27:20] Picking the right market is essential.

[29:29] All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason – they run out of money. —Don Valentine 

[29:42] There are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes- you don’t have to go to business school for two years: high gross margins and cash flow. The other financial metrics you can forget. —Don Valentine 

[31:54] I went on the road with Big Daddy Kane for a while. I got an invaluable education watching him perform.

[33:12] Everything I do I learned from the guys who came before me. —Kobe

[34:15] I truly hate having discussions about who would win one on one or fans saying you’d beat Michael. I feel like Yo (puts his hands up like stop. Chill.) What you get from me is from him. I don’t get 5 championships without him because he guided me so much and gave me so much great advice.

[34:50] Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography (Founders #214)

[37:20] This is a classic piece of OG advice. It's amazing how few people actually stick to it.

[38:04] Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success(Founders #56)

[39:04] The key to staying on top of things is to treat everything like it's your first project.

[41:10] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (Founders #233)

[44:46] We (Jay Z, Bono, Quincy Jones) ended up trading stories about the pressure we felt even at this point in our lives.

[45:22] Competition pushes you to become your best self. Jordan said the same thing about Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

[46:43] If you got the heart and the brains you can move up quickly. There's no way to quantify all of this on a spreadsheet, but it's the dream of being the exception.

[52:26] He (Russell Simmons) changed the business style of a whole generation. The whole vibe of startup companies in Silicon Valley with 25 year old CEOs wearing shell toes is Russell's Def Jam style filtered through different industries.

[54:17] Jay Z’s approach is I'm going to find the smartest people that that know more than I do, and I'm gonna learn everything I can from them.

[54:49] He (Russell Simmons) knew that the key to success was believing in the quality of your own product enough to make people do business with you on your terms. He knew that great product was the ultimate advantage in competition.

[55:08] In the end it came down to having a great product and the hustle to move it.

[56:37] Learn how to build and sell and you will be unstoppable. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness (Founders #191)

[58:30] We gave those brands a narrative which is one of the reasons anyone buys anything. To own not just a product, but to become part of a story.

[59:30] The best thing for me to do is to ignore and outperform.

[1:01:16] Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. (Founders #90)

[1:06:01] Tao of Charlie Munger: A Compilation of Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway's Vice Chairman on Life, Business, and the Pursuit of Wealth With Commentary  (Founders #78)

[1:08:42] Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products(Founders #178)

[1:11:46] Long term success is the ultimate goal.

[1:12:58] Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love - Bill Gurley

[1:15:11] I have always used visualization the way athletes do, to conjure reality.

[1:18:14] The thing that distinguished Jordan wasn't just his talent, but his discipline, his laser-like commitment to excellence.

[1:19:42] The gift that Jordan had wasn't just that he was willing to do the work, but he loved doing it because he could feel himself getting stronger and ready for anything. That is the kind of consistency that you can get only by adding dead serious discipline of whatever talent you have.

[1:21:37] when you step outside of school and you have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information. I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it to my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around restless, making connections, mixing, and matching ideas rather than marching in a straight line,

[1:27:41] Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam (Founders #116)

[1:34:15] The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you. That you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.

[1:36:25] There are extreme levels of drive and pain tolerance in the history of entrepreneurship.

[1:38:45] Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Business

[1:42:24]  I love sharp people. Nothing makes me like someone more than intelligence.

[1:44:17] They call it the game, but it's not. You can want success all you want but to get it you can't falter. You can't slip. You can't sleep— one eye open for real and forever.

[1:51:49] The thought that this cannot be life is one that all of us have felt at some point or another. When a bad decision and bad luck and bad situations feel like too much to bear those times. When we think this, this cannot be my story, but facing up to that kind of feeling can be a powerful motivation to change.

[1:54:18] Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself.

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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

What I learned from reading Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Productsby Leander Kahney.

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[4:43] Mike Ive influence on his son’s talent was purely nurturing. They were constantly keeping up a conversation about made-objects and hw they could be made better.

[6:39] I came to realize that what was really important was the care that was put into it. What I really despise is when I sense some carelessness in a product.

