Founders

#38 The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos

What I learned from reading The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos by Christian Davenport.  --- [0:54] Musk and Bezos were the leaders of this resurrection of the American space program, a pair of billionaires with vastly different styles and temperaments. Always audacious, Musk had plowed far ahead, his triumphs and failures commanding center stage. Bezos remained quiet and clandestine, his mysterious rocket venture kept hidden behind the curtain. [1:36] Musk, the brash hare, was blazing a trail for others to follow, while Bezos, the secretive and slow tortoise, who was content to take it step by step in a race that was only just beginning. [13:46] “How is the situation in the year 2000 different from 1960? What has changed?” he said. “The engines can be somewhat better, but they’re still chemical rocket engines. What’s different is computer sensors, cameras, software. Being able to land vertically is the kind of problem that can be addressed by those technologies that existed in 2000 that didn’t exist in 1960.” [17:33] He started a company called Zip2 that would help print newspapers get their content online, and it immediately had customers lining up, from the New York Times to Hearst. Musk sold the company to Compaq in 1999 for about $300 million. His next venture was called X.com, an online bank that merged with PayPal. The online financial payment system grew fast, gaining a million customers within two years. eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, netting Musk $180 million. He was thirty-one years old. [20:27] Musk, a ravenous reader of science fiction, had expected that by this point in his life there’d be a base on the moon and trips to Mars powered by the robust space program built on the Apollo lunar missions. If in the 1960s, the United States could send a man to the moon in less than a decade, surely there were more great things to come. He was overcome with what he called a “feeling of dismay.” “I just did not want Apollo to be our high-water mark,” he said. “We do not want a future where we tell our children that this was the best we ever did. Growing up, I kept expecting we’re going to have a base on the moon, and we’re going to have trips to Mars. Instead, we went backwards, and that’s a great tragedy.” [21:09] Musk had read every book he could find on the subject, as Beal had. And he came away convinced that the best way to acquire a rocket was to build it himself, no matter how many times friends told him he was crazy. [23:54] He wasn’t just selling his rocket, but what it represented—the crazy idea that a small startup could succeed in space. [25:59] Musk was intense, preternaturally focused, and extremely determined. “This was not the kind of guy who was going to accept failure.” [26:38] Most of us struggle with fear. We dread looking dumb. I found Elon fearless in this regard. He’s not afraid to ask a question that proves he doesn’t understand something. [29:53] SpaceX’s mantra was to set audacious, nearly impossible goals and don’t get dissuaded. Head down. Plow through the line. [33:38] The turtle was Blue Origin’s mascot, the embodiment of another of Bezos’s favorite sayings, one derived from US Navy SEAL training: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” [40:07] Every summer Bezos was shipped off to his grandfather’s ranch. It was rural and isolated, a place where Bezos learned the value of self-reliance from his grandfather. [43:20] “I was very difficult to punish for my parents because they would send me to my room, and I was always happy to go to my room because I would just read” Bezos said. [45:42] Blue Orgin’s “Jobs” page ad was less welcoming, even arrogant. Applicants needed to be “highly qualified and dedicated individuals who meet the following criteria: “You must have a genuine passion for space. Without passion, you will find what we’re trying to do too difficult. There are much easier jobs. “You must want to work in a small company. If you can happily work at a large aerospace company, you’re probably not the right person. “Our hiring bar is unabashedly extreme. We insist on keeping our team size small (measured in the dozens), which means each person occupying a spot must be among the most technically gifted in his or her field. “We are building real hardware—not PowerPoint presentations. This must excite you. You must be a builder.” [50:33] Death was more likely a “when, not if” outcome, an unavoidable fact that they should confront and plan for. But death shouldn’t stop them. It shouldn’t get in the way. Progress was not possible without it. That was true in space as it was in all manner of expeditions, from crossing the Atlantic, to exploring the poles, to opening up the West. [53:31] Elon on space exploration: “The thing that actually gets me the most excited about it is that I just think it’s the grandest adventure I could possibly imagine. It’s the most exciting thing—I couldn’t think of anything more exciting, more fun, more inspiring for the future than to have a base on Mars,” he once said. “It would be incredibly difficult and probably lots of people will die and terrible and great things will happen along the way, just as happened in the formation of the United States.” [56:13] Elon added: “For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.” [1:08:04] The result: a system that met the air force’s requirements, for a tenth of the cost. “We had to be super scrappy,” Musk said. “If we did it the standard way, we would have run out of money. For many years we were week to week on cash flow, within weeks of running out of money. It definitely creates a mind-set of smart spending. Be scrappy or die: those were our two options. Buy scrap components, fix them up, and make them work.” [1:12:50] For a while the company had been using a toxic cleaner for its engine nozzles, which it intended to reuse. But that cleaner was expensive and difficult to handle—it had to be used in a separate, clean room because it was so toxic. Then someone discovered that citric acid worked just as well. So, the company started buying it by the gallon, an easier, less expensive solution that worked better. “Now I’m the largest purchaser of lemon juice in the country,” Bezos told her, letting loose one of his trademark cackles. [1:21:45] “The vast majority of people at the company today have only ever seen success,” Elon said. “You don’t fear failure as much.” And so, when he sent out his e-mail before each launch, asking people to come forward, it didn’t “resonate with the same force” as it had when the company was small and scrappy and feared going out of business. But now even the uninitiated knew the driving power of failure—and fear—“and we’ll be the stronger for it,” he said. [1:25:12] “The things that you work hardest for, for the longest periods of time, always bring you the most satisfaction,” Bezos explained. ---- 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

#37 The Fish That Ate The Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King

