Founders

#128 Henry Leland (Cadillac)

What I learned from reading Master of Precision: Henry Leland by Ottilie Leland and Minnie Dubbs Millbrook. ---- [0:17] Henry Leland laid the foundation for the future of American industry. He had established manufacturing procedures never previously so effectively employed and took a position of leadership. In the next decades would be comparable in statute with, although quite different from, William Durant, Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan.  [0:40] It should be pointed out that Leland's contribution to the development of the motor car was the establishment of high standards of manufacturing.  [2:33] Henry Leland always got deep satisfaction out of anything which was made right. He had—in high degree—the pride of craftsmanship that had marked the master workman down the centuries.  [3:07] He developed the Cadillac, the self-starter, The Lincoln car, held up high standards of performance for the industry, and established the first notable school of automotive mechanics.  [4:05] A lesson Henry Leland learned from his Father: He bequeathed a singularly trustful disposition to his son, who could never believe that other men were not inherently as good and honorable as he himself. He was several times to pay a stiff penalty for this faith in human nature.  [4:56] A lesson Henry Leland learned from his Mother: “There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. Hunt for the right way and then go ahead.” This simple admonition was to become a creed that would govern all of his actions as he rose in industry.  [6:10] He lives through the beginning of two industries in his life: Manufacturing in general and the automobile industry in specific.  [7:24] Henry Leland was not sure he wanted to become an apprentice machinist. The hours were long—10 hour days, 6 days a week—and most factories did not pay high wages. Moreover, farming was still the traditional American operation, which offered a possibility of independence and did not shut a man indoors with noisy machinery.  [9:06] Henry was already discovering the education that could be mined from books. At first, the fond of reading, he had been attracted by cheap adventure novels, which he borrowed from the local library. One night a stranger there, seeing what he was taking out exclaimed, “Surely don't read that trash!” Henry replied, “What better use can I make of my time than to read?” The stranger answered, “It makes a lot of difference what you read,” and then suggested some better books. The episode was a revelation to young Leland and he was soon reading volumes that acquainted him with American genius in literature, government and invention.  [9:55] Abraham Lincoln was his idol. Lincoln Motor Company—which Henry founds when he is in his 70s— is named after Abraham Lincoln. If we want to continue the conversation that Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison were having [about who is history’s greatest person] in The Billionaire and The Mechanic—Jobs said Gandhi. Ellison said Napoleon. Leland’s answer would be Abraham Lincoln.  [12:05] Even if he experienced a financial penalty, Henry Leland wanted to do the honorable thing.  [12:44] Henry wanted to work where he could render the greatest service to his country [during The Civil War]. He had learned that the U.S. Armory needed expert mechanics, and he had determined to help with war production. The particular lesson he learned in the Armory was the value of order and neatness in a work shop. Everything was clean and systematic, a state of affairs not common in early factories.  [14:37] Precision was his god. His personal work was outstanding.  [14:56] The discipline and subordination of factory life ran counter to American individualism.  [16:31] A nervous breakdown drove him from the shop to the far for rest.  [16:48] His mind, independent and teaming with ideas, made it difficult for him to work with others. He longed for a business in which he might put his theories to work but he had no money, a family to support, and his father and mother were in need of aid.  [20:00] The manufacture of the hair clippers [which he invented and brought to market against the opposition of his bosses] was spirited and rose to an output as much as 300 daily. For this I received a ‘Thank you’ and 50 cents a day more in my pay envelope. That was on of the times I thought I ought to quit making other men rich and go to work for myself.  [20:41] Henry Leland was good at sales by not trying to be good at sales. He wanted to educate people. He was gifted at selling because he gave the customer useful advice.  [22:26] As usual there was little money left over for saving. And yet Henry Leland was more hopeful of going into business for himself than ever before. He had brought his skill and experience to the service of the ambitious industrialists of the west and they had shown him in return the financial method that had put them in business. Each had organized a company by selling stock. “Eureka,” said Henry Leland to himself, “I have found it,” for he had great experience and he was sure he could raise a little money. His dream of an independent business might come true after all.  [23:40] Henry Leland had a lifetime of experience before he starts his first company. He was 47 years old. He had been working in factories since he was a teenager.  [25:03] Leland was a missionary for precision. He held people to high standards.  [26:07] Horace Dodge trained directly under Leland for two years before starting a machine shop of his own.  [27:45] The building up of a business, which expands rapidly and must be financed primarily from its own earnings, is often a discouraging process.  [27:56] How Henry Leland advertised the services of his foundry: We appeal for business only to those who want the best. We do not attempt to compete with the average foundry on price. We believe no other foundry can successfully compete with us on quality.  [29:57] “There always was and there always will be conflict between Good and Good Enough. In opening up a new business one can count on meeting resistance to a high standard of workmanship. It is easy to get cooperation for mediocre work, but one must sweat blood for a chance to produce a superior product.” —Henry Leland  [35:10] Henry Leland founds Cadillac when he is almost 60 years old: Henry Leland now embarked on the great adventure of his life; he would play an important role in the organization of Detroit’s first successful automobile company.  [35:27] Cadillac was making $2 million per year in profit when Billy Durant buys Cadillac for $4.5 million.  [37:21] Other men had built cars for many reasons—for the fascination of creation, for the profits in it—but Henry Leland agreed to build a car because he did not want to see a pet engine unappreciated and unused.  [38:53] Henry Leland was an expert in a field where experts were still uncommon.  [41:13] We buy the best parts we can find. I have always contended price should be considered last by a manufacturer in selecting materials for his product.  [45:10] His theory was that the one essential ingredient of success was mastery of one’s self as well as one’s job.  [47:57] A story: If you do the right thing people will remember.  [52:10] Henry Leland is 77 years old when he starts Lincoln Motor Company  [54:21] Henry Leland did not believe in quitting: It was manifestly impossible for the Lelands, men of tender heart and unswerving integrity, to take a cold, dispassionate view of the financial straits of the Lincoln Company. Many automobile companies had had money troubles; some had undergone a variety of reorganizations, combinations and other stratagems to keep alive and their directors and management had not been considered dishonest or insensible of their trust even though investors may have lost a portion or all of their equity. But such a course was unthinkable for the Lelands; as long as there was breath in their bodies they would oppose it. They had invested everything they owned in the company.  [1:01:05] Henry Ford and Henry Leland were like oil and water: We see a difference in management culture. Leland led from the front. Ford beat you down from above.  [1:02:27] How Ford management described the Lincoln organization: The whole organization is unusually harmonious and uniformly competent.  [1:05:40] A letter from Henry Leland to Henry Ford: I cannot but feel certain that you intended to keep those pledges when you made them to me personally and, while I cannot understand the long delay on your part, I still hope and trust that you will not shake my life long faith in humanity.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#127 Larry Ellison (Oracle)

What I learned from reading The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson ---- [1:06]  You want to know what I think about Larry Ellison? Well, I suppose he had some private sort of greatness but he kept it to himself. He never gave himself away. He never gave anything away. He just left you a tip. He had a generous mind. I don’t suppose anybody ever had so many opinions, but he never believed in anything except Larry Ellison.  [1:45] That was the way Ellison’s mind worked. He was like a search engine gone haywire.  [3:01] I asked Ellison how he had seen his adult life when he was a kid. What he thought was going to happen to him. “You mean did I anticipate becoming the fifth wealthiest person in the United States? No. This is all kind of surreal. I don’t even believe it. When I look around I say this must be something out of a dream.”  [3:57] Ellison is the Charles Foster Kane of the technological age. He is bright, brash, optimistic, and immensely appealing, yet somehow incomplete.  [4:31] He worked in the computer industry for several years but never had a job that suited what he saw as his superior intellectual gifts.  [6:08] The stockholder who benefited the most from Oracle’s performance was Larry Ellison, exactly what he intended. Ellison started the company because he wanted to be his own boss. And he stayed in control throughout his tenure at Oracle always holding onto enough stock that his power and authority could never be seriously challenged.  [7:57] To him there was now power greater than the human mind.  [8:23] What Larry reminds me of is a truth that Benjamin Franklin hit on 250 years ago. He says his mind was much improved by all the reading he did. There were very tangible results in Benjamin Franklin’s life when people found his conversations more enjoyable because he was a more interesting person to talk to—that led him being able to raise money for his business. It helped him close sales. Larry Ellison is very much the same way.  [8:53] When hiring, Ellison valued intelligence more than experience. He often looked for unruly geniuses instead of solid, steady workers.  [10:52] If he hadn’t made me rich, I’d probably hate him because he is obnoxious. He is not nice to people.  [12:39] He was capable of chilling selfishness and inspiring generosity. He could dazzle people with his insights and madden them with his lies. He was a fundamentally shy man who could delight audiences with his colorful speeches. He was known for his healthy ego and often seemed deeply insecure. Many people learned to accept Ellison’s contradictory nature.  [14:01] In 1970 sales of packaged computer programs amounted to only $70 million for the entire year.  [15:55] There is a book called The HP Way. I did a podcast on it (Founders #29)  [16:20] The Oracle Way was simply to win. How that goal was achieved was secondary.  [17:18] Ellison’s early life left a lot to be desired. He was never very happy with the humdrum facts of his life so he changed them. Beginning when he was a child, and continuing into his days in the Forbes 400, Ellison lived partly in a world of his own invention.  [18:15] He wasn’t going to be smothered by the dreary circumstances of his life. He was going to leap over them.  [20:13] Larry reads a lot of biographies. One person he admired the most was Winston Churchill. He had a lot in common with Churchill. Both were mediocre students. Both desperately sought the approval of their fathers to no avail. And both were witty, insatiably curious, and charming when it suited them. Reading about Churchill reassured him that even ‘gods have moments of insecurity.’  [22:30] A description of Larry in his mid twenties: Ellison was extremely hard on himself. He had a mental image of where he should be and what he should be and he was not able to attain it.  [25:19] He has incredible intelligence and he applies it with incredible intensity.  [26:44] The subject he liked best was himself. He was forever telling people how wonderful he was, how smart he was, and how rich he was going to be.  [29:50] For Ellison Oracle was a holy mission.  [30:33] There was a problem. A sheet rock wall stood between the offices and the computer room. Scott said, “Larry, we need to hook up these terminals. How are we going to hook them up?” “I'll show you how.” Ellison replied. He grabbed a hammer and smashed a hole through the wall. Bruce Scott came to believe that Ellison's entire business philosophy could be summed up in that single act. Find a way or make one. Just do it.  [32:41] Ellison could not have dreamed up a more amiable and helpful competitor than IBM. Think of the marketing of relational technology as a race, with Ellison and IBM as two of the main entrants. IBM taught Ellison to walk, bought him a pair of track shoes, trained him as a sprinter, and then gave him a big head start. How could he lose?  [35:14] He was practicing. He was working. He knew there was a problem and he fixed it.  [35:47] The idea that somebody else might take away Oracle's business was poison to Ellison. He understood the importance of locking up a large share of the market early. “How much does it cost Pepsi to get one half of a percent of the market from Coke once the market has been established?” he once asked rhetorically. “It's very expensive. This market is being established. If we don't run as hard as we can, as fast as we can, and then do it again twice as fast, it’ll be cost prohibitive for us to increase market share.”  [36:14] Larry put marketing first and everything else second. Average technology and good marketing beat good technology and average marketing every day.  [39:17] My view is that there are only a handful of things that are really important and you should devote all of your time to those things and forget everything else.  [40:46] I was not terribly forgiving of mediocrity. I was completely intolerant of a lack of effort. And I was fairly brutal in the way I expressed myself.  [41:16] Kobe Bryant: I had issues or problems with the people who don’t demand excellence from themselves. I won’t tolerate that.  [42:30] The guy that was in charge of Oracle’s advertising in the early days of the company: My ads attack like a pack of speed crazed wolverines and have the same general effect on your competition that a full moon does on a werewolf.  [44:00] Larry fundamentally believed that his company was going to be more important than IBM. You can’t imagine how far fetched those ideas sounded. He would say he was here to become the largest software company in the world. People were taken aback.  [45:32] Larry goes against consensus. Every single on of his advisors told him sell equity, sell equity, sell equity. And Larry just had a fundamental belief that that would be a mistake because the equity is going to be worth a lot more in the future.  [46:21] There are only two kinds of people in the world to Larry. Those who are on his team and those who are his enemies. There is no middle ground.  [48:03] Even when he was feeling his worst Ellison remained an optimist. A man who couldn’t help looking forward. He lived in the future.  [49:34] He was terrified he would fail, confirming his father’s dark predictions about him. There was a note in his voice that you didn’t usually hear with him—just scared, worried.  [56:30] I am very competitive, and sometimes, when somebody does something really great, I get upset because I just feel like that isn’t me. And my reaction to Steve [Jobs] wasn’t competitive at all. I felt what he had done was so wonderful, and I was so proud of him, and I love him so much, it was almost as if I had done it. I didn’t feel the least bit competitive. The wonderful thing about loving somebody else is that it can expand your ego in the best sense. If they do something great, you feel terrific about it.  [57:38] The only things that are important in our lives are love and work. Not necessarily in that order. We work because work is an act of creation. We identify with it. Both love and work conspire to deliver some kind of happiness. If we can get reasonably good at both of them, we are in really great shape.  [58:21] He’s got the same problem the rest of us have. He has to engage in an enlightened pursuit of happiness. To figure out what makes him happy. Human beings are builders. He is going to have to find something he really wants to build. He is going to have to have some idea and create something out of that idea.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#126: Larry Ellison (The Billionaire and the Mechanic)