[9:24] Take big chances. Pursue a passion. Respect the work.

[11:47] His designs were incredibly simple and elegant. They were usually rather surprising but made complete sense once you saw them. You wondered why we had never seen such a product like that before.

[15:52] Grind it out. You can make something look like magic by going further than most reasonable people would go.

[17:34] The more I learned about this cheeky, almost rebellious company (Apple) the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had a reason for being that wasn’t just about making money.

[24:06] He was completely interested in humanizing technology. What something should be was always the starting point for his designs.

[33:29] Jony was very serious about his work. He had a ferocious intensity about it.

[41:52] It is very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.

[51:38] Jobs didn't want to compete in the broader market for personal computers. These companies competed on price, not features or ease of use. Jobs figured theirs was a race to the bottom. Instead, he argued, there was no reason that well-designed, well-made computers couldn’t command the same market share ad margins as a luxury automobile. A BMW might get you to where you are going in the same way a Chevy that costs half the price, but there will always be those who will pay for the better ride in the sexier car. Why not make only first class-products with high margins so that Apple could continue to develop even better first-class products?

[1:19:25] A great prompt for your thinking: What is your product better than? Are you just making a cheap laptop? Or are you making an iPad? Netbooks accounted for 20% of the laptop market. But Apple never seriously considered making one. “Netbooks aren’t better than anything,” Steve Jobs said at the time. “They’re just cheap laptops.” Jony proposed that the tablets in his lab could be Apple’s answer to the netbook.

[1:20:32] It’s great if you can find what you love to do. Finding it is one thing but then to be able to practice that and be preoccupied with it is another.

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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

What I learned from reading Going for Broke: How Robert Campeau Bankrupted the Retail Industry, Jolted the Junk Bond Market, and Brought the Booming Eighties to a Crashing Halt by John Rothchild.

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[0:01] A stranger comes to Wall Street, borrows nearly $4 billion to acquire a company that six months earlier he'd never even heard of. This transaction is scarcely settled before he's allowed to borrow $7 billion more to acquire a bigger company, making him a major force in retailing, an industry he knows nothing about. 

[11:16] Just a few weeks back, Randall had figured that Bob might be interested in attracting a single Brooks Brothers store into one of his malls. Now in a great imaginary leap, Bob had vaulted himself into the ownership of all forty-five Brooks Brothers stores. 

[15:01 Neither Bob nor his advisers really knew one investment bank from another. "It was basically a matter of looking up names in the Yellow Pages." 

[19:42] Lehman Brothers was impressed by two things: the man's obvious, if naive, enthusiasm; and the absurdity of his proposition. Those who doubted Bob could acquire Allied had grown into a large crowd that included Bob's brain trust, his advisers in Toronto, his Toronto bankers, his advisers from Paine Webber and his lawyer. 

[21:45] This was Citicorp's first clue they were dealing with a volatile character, who soon acquired the in-house nickname Mad Bomber. 

[29:26] The M&A department they established at First Boston helped the firm to a record $125 million in earnings in 1985, a long way from the $1 million it had earned in 1978. 

[33:45] He think's he's destined to take over Allied. His fortune-teller says so. 

[41:28] Bob understood that Citicorp and First Boston, who together had invested in $1.8 billion in the Street Sweep and who were going to make hundreds of millions in fees if this deal closed, were not about to let the deal fall apart because he didn't pony up his equity. They had more of a vested interest in this deal than he did. 

[42:53] His $4.1 billion acquisition included a whopping $612 million in fees, expenses, and financing charges. 

[50:00] The purpose of business is profit, not a platform for your ego. 

[53:24] Bob said, "Don't worry. If somebody lends a dollar, you take it. The ramifications can be handled later. There's always some way out." He goes bankrupt shortly thereafter. 

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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

What I learned from reading Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond.

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[0:01] From a party of one it now counted millions of users on every continent, including Antartica, and even outer space, if you count NASA outposts. Not only was it the most common operating system, but its very development model—an intricate web of its own, encompassing hundreds of thousands of volunteer computer programmers—had grown to become the largest collaborative project in the history of the world. 