What I learned from reading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. --- When he arrived in America in 1891 at age fourteen, Zemurray was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans sixty-nine years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world. In between he worked as a fruit peddler, a banana hauler, a dockside hustler, and the owner of plantations on the Central American isthmus. He batted and conquered United Fruit, which was one of the first truly global corporations. [0:01] Zemurray’s life is a parable of the American dream. It told me that the life of the nation was not written only by speech-making grandees in funny hats but also by street-corner boys, immigrant strivers, crazed and driven, some with one good idea, some with thousands, willing to go to the ends of the earth to make their vision real. [0:31] How Sam Zemurray started: He’d arrived on the docks at the start of the last century with nothing. In the early years, he’d had to make his way in the lowest precincts of the fruit business, peddling ripes, bananas other traders dumped into the sea. He worked like a dog and defied the most powerful people in the country. [2:26]  He was driven by the same raw energy that has always attracted the most ambitious to America. You did not need to be a Rockefeller to know the basics of the dream: Start at the bottom, fight your way to the top. [3:35]  He believed in staying close to the action—in the fields with the workers, in the dives with the banana cowboys. You drink with a man, you learn what he knows. There is no problem you can’t solve if you understand your business from A to Z. [4:33]  His real life began when he saw that first banana. He devised a plan soon after: he would travel to where the fruit boats arrived from Central America, purchase a supply of his own, carry them back to Selma, and go into business. [6:24] See opportunity where others see nothing: The bananas that did not make the cut were designated “ripes” and heaped in a sad pile. These bananas, though still good to eat, would never make it to market in time. As far as the merchants were concerned, they were trash. Sam grew fixated on ripes, recognizing a product where others had seen only trash. [6:54]  As far as he was concerned, ripes were considered trash only because Boston Fruit were too slow-footed to cover ground. It was a calculation based on arrogance. I can be fast where others have been slow. I can hustle where others have been satisfied with the easy pickings of the trade. Zemurray stumbled upon a niche: overlooked at the bottom of the trade. [8:08] His business grows rapidly: Because Zemurray discovered a patch of fertile ground previously untilled, his business grew by leaps and bounds. In 1899, he sold 20,000 bananas. Within a decade he would be selling more than a million bananas a year. [9:30] An interesting story about Why was Zemurray’s company so profitable so quickly? Hint: No expenses. [13:47] Was there a precursor? Of course there was. The world is a mere succession of fortunes made and lost, lessons learned and forgotten and learned again. [17:59]  If you looked into his eyes you would see the machinery turning. Part of him is always figuring. You listen to a man like that. He knows something that can’t be taught. [20:19] Study those that came before you. Avoid their fate: He paid special attention to the old-timers who had been in the trade since the days of wind power. They were former big timers now just trying to survive. [20:40]  Zemurray goes deep into debt to buy as much land as possible: There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them when he cannot afford to. [23:13]  He believed in the transcendent power of physical labor—that a man can free his soul only by exhausting his body. [26:07]  Unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business. He was contemptuous of banana men who spent their lives in the North, far from the plantations. Those schmucks, what do they know? They’re there, we’re here! [26:21]  These banana companies were so powerful that they overthrew presidents. Multiple times. [27:47]  Pretend you are Sam Zemurray. You’ve been summoned to Washington, called to account by the Secretary of State, warned. What do you do? Put your head down, shut up? Sit in a corner? No Sam Zemurray. [29:57]  He disdained bureaucracy, hated paperwork. He ran his entire business in his head. He will telephone division managers in half a dozen countries, correlate their reports in his head and reach his decision without touching a pencil. [34:06] He was respected because he understood the trade. By the time he was 40 he had served in every position. He had worked on the docks, on the ships and railroads, in the fields and warehouses. He had ridden the mules. He had managed the fruit and money, the mercenaries and government men. He understood the meaning of every change in the weather, the significance of every date on the calendar. There was not a job he could not do, nor a task he could not accomplish. He considered it a secret to his success. He refrained from anything that took him away from his work. [37:46]  Manager vs Maker Schedule [39:43]  He began to visit boatyards. He wanted to build a fleet so he would never again be dependent on other companies to haul his product. He wanted control. In everything. [40:32]  It was a contrast of styles: the executives who ran United Fruit had taken over from the founders and were less interested in risking than in persevering. Zemurray was the founder, forever on the attack, at work, in progress, growing by trial and error, ready to gamble it all. [42:53]  Here was a self-made man, filled with the most dangerous kind of confidence: he had done it before and believed he could do it again. This gave him the air of a berserker, who says, if you’re going to fight me, you better kill me. If you’ve ever known such a person, you will recognize the type at once. If he does not say much, it’s because he considers small talk a weakness. Wars are not won by running your mouth. I’m describing a once essential American type that has largely vanished. Men who channeled all their love and fear into the business, the factory, the plantation, the shop. [46:42]  Two different approaches to buying land. One entrepreneurial, one the opposite: United Fruit did what big bureaucracy-heavy companies always do, hired lawyers and investigators to find the identity of the true owner. This took months. In the meantime, Zemurray simply bought the land from them both. He bought it twice—paid a little more, yes, but if you factor in the cost of all those lawyers, probably still spent less than United Fruit and came away with the prize. [47:50] Why the book is called The Fish That Ate The Whale [49:46]  The greatness of Zemurray lies in the fact that he never lost faith in his ability to salvage a situation. Bad things happened to him as bad things happen to everyone, but unlike so many he was never tempted by failure. He never felt powerless or trapped. He was an optimist. He stood in constant defiance. For every move there is a countermove. For every disaster, there is a recovery. He never lost faith in his own agency. [51:45] You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I’m going to straighten it out. [58:07] Sam’s defining characteristic was his belief in his own agency, his refusal to despair. No story is without the possibility of redemption; with cleverness and hustle, the worst can be overcome. I can’t help but feel that we would do well by emulating Sam Zemurray. [1:04:05]  ---- 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

#36 Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent

What I learned from reading Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent by Nolan Bushnell.  --- A pong is a piece of advice designed to help enhance creativity. It applies to only where the advice is helpful. Unlike a rule which thinks itself applicable to every situation. (4:36) Cherish the pink-haired. (16:53) Hire the obnoxious: Steve Jobs believed he was always right and was willing to push harder and longer than other people who might have had equally good ideas but caved under pressure. (19:07) Expect to be criticized. Everyone said Atari was nuts. When I explained Chuck E Cheese they laughed. "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty - a fad." President of Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Company, 1903 (20:23) One of the best ways to find creative people is to ask a simple question: What books do you like? (24:15) When your company establishes that anyone can and should contribute, you will end up hearing some very good suggestions coming from unlikely places. (26:03) I strongly believe that everyone who wants to be creative must find a place where their mind can be alone and untouched any the insanity of complexity. (30:20) Champion bad ideas: WD-40 is called that because the first 39 versions of the product failed. WD-40 stands for “Water Displacement, 40th formula.” (32:11) Any idiot can say no. There’s no mental process there. If you don’t like something, the trick is to think of something better. (37:04)  Invent haphazard holidays. Unplanned days off for the entire company (38:00) Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had a good idea. The thing that matters is what you do with the idea once you get out of the shower. So if there’s only one thing you take from this book, it’s this: You must act! Do something! (41:29) ---- 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

#35 George Lucas: A Life

What I learned from reading George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.  --- Lucas unapologetically invested in what he believed in the most: himself.“What we’re striving for is total freedom, where we can finance our pictures, make them our way, release them where we want them released, and be completely free to express ourselves,” explained Lucas. “That’s very hard to do in the world of business. In this country, the only thing that speaks is money and you have to have the money in order to have the power to be free.”George looked at it like a businessman, saying, ‘Wait a minute. The studios borrowed money, took a 35 percent distribution fee off the top. This is crazy. Why don’t we borrow the money ourselves?' Some of the bravest and/or most reckless acts were not aesthetic, but financial.My thing about art is that I don’t like the word art because it means pretension and bullshit, and I equate those two directly. I don’t think of myself as an artist, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m a craftsman. I don’t make a work of art; I make a movie. You couldn’t pay me enough money to go through what you have to go through to make a movie. It’s excruciating. It’s horrible. You get physically sick. I get a very bad cough and a cold whenever I direct. I don’t know whether it’s psychosomatic or not. You feel terrible. There is an immense amount of pressure, and emotional pain. But I do it anyway, and I really love to do it. It’s like climbing mountains.I was seriously, seriously depressed at that point because nothing had gone right. Everything was screwed up. I was desperately unhappy. That was a very dark period for me. We were in dire financial straits. I was in debt to my parents, in debt to Francis Coppola, in debt to my agent; I was so far in debt I thought I’d never get out.He was fascinated not only by Scrooge McDuck’s exploits but also by his conniving capitalist ways. “Work smarter, not harder,” was Scrooge’s motto, and his stories were full of inventive schemes that, more often than not, made him even richer and more successful. In Scrooge’s world, hard work paid off, yes — but so did cleverness and a desire to do something in a way no one had ever thought of before. The lessons Lucas learned from Uncle Scrooge would shape the kind of artist and businessman he would become in the future: conservative and driven, believing strongly in his own vision and pursuing it aggressively.I sit at my desk for eight hours a day no matter what happens, even if I don’t write anything. It’s a terrible way to live. But I do it; I sit down and I do it. I can’t get out of my chair until five o clock or five-thirty. It’s like being in school. It’s the only way I can force myself to write. Most days, no words would be written at all. At 5:30 he would tromp downstairs to watch the evening news, glaring with anger over a TV dinner as he stewed about the blank pages he’d left upstairs.Sitting next to him was a thirty-one-year-old independent filmmaker from northern California named John Korty. When he digressed into the details of his filmmaking Lucas really took an interest. For the past three years, Korty had been running his own filmmaking facility out of his barn at Stinson Beach, a small ocean resort town just north of San Francisco. He had privately raised the $100,000 for Crazy Quilt by hitting up friends, colleagues, and even his actors for money, shot the movie locally, then edited it on his own equipment. At the film’s premiere, it received a lengthy standing ovation, and Hollywood executives fell over themselves scrambling to distribute it and recruit Korty. But Korty was having none of it. “From what I saw of Hollywood, they can keep it right now,” Korty said. “I would rather work for myself. In Hollywood you have a producer breathing down your neck. Here in northern California I am happier working with less money. The risk of failure is far less . We can complete a film in maybe a year, getting the results we want.” This was exactly what they had in mind for themselves. “Korty inspired us both,” said Coppola. “He was a real innovator.”How many people think the solution to gaining quality control, improving fiscal responsibility, and stimulating technological innovation is to start their own special effects company?” Ron Howard said admiringly. “But that’s what he did.” ---- 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