What I learned from reading The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the America’s Cup, Twice by Julian Guthrie. ---- [0:01] Larry Ellison to Steve Jobs: I’m talking about greatness, about taking a lever to the world and moving it. I’m not talking about moral perfection. I’m talking about people who changed the world the most during their lifetime. [0:56] Larry’s choice for history’s greatest person could not have been more different from Gandhi (Steve Jobs’s choice): the military leader Napoleon Bonaparte.   [3:15] Steve liked to say the Beatles were his management model — four guys who kept each other in check and produced something great. [3:47] Larry’s favorite history book was Will and Ariel Durant’s The Age of Napoleon, which he had read several times. Like his buddy Steve, and like Larry himself, Napoleon was an outsider who was told he would never amount to anything. [6:09] Now the book is technically about the America’s Cup race. But that is not really what it is about. This books gives insights into extreme winners. [7:50] Steve and Larry had found they had much in common. They both had adoptive parents. Both considered their adoptive parents their real parents. Both were “OCD,” and both were antiauthoritarian. They shared a disdain for conventional wisdom and felt people too often equated obedience with intelligence. They never graduated from college, and Steve loved to boast that he’d left Reed College after just two weeks while it took others, including Larry and their rival Bill Gates, months or even years to drop out.  [9:09] Steve Jobs: “Why do people buy art when they can make their own art?” Larry thought for a moment and replied, “Well , Steve , not everyone can make his own art. You can. It’s a gift.” [10:46] What he (Steve Jobs) liked was designing and redesigning things to make them more useful and more beautiful. [11:02] If Michael Jordan sold enterprise software he would be Larry Ellison. Larry is addicted to winning. [12:38] An idea I learned from Steve was the further you get away from one the more complexity you are inviting in. [13:20] Larry was a voracious reader who spent a great deal of time studying science and technology, but his favorite subject was history. He learned more about human nature, management, and leadership by reading history than by reading books about business. [14:52] His adopted Dad said over and over again to Larry, “You are a loser. You are going to amount to nothing in life.” [15:19] Larry treats life like an adventure. [15:26] He envied how Graham’s parents supported him on his adventure, as this was the opposite of his own life. The story of Graham transported Larry from the regimentation of high school to the adventure and freedom of the sea. Here was a boy alone at sea for weeks at a stretch; dealing with storms, circling sharks, and broken masts; visiting exotic locales. Through it all he was his own navigator.That is definitely the way Larry approached his life. [18:04] Why Larry uses competition as a way to test himself: He wanted to see just how much better a sailor he had become. It will be an interesting test. There was a clarity to be found in sports that couldn’t be had in business. At Oracle he still wanted to beat the rivals IBM and Microsoft, but business was a marathon without end; there was always another quarter. In sports , the buzzer sounds and time runs out. [18:50] It is not what two groups do a like that matters. It's what they do differently that's liable to count. —Charles Kettering [22:20] Why test yourself: After the laughter died down Larry turned serious. “Why do we do these things? George Mallory said the reason he wanted to climb Everest was because ‘it’s there.’ I don’t think so. I think Mallory was wrong. It’s not because it’s there. It’s because we’re there, and we wonder if we can do it.”  [24:11] Larry’s personality: He didn’t like letting them have control. It was the same reason he didn’t have a driver, and it was why he liked to pilot his own planes and why he had been married and divorced three times. He didn’t like being told what he could and couldn’t do. [26:04] With any new thing you do in your life, you are going to have to overcome people telling you that you are an idiot. [28:08] While Ellison demanded absolute loyalty, he did not always return it. The people he liked best were the ones who were doing something for him. The people he hired were all geniuses until the day they resigned—when in Ellison's view— they became idiots or worse. [29:44] What Larry is reading during the dot com bubble collapse: The books on his nightstand included Fate Is the Hunter: A Pilot’s Memoir by Ernest Gann, The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith, and William Manchester’s multivolume biography of Winston Churchill. [30:25] Whenever Larry felt remotely close to being at risk of failure he couldn’t stop working.  [30:58] I’m going to read you one of the funniest paragraphs I have ever read. The guy Larry is talking to is insane: In the dot—com heyday he got a call from Farzad Nazem, who used to work at Oracle and was now a top executive at Yahoo.  Nazem told Larry, “Disney wants to merge with us. Why would we ever want to do something like that? What have they got?”  Larry answered his old friend,  “Gee , let me think. They have the most valuable film library in the world, the most valuable TV channels in world, and successful theme parks everywhere. Disney makes tons of money and they’re probably the most beloved brand on the planet.  Now, what have you got? A Web page with news on it and free e-mail.  Has everyone gone crazy ?” [32:38] Oracle has been around for 40 years. How many companies can survive 40+ years? [33:00] One of the key insights I took away from Larry is this idea about game within a game. I'm glad I'm reading these books about Larry Ellison at the same time I watched this 10 part documentary on Michael Jordan (The Last Dance) because I think both Jordan and Ellison figured out something that is fundamental to our nature. I don't think hey were not setting out to try to figure out something fundamental about human nature. They did so in their own process of self discovery. They hack themselves by creating games within games. They understand over a long period of time that your motivations, your dedication, your discipline is going to ebb and flow and they had to find a way to hack themselves. [38:19] There is one sentence that sums up Larry’s personality: “Winning. That is my idea of fun.” [38:38] There are a lot of extreme winners on Larry’s team. That is one of the things I like most about the book. It gives you insights into their mindset, how they prepare for their sport—which I think is applicable to whatever you do for a living. [40:00] Dixon said, “Larry, my advice is that we go out there tomorrow to try to win the race. We will probably get beaten and you should be prepared to lose gracefully.” Larry was stunned by the suggestion. After a long pause, he said that he could be gracious after losing, but wasn't capable of being gracious while he was losing, he had come here to win. [42:00] The Vince Lombardi line Larry loves: Every team in the National Football League has has the talent necessary to win the championship. It's simply a matter of what you're willing to give up. Then Lombardi looked at them and said, I expect you to give up everything, and he left the room. [42:25] Give me human will and the intense desire to win, and it will trump talent every day of the week. [43:05] His lack of interest in marriage was not about fidelity, but had more to do with problems he had with authority. In marriage, he had to live a good part of his life the way the other person wanted him to live it. Larry wanted to live his life his way. This part reminds me of what we learned on the podcast I did on Frank Lloyd Wright. [44:17] His favorite Japanese saying was, “Your garden is not complete until there is nothing else you can take out of it.”   [44:44] Rafael Nadal asked how Larry had made his life such a success.  Larry launched into a long philosophical musing about how innovation in technology is quite often based on finding errors in conventional wisdom, and when you find an error you have to have the courage take a different approach even when everyone else says you’re wrong.  Then Larry abruptly stopped himself.  “Forget everything I just said. The answer is simple. I never give up.”  [46:09] He was incapable of waving the white flag. [46:24] Kobe Bryant: A young player should not be worried about his legacy. Wake up, identify your weakness and work on that. Go to sleep, wake up, and do that all over again. 20 years from now, you'll look back and see your legacy for yourself. That's life. [46:47] Larry is constantly willing to put himself in uncomfortable situations so he can improve. [49:00] One of Larry’s favorite maxims was: “The brain’s primary purpose is deception, and the primary person to be deceived is the owner.” [49:07] How does his favorite Maxim relate to why he likes sports? Because in sports, you can't deceive yourself. He just said the brain's primary purpose is to deceive yourself—so he needs to hack himself. He needs to have his game within a game, so he is incapable of deceiving himself. Larry liked having opponents, even enemies. “I learn a lot about myself when I compete against somebody. I measure myself by winning and losing. Every shot in basketball is clearly judged by an orange hoop — make or miss. The hoop makes it difficult to deceive yourself.” [49:56] The insight is if we do something really hard we won’t have any competition. [52:26] The athletes Larry knew were obsessed with the game they played. They were like his friend Steve Jobs who worried about the color of the screws inside a computer. [53:12] They reminded Larry of a line from Tombstone: Wyatt Earp asks Doc Holliday,“ What makes a man like Ringo, Doc? What makes him do the things he does?” Doc replies, “A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.” For better and worse, Larry had the same hole, and he tried to fill it by winning. But as soon as he closed in on one of his goals, he immediately set another difficult and distant goal. In that way, he kept moving the finish line just out of reach. [54:31] Back home, standing by the lake where he and Steve had debated things great and small, Larry was certain that decades from now there would be two guys walking somewhere, talking about their icons. Steve would be mentioned.  He would be one of those “misfits, rebels, troublemakers, the round pegs in square holes, the ones who see things differently,” words popularized in Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign. Steve would be remembered as one of those with “no respect for the status quo.” [59:16] Those moments are my most cherished and enduring memories of my time with Steve. The four of us sitting together at Kona, eating papayas and laughing for no reason at all. I'll miss those times. Goodbye, Steve. [1:00:00] Larry’s nightmare: In Larry’s mind, it fed into a culture based on a homogenized egalitarian ethos where everyone was the same, where there are no winners and no losers, and where there are no more heroes. [1:02:21] Larry says something to Russell (the guy running his team). It echoes what Charles Kettering said last week: It is not what two people do the same that matters. It is what they do differently. Larry says, “You already have a job, Russell. You've got to figure out why we're so damn slow, our set another way. Why is New Zealand so fast? What are they doing that we're not? [1:03:08] Don’t give up before you absolutely have to. Stay in problem solving mode: Larry was not happy when he heard that speeches were being written and plans being made for the handover of the Cup, but he ignored it all until he was asked to settle an argument over who was going to give the concession speech during the handover.  “Let me get this straight: people are fighting over who gets to give the concession speech? I don’t give a fuck who gives the concession speech. If we lose, everyone who wants to give a concession speech can give a concession speech. But we haven’t lost yet. Why don’t we focus on winning the next fucking race , rather than concession speeches.” Larry, a licensed commercial pilot with thousands of hours flying jets, likened their situation to a plane in distress. When pilots have a serious emergency, they immediately go into problem solving mode, and they stay in that mode until the problem is solved — or until just before impact.  In that final moment, the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder captures the pilot’s brief concession speech. There are two versions of the speech, one secular, one not: “Oh God ” and “ Oh shit.” Larry had not yet reached his “Oh God” or “Oh shit” moment. Down 8 points to 1, he remained in problem solving mode. [1:06:19] As Muhammad Ali once said, “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.” No one was going to live or die on the basis of these things. But contests were his best teachers. At some point, one person gets measured against another. They find out who wins and who doesn’t, and along the way they learn something about themselves. Larry had learned that he loved the striving, the facing of setbacks, and the trying again.  [1:07:56] It’s hard for me to quit when I’m losing — and it’s hard for me to quit when I’m winning. It’s just hard for me to quit. I’m addicted to competing. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#125 Charles Kettering (inventor, engineer, founder)