[1:08] Revolutionaries aren’t born. Revolutions can’t be planned. Revolutions can’t be managed. Revolutions happen. And sometimes, revolutionaries just get stuck with it. 

[9:05] The Swedish language has no equivalent to the term “dysfunctional family.” As a result of the divorce, we didn’t have a lot of money. Mom would have to pawn her only investment—the single share of stock in the Helsinki telephone company. I remember going with her once and feeling embarrassed about it. Now I’m on the board of directors of the same company.

[10:13] Linus has no handlers, doesn’t listen to voice mail, and rarely responds to email. 

[10:40] I found Linus to be unexpectedly knowledgable about American business history. 

[13:19] Some of the smartest programmers out there are fifteen-year-old kids playing around in their rooms. It’s what I thought sixteen years ago, and I still suspect it’s true. 

[13:46] Everybody has a book that has changed his or her life. As I read the book I started to understand. I got a big enthusiastic jolt. Frankly, it never subsided. I hope you can say the same about something. 

[16:01] An ugly system is one in which there are special interfaces for everything you want to do. Unix is the opposite. It gives you the building blocks that are sufficient for doing everything. That’s what having a clean design is all about. It’s the same with languages. The English language has twenty-six letters and you can build up everything from those letters. Unix comes with a small-is-beautiful philosophy. It has a small set of simple basic building blocks that can be combined into something that allows for infinite complexity of expression. 

[17:39] You should absolutely not dismiss simplicity for something easy. It takes design and good taste to be simple. 

[27:42] You can do something the brute force way, the stupid, grind-the-problem-down-until-it’s-not-a-problem-anymore way, or you can find the right approach and suddenly the problem just goes away. You look at the problem another way, and you have this epiphany: It was only a problem because you were looking at it the wrong way. 

[29:00] That was the point where I almost gave up, thinking it would be too much work and not worth it. 

[50:52] It’s been well established that folks do their best work when they are driven by a passion. When they are having fun. This is as true for playwrights and sculptors and entrepreneurs as it is for software engineers. 

[51:48] Survive. Socialize. Have fun. That’s the progression. And that’s also why we chose “Just For Fun” as the title of this book. Because everything we ever do seems to eventually end up being for our own entertainment. 

[52:02] My theory of the meaning of life doesn’t actually guide you in what you should be doing. At most, it says “Yes, you can fight it, but in the end the ultimate goal of life is to have fun.” 

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth

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What I learned from reading The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth

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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 prepared always for the worst. But the chief lesson is that life is quite literally a battle. And the test is how he responds, whether he sees himself as a helpless victim or decides to fight back. 

[20:56] It was no good wishing to appear like the heroes he worshiped if he made no effort to be like them. 

[21:26] He would charge off ruthlessly in chase of whatever object he had in view.  

[24:48] Father was the shining example of the life he must aspire to; Father was the perfect example of all he himself was not. “Looking back on his life it seems as if mine must be such a weak, useless one in comparison.” He was engulfed by self-about. 

[27:08]  He’s not strong, but he’s all grit. He’ll kill himself before he’ll even say he’s tired. 

[30:01]  He was a rabid competitor in anything he attempted. He was constantly measuring his performance, measuring himself against others. Everybody was a rival, every activity a contest, a personal challenge. 

[34:13] Nothing seemed to intimidate him. Though all of twenty-three, unmistakably the youngest member of the Assembly, he plunged ahead, deferring to no one, making his presence felt.  

[35:33] Hunt and Theodore boarded in the same house. Hunt always knew when it was Theodore returning because Theodore would swing the front door open and be halfway up the stairs before the door swung shut with a bang. 

[41:35] Theodore stood up and in quiet, businesslike fashion flattened a drunken cowboy who, a gun in each hand, had decided to make a laughingstock of him because of his glasses. 

 [43:36] By acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.

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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 Pierpont’s unruly temper made Junius fret unduly about his boy. With granite will, he began to mold Pierpont. 

[23:03] The Rothschilds are mentioned 30 times in this book. They had an influence on how Junius wanted to set up the Morgan family. 