#34 Creativity Inc: The Autobiography of the founder of Pixar

What I learned from reading Creativity Inc: Overcoming The Unseen Forces That Stand In The Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull.  --- Lead with a light touch (18:59) Anchor yourself with your why (23:35) Bet on yourself (39:54) Decentralize problem-solving (52:56) People are more important than ideas (1:00:45) Analyze ways to improve your process after a project is complete (1:24:10) Keep a startup mentality (1:26:36) ---- 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

#33 Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World

What I learned from reading Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World by Lynn Downey --- [0:01] Levi was one of the men who set that firm foundation [17:35] I do not have at this time a specific occupation...I will share the fate that has been assigned to me [22:29] Enduring hardship for the ultimate goal [29:24] A hole in the market [42:00] Levi starts his business cold [54:18] The dangers of shipping by sea [1:04:42] Inventing Jeans by accident [1:10:00] Overnight success 20 years in the making [1:17:40] How Levi was able to serve customers who were illiterate or spoke another language ---- 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

#32 Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built

What I learned from reading Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark.  --- Crazy Jack (0:01) The internet is filling the void created by state planning (6:59) Jack has made a career out of being underestimated: “I am a very simple guy. I am not smart. I might have a smart face but I’ve got very stupid brains.” (20:35) Jack’s early life / Discipline and Curiosity (24:43) Jack Magic: “ Nobody saw the opportunity in this business. We didn’t make much money at first, but Jack persevered…I respect him tremendously for he has a a great ability to motivate people and he can invest things that seem hopeless with exciting possibility. He can make those around him get excited about life.” (40:00) Jack’s first time on the Internet (47:06) Another lucky break: Meeting Yahoo Founder Jerry Yang (55:45) Making money from shrimp (57:02) The worst deal he ever made (1:00:43) Masayoshi Son: Founder of Softbank (1:04:45) Be the last man standing (1:10:16) Ebay vs Alibaba: A case study in what not to do (1:13:32) Yahoo’s billion-dollar bet (1:23:00) Jack’s unique reaction to the financial crisis (1:27:00) Alipay’s ownership changes / One of the craziest stories I’ve read (1:33:12) If I had another life, I would keep my company private (1:46:10) ---- 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

#31 Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

What I learned from reading Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future --- Culture Eats Strategy [1:45] Conspiracy as a metaphor for a company [3:56] It is a story of poetic justice on a grand scale plotted silently for nearly a decade [6:02] Something in these pages planted itself deep into Thiel's mind when he first read it long ago [15:25] It was ruthless efficiency and hyper-competence. [21:40] You were driven to entrepreneurship because it was a safe space from consensus and from convention. [34:36] What if I do something about this? What might happen? What might happen if I do nothing? Which is riskier, to act or to ignore? [38:52] Sometimes these books teach us what not to do. [59:06] Unknown unknowns > known knowns [1:11:10] How you do one thing is how you do all things. [1:25:47] He had always been aggressive. He wouldn't have gotten where he was in life if he wasn't. [1:30:35] Companies routinely focus on silly things. [1:32:38] The greatest sin of a leader.[1:37:17] How resourceful is Peter Thiel?[1:41:37] Just keep asking why.[1:47:29] Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you for the laws too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt. [1:53:37] Brilliant thinking is rare but courage is even in shorter supply [1:58:50] The business version of our contrarian question is: What valuable company is nobody building? [2:01:39] This Twisted logic is part of human nature, but it's disastrous in business. If you can recognize competition as a destructive force instead of a sign of value, you're already saner than most. [2:16:11] Steve Jobs saw that you can change the world through careful planning. Not by listening to focus groups feedback or copying others success. [2:19:53] You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of chance. [2:21:05] ---- 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

#30 Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

What I learned from reading Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance.  --- I don't want to be the person who ever has to compete with Elon (0:47) Musk expects you to keep up (2:45) Short of building an actual money-crushing machine, Musk could not have picked a faster way to destroy his fortune. He became a one-man, ultra-risk-taking venture capital shop (4:41) Revisit old ideas (5:22) It was not unusual for him to read ten hours a day (7:49) His approach to dating mirrors his approach to work (9:32) Humans are deeply mimetic (10:59) Thinking from first principles (14:37) What it is like to work with Elon Musk (17:40) He would place this urgency that he expected the revenue in ten years to be ten million dollars a day and that every day we were slower to achieve our goals was a day of missing out on that money (19:28) What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. He didn't just survive. He kept working and stayed focused (23:29)  A tenet of Elon's companies: make as many things yourself as possible (25:39) The power of the individual in an age of infinite leverage (27:31) The Internet taught me nearly everything I know. It is the modern day equivalent to the library of Alexandria, except it's much harder to burn to the ground. It is indispensable for realizing human rights, combating inequality, accelerating development, and quickening the pace of human progress (29:37) Focusing on the endpoint (30:19) Grand Theft Life (32:00) ---- 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

#29 The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company

What I learned from reading The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard. --- [0:01] How Steve Jobs was inspired by David Packard [1:00] Books are the original hyperlinks [4:30] Profit is the measure of how well we work together [9:00] HP's first product [11:00] Podcasts before podcasts [14:00] Many of the things I learned in this process were invaluable, and not available in business schools [15:00] More businesses die from indigestion than starvation [16:30] The importance of maintaining a narrow focus [20:00] Growth from profit [21:00] Lessons from the Great Depression = No long term debt [26:30] A Maverick's persistence [29:00] How to avoid layoffs in a recession [30:20] Employees should outgrow you [31:00] The perils of centralization [35:00] Closing with optimism ---- 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

#28 The Wright Brothers

What I learned from reading The Wright Brothers by David McCullough --- Unyielding determination (2:30)  Jocko's concept of GOOD (4:00) The ability to focus on an idea for a long time is the antidote to short bursts of dopamine we get from checking social feeds all day. (6:30) The beginning of their side business (13:00) The importance of heroes (16:00) Rereading / revisiting old ideas (18:30) Books transformed idle curiosity into the active zeal of workers (22:00) Wilbur Wright on risk: “The man who wishes to keep at the problem long enough to really learn anything positively must not take dangerous risks. Carelessness and overconfidence are usually more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.” (24:30) Jeff Bezos on stress (25:00) Discover things for yourself (28:00) "Success it most certainly was." (31:00) Profitability of flying machines (33:30) The distribution channel of flying machines (35:00)  Wilbur Wright on the idea of flight: "In the enthusiasm being shown around me, I see not merely an outburst intended to glorify a person, but a tribute to an idea that has always impassioned mankind. I sometimes think that the desire to fly after the fashion of birds is an ideal handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, at full speed, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air." (38:00) ---- 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

#27 A Truck Full of Money: Coding, Mania, Love, Genius: The Life of an American Entrepreneur

What I learned from reading A Truck Full of Money: Coding, Mania, Love, Genius: The Life of an American Entrepreneurby Tracy Kidder --- [7:00] Kayak sells for $1.8 billion [12:00] "I'm paying attention. I want meetings of three people, not ten." [15:00] "Someday this boy's going to get hit by a truck full of money, and I'm going to be standing beside him." [22:30] A description of Paul's bipolar disorder [31:00] The economics of games [36:30] Learning how to negotiate from his Dad [43:00] "The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven't figured this out yet." [50:00] Leaving a $1,000,000 behind [55:00] Applying the lessons he learned from watching his Dad negotiate [58:30] The entrepreneur of ice [1:01:00] "Consistency doesn't matter. Only invention matters." ---- 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

#26 My Life and Work: The Autobiography of Henry Ford

What I learned from My Life and Work: The Autobiography of Henry Ford. --- A theory of business (0:01) If an old idea works then the weight of the evidence is all in its favor. The Lindy Effect. (7:30) All people are not equal (11:00)  "That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom" (15:00), "I quit my job on August 15th, 1899 and went into the automobile business" (19:30) Henry Ford's philosophy on constant change (25:00) Henry Ford's 3 conclusions about business (26:00) Traits of a prosperous business (29:45) I cannot discover that anyone knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible. .We get some of our best results from letting fools rush in where angels fear to tread. (34:00) Fix the problem. Do not think money will be the solution. (40:00) Overcome fear. Be free. (44:00) Fuck your feelings (52:30) Henry Ford's 4 principles of business (56:00) ---- 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