What I learned from reading Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd ---- [3:06] If you had to summarize Charles Kettering this is the way you would do it: “As symbol of progress and the American way of life—as creator of ideas and builder of industries and employment—as inspirer of men to nobler thoughts and greater accomplishments—as foe of ignorance and discouragement—as friend of learning and optimistic resolve—Charles F. Kettering stands among the great men of all time.” [3:36] He was an American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive developments were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline. He was also responsible for the invention of Freon refrigerant for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. He developed  the world's first aerial missile. He led the advancement of practical, lightweight two-stroke diesel engines, revolutionizing the locomotive and heavy equipment industries. [4:42] This is Ket talking about why it is so important to approach your work with the mindset that you are a professional amateur: We are simply professional amateurs. We are amateurs because we are doing things for the first time. We are professional because we know we are going to have a lot of trouble. The price of progress is trouble. And I don’t think the price is too high. [6:52] There is a quote from Thomas Edison that says “We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.” Ket has that same belief. This is Ket echoing Thomas Edison: “In reality, we have only begun to knock a few chips from the great quarry of knowledge that has been given us to dig out and use. We are like the two fellows who started to walk from New York to San Francisco. When they got over into New Jersey, one said: “We must be pretty nearly there. We have been walking a long, long time.” That is just how we are in what we know technically. We have just barely begun. [9:57] I am enthusiastic about being an American because I came from the hills in Ohio. I was a hillbilly.  [10:21] I thought the only thing involved in opportunity was whether I knew how to think with my head and how to do with my hands. [13:37] One lesson from his childhood that stuck with him his whole life is that you need to only worry about things you can control. One of the older men is teaching him this through a story: Besides learning about water power and flour mills, he got from the wise old miller some bits of philosophy which he stored in his young mind. “A lot of people are bound to worry,” the miller once told him. “If you can do something about it, you ought to worry. I would think there was something wrong with you if you didn’t. But if you can’t do anything, then worrying is just like running this mill when there is no grist to grind. All that does is to wear out the mill.” [14:49] He is not interested in rote memorization. He wants to understand the principles behind the thing. He wants to know the why. [18:12] The man from whom he learned most was Hiram Sweet, the wagon maker. But Sweet was more than a wagon maker. He was, as Kettering said long afterward, “an engineer of such keen ability as to be remarkable. You would no more think of running across such a man in a small town than you would of flying without a flying machine.” Hiram Sweet had invented and built a self-computing cash register which was in daily use at the drugstore. He had also made an astronomical clock. “Where did you find out all this?” Kettering asked Sweet. “I work in this wagon shop ten hours a day,” he replied, “from six-thirty in the morning until five-thirty in the afternoon; and when I have no wagon work to do I work on Sweet’s head.” Years afterward, when Kettering had become a noted man, he recalled the days spent in Sweet’s wagon shop, “Letting him work on my head . . . I learned more from that old wagon maker than I did in college. The world was so wonderful and he knew so little about it that he hated to sleep.” [20:22] Ket got what he said later was one of the important lessons he learned in college. He learned it from the eminent actor, Joseph Jefferson. Jefferson, together with his company, came to the university town to play his famous part of Rip Van Winkle. One of the men asked him how often he had played the part of Rip Van Winkle.  The great actor told just how many hundreds of times he had played Rip.  “Don’t you get terribly tired doing it so often?” he was asked.  “Yes, I did get tired after a while. But the people wanted Rip. And so I went on playing him. I said to myself, ‘It doesn’t matter how you feel. Your job is to entertain the audience.’ Then I made up my mind that I would try to portray Rip Van Winkle just a little better each time. And that constant effort at improving the part has kept up my interest and enthusiasm.” [23:15] There is a time during Henry Ford’s third attempt at building an automobile manufacturing company. And he comes to see Charlie Sorensen. He's like, “You know what? We're about to run out of money. I guess I'm just not going be able to accomplish this goal.” There's this conversation that takes place between Henry and Charlie and at the end, Ford is fired back up. Ford was like “I felt like quitting at the beginning of the conversation. Now I don't.” A few short years later, he winds up attaining his life goal of building a car so inexpensively that the average person can have it. I think that’s important. There's so many times in Ford’s life story that he wants to quit, that he's disheartened. [26:44] The obstacle of not knowing how never kept him from undertaking anything he thought needed to be done. “It is a fundamental rule with me,” he said once, “that if I want to do something I start, whether I know how or not. . . . As a rule you can find that out by trying.” [28:04] Every great improvement has come after repeated failures. Virtually nothing comes out right the first time. Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. [36:18] Remembering the loyal support she (his wife) gave him during that trying period and afterward, Kettering said of her, “She was a great help in those early struggles, for she never got discouraged.” After she passes away from cancer he says she was the only thing in his life that he never tried to improve. [41:19] How Ket and his partner financed their company: To get even that small endeavor under way Kettering and Deeds had to put in all the money they could scrape up, and they mortgaged everything they had. Deeds put a mortgage on his house and Kettering on a lot that he owned. Both borrowed money on their life insurance policies. They also put up their patents and the contract with Cadillac as collateral for a loan from the bank. Cadillac paid them some money in advance. They sold some preferred stock, too, and raised money in every way possible. [42:09] All human development, no matter what form it takes, must be outside the rules; otherwise, we would never have anything new. [45:29] Kettering admired The Wright Brothers and all they did in overcoming obstacles to successful flight. Those obstacles were psychological as well as physical, for it was commonly believed then that heavier-than-air flight was impossible.  “The Wright Brothers,” Kettering said, “flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.” [46:08] I have always had a rule for myself. Never fly when the birds don’t, because they have had a lot of experience. [49:22] The destruction of a theory is of no consequence for theories are only steppingstones. More great scientific developments have been made by stumbling than by what is thought of as science. In my opinion an ounce of experimentation is worth a pound of theory. [50:57] Ket hates committees: Mrs. Kettering read about Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic, she said to her husband, “How wonderful that he did it all alone!”  “It would have been still more wonderful,” Kettering replied, “if he had done it with a committee.” [51:30] We find that in research a certain amount of intelligent ignorance is essential to progress; for, if you know too much, you won’t try the thing. [54:42] New ideas are the hardest things in the world to merchandise. [56:03] So great was his respect for independent thought and initiative in others that it was often difficult for those working on a project to find out just what he himself thought ought to be done in a given circumstance. He was careful not to stamp out a spark of fire in anyone. Instead, he would fan it to a bright glow.  [57:31] He has been an inspiration to me and to the whole organization, particularly in directing our thoughts and our imagination and our activities toward doing a better job technically and the tremendous importance of technological progress. [1:00:07] You have to try things: Action without intelligence is a form of insanity, but intelligence without action is the greatest form of stupidity in the world. [1:00:19] In putting out new things troubles are not the exception. They are the rule. That is why I have said on so many occasions that the price of progress is trouble. [1:03:16] Let the competition think you are crazy. By the time they get it it will be too late: If you will help them keep on thinking that, we’ll not be bothered with competition during the years in which we are working out the bugs and developing a really good locomotive. [1:05:14] It is not what two groups do alike that matters. It’s what they do differently that is liable to count. [1:05:47] There are no places in an industrial situation where anyone can sit and rest. It is a question of change, change, change all the time. You can’t have profit without progress. [1:06:18] We don’t know enough to plan new industries: You can’t plan industries, because you can’t tell whether something is going to be an industry or not when you see it, and the chances are that it grows up right in front of you without ever being recognized as being an industry. Who planned the automobile industry? Nobody thought anything of it at all. It grew in spite of planning. [1:08:22] Because the field of human knowledge is so far from complete, he thinks our schools ought to teach that we know very little about anything. [1:09:04] The greatest thing that most fellows are lacking today is the fool trait of jumping into something and sticking at it until they come out all right. [1:09:54] He seems to have a complete absence of any timidity whatsoever.  [1:10:54] I can conceive of nothing more foolish than to say the world is finished. We are not at the end of our progress but at the beginning.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#124 Larry Ellison and Oracle

What I learned from reading Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Symonds. ---- [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. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#123 Albert Champion (Record-Setting Racer to Dashing Tycoon)

What I learned from reading The Fast Times of Albert Champion: From Record-Setting Racer to Dashing Tycoon, An Untold Story of Speed, Success, and Betrayal by Peter Joffre Nye. ---- [0:01] A brief summary of the life of Albert Champion: Champion had been born in Paris April 2, 1878. By age twelve he was an errand and office boy for a Paris bicycle manufacturer. He became interested in bicycle racing, won the middle-distance championship in France, and went to the United States in 1899 for a series of races. He won the American and world championships, returned to France to study automobile manufacturing, and returned to the United States in 1900. He tried auto racing, almost lost a leg in a racing accident, and then organized the Champion company. His original backers kept the name and moved the company to Toledo at about the same time Champion joined Durant. In Flint, Champion became known as one of the most colorful and flamboyant figures in a town full of them. He lived to see both his new company, later named the AC Spark Plug Division (using his initials), and the company he had left, the Champion Spark Plug Company, become giants in their field. He was a multimillionaire when he died. [2:55] His father dies at 47 years old: One of the turning points in Albert’s life is the early death of his father. He had to become the breadwinner of the family at 12 years old. The experience formed Albert’s character. For the rest of his life, he threw himself into work, forever escaping into the task at hand, keeping busy, always planning new projects, in time building up a business with factories in three countries and offices of his own. [6:19] Albert Champion was a showman who was addicted to self-improvement: He was willing to put in the work necessary for self improvement. Champion practiced rising a unicycle everyday. He learned how to draw onlookers and hold their attention. Champion had discovered the value of self—improvement. He would apply that principle again and again. [9:15] Adolphe Clement is a blueprint for Albert Champion: Clement goes from poor orphan to building a successful bicycle and automobile manufacturing company. [13:46] How do you introduce a brand new product to a society that is resistant to change? You sell to those who would be willing to pay for improvement: Dunlop pneumatics faced a tough sell with a public forever wary about buying a new product —only persuasive evidence would sway the public to accept change. Clément could count on the rabid racing crowd to try anything they thought could give a competitive edge. [15:53] What Albert Champion learns from watching a 750 mile bicycle race—tenacity is more important than talent: A chord struck with Champion that Terront came from nothing, a nobody. Yet through the force of willpower, keeping his wits under extreme physical demands that made Lavel give in, and drawing on the strength of his body, Terront turned into a grand winner. Perhaps Laval had more talent, which he showed as the first to reach Brest. Nevertheless, Terront had greater tenacity — and that difference made him the victor.  [22:17] Attaining glory motivated Albert Champion: Racing was about making money for the dual compelling needs that invigorated him. He gained financial support for his family and the ego endorsement enjoyed by entertainers and politicians. As his ego grew, he needed to impose himself on crowds of strangers and win their love. Each race he won was greeted immediately with audience approval followed by a bouquet of flowers, a victory lap, then a cash award.  [23:49] Lessons Albert Champion learned from his trainer Choppy Warburton: Warburton offered two axioms from his experience about competition that impressed Champion. No lead is too great to overcome, and you can’t win unless you think you can. [25:01] Albert Champion on the benefits from the strenuous training regiment Choppy made him endure: But Choppy was doing something — he was educating me to take punishment, and whenever I began to tire in a race, the grueling training I had would permit me to overcome the fatigue and come out victorious time and time again. No matter what game a man is in, he is only as big as the amount of punishment he is able to take. He educated me on the importance of physical training, for as the old saying goes, you cannot be mentally fit unless you are physically fit. [34:12] Albert Champion’s personality: Champion, quick—tempered as usual , grew disgusted with colleagues he saw riding with caution rather than daring. [36:31] Albert Champion’s plan to raise money so he could start his own company: Champion felt the onus to create his own business to serve America’s mushrooming auto production. He considered forming a company , taking advantage of his name recognition, to import French auto parts, especially spark plugs. To get in the business, he needed capital. To acquire the needed capital, he would have to win frequently in his final season as a pro cyclist. He determined to go all out for one last campaign — not in America, but in France.  The purses were much bigger there, and he could win the money he’d need in order to establish his own business. Albert staked his ambitious future on capturing the title en route to raising the money to create his place in the nascent US auto industry. [43:40] Albert Champion on the importance of continuous learning: He told an interviewer that one of his constant efforts was to manage his time for more and better work. He explained that he always sought to improve everything he did. I remember a salesman one time telling me that he knew the game from A to Z. He stated that nobody could tell him anything about selling. That was to me the best proof possible that he knew nothing about selling because those who really understand merchandising, manufacturing, or anything else that is important in life are those who realize how little they really know about it and how much there is to learn every day. [47:25] Billy Durant prioritized speed. Durant recruits Albert Champion to move to Flint the same day they meet: Durant sounded out Champion before nudging the focus toward recruiting him to Flint. Durant later recalled: If he were quite sure that he could make a plug that would answer our purpose, I suggested that we go to Flint, and if he liked the place and the layout, I would start an experimental plant, and if he could make good, I would give him an interest in the business. (this later makes Albert very, very rich) He had never been to Flint, knew nothing of the Buick, or the plans I had for the future. [55:10] Albert Champion invested heavily in research and development. This is why: I spent a fortune on spark plug experiments at the start. My friends thought I was crazy. I knew I was right. He put prototypes through long and rigorous tests before submitting patent applications. More durable spark plugs would benefit passenger cars. He said: “Keep ahead of the race. That is what brings success. It makes the great racer. It makes the successful businessman. No champion ever arrived resting on the oars.” [56:33] Albert Champion on the similarities of athletic competition and building a business: I have always felt that the education and training I received as a bicycle racer was a great help in business because it is a game in which you train to fight and win. He emphasized that experimenting and learning leads to progress: I always remember what a friend of mine once told me. He was a well—known chemist, an authority in the automobile world. He said that four times during his life he has had to scrap his knowledge of chemistry and begin again at the start. He was not only happy about it. He is ready to do the same thing over and over when he finds it necessary. [1:03:20] The legacy of Albert Champion: His death closed a career as brilliant as that of any Horatio Alger hero, from errand boy in Paris, France, to millionaire automobile accessories manufacturer in America. The spark plug designs, dashboard speedometers, and companies Champion started have stood the test of time. Today the Champion Spark Plug and ACDelco brand names are recognized around the world. More than 200,0000 people a year attend performances at the Boston Center for the Arts, all passing the brass plate celebrating his Albert Champion Company, where he had made his first Champion spark plugs. Approximately 50 million vehicles operating in the United States are currently on the road with ACDelco spark plugs, filters, brakes, and other components. And every April at the Paris Classics bicycle race, another winner’s name is added to Albert Champion’s on the roster of legends. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#122 Alfred Sloan (General Motors)