[25:08] Junius lectured Pierpont: Never, under any circumstances, do an action which could be called in question if known to the world. 

[25:55]  The railroads were the Internet of their day: More than just isolated businesses, railroads were the scaffolding on which new worlds would be built. 

[27:41]  Not for the last time, Pierpont contemplated retirement. He would assume tremendous responsibility, then feel oppressed. He never seemed to take great pleasure in his accomplishments. He craved a restful but elusive peace. 

[29:50] He made over $1 million, boasting to Junius: I don’t believe there is another concern in the country that can begin to show such a result. 

[31:19] He believed that he knew how the economy should be ordered and how people should behave. 

[32:24] He had trouble delegating authority and low regard for the intelligence of other people. “The longer I live the more apparent becomes the absence of brains.”

[33:48] Under his stern facade, Junius adored Pierpont; the obsessive grooming was a tacit acknowledgement of his son’s gifts.

[35:36] Pierpont was, by nature, a laconic man. He had no gift for sustained analysis; his genius was in the brief, sudden brainstorm. 

[38:40] Pierpont found Jack soft and rather passive, lacking the sort of gumption he had as a young man. 

[40:40] Pierpont was extremely attentive to details and took pride in the knowledge that he could perform any job in the bank. “I can sit down at any clerk’s desk, take up his work here he left it and go on with it. I don’t like being at any man’s mercy.” He never renounced the founder’s itch to know the most minute details of the business.

[41:31] The years change, but the point always remains the same: Morgan benefits from financial crises. 

[42:14] Virtually every bankrupt railroad east of the Mississippi eventually passed through such reorganization, or morganization, as it was called. The companies’ combined revenues approached an amount equal to half of the U.S. government’s annual receipts. 

[45:22] He has the driving power of a locomotive. He suggested something brutish and uncontrollable, but also something of superhuman strength.

[47:04] Carnegie celebrated too quickly. He later admitted to Morgan that he had sold out too cheap, by $100 million. Morgan replied, “Very likely, Andrew.”  

[52:15]  McKinley’s assassination would be a turning point in Pierpont’s life, for it installed in the presidency Theodore Roosevelt. Book: The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism

[53:05] The 1907 panic was Pierpont’s last hurray. He suddenly functioned as America’s central bank. He saved several trust companies and a leading brokerage house, bailed out New York City, and rescued the Stock Exchange. 

[54:33] Contemporaries saw Morgan as the incarnation of pure will.  

[1:02:39] This was Pierpont in a nutshell: He represented bondholders and expressed their wrath against irresponsible management. 

[1:07:37]  Andrew Carnegie after J. P. Morgan died: And to think he was not a rich man. 

—

“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.”— Gareth

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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 grown from a bounty hunting Hungarian teenager to an American lawmaker.  

[28:54] There are only two or three human stories and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they have never happened before.  

[38:10] He is 30 years old and depressed. In the best of circumstances the loss of one’s only surviving parent inspires self-reflection, for Joseph with no specific profession or even a home, such introspection was demoralizing.  

[40:45] It is hard to understand how much money newspapers made, especially at this time. William Randolph Hearst’s net worth would be the equivalent of $30 billion today.  

[48:34] One did not work with Pulitzer. For him, surely. Against him, often. But not with him.  

[51:44] Pulitzer was extremely ambitious. He was not satisfied to be the 500th best newspaper. He wanted to be number 1.  

[1:06:20] When we think that, a hundred years hence, not one of us now living will be alive to care or to know, to enjoy or to suffer, what does it all amount to? To a puff of smoke which makes a few rings and then disappears into nothingness and yet we make tragedies of our lives, most of us not even making them serious comedies. 

————

“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.”— Gareth

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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, Edwin Land was the original Steve Jobs.  

[8:36] There's a rule that they don't teach you at the Harvard business school. It is, if anything is worth doing it's worth doing to excess. 

[11:22] Steve Jobs: I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics. Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences. And I decided that's what I wanted to do.  