#25 Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson

What I learned from reading Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson --- I am a creator of products, a builder of things. [0:01] This book is the story of 15 years of struggle to finally invent, own, and sell his own product. [1:35] This is the exposition of a business philosophy which is very different from anything you might have encountered before. [2:11] The first 75% to 80% of the book is just struggle after struggle. [2:47] Dyson had a bunch of people that he looked up to that motivated him as a young man. Thomas Edison is one of those people. [4:51] Such reverence has been accorded to the miserable wheel —that perhaps that alone can account for the fact it was never improved. Perhaps millions of people in the last few years had ideas for improving it. All I did was take things a little further than just having an idea. [6:10] The look of the product —the intangible style that sets one thing apart from another—is still closest to my heart. [7:04] After the idea there is plenty of time to learn the technology. My first cyclonic vacuum cleaner was built out of cereal packets and masking tape long before I understood how it worked. [8:09] The greatest lesson for aspiring inventors was yet to come. The actual making of money. Paper stuff in thick wads which they finally give to you because you have done something good. [8:40] The best kind of business is one where you could sell a product at a high price with a good margin and in enormous volumes. That type of investment is long term, high risk, and not very British. Or at least it looks like a high-risk policy. It is not so likely to prove hazardous to one’s financial health as simply following the herd. [9:25] Difference for the sake of it. In everything. Because is must be better. From the moment the ideas strikes, to the running of the business. Difference, and retention of total control. [10:39] This is not even a business book. If anything it is a book against business, against the principles that have filled the world with ugly, useless objects. [11:37] Everybody told James over and over and over again “Who are you to think that you could invent a better vacuum cleaner? If that was possible Hoover would have done it already." [12:44] We all want to make our mark. We all want to make beautiful things and a little money. We all have our own ideas about how to do it. What follows just happens to be my way.  [13:15] I have been a misfit throughout my professional life, and that seems to have worked for my advantage. Misfits are not born or made. They make themselves. [13:45] I took on the big boys at their own game, made them look very silly, just by being true to myself. [15:56] There was no dad to teach me how to run. There was no dad to tell me how great I was. Herb Elliot was a big name [in running] at the time, so I read a few books about him and discovered that his coach had told him that the way to develop stamina and strengthen the leg muscles was to run up and down sand dunes. This suited me fine. I would get up at six in the morning and run dunes for hours, or put on my running kit at ten o’ clock at night and not reappear until after midnight. Out there alone on the dunes I got a terrific buzz knowing that I was doing something that no one else was—they were all tucked away in bed. I knew I was training myself to do something better than anyone else would be able to do.  [18:14] Running is a wonderful thing. It isn’t like a team sport where you depend on other people. There is no question of your performance being judged. You either run faster than everyone else or you do not. In running your performance is absolute. I was out there [on the sand dunes] learning how to do something, and getting a visible result. [19:34] As I started to win by greater and greater margins I did it [run sand dunes] more and more because I knew the reason for my success was that out on the sand dunes I was doing something else no one else was doing. They were all running around the track like a herd of sheep and not getting any quicker. Difference itself was making me come in first. [20:50] I was learning about the physical and psychological strength that keeps you competitive. I was learning about obstinacy. I was learning how to overcome nerves, and as I grew more and more neurotic about being caught from behind, I trained harder to stay in front. To this day it is the fear of failure, more than anything else, that keeps me working at success. [21:31] The only way to make a genuine breakthrough was to pursue a vision with single-minded determination in the face of criticism. [22:26] Isambard Kingdom Brunel was unable to think small, and nothing was a barrier to him. The mere fact that something had never been done before presented, to Brunel, no suggestion that the doing of it was impossible—he was fired by an inner strength and self-belief almost impossible to imagine in this feckless age. I have tried to be as confident in my vision as he was. And at times in my life when I have encountered difficulty and self-doubt I have looked to his example to fire me on. [22:55] I have told myself, when people tried to make me modify my ideas, that the Great Western Railway could not have worked as anything but the vision of a single man, pursued with dogged determination that was nothing less than obsession. Throughout my story I will return to Brunel, and to other designers and engineers, to show how identifying with them, and seeing parallels with every stage of my own life, enabled me to see my career as a whole and to know that it would all turn out the way it has. [24:59] Remember that I am celebrating only my stubbornness. I am claiming nothing but the virtues of a mule. [25:42] So my dream was to be a Isambard Kingdom Brunel. [26:40] The public has been easily convinced by advertising, and receptiveness to revolution has dwindled. Such ‘invention’ as is now allowed is the prerogative of multinationals, not people. Where are our Wright Brothers? Where have the Edisons gone? And the Henry Fords? They are not here. We have broken new frontiers, but where are the names? Who invented the space shuttle? The nuclear submarine? The wind farm? When you go for backing for your crazy scheme it is not enough to be a man, you have to be a group of men. And where is the fun in that? [26:56] I learnt a crucial business principle: The only way to make real money is to offer the public something entirely new, that has style value as well as substance, and which they cannot get anywhere else. [28:03] College had taught me to revere experts and expertise. Jeremiah Fry ridiculed all that; as far as he was concerned, with enthusiasm and intelligence anything was possible. It was mind-blowing. And as we proceeded I could see that we were getting on extremely quickly. The more I observed his method, the more it fascinated me. [31:07] I learned one of the most crucial business lessons of my life; to stint on investment in the early stages, to try to sell a half-finished product, is to doom from the start any project you embark on. [32:13] People do not want all-purpose; they want high-tech specificity. [34:11] You simply cannot mix your messages when selling something new. A consumer can barely handle one great new idea, let alone two, or even several. [34:20] Only by trying to sell the thing that you have made yourself, by dealing with consumers’ problems and the product’s failings as they arise, can you really come to understand what you have done. Only the man who has brought the thing into the world can presume to foist it on others, and demand a heavy price, with all his heart. [35:52] It was an interesting lesson in psychology, teaching me that the entrenched professional is always going to resist far longer than the private consumer. [36:26] Editorials are the very best way of convincing the public. One decent editorial counts for a thousand advertisements. [39:20] One fo the strains of this book is about CONTROL. If you have the intimate knowledge of a product that comes with dreaming it up and then designing it, then you will be the better able to sell it and then, reciprocally, to go back to it and improve it. From there you are in the best possible position to convince others of its greatness. To see it through all the way to its optimum point. To total fruition, if you like. [42:04] I was stopped by one of them with the words I was to hear over and over and over again for the next ten years. ‘But James, your idea can’t be any good. If there were a better kind of vacuum cleaner, Hoover would have invented it.' [48:07] We always want to create something new out of nothing, and without research, and without long hard hours of effort. But there is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence—and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap. [51:38] A vacuum cleaner designed entirely by me, incorporating innovations up to the very latest point at which my technology had arrived, to be produced and marketed and sold under my own exclusive direction was, to be frank, what this whole thing had been all about. [1:02:48] It was a fantastic environment to work in, for it was just engineers and designers, and no one to mess us around. There were no salesmen, no advertising people, no marketing managers, to interfere and try to guide us in their direction. We had nothing to do but deduce our own dream product. [1:04:48] Everyday products sell. Although it is harder to improve a mature product, if you succeed there is no need to create a market. Try out current products in your own home, and make a list of things that you don’t like about them. I found about 20 things wrong with my Hoover Jr. at the first attempt. [1:07:19] Total control. From the first sprouting of the idea, through research and development, testing and prototyping, model making and engineering drawings, tooling, production, sales and marketing, all the way into the homes, it is most likely to succeed if the original visionary (or mule) sees it right through. [1:11:43] On 2 May 1992, I found myself looking at the first, fully operational, visually perfect, Dyson Dual Cyclone. I was thirty-one years old when I tore the bag off my Hoover and stuck a cereal packet in the hole. 2 May 1992 was my forty-fifth birthday. [1:12:24] We were selling more vacuum cleaners than anyone else despite costing twice as much. [1:14:32] In other words: if you make something, sell it yourself. And so we did. And absolutely nothing went bang. Except, of course, everyone else’s market slice. [1:17:57] Encourage employees to be different, on principle. This is part of my anti-brilliance campaign. Very few people can be brilliant. Those who are, rarely do anything worthwhile. You are just as likely to solve a problem by being unconventional and determined as by being brilliant. And if you can’t be unconventional, be obtuse. Be deliberately obtuse, because there are 5 billion people out there thinking in train tracks, and thinking what they have been taught to think. [1:21:18] ---- 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