What I learned from reading My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan. ---- [2:40] There are ideas worth billions in a $30 history book: Henry talked to me on several occasions about a book by the former chairman of General Motors. He told me he had learned a very important concept from that book, which he wished to use in the growth of Teledyne. . .during a very difficult economic time of recession, General Motors had needed additional funds to finance their growth and had a plan to sell bonds to the general public. The bond sale was a complete failure, and the chairman (Sloan) had written in his book that it had taught him an important lesson. It was that for a corporation to grow and to have a strong financial base, it needed to have, as part of itself, an interest in substantial financially oriented institutions. So General Motors had started GMAC and invested in other financial groups. As a result of his interest in this idea, Henry had decided that at some point, he would seek out financial organizations we could acquire. We began acquiring a number of financial and insurance companies, which was a significant change from our usual aerospace, metals, industrial and consumer company acquisitions. [5:45] Alfred Sloan had a singular focus: General Motors and the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company, have been almost the sole interests of my business life. [6:28] Alfred Sloan’s perspective on work: I simply took the view that we should go at the job vigorously and without hampering restrictions. I put no ceiling on progress. [12:22] Billy Durant came up with the idea for General Motors. Alfred Sloan perfected it: Durant’s pioneer work has yet to receive the recognition it deserves. His philosophy was an emerging one in the Model T era and was afterward to be realized not by him but by others, including myself. [19:08] The accumulated intelligence of mankind is what makes us special amongst all other species Everything is built upon the foundation before it: It has been called to my attention that Eli Whitney, long before, had started the development of interchangeable parts in connection with the manufacture of guns, a fact which suggests a line of descent from Whitney to Leland to the automobile industry. [29:20] Alfred Sloan had a great perspective on problems. They are temporary and we can fix them: Economic declines have a way of shaking out the weak ones in business, and we had weaknesses. Some people cannot see beyond a slump, but I have never yielded to economic pessimism and in times of decline have kept in mind the eventual upturn of the business cycle and the long—range dynamics of growth. Confidence and caution formed my attitude in 1920. We could not control the environment, or predict its changes precisely, but we could seek the flexibility to survive fluctuations in business. I mention this because confidence is an important element in business; it may on occasion make the difference between one man’s success and another’s failure. [33:15] Sloan on how difficult Henry Ford was to compete against: With Ford in almost complete possession of the low—price field, it would have been suicidal to compete with him head on. No conceivable amount of capital short of the United States Treasury could have sustained the losses required to take volume away from him at his own game.  [38:40] Alfred Sloan on committees: I have often been taxed, by people who do not know me, with being a committee man—and in a sense I most certainly am—I have never believed that a group as such could manage anything. A group can make policy, but only individuals can administer policy. [44:20] General Motors was able to overtake Ford because they widened a niche: It was that plan, policy , or strategy of 1921—whatever it should be called— which, I believe, more than any other single factor enabled us to move into the rapidly changing market of the twenties with the confidence that we knew what we were doing commercially and were not merely chasing around in search of a lucky star. The most important particular object of that plan of campaign, which followed from its strategic principles, was, as I have said, to develop a larger place for Chevrolet between the Ford car below and the medium—price group above, a case of trying to widen a niche. That was all, in the beginning, despite the completeness of the plan with regard to the whole market. [56:40] Alfred Sloan knew the car market was changing. You didn’t make sales by having the best car. You made sales by being different. David Ogilvy called this idea “a positively good product”: In the past, just about every advertiser has assumed that in order to sell his goods he has to convince consumers that his product is superior to his competitor’s. This may not be necessary. It may be sufficient to convince consumers that your product is positively good. If the consumer feels certain that your product is good and feels uncertain about your competitor’s, he will buy yours. If you and your competitors all make excellent products, don’t try to imply that your product is better. Just say what’s good about your product – and do a clearer, more honest, more informative job of saying it. Sales will swing to the marketer who does the best job of creating confidence that his product is positively good. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#121 Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan (General Motors)

What I learned from reading Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, A Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey. ---- [0:01] They were oil and water in all respects. Billy Durant, the high school dropout, was the flamboyant dreamer and gambler, focused on personal relationships and risk. Alfred Sloan, the MIT engineer, was the stern organizer and manager, focused on data, logic, and profit. [4:40] The paradox of this book in two sentences: Sloan’s most constant criticism of Durant was that he acted on instinct and whim rather than facts. Yet the achievements and decisions of Durant the dreamer were what made Sloan the manager’s spectacular career possible. [6:50] Alfred Sloan telling us it is a lot harder to stay successful over a long period of time: “The perpetuation of an unusual success or the maintenance of an unusually high standard of leadership in any industry is sometimes more difficult than the attainment of that success or leadership in the first place.” [10:45] Walter Chrysler left the highest paying job in the entire automobile industry because of Billy Durant’s wasted his time: More than once, Chrysler had been summoned by Durant only to be kept waiting then to discover that the urgent matter that needed to be discussed was nothing that couldn’t have been resolved quickly at the plant level rather than wasting top management’s time and brainpower. [12:52] Sloan believed Billy Durant had no right to be distracted by the financial markets while Durant was supposed to be running General Motors: Sometimes I used to feel as if he were always holding a telephone in his hand. I think there were twenty telephones in his private office and a switchboard. He had private wires to brokers’ offices across the continent. In the same minute, he would buy in San Francisco, sell in Boston. It did not seem to me that the operating head of a corporation had any right to devote himself to the market, even if the stock of the corporation was involved.  [17:13] Billy Durant will remind you that everything is possible: What was it in Billy’s genes and character that had led the high school dropout from rural Michigan to even dream of building an empire that would change the world? [20:30] Billy Durant would tell you to control the things that are important to your business: Billy Durant would never forget the bitter lesson of what he saw as Paterson’s treachery: Always control your own production and, whenever possible, all of the links in the supply chain. [23:05] Unlike Durant, Alfred Sloan had a singular focus. His singular focus was General Motors: By the early 1930s, Alfred Sloan was widely considered to be one of the richest men in the world, but he had no known hobbies and had never sold a single share of General Motors stock. His only known investment of either time or money in anything beyond the domain of General Motors was the purchase of a yacht at the urging of friends and his wife.  [26:37] There are ideas worth billions in a $30 history book: In Henry Singleton’s case that is literally true. Reading Sloan’s book had a multiple billion dollar effect on the outcome of Teledyne. [29:04] Sloan would not tolerate any excuses: Sloan is kinda like Yoda. Do or do not. There is no try. [29:48] A key ideological difference between Alfred Sloan and Billy Durant was how growth should be financed: What Alfred didn’t mention in his letter was that Hyatt’s growth had come from reinvestment of the company’s own profits, rather than the acquisition and stock market strategy mastered by Billy Durant. A divergence of fundamental strategy that would be at the core of the General Motors crisis and showdown of 1920. [31:12] An important lesson from history is that new and important industries can start out looking like toys: In 1899 the automobile industry in America was no more than the strange and wild obsession of a few tinkerers and an amusing diversion for the wealthy investors who backed them. Cars were still widely considered impractical toys and dangerous nuisances by most people.  [34:35] Alfred Sloan admired and copied Henry Leland, founder of Cadillac and Lincoln: Of all the American automobile industry’s unique and colorful characters, the one whom Alfred Sloan most admired and emulated was Henry Leland. Leland was a perfectionist who expected and demanded higher standards than any of his peers. He accepted no excuses and suffered no fools. Sloan devoted more words and detail to what he learned from Leland than he did any other person. [45:55] Alfred Sloan on why vertical integration was so important in the automobile industry: Every piece of the motor car is essential in the sense that the automobile is not complete unless every part is available. Delay in delivery of any part stops the work. A dependable supply of parts might well make the difference between success and failure. [48:08] Henry Ford's ONE idea was different from every other automobile manufacturer: He was determined to concentrate on the low end of the market, where he believed that high volume would drive costs down and at the same time feed even more demand for the product. It was a fundamental difference in philosophy. [49:35] Comparing and contrasting Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan’s approach to growth: For him, the thrill was always in the next deal, not in the nuts and bolts of daily operations. In his mind, empires were built by conquest, not through internal growth. And the road to conquest was through other people’s money and other people’s confidence in his genius, rather than the quiet, conservative road of knowing the fundamentals of manufacturing and marketing, as was followed by the likes of Henry Leland and Alfred P. Sloan. [56:05] Why Innovation is so important. We must arm the rebels! The automobile sparked not only the great oil boom it also sparked innovations in petroleum refining and metal alloys that led to further innovation in chemicals. It also spawned the motel industry as well as gasoline retailing. Thanks solely to the demand for gasoline to run the internal combustion engine automobile, crude oil production in the United States soared.The first gasoline pump appeared in 1905. By 1915, Standard Oil had developed the first chain of gasoline service stations. In 1916, the federal government began funding the interstate highway system. Ten years later, motels and road side restaurants were common in every state. Thanks to Henry Ford’s Model T, Billy Durant’s vision of a nation transformed by the automobile had become a reality. [57:47] When most of your revenue comes from one or two major customers you are fragile. Or Why Alfred Sloan sold Hyatt Roller Bearing to Billy Durant: The problem for Alfred and his peers was that, compared with the manufacturers, the suppliers’ pockets were not nearly as deep. Expanding their production capacity meant investment in new plant and equipment, but there was no guarantee that the boom would continue once these commitments were made. Nor was there any guarantee from the manufacturers that they would not shift to a different supplier with lower cost at some point in the future, leaving Supplier A stuck with both excess capacity and the cost of the original expansion. [1:14:23] How Alred Sloan positioned General Motors product line: Sloan developed a product strategy targeted at buyers’ specific aspirations. Its essence was to divide the market into price segments and offer cars with the most appeal and value in each segment. Sloan called it “a car for every purse and purpose.” No General Motors vehicle division or brand would compete against any other in any of the segments; each was to have a distinct identity and appeal to a distinct buyer. [1:15:10] David Ogilvy on positioning your product: Now consider how you want to ‘position’ your product. This curious verb is in great favor among marketing experts, but no two of them agree what it means. My own definition is ‘what the product does, and who it is for.’ I could have positioned Dove as a detergent bar for men with dirty hands, but chose instead to position it as a toilet bar for women with dry skin. This is still working 25 years later. [1:16:48] Alfred Sloan —like Sam Walton—made it a priority to visit dealers: I made it a practice throughout the 1920s and early thirties to make personal visits to dealers. I went into almost every city in the United States, visiting from five to ten dealers a day. I would meet them in their own places of business, talk with them across their own desks in their closing rooms and ask them for suggestions and criticism concerning their relations with the corporation, the character of the product, the corporation’s policies, the trend of consumer demand, their view of the future, and many other things of interest in the business. I made careful notes of all the points that came up, and when I got back home I studied them. [1:20:46] Billy Durant’s metaphor on the difference between him and Alfred Sloan: But, you see, this infantry captain didn’t have the disadvantage of a West Point education and he didn’t know he couldn’t do it, so he just went ahead and did it anyway. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#120 Billy Durant (Creator of General Motors)