[12:51] In a world full of cooks, Edwin Land was a chef. [Link to The Cook and The Chef: Elon Musk’s Secret Sauce]  

[19:34] Land was asked what he wanted to be when he was younger: I had two goals. To be the world's greatest scientist and to be the world's greatest novelist. 

[21:28] Everyone acknowledged that the future of Polaroid corporation would be determined by what went on in the brain of Edwin Land. 

[22:01] My motto is very personal and may not fit anyone else or any other company. It is: Don't do anything that someone else can do.  

[22:54] Fortunately our company has been one which has been dedicated throughout its life to making only things which others can not make.  

[25:06] Land had far more faith in his own potential, and that of the company he inspired, than did any of the experts looking in from the outside.  

[27:30] Polaroid failed to build a successful company by selling to other businesses: Each [product] would have involved millions of dollars in revenue for the company, but each invention involved a certain degree of transformation of an existing industry controlled by an existing power structure. From this Land realizes he needs to control the relationship with the customer. He realizes he needs to sell directly to the end user. 

[36:16] Edwin Land is inspired by, and learned from, people that came before him. One example of this is Alexander Graham Bell. Edwin Land is not worried about the marketing [of a new product] because Bell went through the same thing: Land apparently lost little sleep over the initial situation, calling to mind that the same sort of reaction had greeted the public introduction of Bell's telephone, 70 years earlier. The telephone had been a dominant symbol in Land's thinking. He began making numerous connections between his camera and the telephone.  

[40:16] Over the years, I have learned that every significant invention has several characteristics. By definition it must be startling, unexpected, and must come into a world that is not prepared for it. If the world were prepared for it, it would not be much of an invention.  

[40:46] It is the public's role to resist [a new invention, a new product/service]. 

[41:29] It took us a lifetime to understand that if we're to make a new commodity —a commodity of beauty —then we must be prepared for the extensive teaching program needed to prepare society for the magnitude of our invention. 

[45:12] Only the individual— and not the large group— can see a part of the world in a totally new and different way.  

[48:08] Land's view is that a company should be scientifically daring and financially conservative. 

[50:30] To understand more about every aspect of light, Edwin Land read every single book on light that was available in the New York City Public Library. That reminded me of one of my favorite lectures ever: Running Down A Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love

[51:59] Land on the problem with formal education: Young people for the most part —unless they are geniuses— after a very short time in college, give up any hope of being individually great. 

[54:16] Among all the components and Land's intellectual arsenal, the chief one seems to be simple concentration.  

—

“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. It's good for you. It's good for Founders. A list of all the books featured on Founders Podcast.

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 price as magazines with 10 times the number of pages. I sold millions of copies around the world. Those magazines have earned me tens of millions of dollars in the last 25 years and are still earning me money today. 

[19:50] If you could turn the clock back for me by 40 years I would willingly give you every penny and every possession I own in return. And I would have the better of the bargain. 

[20:28] If I had my time again—knowing what I know today—I would dedicate myself to making just enough money to live comfortably. 

[21:00] Making money was, and still is, fun. But at one time is wrecked chaos upon my private life. It consumed my waking hours. 

[23:26] Think of fear—not as the King Kong of bogeymen—but as a mare. A mare, after all, is a horse. A horse can be tamed, bridled, saddled, harnessed, and eventually ridden. Harnessing the power of such a creature adds mightily to your own. Thus the nightmare of prospective failure provides you with the very opportunity you are seeking. 

[26:16] There is a lot of money and opportunity in unglamorous industries: One of the richest self-made men I know digs a hole in the ground to dispose of household waste. That's not how his company describes itself in its annual report, but essentially that’s what it does, along with building incineration plants. Glamorous? No. But in a good year, he earns $20 to $30 million. That's a sensational result for a small, wholly owned private company. 

[28:30] Advice John Lennon gave to Felix Dennis: “It won’t do, man. It’s not that you can’t sing. Sure you can do a fair imitation of Chuck Berry, but people don’t pay for imitations. You gotta find your own voice or stick to editing your magazines.” 