#24 No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet

What I learnd by reading No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin.  --- When Danny was excited about something, you couldn't help but get excited too (3:00) Steve Jobs had one speed: GO! (6:00) Danny joins Israel's special forces (10:00) "Life is too short to be bored. Only boring people are bored." (19:00) The idea for Akamai (22:00) "If he didn't know something, he'd go learn it." (28:00) Building a company the right way (31:00) Finding a business model (35:00) Passion is worth $500,000 (38:30) The first product (42:00) "My goal was to express it in layman's terms so that your grandmother could understand it." (44:00) Finding the right price/model (45:00) The best salesperson (48:10) "Hi, this is Steve Jobs, and I want to buy your company." (54:00) "I have this company of one hundred ten people, headed by one of the biggest businessmen around with lots of money in the bank, and I'm just a graduate student." (57:00) "In less than one year, a tiny startup out of MIT had grown to a company with a market valuation than that of General Motors" (58:30) The last day of Danny's life (1:00:00) ---- 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

#23 The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

What I learned from reading The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis --- He grew up poor, dropped out of high school, and made himself 3 or 4 billion dollars (0:01), New Growth Theory (8:00), "Growth is just another word for change." (11:15), "The notion of what constituted useful work had broadened." (15:00), "If everyone was patient there'd be no new companies." (18:00), Turning his life around at 38 (21:00), Jim's idea to avoid the Innovator's Dilemma (30:00), The beginning of Netscape (33:00), The fast eat the slow (38:00), The people you don't want (40:00), The difference between a pig and a chicken /"They had wanted to be chickens; Clark forced them to be pigs" (43:00), All chips on 00 / Diversification is for idiots (48:00), Moving the goalposts / "Mama, I'm going to show Plainview." (56:00) ---- 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

#22 How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story

What I learned from reading How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story by Billy Gallagher.  --- I'm not going to work for someone else (0:01) Early design decisions of Snapchat (7:45) Evan idolized Steve Jobs and Edwin Land (10:00) How Snapchat convinced people to download the app (13:00) How Facebook created the environment for Snapchat to grow (16:00) The problem of standard (21:00) Evan on conforming (23:00) Mark Zuckerberg's first move on Snapchat (27:00) A great quote from Jeff Bezos (34:30) Digital Dualism (36:30) Snapchat Stories (39:00) Evan's framework for Snapchat and the Internet Everywhere (44:45) Learning from messaging apps in Asia (50:00) Brands are not social. People are. (55:00) Evan's philosophy on the distinction between privacy and secrecy (59:00) ---- 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

#21 Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

What I learned from reading Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner. --- [0:35] For a new generation, Carmack and Romero personified an American dream: they were self-made individuals who had transformed their personal passions into a big business, a new art form, and a cultural phenomenon. [1:19] His (John Carmack) game and life aspired to the elegant discipline of computer code. [1:40] Romero wants an empire. I just want to create good programs. [3:07] No matter what Romero suffered he could always escape back into games. [4:55] Romero’s stepdad smashed Romero’s face into the machine as punishment for playing video games. [5:24] He beat Romero until the boy had a fat lip and a black eye. Romero was grounded for two weeks. The next day he snuck back to the arcade. [7:40] One afternoon his father left to pick up groceries. Romero wouldn't see him again for two years. [8:53] Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark. (Founders #32) [10:20] Arcade games were bringing in $5 billion a year. Home systems were earning $1 billion. His stepfather did not believe game development to be a proper vocation. You'll never make any money making games he often said. [11:28] A business is just an idea or service that makes somebody's life better. —Richard Branson [12:58] Richard Garriott came to fame in the early eighties through his own initiative + Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark by Richard Garriott. [13:20] Ken and Roberta Williams also pioneered the Ziploc distribution method, turning their homemade graphical role-playing games into a $10 million–a–year company. [14:19] Carmack quickly distinguished himself when he was only seven years old. He scored nearly perfect on every standardized test placing himself at a ninth grade comprehension level. [15:03] The Cook and The Chef by Tim Urban [16:05] Carmack had never worked on a computer before but took to the device as if it were an extension of his own body. [16:39] All they desired is be able to create their own world. [17:08] The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich.  (Founders #14) [17:44] He read the passage about computers in the encyclopedia a dozen times. [18:36] He relished this ability to create things out of thin air. As a programmer he didn't have to rely on anyone else. [18:54] A book that inspired John Carmack: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Stephen Levy [20:35] When Carmack finished the book he had one thought: I'm supposed to be in there. [21:09] 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.” —Let My People Go Surfing (Founders #18) [22:48] Carmack was sentenced to one year in juvenile detention. Most of the kids were in for drugs. Carmack was in for an Apple II. [24:24] Carmack knows what he wants to do with his life and then he eliminates everything else that’s not that. [24:32] Carmack relished the freelance lifestyle. He was in control of his time, slept as late as he wanted, and, even better, answered to no one. [27:16] How id Software was born. [31:26] Super Mario Brothers 3 sold 17 million copies. The equivalent of 17 platinum records —something only artists like Michael Jackson had pulled off. [33:20] Carmack was of the moment. His ruling force was focus. Time existed for him not in some promising future or sentimental past but in the present condition. He kept nothing from the past—no pictures, no records, no games, no computer disks. He kept nothing but what he needed at the time. His bedroom consisted of a lamp, a pillow, a blanket, and a stack of books. There was no mattress. [35:58] Shareware dated back to a guy named Andrew Fluegelman. In 1980, Fluegelman wrote a program called PC-Talk and released it online with a note saying that anyone who liked the wares should feel free to send him some “appreciation” money. Soon enough he had to hire a staff to count all the checks. Fluegelman called the practice “shareware,” “an experiment in economics.” [37:42] Then he got an idea. Instead of giving away the entire game, why not give out only the first portion, then make the player buy the rest of the game directly from him? No one had tried it before, but there was no reason it couldn’t work. [38:26] There was no advertising, no marketing and virtually no overhead except for the low cost of floppy discs and Ziploc bags, because there were no other people to pay off. Scott could price his games much lower than most retail title. $15 to $20 as opposed to 30 to 40 for every dollar he brought in Scott was pocketing 90 cents. By the time he contacted Romero, he had earned $150,000 by word of mouth alone. [38:54] I just love the fact that he could do it on his own. By himself. He doesn't have to ask permission. He doesn't have to deal with publishing. He just makes something people like and then they can pay him directly. [39:50] They didn’t need any help getting motivated. Carmack seemed almost inhumanly immune to distraction. [40:45] All of science and technology and culture and learning and academics is built upon using the work that others have done before. [41:23] They start spending nights and weekends developing their own games. They still have day jobs. [42:19] The first Keen trilogy was now bringing in fifteen to twenty thousand dollars per month. It wasn’t just pizza money anymore, it was computer money. Carmack was only twenty years old, Romero, twenty-three, and they were in business. [43:31] Carmack’s maxim on problem solving: Try the obvious approach first; if that fails, think outside the box. [44:45] They didn’t seem to have a business bone in their bodies. When they told Williams how much they were making he blurted out “You’re telling me you’re making fifty thousand dollars a month just from shareware?” [50:30] I think it takes a certain level of discipline to have a company that's making millions of dollars a year and yet not expand out and try to add all these unnecessarily expenses. (A mistake made a lot in the history of entrepreneurship) [53:39] The more business responsibilities they had, things like order fulfillment and marketing, the more they would lose their focus —making great games. [53:55] The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) [55:28]  Innovate, optimize, then jettison anything that gets in the way. [58:49] The more shareware was distributed, the more potential customers ID would be able to collect. We don't care if you make money off the shareware demo they told the retailers. Move it in mass quantities. The retailers couldn't believe their ears. No one had ever told them not to pay royalties. [59:23] Take the money that you might have given me in royalties and use it to advertise the fact you're selling Doom. [1:02:19] Even though only an estimated 1% of people who downloaded shareware bought the remaining game, $100,000 worth of orders were rolling in every day. [1:05:56] Why, they wanted to know, did they need GTI? Ron didn’t relent. “Look,” he said, “maybe you’ll sell a hundred thousand copies of Doom in shareware, but I believe if you give me a retail version of Doom and, let’s call it for lack of a better term, Doom II, I think I could sell five hundred thousand or more units.” [1:08:16] For Carmack it wasn't the cash that was intriguing. It was the opportunity to get back into the trenches. [1:10:53] Romero spelled out his new life code: It was time to enjoy ID’s accomplishments, no more crunch mode, no more bloodshot nights, no more death schedules. Carmack remained quiet. [1:14:06] Carmack said Romero was pushed out of ID because he wasn't working hard enough. [1:14:21] The main point of conflict between Carmack and Romero: Romero wants an empire. Carmack just wants to create good programs. [1:24:15] He's just making colossal mistake after colossal mistake. Not adhering to anything that had previously made him successful. [1:25:50] All those things Carmack had berated him about: The hyperbole, the lack of focus, the dangers of a large team— had come back with vengeance. [1:27:56] My favorite paragraph in the book: “In the information age, the barriers just aren’t there. The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.” ---- 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