What I learned from reading Billy Durant Creator of General Motors: The Story of the Flamboyant Genius Who Helped Lead America into the Automobile Age by Lawrence Gustin. ---- [0:32] DURANT MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT AUTOMOBILE PIONEER: Of all the colorful men who propelled the United States into the automobile age, Billy Durant was perhaps the most unusual, and from an organizational standpoint in the pioneering era, the most important. Durant had a hand in shaping the beginnings of three of the four major American automobile manufacturing corporations that exist today. [4:16] HIS LIFE STORY HAS A SURPRISING END: The guy founded General Motors, Chrysler, and Frigidaire. Three gigantic, successful companies. How does he die with no money? [6:04] DURANT TRIED TO PROTECT HIS INVESTORS: He had an attitude, not a common among men of big money. He tried to protect the people who invested with him, even if this protection would break him. Finally, it did. And when he was unable to save the dollars of his supporters he plunged from multimillionaire to bankruptcy. [10:29] DURANT WAS SKEPTICAL OF AUTOMOBILES: Durant starts out as an automobile skeptic. He builds the General Motors of horse-drawn transportation and then takes that same playbook and uses it again to do the same thing in the automobile industry once he gets over his skepticism. [17:08] IF SOMETHING IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR BUSINESS YOU NEED TO CONTROL IT: We have seen this over and over and over and over again in these stories throughout the history of entrepreneurship. If something is important to your business, you need to control it. Durant line up a big contract for the buggies only to find that Patterson chanced upon the same buyer and told him that since the product was actually being made at his factory, the buyer could save money by buying directly from him. Durant that from then on they would build all their own vehicles. [19:12] DURANT ON SALES: Assume that the person you are talking to knows as much or more than you do. Do not talk too much. Give the customer time to think. In other words, let the customer sell himself. That system works best when you have a good product. Look for a self - seller. If you cannot find one, make one. [21:48] ON CONTROL. HENRY FORD REALIZED THIS. THE DODGE BROTHERS DID TOO: We started out as assemblers with no advantage over our competitors. We paid about the same prices for everything we purchased. We realized that we were making no progress and would not unless and until we manufactured practically every important part that we used. We proceeded to purchase plants and the control of plants, which made it possible for us to build up the largest carriage company in the United States. [31:36] DURANT WAS AT THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME, WITH THE RIGHT SET OF SKILLS: For the first time, he began to see that the automobile had a future. The stockholders of Buick were so desperate that they were willing to turn over controlling interest to him. And perhaps most important, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company had a large, idle factory.  [39:11] IT WAS HARD TO RAISE MONEY FOR GENERAL MOTORS: I had a long, hot session with our friends in New York yesterday and was pretty nearly used up at the finish. If you think it is an easy matter to get money from New York capitalists to finance a motor car proposition in Michigan, you have another guess coming. Money is hard to get owing to a somewhat unaccountable feeling of uneasiness and a general distrust of the automobile proposition. [44:25] BILLY DURANT’S MASTER PLAN FOR GENERAL MOTORS: Durant's aim was nothing less than to gain control of some of the biggest and best automobile companies in America. But he also wanted to get in on the ground floor with companies just starting. Durant: “They could be purchased by exchanging small amounts of stock, and who could tell what their patents, products, and inventions might bring? The automobile industry was in its infancy, the public was fickle, the only sure road to power and success was to have a wide range of products. I figured if I could acquire a few more companies like the Buick, I would have control of the greatest industry in this country. A great opportunity, no time to lose, I must get busy.” [51:30] DON VALENTINE TEACHES YOU BUSINESS IN TWO MINUTES: 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. All companies that go out of business do so for the same reason- they run out of money." —Don Valentine [55:10] GENERAL MOTORS RUNS OUT OF MONEY! DURANT IS FORCED OUT: The bankers demanded control of the company. Durant had no choice but to accept. Automotive historians have generally described the terms as exorbitant. And Durant, in his memoirs, fumed: “The $ 15 million loan finally offered had outrageous terms which I was forced to accept. Under the terms, I received $ 12,250,000 cash ( not $ 15 million ), for which I gave $ 21,600,000 of the best securities ever created — the enormous interest of $ 9,350,000. [57:57] DURANT’S STRATEGY FOR CHEVROLET WAS TO FOCUS ON THE LOW PRICED MARKET BECAUSE IT HAD MORE DEMAND THAN SUPPLY : Henry Ford couldn't build enough cars to satisfy the entire demand for a low priced automobile. [1:04:50] THE UNUSUAL HAPPENS, USUALLY. BILLY DURANT IS THE OPPOSITE OF HETTY GREEN OR MARK SPITZNAGEL: In 1920 the boom that had followed the end of WWI came to a rather abrupt halt and the United States slumped into a sharp recession. The price of GM stock began to decline steadily. GM sold 47,000 cars a month. By November monthly sales were down to 12,000. Durant realized GM needed money. [1:10:26] BILLY DURANT’S LIFE SHOULD HAVE HAD A HAPPIER ENDING: All that can be said for certain about Durant’s last days at GM is that his activities in the stock market placed him in an extremely vulnerable situation. Louis Kaufman said in 1927 that had Durant not become involved in the market he would have been worth $500 million and still in charge of GM.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#119 The Dodge Brothers

What I learned from reading The Dodge Brothers: The Men, the Motor Cars, and the Legacy by Charles Hyde. ---- This is the story of two small town machinists who became enormously successful automobile manufacturers in the early years of the auto industry [0:01] Early life and first jobs [3:02] Moving to Detroit: Arriving at the right place, at the right time, with the right skill set [6:28] Horace Dodge is a gifted engineer like Henry Royce (Founders #81) was + Inventors and bicycle manufacturers [12:00] How The Dodge Brothers first described their business [16:40] Doing work for Ransom Olds, Founder of Oldsmobile [18:20] Crucial decisions in the early days of the company [23:33] In a gold rush don't dig for gold. Sell pick axes [24:44] The Dodge Brothers almost bankrupted Ford for lack of payment [28:22] The Dodge Brothers got very rich off of Henry Ford [33:28] Why and how the Dodge Brothers built their own car [36:00] Comparing The Dodge Brothers organizational structure with that of Ford and GM [41:00] The Dodge Brothers view on advertising [43:04] How and why they worked so well together [46:13] A bond so tight it could only be separated by death [50:58] Their greatest accomplishment [52:01] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#118 Forty Years With Henry Ford

What I learned by reading My Forty Years With Ford by Charles Sorensen. ---- Henry Ford’s greatest achievement and his greatest failure [0:01] Henry Ford had one, single idea [4:15] Henry Ford’s management style [5:46] The paradox of Henry Ford [8:27] Henry Ford’s greatest advisor [11:30] A great story about The Dodge Brothers [16:20] Why and how Henry Ford bought out all of the shareholders of Ford [19:15] Henry Ford would tell you to not divert your attention [27:15] Henry Ford would tell you to not be afraid [28:20] Henry Ford would tell you to be firm in what you want to accomplish but flexible in how you do it [31:45] Why Henry Ford and The Ford Motor Company are worthy of study [36:20] The difference between a pioneer and an expert [39:45] Henry Ford would tell you not to worry about titles [47:40] Henry Ford would tell you to focus on individual contact over collective speeches [49:52] Henry Ford would tell you don't let your team grow stale [50:10] Henry Ford would tell you that you can’t foresee everything. Even things that should be obvious. [50:50] Henry Ford would tell you to never stop learning [51:32] A description of Detroit and the early days of one of the most important industries ever created [55:14] The story of the Model T: Henry ford was groping and fumbling toward a low-cost car. [59:14] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#117 : Chung Ju-yung founder of Hyundai (the most inspiring autobiography I've read)

What I learned from reading Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung. --- For a long time I was known as the bulldozer. [0:01] How Chung’s son remembers him: He had a wonderfully positive disposition and a rigorous work ethic. [3:15] Memories of his father + Half century of struggle + Why he is writing this book [9:25] Running away from home. Four times. [12:15] A different level of poverty. [15:40] How struggle shaped his personality + Why he had to run away for the last time [17:15] On his own + Early jobs before the birth of Hyundai [19:24] On simple tasks + The fundamental principle of his life + Hard work paying off [21:15] Getting into the auto repair business + More struggle + More perseverance [25:55] Why you should emulate bedbugs. [31:00] Hyundai Auto Service Center + Hyundai Construction + Disaster strikes again + The Korean War [33:11] His management style + Don’t waste time if you want to be remarkable [39:30] Go where the money is: Hyundai must go abroad to escape poor domestic conditions. [42:15] The beginning of Hyundai Motors + Chung had only one speed: GO! That is not always a good thing. [45:57] Ships or how a great idea starts as a small idea [53:26] Why determination is more important than intelligence [58:10] Find something you love to do and do it until you die. [1:06:39] Don’t covet luxury. [1:08:49] Be diligent. [1:15:40] Positive thinking is the road to happiness. [1:16:48] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#116 Sam Bronfman (Seagram's and the Bronfman family dynasty)

What I learned from reading Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam by Michael R. Marrus. ---- The story of Sam’s rise to fame and fortune from a hard life on the Canadian frontier is inherently dramatic and yet touches a familiar nerve in a broad spectrum of the population. There is something in Sam’s response to his disappointments that most people recognize in their themselves. [0:01]  I found out about the Bronfman family on Founders #53 Mike Ovitz when Mike Ovitz brokered a deal that led to Seagram buying MCA Universal for $5.7 billion. [2:58] Generational Inflection Point: A single individual that changes the trajectory of his entire family for generations to come [3:35]  Why did his family have to flee Russia? [6:42] Sam was ashamed of the poverty is family endured and NEVER forgot it [10:45]  Sam starts running his own hotel at 23 [14:35]  Sam figures out a new plan to overcome the powerful temperance movement / The good ones know more. — David Ogilvy [18:00]  The advantages of Sam’s mail order strategy + Copying and improving on his competitors [20:12] Some people just want it more [22:23] Sam would tell you to focus on the long term [24:26] Sam would tell you don’t waste any opportunity and be a learning machine [31:50] Sam would tell you to learn from the best [35:44] Sam would tell you to think big and appeal to interest [37:20] Sam’s view on money / Go First Class [42:04] After prohibition is lifted Sam goes on a buying spree / Default aggressive [48:53] Sam does something brilliant: He repositions whiskey as a luxury product [53:02] Sam’s personal curriculum [57:30] How Sam’s business survived WWII [59:00] The company proved to be one of Sam’s shrewdest moves; bought with only $50 million in borrowed cash it was sold [by his heirs] in 1980 for $2.3 billion [1:03:35] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#115 Ben Franklin: An American Life

What I learned from reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. ---- He was, during his 84 year long life, America’s best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist. [0:01] On Founders #62 I covered Ben Franklin’s autobiography [4:10] The family produced dissenters and nonconformists who were willing to defy authority, although not to the point of becoming zealots. They were clever craftsman and inventive blacksmiths with a love of learning. Avid readers and writers, they had deep convictions, but knew how to wear them lightly. [5:00] The industrialist Thomas Mellon, who erected a statue of Franklin in his banks headquarters, declared that Franklin had inspired him to leave his family's farm and go into business. "I regard the reading of Franklin's Autobiography as the turning point of my life. Here was Franklin, poorer than myself, who by industry, thrift, and frugality, had become learned and wise, and elevated to wealth and fame. The maxims of poor Richard exactly suited my sentiments. I read the book again and again, and wondered if I might not do something in the same line by similar means." [13:10] Franklin is learning how to deal with people and to change his behavior to get the outcome he desires: Being argumentative, he concluded, was a very bad habit because contradicting people produced disgusts and perhaps enemies. Later in his life he would wryly say of disputing: "Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it.”[17:50] Ben Franklin understood marketing [22:10] Ben Franklin would tell you to keep reading and learning so you are more interesting to talk to. This produces positive externalities. [23:50] Franklin’s plan for his business and how to overcome an entrenched competitor [30:00] Franklin would tell you it is foolish to avoid all criticism [33:28] The Ben Franklin method for making difficult decisions [34:15] As Franklin is building his business he is focused on self improvement: A list of 12 virtues he thought desirable [35:56] Most of Poor Richard's saying were not totally original as Franklin freely admitted. "They contained the wisdom of many ages and nations. Not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own." / Picasso had a saying good artists copy; great artists steal. we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas --Steve Jobs [38:25] Franklin telling you how to turn adversaries into allies. [41:38] Halfway through his life, Franklin realizes he has enough: "Lost time is never found again." [43:25] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#114 The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time

What I learned from reading The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Timeby Michael Craig. ---- Some Texas banker was playing poker with over $15 million on the table. 15 million on the table? This much cash would weigh over 250 pounds. [0:01] Founders #38 Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos [4:12] Poker players are misfits / Poker as a capital intensive business / How to avoid going over the edge [6:51] The early life and personality traits of Andy Beal [12:20] Other founders mentioned in this episode:  #59 Howard Hughes: Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters; The Definitive Biography of the First American Billionaire. #65 Kirk Kerkorian: The Gambler: How Penniless Dropout Kirk Kerkorian Became The Greatest Deal Maker In Capitalist History. #67 Conrad Hilton: The Hiltons: The True Story of an American Dynasty [19:24] Professional poker players were the ultimate independent businessmen. They had no bosses, no employees, and no set hours. [20:36] He came. He saw. He was conquered. [26:01] The entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster + Bet on yourself [28:20] A young Andy Beal’s adventures in entrepreneurship [36:30] Beal Aerospace [49:45] How Andy Beal finds an edge in poker [55:04] The difference between knowing and doing [1:07:49] The benefits of facing tough competition: Andy had played abasing the best poker players in the world for nearly 300 hours. It was impossible to stick around against this level of competition and not improve. How can we simulate an environment like this for ourselves?   [1:09:45] What a bizarre, nonchalant way to start an important day [1:14:20] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#113 A.G. Gaston (Black Titan and the Making of a Black American Millionaire)