[32:26] One of Felix’s lowest moments: The electricity had been turned off in my flat weeks ago. So had the gas. I couldn’t afford to pay the bill. I sat by an open fire, feeding broken furniture I had scavenged from the trash into my living room fireplace. 

[33:00] If you happen to read biographies, as I do (scores of them every year), you will find a thread that runs through almost any story of success against the odds: They don’t give in. 

[34:08] It is my hope that this book will cause you to consider very carefully whether you are truly driven by inner demons to be rich. 

[35:06] This is how I interpret this book. He is writing to an earlier version of himself. 

[40:24] Felix winds up in the hospital. The doctors tell him if you don’t get off the drugs, and the alcohol, and the nightlife, you are going to die. 

[40:44] How Felix describes the person he was in the 80s and 90s: It is especially lethal to a coked up, overweight, cigarette smoking, malt whiskey swilling idiot with too much money who believe they are built of titanium. 

[41:10] On Winston Churchill and the importance of self belief: The iron determination and self belief of this one old man meant more to Britain at that moment than all the other Kings and Queens and her long history.

[44:02] But I do ask that you begin, right now, right at this very moment, to ask yourself whether you believe in yourself. Truly. Do you believe in yourself? Do you? If you do not, and worse still, if you believe you never can believe, then by all means go on reading this book. But take it from me, your only chance of getting rich will come from the lottery or inheritance. If you will not believe in yourself, then why should anyone else? Without self-belief nothing can be accomplished. With it, nothing is impossible. 

[45:35] I may well have been able to put a few hundred million in the bank because I recognized that this getting rich malarkey is just a game. A delusion, if you will. 

[48:19] Ownership is not the most important thing. It is the only thing that counts. 

[54:17] The most important part of the book. I won’t take notes on it. You just have to read it or listen to me read it. 

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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. It's good for you. It's good for Founders. A list of all the books featured on Founders Podcast.

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 building the first commercial relational database system, we had a chance to win.

[26:03] Larry is a sprinter. Not a grinder: Although he always talked about technology and Oracle with passion and intensity, he didn’t have the methodical relentlessness that made Bill Gates so formidable and feared. By his own admission, Ellison was not an obsessive grinder like Gates: “I am a sprinter. I rest, I sprint, I rest, I sprint again.” Ellison had a reputation for being easily bored by the process of running a business and often took time off, leaving the shop to senior colleagues.

[30:55] If you speak out in support of small, unimportant innovations that fly in the face of widely held beliefs—I do it all the time—you are likely to be dismissed as stupid or arrogant, and that’s pretty much the end of it. However, if you defend a really big idea that challenges widely held beliefs, you’re likely to generate a mass of hatred, and you just might pay for it with your life. When Galileo defended Copernicus, he was ridiculed, imprisoned, and then threatened with death unless he recanted. Charles Darwin cautiously postponed publishing On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man for more than twenty years, but that judicious delay did not save him from vicious personal attacks coming from all ranks of contemporary society.

[37:09] Ellison on mistakes he made before the near death experience of Oracle: I was interested in the technology. I wasn’t interested in sales or accounting or legal. If I wasn’t interested in something, I simply ignored it. I just wasn’t paying proper attention to my job. I was doing only the things that interested me. It was the same problem I had in school. But this happened in my forties. I wasn’t a kid anymore.

[38:40] Surviving Oracle’s near death experience made Larry Ellison stronger. It made him happier: After Oracle’s crisis, looking into the abyss and surviving, I felt emotionally strong enough to take a more realistic look at myself. I was tired of striving to be the person I thought I should be. If I was to have any chance at happiness, I had to understand and accept who I really was. 

[42:12] Larry Ellison’s core business philosophy: Larry Ellison says he’s happy only when everyone else thinks he’s wrong. The core of his business philosophy is that you can’t get rich by doing the same thing as everyone else. “In 1977, everyone said I was nuts when I said we were going to build the first commercial relational database. In 1995, everybody said I was nuts when I said that the PC was a ridiculous device — continuously increasing in complexity when it needs to become easier to use and less expensive.”