#20 Danny Meyer (The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business)

What I learned from reading Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer.  This is not a typical business book (0:30) Why don't you just do what you've been thinking about doing your whole life? (4:00) How Danny learned from other founders on what to do and what to avoid (8:00) The smartest business decision I ever made (18:00) Optionality as a non-negotiable (20:00) Inadequate focus on core product (23:30) The founding of Shake Shack is an example of this great quote from Jeff Bezos: "We know from our past experiences that big things start small. The biggest oak starts from an acorn. If you want to do anything new you’ve got to be willing to let that acorn grow into a little sapling and finally into a small tree and maybe one day it will be a big business on its own." (27:00) Advice from Stanley Marcus (Neiman Marcus): "The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled." (38:00) ---- 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

#19 Becoming Steve Jobs

What I learned from reading Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. --- Learning from great company-builders (0:30) Steve Jobs verbal mastery (5:00) The failed negotiations between NeXT and IBM (10:00)  "But how can he be a turnaround expert when he eats his lunch alone in his office, with food served to him on china that looks like it came from Versailles?" (18:00) "You can't go to the library and find a book titled The Business Model for Animation. The reason you can't is because there's only one company [Disney] that's ever done it well, and they were not interested in telling the world how lucrative it was." (22:00)  Bill Gates on Steve's simplicity (29:00) Steve Jobs on being an artist (33:00) Apple pays half billion dollars to rehire Steve Jobs (34:00) "The company is one of the most amazing inventions of humans, this abstract construct that is incredibly powerful." (38:00) Unlocking secrets (42:00) Who gives a fuck about the channel? (45:00) "It's not about how fast you do something, it's about doing your level best." (52:00) Deep Restlessness (55:00) "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." (59:00) Bill Gates on the negotiations between Pixar and Disney (1:08:00) ---- 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

#18 Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman

What I learned from reading Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. --- I had always avoided thinking of myself as a businessman. I was a climber, a surfer, a kayaker, a skier, and a blacksmith. We simply enjoyed making good tools and functional clothes. [0:01]  One day it dawned on me that I was a businessman and would probably be one for a long time. I knew that I would never be happy playing by the normal rules of business; I wanted to distance myself as far as possible from this pasty-faced corpses in suits I saw in airline magazine ads. If I had to be a businessman, I was going to do it on my own terms. [0:32]  One of my favorite sayings about entrepreneurship is: If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, “This sucks. I’m going to do my own thing. [1:00] Work had to be enjoyable on a daily basis. [1:18] I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percent. I like to throw myself passionately into an activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me. Once I reach that 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different. [4:05] Tom Brokaw on Yvon: It’s been helpful to me to be Yvon’s friend. He makes me think about things in new ways. [5:36]  Can a company that wants to make the best-quality outdoor clothing in the world be the size of Nike? Can a ten-table, three-star French restaurant retain its third star when it adds fifty tables? The question haunted me throughout the 1980s as Patagonia evolved. [7:35] I continued to practice my MBA theory of management, management by absence, while I wear-tested our clothing and equipment in the most extreme conditions of the Himalayas and South America. [10:13]  Throughout the book he’s has a really beautiful idea of comparing business and organizing human labor, to nature. Part of this idea is he intentionally puts Patagonia through a lot of stress because he feels you need stress to grow. [11:42]  Doing risk sports had taught me another important lesson: Never exceed your limits. You push the envelope, but you don’t go over. You have to be true to yourself; you have to know your strengths and limitations and live within your means. The same is true for business. The sooner a company tries to be what it is not, the sooner it tries to have it all, the sooner it will die. [18:05]  I did not yet know what we would do to get our company out of the mess it was in. But I did know we had to look to the Iroquois and their seven-generation planning, and not to corporate America, as models of stewardship and sustainability. As part of their decision process, the Iroquois had a person who represented the seventh generation in the future. If Patagonia could survive this crisis we had to begin to make all our decisions as though we would be in business for a hundred years. [19:12]  The first part of our mission statement, “Make the best product,” is the cornerstone of our business philosophy. “Make the best” is a difficult goal. It doesn’t mean “among the best” or the “best at a particular price point.” It means “make the best,” period. [24:05] The functionality driven design is usually minimalist. Or as Dieter Rams maintains, “Good design is as little design as possible.” Complexity is often a sure sign that the functional needs have not been solved. Take the difference between the Ferrari and the Cadillac of the 1960s. The Ferrari’s clean lines suites its high-performance aims. The Cadillac really didn’t have any functional aims. It didn’t have steering, suspension, aerodynamics, or brakes appropriate to its immense horsepower. All it had to do was convey the idea of power, creature comfort, of a living room floating down the highway to the golf course. So, to a basically ugly shape were added all manner of useless chrome: fins at the back, breasts at the front. Once you lose the discipline of functionality as a design guidepost, the imagination runs amok. Once you design a monster, it tends to look like one too. [25:53] When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I’ll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can’t be sold on its merits. I’d be competing head-on in the cola wars, on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me. I’d much rather design and sell products so good and unique that they have no competition. [27:15] There are different ways to address a new idea or project. If you take the conservative scientific route, you study the problem in your head or on paper until you are sure there is no chance of failure. However, you have taken so long that the competition has already beaten you to market. The entrepreneurial way is to immediately take a forward step and if that feels good, take another, if not, step back. Learn by doing, it is a faster process. [32:40] Nonfiction marketing. Our branding efforts are simple: tell people who we are. We don’t have to create a fictional character. Writing fiction is so much more difficult than nonfiction. Fiction requires creativity and imagination. Nonfiction deals with simple truths. [34:00] It’s okay to be eccentric, as long as you are rich; otherwise, you’re just crazy. [36:19] Quality, not price, has the highest correlation with business success. Whenever we are faced with a serious business decision, the answer almost always is to increase quality. [37:37] We never wanted to be a big company. We want to be the best company, and it’s easier to try to be the best small company than the best big company. [40:20] We don’t hire the kind of people you can order around. We don’t want drones who will simply follow directions. We want the kind of employees who will question the wisdom of something they regard as a bad decision. We do want people who, once they but into a decision and believe in what they are doing, will work like demons to produce something of the highest possible quality. [43:57]  Systems in nature appear to us to be chaotic but in reality are very structured, just not in a top-down centralized way. A top-down centralized system like a dictatorship takes an enormous amount of force and work to keep the hierarchy in power. All top-down systems eventually collapse, leaving the system in chaos. A familial company like ours runs on trust rather than on authoritarian rule. [44:52]  The lesson to be learned is that evolution (change) doesn’t happen without stress, and it can happen quickly. Just as doing risks sports will create stresses that lead to a bettering of one’s self, so should a company constantly stress itself in order to grow. [50:29]  I believe the way toward mastery of any endeavor is to work towards simplicity. The more you know, the less you need. [56:01]  ---- 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

#17 Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

What I learned from reading The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone.    ---- 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