What I learned from reading Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins and Elizabeth Gardner Hines ---- The grandson of slaves, born into poverty in 1892 in the Deep South, A. G. Gaston died more than a century later with a fortune worth well over $130 million [0:01] A 10 year old’s first business idea [5:35]  A.G. finds a blueprint to follow: A.B. Loveman [9:00] The remarkable story of Carrie Tuggle and The Tuggle Institute [12:10] The influence of Booker T. Washington [13:35] The power of positive examples [15:27] Joining the army for discipline and opportunity / Lessons from World War I [18:32] Keep your eyes open. Study the people around you. How do they live? What makes them tick? What do they need? [25:05] A. G. Gaston was relentless [27:20] The parallels between Andrew Carnegie and A. G. Gaston [30:26] Exhausted, depressed, and hopeless right before his big breakthrough [33:38] And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under — Benjamin Franklin  / Both Benjamin Franklin and A. G. Gaston valued industry and frugality [38:00] A fundamental change in philosophy for a young entrepreneur [44:30] A.G. starts a funeral insurance company / Inspiration from the life of Booker T. Washington [46:40] CAP YOUR DOWNSIDE! [51:41] Personality: Focus on only on what you can control and have a bias for action [54:00] A.G. starts The Booker T. Washington Business College to help train potential employees [56:00] A.G’s singular focus is on mastering his craft [57:50] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#112 Frank Lloyd Wright

What I learned from reading Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright by Paul Hendrickson.  ---- [0:01] Frank Lloyd Wright suffered a personal catastrophe that would have destroyed a man of lesser will and lesser ego.  [7:20] Ben Franklin writing about vanity 250 years ago: Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor.  [12:38] He held a press conference on Christmas Day to explain his actions. He said ordinary people can not live without rules to guide his conduct. He - Frank Lloyd Wright - is not ordinary.  [13:44] Frank Lloyd Wright had a single minded pursuit of his own potential.  [18:50] Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.  [19:30] Find something you love to do and don’t stop until you die.  [23:00] Everything is malleable. Including the truth.  [25:25] All Frank Lloyd Wright had was a complete faith in himself.  [31:57] Frank Lloyd Wright had a point of view—a conviction— and he tied his point of view to larger ideas.  [35:29] Frank Lloyd Wright was terrible with money: So long as we had the luxuries, the necessities could pretty well take care of themselves.   [36:20] The early career of Frank Lloyd Wright / his mentor was one of the greatest architects ever  [39:30] You are going to go far. You’ll have a kind of success; I believe the kind you want. Not everybody would pay the price in concentrated hard work and human sacrifice you’ll make for it.  [50:05] Wright turned down a fantastic opportunity. He preferred to bet on himself.  [53:28] Wright’s mid life crisis and the abandonment of his family.  [56:00] We’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets. We’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows—we can’t earn any money that way. What do you want to do? When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him you do that—and uh—forget the money. If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time... You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid! It is absolutely stupid! Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way. And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is—somebody is interested in everything—anything you can be interested in, you will find others who are... But, it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like and to teach our children to follow in the same track. See, what we are doing is, is we’re bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we are living—in order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life, by bringing up their children, to bring up "their" children, to do the same thing. So, it’s all retch and no vomit—it never gets there. Therefore, it’s so important to consider this question... "What do I desire?" —Alan Watts  [1:01:50] The volume of work Wright completed after the age of 60 was astonishing. A third of his total output came after the age of 80!  [1:17:30] What the tumultuous relationship of his parents gave Frank Lloyd Wright: “A will and inner strength that seems unquantifiable.”  ---- ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#111 David Geffen

What I learned from reading The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood by Tom King.  ---- He told me he had recently read Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Buffett was Geffen's hero.Geffen—with searing focus, unyielding drive, and outlandish nerve—had devised and implemented strategies to propel himself to the top of the heap of Hollywood powerbrokers.I used to have phone conversations with David that would leave me sweaty.David might not have realized it, but he was being educated by a master entrepreneur. Batya succeeded in teaching him the value of hard work and the possibilities of life under even the most difficult circumstances. She was a brilliant businesswoman who could account for every penny that went into and out of the enterprise. She kept her overhead low by driving hard bargains with her suppliers and by closely monitoring her expenses.His mother determinedly drilled into him the same advice she often repeated to herself. "You may not be very tall, but you will stand head and shoulders above everyone," she declared. "You think of yourself as head and shoulders above everyone else, and you will be."Arriving in Hollywood for the first time, David thought he had found paradise. It was even more intoxicating than he had imagined. His life's ambition was soon established after he read a new biography of MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer called Hollywood Rajah. "I want this job," he thought to himself.He simply did not have the attention span that college required. He was eager to get into the real world.She told Geffen that some of the brightest lights in the entertainment business had gotten their start in the mailrooms of the major talent agencies. Although it was not a glamorous job, it was a way to get a foot in the door.  Having tossed aside all notions of right and wrong, David Geffen simply lived by different rules than did the rest of society around him. Unconstrained by traditional ideas of acceptable social behavior, he was free to use all of the resources at his fingertips to achieve his lofty goals.Geffen simply worked harder than anyone else.The music department, he said, was the place where a young agent could make a name for himself. Brandt's advice had a profound impact on Geffen. He at once rejiggered his career plans.It was not an undying passion for music that made him decide to try to make his fortune in the business; he did it because he might get rich quickly.Geffen recognized that publishing was one of the areas in the music business where the real money was being made. Long after an artist's star has faded, publishers benefit financially for years to come, pocketing royalties whenever a group records a song or sheet music is sold.Having studied Clive Davis, he decided that he, too, had the savvy to make it in the record industry. It was not much of a stretch for him to envision David Geffen, the music mogul.He remained unsettled and plagued by feelings of insecurity and dissatisfaction. He was driven by a devil that constantly told him he needed to be bigger, more, and something else. He simply was not the kind of man who was going to stand in one place for very long.While he saw himself most of the time as the smart, fast-rising star he had become, there seemed to be fleeting, dreadful moments when his confidence shattered and he was gripped with fear.The way Geffen saw it, there was a natural synergy in owning both a record company and a management company. They could use the management company to book and promote the acts it was recording on the label and vice versa. Controlling both sides of the business. But the real advantage, Geffen explained, was that they could use the record deal, which came complete with Atlantic financing, to cover the overhead at the management company.From the day he opened his new business, Geffen had his eye fixed on the bottom line. He had the foresight to avoid the pitfalls that had proved fatal to so many others who had launched record labels before him. He was overhead averse and did not feel the urge to redecorate or to hire a large staff.For all his money, David Geffen was turning out to be rather frugal. He well understood that the delicate balance between profit and loss can be upset if expenses are high.Playing fair, Geffen had learned, was difficult and time-consuming; lying, on the other hand, was easy and effective.Just thirty, he claimed that his net worth was about twelve million dollars.  But he was surprised to realize that the millions of dollars he had just banked and the trappings he had been able to acquire with it did not make him happy. It hit him when he was in London on a business trip, lying on a bed in a posh hotel, smoking a joint, and staring at the ceiling. All his life he had dreamed of being a multimillionaire, thinking that money would solve his problems. It had not, and he fell into a deep depression.Geffen saw immediately that Katzenberg had the hustler-like qualities that he himself had displayed at that age.Used to the relatively quick turnaround of record production, the slow-moving nature of the movie business made him agitated, nervous, and bored. Key to his recipe of success had been his ability to move quickly; but in the movie business, that same pacing proved to be a detriment, and it began to drive him crazy.It was to be the most important negotiation of Geffen's life, and he successfully extracted an extraordinary deal that within a few years helped make him one of the wealthiest men in the country. In pulling off the deal, he showed himself to be a shrewd, remarkably focused strategist. He had an uncanny ability to understand people, recognize their weaknesses, and capitalize on them. The negotiation also showed once again that Geffen had that rare ability to envision success: He clearly understood his power and knew how to get what he wanted.-- There was one thing Calvin Klein did not tell Geffen: His privately held fashion empire was on the brink of bankruptcy.  Geffen surmised that the company should be transformed from a manufacturing firm to a design, marketing, and licensing company."You guys stink at manufacturing," he said. "You need to get out of that business."Instead, Geffen continued, the company needed to focus on what it really knew: how to design and market the Calvin Klein brand name."Calvin, you should only be focusing on the aesthetics," Geffen said. "You should just be designing the clothes and overseeing the marketing and advertising."Geffen reprimanded Klein and Schwartz for excesses they could not afford. Among other things, he told them to sell their company jet which cost them $2.5 million a year to maintain. He also told Klein to fire his chief financial officer and helped him hire Richard Martin, a top executive at Price Waterhouse, the accounting firm he himself used.Here was the "fixer" in action: David Geffen was now involved in the kind of problem solving that energized him more than anything else. --The idea of Geffen joining Katzenberg and Spielberg seemed a bit odd. For one thing, Geffen was Hollywood's greatest entrepreneur and nearly all of his successes were ones in which he alone had made the decisions."If I have to sit and convince somebody why I'm enthusiastic about something, I'm already depressed." The idea of himself as a partner was a strange one for David Geffen.I've been working on myself, and my demons and my nonsense and my fucked-up-ness for a long, long time. Which is not to say that I'm still not a little fucked up. I think you get better and better in tiny increments, and you die unhealed. ---- ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#110 Henry Singleton (Teledyne)

What I learned from reading Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It by Dr. George Roberts.  ---- Henry was much more than a salesman, mathematician, engineer, inventor, and chess champion. He was a student. An observer of the history of manufacturing, of the progress and growth of corporations from the days of Henry Ford, the growth of General Motors, the manner of successful corporations in growing by acquisition. [0:01] Henry reminds me of de Gaulle. He has a singleness of purpose, a tenacity that is just overpowering. He gives you absolute confidence in his ability to accomplish whatever he says he is going to do. [2:00] Henry spent time doing exactly what we are doing — learned from entrepreneurs and great people of the past. [3:45] According to Buffett, if one took the top 100 business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would not be as good as that of Singleton, who incidentally was trained as a scientist, not an MBA. / Here is a direct quote from Buffett: The failure of business schools to study men like Singleton is a crime. / "Henry Singleton of Teledyne has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business.” —Warren Buffett [8:30] Genius is an oft-misused word, but it cannot be denied that Henry Singleton brought exceptional brilliance to the creation and development of the enterprise he undertook. . .Many of these strategies, new at the time, have now become commonplace in the business world. [12:57] My only plan is to keep coming to work each day. I like to steer the boat each day rather than plan ahead way into the future. —Henry Singleton [14:36] Within eight years of founding Teledyne had bootstrapped their startup investment of $450,000 into a company with annual sales of over $450 million. [17:24] Henry’s early faith that semiconductors would become the dominant factor in future electronics, even while this was still being debated by others in the industry. [31:15] Henry’s three great ideas Recognizing the future importance of digital semiconductors when this technology was in its infancy. Acquiring and organizing a selection of financial companies to provide a strong financial base [The idea Henry learned by reading Alfred Sloan’s of GM’s book] His innovative strategy for stock buybacks [40:30] Henry knew where he could create the most value and focused on that. Are you doing the same? [50:16] There is no speed limit: In the company’s first six years net income rose from $58,000 to $12,035,000 [52:20] There are ideas worth billions in a $30 history book. [56:10] Henry Singleton the teacher / Claude Shannon on being smart and quiet [1:06:45] By 1977 Teledyne was the largest shareholder in nine Fortune 500 companies. But Henry didn’t want control. He didn’t even want a board seat. [1:13:40] There are companies that will sell one division and buy another because today this divisions generally sports a low multiple and the one they’re buying has a high multiple. That absolutely turns me off. The whole concept is repulsive. We don’t do things like that. We look at the economic long term possibilities. —Henry Singleton [1:17:05] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#109 Adi Dassler (Adidas)

What I learned from reading Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and The Family Feud That Forever Changed The Business of Sports by Barbara Smit. ---- This story begins at a time in history when money and sports were still two separate worlds [0:01] A family business struggling to survive / drafted into WWI / Adi Dassler’s EXTREME resourcefulness and personality / [3:15] Early distribution and marketing of sports shoes [10:06] The Dassler Brothers were opposites: Adi was the quiet craftsman with soul in the game. Rudolf was ostentatious and loud. [12:46] The chronicle and biography of Adi Dassler: A story about someone obsessed with making high quality products [14:00] Was Adi Dassler a Nazi? / My experience with the totalitarianism of the Castro regime / tearing up thinking of having to risk the lives of your children [24:30] Adi Dassler reminds me of Henry Royce [29:30] The difficulties of building a business during World War II [32:15] Adi starting over at the age of 46 / How the Adidas stripes came about [38:15] Athletes start requesting bribes to wear Adidas / How the payoffs happened [46:00] Breaking into a new market was a slow, labor intensive process [50:45] While Adidas and Puma are distracted fighting each other, opportunity opens up for Phil Knight and Nike / pursue your crazy idea / famous last words: “it’s just a toy”, “jogging isn’t a real sport”, “Nike is not a threat because we have more demand than we could service” [55:05] If you have a business that makes you miserable, somewhere along the line you lost the plot. [1:06:45] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#108 Jim Simons (Money Printer)