[50:56] Larry’s great story about how duplication of effort costs Oracle a ton of money.

[53:13] Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives. —Charlie Munger: One of the worst ideas I can remember was when Ray decided we didn’t do enough selling through partners. The sales force convinced him that the way to fix this was to pay more money to the sales force if the deal went through a partner than if the deal came directly to Oracle. For example , if you sold a million - dollar deal directly, Oracle would get a million dollars and you would get a $ 100,000 commission. But if you sold a million - dollar deal through a partner, Oracle would get $ 600,000 and you would get a $ 120,000 commission. Needless to say, our sales force pushed as many deals as they could through partners that year, so the partners were happy. The sales force got higher commission payments for going through partners, so they were happy. The only loser was Oracle.

[57:57] Ellison’s strategy: 1. Pick a fight. 2.Burn the boats: Once I’m finally certain of the right direction, I pick a fight, as I did with Gates. It helps me make my point, and it makes it impossible to do an about—face and go back. Once a course has been plotted, I sail a long way off and burn my boats. It’s win or die.

[1:01:20] Larry Ellison on Bill Gates: Bill and I used to be friends, insofar as Bill has friends. Back in the eighties and early nineties , all the people in the PC software industry hated Bill because they feared Bill. But Oracle didn’t compete with Microsoft very much back then , so we got on pretty well. As I got to know Bill, I developed a great respect for the thoroughness of his thinking and his relentless, remorseless pursuit of industry domination. I found spending time with Bill intellectually interesting but emotionally exhausting; he has absolutely no sense of humor. I think he finds humor an utter waste of time — an unnecessary distraction from the business at hand. I don’t have anything like that kind of focus or single mindedness.

[1:06:13] Larry Ellison on why Larry Ellison does what Larry Ellison does: My sister told me that whenever I got too close to a goal I’d raise the bar for fear of actually clearing it. We’re endlessly curious about our own limits. The process of self—discovery is one of testing and retesting yourself. I won the Sydney—to—Hobart. Can I win the America’s Cup? I’ll find out. The software business is a more difficult test; it’s a much higher stakes game; there are more people playing this game; it’s a lot more interesting game; and it’s a lot more exciting. If I wasn’t doing this, I’m not sure what else I would be doing with my life.

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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.”— Gareth

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What I learned from reading The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. 

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[0:01] I believe it’s much the same in one’s profession: Superb, reliable results take time. 

[4:55] How Jack Dorsey describes The Score Takes Care of Itself: He took at team that was at the bottom and brought them to the top. He focused on the details. He didn’t say you need to win games. He said you need to tuck in your shirts. You need to clean your lockers. This is how we answer the phones here. He set a new standard of performance. 

[6:53] Bill Walsh on his father / What he learned from his early life 

[10:15] Bill Walsh on why should you care about your standard of performance: Pursuing your ambitions, especially those of any magnitude, can be grueling and hazardous, and produce agonizing failure along the way, but achieving those goals is among life’s most gratifying and thrilling experiences. 

[14:15] A great description of the book: Bill Walsh loved to teach. This is his final lecture on leadership. 

[16:20] Bill Walsh built a new culture. He calls it his Standard of Performance. 

[20:30] Make a commitment to be the best version of yourself— even when your current external results may not warrant that belief 

[26:16] The prime directive was not victory  

[28:45] Winners act like winners before their winners  

[32:20] Bill Walsh experiences the entrepreneurial roller coaster 

[37:00] An incredible story about his idea of the west coast offense 

[46:20] Be unswerving in moving towards your goal 

[47:25] Sweat the little details but the right little details 

[49:00] Don’t focus on your competitors —spend that time making yourself better so it is harder for them to compete against you 

[50:00] Don’t let anybody call you a genius / If you sleep on a win you’ll wake up with a loss / Success Disease 

[54:15] Without a healthy ego you’ve got a big problem  

[58:05] There is no mystery to mastery  

[1:03:05] A pretty package will not sell a crappy product  

[1:04:16] Avoid burnout: Can you imagine how burned out you must be to wait fourteen years to return to doing something you love? 

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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