#16 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller

What I learned from reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow.  [0:01] Rockefeller was a unique hybrid in American business, both the instinctive first-generation entrepreneur who founded the company and the analytical second-generation manager who extends and develops it.  [0:30] Having created an empire of unfathomable complexity, he was smart enough to see that he had to submerge his identity in the organization.  [0:43] Don’t say that I out to do this or that. We ought to do it. Never forget that we are partners. Whatever is done for the general good is done for the good of us all. —John D. Rockefeller.  [0:55] He preferred outspoken colleagues to weak-kneed sycophants.  [1:14] That he created one of the first multinational corporations, selling kerosene around the world and setting a business pattern for the next century, was arguable his greatest feat.  [2:48] The spot chosen for the new refinery tells much about Rockefeller’s approach to business. . . Able to ship by water or over land, Rockefeller gained the critical leverage he needed to secure preferential rates on transportation which was why he agonized over plant locations throughout his career.  [6:02] This is before the invention of the car. Kerosene was the main byproduct of oil. People used it to have lighting in their houses. Before Rockefeller, only rich people were able to do this. After Rockefeller, everyone could do it.  [6:41] There’s a lot of people making money in refining. People hear about other people making money in refining. They follow in like lemmings and this causes refining capacity to be triple the amount that is actually needed. By then 90% of refineries were operating in the red.  [7:46] “So many wells were flowing that the price of oil kept falling, yet they went right on drilling.” — John D. Rockefeller.  [8:08] “Often-times the most difficult competition comes, not from the strong, the intelligent, the conservative competitor, but from the man who is holding on by the eyelids and is ignorant of his costs, and anyway he's got to keep running or bust!” —John D. Rockefeller  [8:57] As someone who tended toward optimism, seeing opportunity in every disaster, he studied the situation exhaustively instead of bemoaning his bad luck.  [10:55] Rockefeller is hated for the creation of a cartel. He is hated for succeeding at it. There are many people trying to do very similar things. They would criticize Rockefeller for what they were attempting to do themselves.  [14:46] From the outset, Rockefeller’s plans had a wide streak of megalomania. He said, “The Standard Oil company will someday refine all the oil and make all the barrels.”  [15:35] Rockefeller decided that the leading men [executives] would receive no salary but would profit solely from the appreciation of their shares and rising dividends which Rockefeller thought a more potent stimulus to work.  [17:10] He was pretty crazy. He had three daughters and a son. By the time he had his son, he had more money than he could spend in a lifetime. His son remembers growing up and only wearing dresses because his dad refused to buy new clothes.  [17:38] Rockefeller never allowed his office decor to flaunt the prosperity of the business, lest it arouse unwanted curiosity.  [19:33] His strategy would be to subjugate one part of the battlefield, consolidate his forces, and then move briskly onto the next conquest.  [19:54] The year revealed both his finest and most problematic qualities as a businessman: His visionary leadership, his courageous persistence, his capacity to think in strategic terms, but also his lust for domination, his messianic, self-righteousness, and his contempt for those shortsighted mortals who made the mistake of standing in his way.  [20:50] Rockefeller had such a fanatical desire to control expenses. He’d show up to work at 6:30 in the morning and leave at 10 at night and the entire time he was rooting out inefficiencies. If he could save a penny he would. As a result, even if someone was in the same business Rockefeller’s business was much more profitable —even before he built his cartel.  [23:34] Rockefeller was extremely secretive. He equated silence with strength. He didn’t like people who bragged or told other people what their intentions were.  [25:06] The depressed atmosphere only strengthened his resolve.  [28:57] One Rockefeller biographer called the drawback an instrument of competitive cruelty unparalleled in industry.  [30:55] One other factor tempted the railroads to come to terms with Rockefeller. In a far-sighted, tactical maneuver he had begun to accumulate hundreds of tank cars —what you would ship oil in if you don't want to use barrels—which would be in perpetual and perpetually short supply.  [32:05] One of Rockefeller’s strengths in bargaining situations was that he figured out what he wanted and what the other party wanted and crafted mutually advantageous terms. Instead of ruining the railroads, Rockefeller tried to help them prosper albeit in a way that fortified his own position.  [37:57] This is the insane part. Between February 17th and March 28th, Rockefeller swallowed up 22 of his 26 competitors. This makes him the world’s largest oil refiner at 31 years old.  [40:32] Rockefeller was dedicated to secrecy: Many of these competitors didn’t even know they were being bought by Standard Oil.  [47:24] Rockefeller would constantly overpay for competitors just to knock them out of the business.  [47:58] He was now living a fantasy of extravagant wealth that would have dwarfed the most feeble daydreams of his father. Few people beyond the oil business had ever heard of him.  [48:26] It is very hard to compete with somebody you don’t even know exists.  [48:56] It is a lot smarter to make money quietly so you don’t invite competition.  [49:11] The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power [49:52] Books are the original links: If you read Sam Walton's book you realize he was the Jeff Bezos of his day. Or said another way Jeff Bezos is the Sam Walton of his day. Bezos read Sam Walton’s book, was inspired, and outright copied a lot of Sam’s ideas.  [50:51] The reason I think it is so interesting to explore the history of entrepreneurship is that you see the same ideas over and over again just applied in different fields.  [56:53] Taking for granted the growth of his empire, he hired talented people as found, not as needed.  [57:10] Many employees said he never lost his temper racist voice, uttered a profane or slang word, or acted discourteously.  [57:20] Rockefeller seldom granted appointments to strangers and preferred to be approached in writing.  [57:25] He constantly expounds on this idea that you shouldn't waste time nor money. That they were very much interrelated. He didn't waste his time talking to people...what people call networking now. He just worked. He came up with his ideas and then worked every day to enact those ideas.  [58:08] He wants the sort of person to persist in a flawed situation.  [58:15] Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.  [59:51] Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed.  [1:00:02] A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.  [1:01:00] Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things fail because we lack concentration--the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything else?  ---- 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

#15 Leonardo da Vinci: The Biography

What I learned from reading Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson.  ---- 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

#14 The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal

What I learned from reading The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich.  Microsoft had offered Mark between $1 million and $2 million to go work for them. Amazingly, Mark had turned them down (1:25) Maybe he knew he was about to cross a line. But he had never been very good at staying in the lines. From Mark's history, it was obvious that he didn't like the sandbox. He seemed the type of kid that wanted to kick out all the sand. (8:01) He didn't care what time it was. To guys like Mark time was another weapon of the establishment. The great engineers and hackers didn't function under the same time constraints as everyone else. (11:23) Mark wondered: If people want to go online and check out their friends couldn't they build a website that did just that? (14:36)  Mark. Founder. Master and Commander. Enemy of the State. (21:19) Instead of attacking Baylor head on they made a list of schools within 100 miles of it and dropped Facebook in those schools first. Within days the kids at Baylor begged for Facebook on their campus. (24:20) Mark Zuckerberg had found his place in the world (32:38) ---- 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

#13 Elon Musk and Why SpaceX Will Colonize Mars

What I learned from reading The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why by Tim Urban. In the most recent 1% of our species short existence, we have become the first life on earth to know about the situation (4:38) The total market for satellite manufacturing, the launches that carry them to space, and related equipment and services has ballooned from $60 billion in 2004 to over $200 billion in 2015 (8:41) Here is what SpaceX does: it takes things to space for people for money. Here is what SpaceX really does: it is an innovation machine trying to solve one big problem. The astronomical cost of space travel (9:13) For 1% we can buy life insurance (20:35) Up until 25 years ago there had never been such a thing as a global brain of god like information access and connectivity on this planet (23:26) Musk has said he doesn't care that much about your degree. Just raw talent, personality, and passion for the SpaceX mission (31:21) For domestic launches the ULA charges the government and the US taxpayer $380 million per launch. For a similar launch, the US government pays SpaceX $133 million (40:14) Life has to be about more than just solving problems. There have to be things that inspire you. (45:55) ---- 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

#12 Elon Musk & How Tesla Will Change The World

What I learned by reading How Tesla Will Change The World by Tim Urban Kindle version: The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why. ---- 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