What I learned from reading The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman  ---- The story of the greatest moneymaker of all time [0:01] Simons prefers to move in silence [1:40] Unknown Unknowns > Known Knowns / Wise people always know exactly why something won’t work. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. —Henry Ford [2:42] A one word summary of the book: PERSISTENCE [4:15] Simons’ early life / Only the arrogant are self-confident enough to push their creative ideas on others. —Nolan Bushnell [4:44] Advice from his father: Do what you like in life, not what you feel you should do. [6:16] Personality: Jim had a persistent and burning desire to be wealthy [7:20] A seed has been planted + Jim’s existential crisis [9:55] Lessons from codebreaking that Jim applies to his business later [14:08] Jim Simons at 29 years of age: Fired, father of 3 young children, no idea what his future holds [20:00] Jim Simons at 33 years of age: Genius and madness are next-door neighbors [21:44] Jim Simons at 40 years of age: Jim finally makes the jump. Only misfits understand misfits [22:55] Jim’s first trading style [28:00] We all go through times like this: DON’T QUIT! [29:15] Jim Simons at 44 years of age / Jim’s partner doesn’t see the point in developing automated trading system / Giant success followed by giants failures [34:30] Back to being filled with self-doubt [37:15] Our mind loves playing tricks on us [38:00] Jim Simons studied the past to gain an information advantage [41:00] Finally, the new strategy starts working! / Even with wild success people will tell you that you are wrong [46:55] Business is like nature, it doesn’t care if you arrive at the right answer from the wrong reasoning. [52:50] Emperors want empires [57:02] Life advice from an 82 year old Jim Simons [1:02:40] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#107 Sol Price (Costco)

What I learned from reading Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator by Robert E. Price. ---- What was it about this man that engendered so much admiration and respect? [0:01] Sol Price’s early life  [4:39] Sol Price was a misfit / “If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, "This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing.”  [5:40]  Learning to love being productive / Sol Price on the importance of time / DO IT NOW! [12:20] The beginning of FedMart [16:00]  Sol Price learned from other founders [21:25]  Sol Price’s business philosophy [28:50] What happened when Sol opens a pharmacy in FedMart / A creative solution to being cut off by gasoline suppliers [36:25]  Sol Price’s idea on teaching and “alter egos” / “You train an animal. You teach a person.” —Sol Price [39:13]  The intelligent loss of sales [42:00]  The idea for Price Club [52:37]  What Sol Price meant to his son [1:05:28] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#106 Bill Walsh (The Score Takes Care of Itself)

What I learned from reading The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh.  --- [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?  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#105 Les Schwab (Charlie Munger recommended this book)

What I learned from reading Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab.  ---- 16 ideas from the book:  Intensity is the price of excellence —Warren Buffett I am 68 years old now. And I've run it in overdrive my whole life. I've always wanted to be the best tire dealer, not necessarily the largest tire dealer. The people serving your customers are the most important people in your company: We have had over the years some people in the office that sometimes think they are more important than the stores. The office serves only one purpose, and that is to serve the stores. Some of our office people sometimes wonder about this. But I’ve warned them, don’t bitch to me because that is the way I want it. If you want to go out and start at the bottom changing tires and work into a manager job, then hop right to it. If it weren’t for those men in the stores working their butts off in all kinds of weather, missing meals, God awful hours, etc. you wouldn’t even have a job. If you’re not serving the customer, or supporting the folks who do, we don’t need you. —Sam Walton  Let the people at the store level and your manager know you are behind them. They are the ones who make you successful, not the person in a nice office who has nothing to do today but to send out another damn directive. If it doesn't help the store, tear it up and tell the store to tell the office to go to hell. There are no shortcuts around quality, and quality starts with people. —Steve Jobs People are the success of our company. Most anyone can sell tires. The only difference between a Les Schwab Tire Centre and most any tire dealership is the people working there. Sharing profits with your employees is a way to build people. Be unselfish for good reasons. We share 50% of our profits with all the employees in the store. My thinking has always been if I give away half the profits I still have half. If I share $10 million with people I still have $10 million left over. I don’t understand why businessmen can’t do this. It is being unselfish for good reasons. It helps a lot of people. Helping others succeed provides deep satisfaction: Success in life is being a good husband, a good father and you end up being a second father to hundreds of other men and women. Last night I attended a wedding of a young man from our office. This young man told me that two men had influenced his life, his father and me. That’s worth more than money. Promote from within —There’s no problem you can’t solve if you know your business from A to Z In our 34 years of business, we have never hired a manager from the outside, nor have we ever hired an assistant manager directly to that job. Every single one of our more than 250 managers and assistant managers started at the bottom changing tires. They have all earned their management jobs by working up. Most businesses are poorly run. If you are on the ball you can beat them. We are different from most American corporations, as we think the most important people in the company are the people on the firing line; the ones who sell, do the service work and take care of the customer. Most American corporations have the fat salaries for the top people and treat the people at the end of the line as peons. I guess that is why, if you are on the ball, you can beat them on any type of fair competitive basis. Decision making should always be made at the lowest possible level: A company starts, it grows, and as it grows, more and more of the decision making moves to the main office. And this is one hell of a big mistake. The decision making should always be made at the lowest possible level. Give your manager the authority to make his own daily decisions, under certain guidelines of course, but let him run his show. You can innovate by doing the exact opposite of your competitors Most tire businesses had a small showroom and all the tires were hidden in the warehouse. My thinking was to reverse —to make the showroom the warehouse. “Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.”—Charlie Munger One benefit of sharing profits with employees —less theft from within: Now that we share with all people, if any one employee sees another employee steal they are a weak kitten if they don’t report it. Why? Because this man is stealing from them, from his children. If he won’t fight for his children, he can’t be very much. For a company as large as ours we have very little dishonesty. Pay the highest wages possible The company paid low wages and had a lower overhead. The flaw was they didn’t get —with the low pay— near the quality of employees we had. Get out of your office If the store manager runs his store right, he doesn't have to spend hours and hours looking at the office reports; if he's doing okay the records will show it. In fact if he spends too much time in his office reading the mail, it is a sure thing his store will suffer. Sell tires, give service, keep expenses low, make sure everything is billed out, keep good communications with employees, be careful with credit, watch for leaks —do these things and you'll come out all right. Stay out of your office Stay out of a store for 30 days and you've forgotten 50 percent of what you know. Once you get on the ball, stay on the ball. OR as Sam Walton said when asked how he built Wal Mart. “We just got after it and *stayed* after it.” If we think there is a free lunch, if we rely on last year's results and ask for pay for non-productive items, then this company will turn the corner, too, and then we too will start down the hill. And once you start down, it is mighty hard to turn around. If we become complacent, brother it's all over with. There’s a rule they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School. It is: If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess. —Edwin Land Whatever you do, you must do it with gusto, you must do it in volume. It is a case of repeat, repeat, repeat. Time Stamps:  [0:01] I hope to pass on some of my theories of business. Should we fail to follow these policies, I would prefer that my name be taken off the business.  [1:55] "If you want to read one book that will demonstrate really shrewd compensation systems in a whole chain of small businesses, read the autobiography of Les Schwab, who has a bunch of tire shops all over the Northwest. And he made a huge fortune in one of the world’s really difficult businesses by having shrewd systems. And he can tell you a lot better than we can.” —Charlie Munger   [8:55] The meeting between James Sinegal (the founder of Costco) and Jeff Bezos in 2001 and how it changed Amazon.  [13:23] Les Schwab’s early life/ his father’s alcoholism / on his own at 16  [18:10] How Les Schwab made more money in high school than his principal. During the Great Depression!  [21:00] Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley  [25:55] How Les Schwab starts his business at 33 years old  [28:22] Les Schwab’s unique ideas on profit sharing / being good at sales is like being a magician  [34:45] I had made up my mind to do it differently  [36:30] Determined to be independent / early days full of struggle / modest initial goals  [39:09] Cap your downside and don’t build a business on someone else’s property  [45:20] My thinking was to reverse it. / The idea of a tire showroom   [48:28] How to get the incentives right  [57:03] Be kind. We are all temporary. The death of his son.  [59:30] Falling out with his partners over money  [1:02:44] Unselfish for good reasons  [1:06:00] Life is hard for people who think they can take a shortcut  [1:09:17] The company isn’t for sale. The stock will remain in the family / What would I do with the money?  [1:11:55] Success in life is being a good husband, a good father and you end up being a second father to hundreds of other men and women. Last night I attended a wedding of a young man from our office. This young man told me that two men had influenced his life, his father and me. That’s worth more than money. [1:15:00] Most companies put the emphasis on the wrong part  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#104 Ingvar Kamprad (IKEA)

What I learned from reading Leading By Design: The Ikea Story by Ingvar Kamprad and Bertil Torekull. ---- [0:01]  He aims to give his company eternal life  [3:45] Early life and entrepreneurship   [8:00] The beginning of IKEA  [11:40] Learning entrepreneurship by imitating  [16:30] IKEA almost dies in infancy / how Ingvar worked his way through it  [26:00] Ingvar’s greatest regret in life: Neglecting his children for his business. “Everyone with children knows that childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered.”  [32:20] Only those asleep make no mistakes. — Ingvar Kamprad  [36:00] Thinking of the first store as a laboratory  [43:43] Why IKEA stumbled upon self assembled furniture  [46:30] A summary of the early history of IKEA  [49:00] How Ingvar managed  [54:00] Why Ingvar refused to go public  [1:03:30] The IKEA Company Bible: The Testament of a Furniture Dealer  [1:19:10] Ingvar the Misfit   ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#103 Hetty Green (The Richest Woman in America)

What I learned from reading The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach.  ---- [0:10] She was  the smartest woman on Wall Street, a financial genius, a railroad magnate, a real estate mogul, a Gilded Era renegade, a reliable source for city funds. [0:19] “I have had fights with some of the greatest financial men in the country. Did you ever hear of any of them getting ahead of Hetty Green?” [1:10] I go my own way, take no partners, risk nobody else’s fortune. [1:29] She was considered the single biggest individual financier in the world. [1:58]  A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95) [2:55] Watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. [3:31] Don’t close a bargain until you have reflected on it overnight. [4:00] I am always buying when everyone wants to sell, and selling when everyone wants to buy. [4:51] I never set out for anything that I don’t conquer. [5:55] To live content with small means; To seek elegance rather than luxury, And refinement rather than fashion; To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich. [7:27] Her father’s advice: Never owe anyone anything. [9:44] By the time she is 13 she is the family bookkeeper. [11:53] She paid attention when he (her father) repeated again and again that property was a trust to be taken care of and enlarged for future generations. She obeyed when he insisted that she keep her own accounts in order and later praised the experience. “There is nothing better than this sort of training,” she said. [13:28] Hetty hungered for money itself. [14:08] List of financial panics discussed in the book: Panic of 1857, Panic of 1866, The Long Depression 1873-1896 which had several panics within, (Panic of 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893) Panic 1901 and Panic of 1907. [16:18] She was a master at studying what happened before her. [16:31] The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by TJ Stiles. (Founders #54) and Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55) [17:15] Clever men like Russell Sage, a future role model for Hetty, kept substantial amounts of cash on hand and used it to buy stocks at rock-bottom prices. John Pierpont Morgan told his son there was a good lesson to be learned from other people’s greed and good bargains to be found in the aftermath. In future times, Hetty would always keep cash available and use it to buy when everyone else was selling. Much later, Warren Buffett would do the same. But most people watched their money wash away in the flood. [23:57] This was the start of the contrary investing she followed for the rest of her life: buying when everyone else was selling; selling when everyone else was buying. “I buy when things are low and nobody wants them. I keep them until they go up and people are crazy to get them. That is, I believe, the secret of all successful business,” she said. [26:46] Hetty, like Claude Shannon, Warren Buffett, and Ed Thorp, collected a lot of information. Hetty read more and studied more than most other people. [28:07] The opportunities were enormous for those with the stomach to take the risks. [30:25] The markets may change, the methods may be revamped, but as long as human beings are propelled by greed and ego, they are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. [31:11] She had a pile of cash when others were scouring for pennies, but she also had a deft mind and the colossal courage to push against the crowd. [36:17] Hetty’s investments were not always known: she purchased property under fictitious names, bought stocks under other identities, and was praised by shrewd observers for how closely she held her positions. [37:41] Williams greeted his new customer with all the courtesy and respect due a woman of her wealth. “I have observed that many a tattered garment hides a package of bonds and that gorgeous clothing does not always cover a millionaire,” he told his colleagues. [44:14] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen (Founders #37) [45:52] Hetty didn't like the idle rich. She respected authentic achievement. [48:48] Companies who stocks had skyrocketed collapsed when their lack of capital was revealed. [49:22] The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard. (Founders #29) [49:30] More companies die from indigestion than starvation. —David Packard [50:58] She used her intelligence to increase her wealth, her independence to live as she wished, and her strength to battle anyone who stood in her way. [55:24] They sought her out to sell off their possessions. As rates rose, more and more of “the solidest men in Wall Street,” she said, from “financiers to legitimate businessmen,” came to call, begging to unload everything from palatial mansions to automobiles. “They came to me in droves,” she recalled. [59:30] When it comes to spending your life, there have to be some things neglected. If you try to do too much, you can never get anywhere. [59:53] You see this advice over and over again. You just got to figure out what that thing is that you want to focus on. No one can answer that question for you. [1:00:14] I think the key to a happy life is getting to the end of your life with the least amount of regrets as possible. [1:00:24] She prized the life she led. “I enjoy being in the thick of things. I like to have a part in the great movements of the world and especially of this country. I like to deal with big things and with big men. I would rather do [this] than play bridge. Indeed, my work is my amusement, and I believe it is also my duty.” ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#102 Akio Morita (Sony)

What I learned from reading Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita.   --- [0:01] Forty years ago, a small group gathered in a burned-out department store building in war-devastated downtown Tokyo. Their purpose was to found a new company, their optimistic goal was to develop the technologies that would help rebuild Japan's economy. [5:00] I was born the first son and fifteenth-generation heir to one of Japan's finest and oldest sake-brewing families. The Morita family has been making sale for three hundred years. Unfortunately, the taste of a couple of generations of Morita family heads was so refined and their collecting skills so acute that the business suffered while they pursued their artistic interests, letting the business take care of itself, or, rather, putting it in other hands. They relied on hired managers to run the Morita company, but to these managers the business was no more than a livelihood, and if the business did not do well, that was to be regretted, but it was not crucial to their personal survival. In the end, all the managers stood to lose was a job. They did not carry the responsibility of the generations, of maintaining the continuity and prosperity of the enterprise and the financial well-being of the Morita family.  [8:18] Tenacity, perseverance, and optimism are traits that have been handed down to me through the family genes. [9:25] I was taught that scolding subordinates and looking for people to blame for problems—seeking scapegoats—is useless. These concepts have stayed with me and helped me develop the philosophy of management that served me very well. [10:28] I had to teach myself because the subjects I was really interested in were not taught in my school in those days. [14:09] The emperor, who until now had never before spoken directly to his people, told us the immediate future would be grim. He said that we could “pave the way for a grand peace for all generations to come," but we had to do it "by enduring the unendurable and suffering what is insufferable." [23:58] When some of my relatives came to see me, they were so shocked by the shabby conditions that they thought I had become an anarchist. They could not understand how, if I was not a radical, I could choose to work in a place like that. [24:28] Ibuka and I had often spoken of the concept of our new company as an innovator, a clever company that would make new high technology products in ingenious ways. [29:36] We were engineers and we had a big dream of success. We thought that in making a unique product, we would surely make a fortune. I then realized that having unique technology and being able to make unique products are not enough to keep a business going. You have to sell the products, and to do that you have to show the potential buyer the real value of what you are selling.  [32:20] There was an acute shortage of stenographers because so many people had been pushed out of school and into war work. Until that shortage could be corrected, the courts of Japan were trying to cope with a small, overworked corps of court stenographers. We were able to demonstrate our machine for the Japan Supreme Court, and we sold twenty machines almost instantly! Those people had no difficulty realizing how they could put our device to practical use; they saw the value in the tape recorder immediately. [38:03] Marketing is really a form of communication. We had to educate our customers to the uses of our products. [39:15] We would often have the market to ourselves for a year or more before the other companies would be convinced that the product would be a success. And we made a lot of money, having the market all to ourselves. [40:20] The public does not know what is possible, but we do. So instead of doing a lot of market research, we refine our thinking on a product and its use and try to create a market for it by educating and communicating with the public. [42:33] Everybody gave me a hard time. It seemed as though nobody liked the idea [the Walkman]. “It sounds like a good idea, but will people buy it if it doesn't have recording capability? I don't think so." I said, “Millions of people have bought car stereo without recording capability and I think millions will buy this machine.” [46:38] "We definitely want some of these. We will take one hundred thousand units." One hundred thousand units! I was stunned. It was an incredible order, worth several times the total capital of our company. When he told me that there was one condition: we would have to put the Bulova name on the radios. That stopped me. We wanted to make a name for our company on the strength of our own products. We would not produce radios under another name. When I would not budge, he got short with me. "Our company name is a famous brand name that has taken over fifty years to establish," he said. "Nobody has ever heard of your brand name. Why not take advantage of ours?" I understood what he was saying, but I had my own view. “Fifty years ago," I said, “your brand name must have been just as unknown as our name is today. I am here with a new product, and I am now taking the first step for the next fifty years of my company. Fifty years from now I promise you that our name will be just as famous as your company name is, today." [49:04] When I attended middle school, discipline was very strict, and this included our physical as well as our mental training. Our classrooms were very cold in winter; we didn't even have a heater; and we were not allowed to wear extra clothes. In the navy,I had hard training. In boot camp every morning we had to run a long way before breakfast. In those days I did not think of myself as a physically strong person, and yet under such strict training I found I was not so weak after all, and the knowledge of my own ability gave me confidence in myself that I did not have before. It is the same with mental discipline; unless you are forced to use your mind, you become mentally lazy and you will never fulfill your potential. [52:06] Norio Ohga, who had been a vocal arts student at the Tokyo University of Arts when he saw our first audio tape recorder back in 1950. He was a great champion of the tape recorder, but he was severe with us because he didn't think our early machine was good enough.He was right, of course; our first machine was rather primitive. We invited him to be a paid critic even while he was still in school. His ideas were very challenging. He said then, "A ballet dancer needs a mirror to perfect her style, her technique." [54:21] Nobody can live twice, and the next twenty or thirty years is the brightest period of your life. You only get it once. When you leave the company thirty years from now or when your life is finished, I do not want you to regret that you spent all those years here. That would be a tragedy. I cannot stress the point too much that this is your responsibility to yourself. So I say to you, the most important thing in the next few months is for you to decide whether you will be happy or unhappy here. [59:40] My argument again and again was that by saving money instead of investing it in the business you might gain profit on a short-term basis, but in actual fact, you would be cashing in the assets that had been built up in the past. [1:00:00] One must prepare the groundwork among the customers before you can expect success in the marketplace. It is a time-honored Japanese gardening technique to prepare a tree for transplanting by slowly and carefully binding the roots over a period of time, bit by bit, to prepare the tree for the shock of the change it is about to experience. This process, called Nemawashi, takes time and patience, but it rewards you, if it is done properly, with a healthy transplanted tree. Advertising and promotion for a brand-new, innovative product is just as important. [1:01:19] If Japanese clients come into the office of a new and struggling company and see plush carpet and private offices and too much comfort, they become suspicious that this company is not serious, that it is devoting too much thought and company resources to management's comfort, and perhaps not enough to the product or to potential customers. Too often I have found in dealing with foreign companies that such superfluous things as the physical structure and office decor take up a lot more time and attention and money than they are worth. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#101 Warren Buffett (The Tao of Warren Buffett)

What I learned from reading The Tao of Warren Buffett by David Clark and Mary Buffett.  --- [0:01]The more I heard Warren speak, the more I learned. Not only about investing, but about business and life.  [4:02] The great personal fortunes in this country weren’t built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business.  [5:45] It is impossible to unsign a contract, so do all your thinking before you sign.  [8:35] I don’t try to jump over seven-foot bars; I look around for one-foot bars that I can step over.  [14:27] The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.  [19:00] My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror.  [22:14] When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.  [23:07] Managing your career is like investing—the degree of difficulty does not count. So you can save yourself money and pain by getting on the right train.  [24:55] There is a huge difference between the business that grows and requires lots of capital to do so and the business that grows and doesn’t require capital.  [27:00] I look for businesses in which I think I can predict what they’re going to look like in ten or fifteen year; time. Take Wrigley’s chewing gum. I don’t think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum  [28:50] You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other’s people’s experience when you can.  [29:20] The really good business manager doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘This is the day that I am going to cut costs,’ any more than he wakes up and decides to practice breathing.  [30:07] A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought / A story from a young Steve Jobs  [31:55] The business schools reward difficult, complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.  [32:42] If you let yourself be undisciplined on the small things, you will probably be undisciplined on the large things as well.  [35:15] George Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most: Himself.  [41:15] No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#100 Warren Buffett (The Snowball)

What I learned from reading The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. ---- [0:01] What he was teaching were the lessons that had emerged from the unfolding of his own life  [4:35] The dichotomy of Warren Buffett  [9:20] Warren Buffett wants to be remembered as a teacher  [11:52] Buffett’s idea of Inner scorecard vs Outer scorecard  [13:49] Warren Buffett’s early family life  [18:03] Learning to avoid the habit of thinking in only one direction (18:03),  [24:30] Warren’s WHY  [29:58] A young troublemaker and how Warren’s dad convinced him to change his behavior  [32:20] Warren did what you are doing right now: Since a young age Warren had studied the lives of men like Jay Cooke, Daniel Drew, Jim Fisk, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. [33:48] Turning a rejection into one of the best things to ever happen to him [38:30] Mimicry instead of independent thought: Warren didn’t understand why they couldn’t see what was right before their eyes.  [42:20] One of the most inspiring things about reading biographies is you are constantly reminded that we all have the ability to improve. A young Warren Buffett was so afraid of public speaking he would vomit.  [48:06] Warren learning from and working with his idol: Ben Graham [52:20] Warren’s advice for everyone: Sell yourself an hour a day  [57:28] Intensity is the price of excellence and examples of people Warren wanted to do business with  [1:01:08] Warren Buffett is an obsessive/Munger would later call Buffett an implacable acquirer, like John D. Rockefeller in the early days of assembling his empire, who let nobody and nothing get in his way. (1:01:08),  [1:13:10] Warren Buffett on his biggest mistake  [1:16:11] What Buffett valued in the lives of others/His idea about claim checks  [1:19:25] His “Twenty Punches” approach to investing  [1:22:38] Warren’s answer to the question, “What has been your greatest success and greatest failure?”  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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

#99 Carroll Shelby (My name is Carroll Shelby and performance is my business)

What I learned from reading Carroll Shelby: The Authorized Biography by Rinsey Mills.  --- [3:27] I love everything about this person. I like the way he thought. I like the way he lived his life. [3:38] It is almost unbelievable all the different events that could happen in one human lifetime. [3:52] He lived to 89 years old and he used every single year that he was alive. [5:22] He could talk his way out of anything. [6:40] He knew what he wanted. He didn't want anybody else telling him what to do. [7:41] He had a love for anything that would go fast. [10:48] He didn’t know what to do with his life. [15:54] Follow your natural drift. —Charlie Munger [17:00] I can't work for anybody. [18:42]  He has fun his entire life. As soon as they stop being fun he runs away. [22:20] A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #93 and #222)  [24:17]  Money only solves money problems. [26:32] Scratching around doing insignificant races with inferior machinery wasn't an option in which he could see any future. [27:26] Whatever setbacks he encountered he was invariably able to bounce back through a combination of self-belief and an aptitude for making other people believe in him. [27:45] Enthusiasm and passion are universal attractive traits. [28:05] Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J. Baime. (Founders #97) and Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte. (Founders #98)  [30:29] The Purple Cow by Seth Godin [32:22] Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It by Dr. George Roberts. (Founders #110) [32:38] Having extreme focus in the information age is a superpower. [36:13] Racing was a means to an end. He wanted to build his own car. That was his main goal. [42:34] He still didn't know quite how he was going to do it but if he was finally going to produce his own sports car. [53:48] All big things start small. [58:31] 12 months after Shelby was deeply depressed his life is completely different and the Shelby Cobra starts to take shape. [1:00:06] A summary of the early days of Shelby Automotive: Everything had to be done tomorrow and by the cheapest method possible. [1:01:12] It wasn't uncommon for them to work until two or three in the morning and be back down there at 7:30 the next morning. [1:02:22] There's just something special about a group of highly talented, smart people working together for a common goal. [1:03:48] Shelby hates company politics. That is why he wanted to run a smaller company. [1:17:30] My name is Carroll Shelby and performance is my business.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- “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