#11 The Cook & The Chef: Elon Musk's Secret Sauce

What I learned from reading The Elon Musk Blog Series: Wait But Why by Tim Urban Read The Cook & The Chef: Elon Musk's Secret Sauce on WaitButWhy.  Quotes from this episode:  Which leaves only two options: create or copy  Conventional wisdom: If something is both a good idea and possible, it's already been done. I'm fascinated by those rare people in history who managed to dramatically change the world during their short time here, and I've always liked to study those people and read their biographies. Those people know something the rest of us don't and we can learn something valuable from them.  Musk calls this reasoning from first principles. One of the most important parts of this podcast.  Conventional wisdom screamed at the top of its lungs for him to stop.  Your entire life runs on the software in your head. Why wouldn't you obsess over optimizing it? We mistake the chef's originality for brilliant ingenuity.  The reason these outrageously smart people are so humble about what they know is that they are aware that unjustified certainty is the bane of understanding and the death of effective reasoning.  Conventional wisdom worships the status quo and always assumes that everything is the way it is for a good reason. And history is one long record of status quo dogma being proven wrong again and again, every time some chef comes around and changes things.  ---- 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

#10 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

What I learned from reading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. The best teacher I ever had, one of the finest men I ever knew, spoke of the Oregon Trail often. It’s our birthright, he’d growl. Our character, our fate—our DNA. “The cowards never started, the weak died along the way—that leaves us.” [0:35] Some outsized sense of possibility mixed with a diminished capacity for pessimism. [1:03] I found it difficult to say what or who exactly I was, or might become. Like all my friends I wanted to be successful. I didn’t know what that meant. [2:11] Deep down I was searching for something else, something more. I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know. And I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all . . .different. [2:35] I asked myself: What if there were a way, without being an athlete, to feel what athletes feel? To play all the time, instead of working? Or to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing? [4:23] The only answer was to find some prodigious, improbable dream that seemed worthy, that seemed fun, that seemed like a good fit, and chase it with a single-minded dedication and purpose. [4:47] Maybe my Crazy Idea just might . . . work? Maybe. No, no, I thought. It will work. By God, I’ll make it work. No maybes about it. [5:29] So much about those days has vanished. Faces, numbers, decisions that once seemed pressing and irrevocable, they’re all gone. [6:39] What remains is this one comforting certainty, this one anchoring truth that will never go away. At 24 I did have a Crazy Idea, and somehow, despite being dizzy with existential angst, and fears about the future, and doubts about myself, as all young men and women in their mid-twenties are, I did decide that the world is made up of crazy ideas. History is one long processional of crazy ideas. The things I loved most — books, sports, democracy, free enterprise — started as crazy ideas. [7:03] So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy. Just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there. Whatever comes, just don’t stop. [7:45] That is the advice I managed to give myself, out of the blue, and somehow managed to take. Half a century later, I believe it’s the best advice — maybe the only advice — any of us should ever give. [8:08] I knew Japanese cameras had made deep cuts into the camera market, which had once been dominated by Germans. I argued in my paper that Japanese running shoes might do the same thing. [9:00] He was impressed. It took balls to put together an itinerary like that, he said. Balls. He wanted in. [12:01] Carter never did mess around. See an open shot, take it—that was Carter. I told myself there was much I could learn from a guy like that as we circled the earth. [12:14] What Phil was doing was looked upon by most of his family as crazy and extremely dangerous. [12:37] Go home, a faint inner voice told me. Get a normal job. Be a normal person. Then I heard another faint voice equally emphatic, “No. Don’t go home. Keep going. Don’t stop.” [14:15] Bill Bowerman was a genius coach, a master motivator, a natural leader of young men, and there was one piece of gear he deemed crucial to their development. Shoes. He was obsessed with how human beings are shod. [15:55] He always had some new scheme to make our shoes softer and lighter. One ounce sliced off a pair of shoes is equivalent to 55 pounds over one mile. [16:42] Lightness, Bowerman believed, directly translated into less burden, more energy, and more speed. Lightness was his constant goal. [17:11] Frugality carried over to every part of the coach’s makeup. [17:56] Bowerman didn’t give a damn about respectability. He possessed a prehistoric strain of maleness. Today its all but extinct. He was a war hero, too. Of course, he was. [18:47] Bowerman never considered himself a track coach. He detested being called coach. He called himself a professor of competitive responses. His job, as he saw it, was to get you ready for the struggles and competitions that lay ahead. [19:41] In my mind, he was Patton with a stopwatch. [20:00] He had tested me. He had broken me down and remade me just like a pair of shoes. [23:31] The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. [23:57] He always went against the grain. Always. He was the first college coach to emphasize rest, to place as much value on recovery as on work. [24:12] He [his Dad] said he hadn’t sent me to Oregon and Stanford for me to become a door to door shoe salesman. How long do you think you’re going to keep jackassing around with these shoes? I shrugged. I don’t know, Dad. [26:19] My sales strategy was simple. I drove all over to various track meets. Between races, I’d chat up the coaches and runners, and show them my wares. The response was always the same. I couldn’t write orders fast enough. [28:17] I’d been unable to sell encyclopedias, and I’d despised it to boot. I’d been slightly better at selling mutual funds, but I’d felt dead inside. So why was selling shoes so different? Because I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed if people got out and ran a few miles every day the world would be a better place. And I believed these shoes were better to run in. People sensing my belief wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief is irresistible. [28:44] Johnson believed that runners are God’s chosen, that running, done right, in the correct spirit and with the proper form, is a mystical exercise, no less than meditation or prayer, and thus he felt called to help runners reach their nirvana. [33:18] Not even the Yahweh of running, Bowerman, was as pious about the sport as Blue Ribbon’s Part-Time Employee Number Two. [33:43] I shook my head. I tell the man Blue Ribbon is sinking like the Titanic, and he responds by begging for a berth in first class. [35:58] At the time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about generals, samurai, shoguns, along with biographies of my three main heroes—Churchill, Kennedy, Tolstoy. . . I wasn’t that unique. Throughout history, men have looked to the warrior for a model of Hemingway’s cardinal virtue, pressurized grace.[37:03] Each new customer got his, or her own index card. Each index card contained that customer’s personal information, shoe size, and shoe preferences. He had hundreds and hundreds of customer correspondents, all along the spectrum of humanity, from high school track starts to octogenarian weekend joggers. [40:17] In all the world there had never been such a sanctuary for runners, a place that didn’t just sell them shoes but celebrated them and their shoes. [42:54] I wanted what everyone wants. To be me, full-time. [45:29] I wanted to dedicate every minute of every day to blue ribbon. I’d never been a multitasker and I didn’t see any reason to start now. [45:59] If my life was to be all work and no play, I wanted my work to be play. [46:15] Phil Knight is in his 5th year in business and still has a full-time job. How many people would be willing to do that? [46:51] Right before my thirty-first birthday I made the bold move and went full-time at my company. [48:21] When you read this book you really feel like you get to know Phil Knight and you were there throughout his struggles. [49:39] I struggle to remember. I close my eyes and think back, but so many precious moments from those nights are gone forever. Numberless conversations, breathless laughing fits. Declarations, revelations, confidences. They’ve all fallen into the sofa cushions of time. I remember only that we always sat up half the night, cataloging the past, mapping out the future. I remember that we took turns describing what our little company was, and what it might be, and what it must never be. How I wish, on just one of those nights, I’d had a tape recorder. Or kept a journal. [49:50] For the first eight years of Blue Ribbon they are selling other people’s shoes. [54:00] This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. No more selling someone else’s brand. No more working for someone else. If we are going to succeed or fail we should do so on our own terms. [56:05] How he felt after the IPO: I asked myself. What are you feeling? If I felt anything, it was . . . regret. Good God, I thought. Yes. Regret. Because I honestly wished I could do it all over again. [59:31] Above all, I regret not spending more time with my sons. [1:01:42] God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing. [1:02:01] I’d like to share the experience, the ups and downs, so that some young man or woman, somewhere, going through the same trials and ordeals, might be inspired or comforted. Or warned. Some young entrepreneur, maybe, some athlete, or painter, or novelist, might press on. It’s all the same drive. The same dream. [1:02:06] I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt. [1:02:34] I’d like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that they will always have a bulls-eye on their backs. The better they get, the bigger the bulls-eye. It’s not one man’s opinion; it’s the law of nature. [1:03:10] I’d like to remind them that America isn’t the entrepreneurial Shangri-La people think. Free enterprise always irritates the kinds of trolls who live to block, to thwart, to say no. Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned, outnumbered. They’ve always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrepreneurial, not more. A Harvard Business School study recently ranked all the countries in the world in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit. America ranked behind Peru. [1:03:27] Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop. [1:04:23] ---- 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

#9 I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford

What I learned from reading I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Snow. ---- 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