Founders

What I learned from having lunch with Sam Zell and reading Zeckendorf: The Autobiography of The man Who Played a Real-Life Game of Monopoly and Won the Largest Real Estate Empire in History by William Zeckendorf. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.comYou can read, reread, and search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. You can also ask SAGE any question and SAGE will read all my notes, highlights, and every transcript from every episode for you. A few questions I've asked SAGE recently: What are the most important leadership lessons from history's greatest entrepreneurs?Can you give me a summary of Warren Buffett's best ideas? (Substitute any founder covered on the podcast and you'll get a comprehensive and easy to read summary of their ideas) How did Edwin Land find new employees to hire? Any unusual sources to find talent?What are some strategies that Cornelius Vanderbilt used against his competitors?Get access to Founde

What I learned from rereading Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best !----[3:45] 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.”[4:32] The original intent for writing Let My People Go Surfing was for it to be a philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia. We have always considered Patagonia an experiment in doing business in unconventional ways.[7:48] MeatEater Podcast #188 Yvon Chouinard on Belonging to Nature[7:55] 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

David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert — of the Acquired podcast — invited me to San Francisco for a discussion on our mutual obsession: spending every waking hour studying the history of entrepreneurship and sharing those lessons on our podcasts. ----Follow Acquired in your podcast player here or at Acquired.fm This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Tiny provides quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Get in touch with Tiny by emailing hi@tiny.com. [3:00] David’s time with Charlie Munger[5:30] Henry Flagler after Standard Oil[8:30] What makes a great biography, and how to capture all sides of complex characters?[11:00] Studying history is a form of leverage to achieve success[13:00] How do we figure out what the true story is for an episode we're doing?[20:30] Silicon Valley should focus more on durability than growth[21:30] How David got into reading biographies and podcasting[25:40] What were each of their influences before starting Acquired and Founders?[35

What I learned from reading The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best !----[1:16] I am the boss. I shall be here on Monday morning and I shall be running the company in person.[4:30] The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai[5:01] I highly recommend listening to Acquired’s episode on LVMH. It is excellent.[5:16] Business Breakdowns episode LVMH: The Wolf in Cashmere’s Conglomerate[6:16] Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell. (Founders #294)[6:18] Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words by Napoleon and J. Christopher Herold.[7:20] I’m not so dominant that I can’t listen to creative ideas coming from other people. Successful people listen. Those who don’t listen, don’t survive long. — Driven Fr

What I learned from rereading The Tao of Charlie Munger.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best !(5:45) The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.(8:48) He has never forgotten the importance of having friends in high places.(9:04) Most people systematically undervalue their time. — Peter Thiel(11:08) Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. Founders #251)(12:23) Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #284)(15:02) Charlie took the excess capital out of Blue Chip Stamp and invested it in profitable businesses.(16:56) Charlie started seeing the advantages of investing in better businesses that didn't have big capital requirements and did have

What I learned from reading Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ![3:00] He could think quicker and along more individual and original lines than any of them.[4:00] John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (Founders #254)[4:14] Miami meetup with Shane Parrish[7:31] His life was enormously important, endlessly fascinating, and connected to some of the most controversial and constantly reinterpreted events in the world history.[8:37] Paul Johnson’s books:Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252) [10:54] Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226)[12:20] He knew the importance of actively crafting his image in all availabl

What I learned from rereading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube ----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best ![2:00] I have always believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems.[4:00] I was fascinated by the simplicity and effectiveness of the system they described that night.Each step in producing the limited menu was stripped down to its essence and accomplished with a minimum of effort.[5:00] When I flew back to Chicago that fateful day in 1954, I had a freshly signed contract with the McDonald brothers in my briefcase. I was a battle-scarred veteran of the business wars, but I was still eager to go into action. I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns. But I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.[6:00] It’s not

What I learned from rereading The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best !----[2:00] Obsessed with privacy, Ludwig pays a major public relations firm fat fees to keep his name out of the papers.[4:00]  An associate speaks of his unlimited ingenuity in dreaming up new ways of doing things.[5:00] Ludwig’s most notable characteristic, besides his imagination and pertinacity, is a lifelong penchant for keeping his mouth shut.[5:00] I'm in this business because I like it. I have no other hobbies.[6:00] Holding strongly to an opinion, purpose, or course of action, stubbornly or annoyingly persistent.[8:00] Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger (Founders #243)[10:00] At his peak, he owned more than 200 companies in 50 countries.[23:00] War makes the demand for Ludwig's products and services skyrocket.[25:00] Hard Drive: Bill Gates

What I learned from reading The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by signing up for Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best !----Do our products offer something unique?Customer satisfaction second to none is the only acceptable goal.What I learned from rereading Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters for the 3rd time (Founders #282)In Silicon Valley, the ultimate career standard was set by David Packard: start a company in a garage, grow it into the leading innovator in its field, then take it public, then take it into the Fortune 500 (or better yet, the Fortune 50), then become the spokesman for the industry, then go to Washington, and then become an historic global figure. Only Packard had accomplished all of this; he had set the bar, and the Valley had honored his achievement by making him the unofficial "mayor" of Silicon Valley.—The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, an

What I learned from rereading Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 292 The Business of Gaming with Mitch Lasky and 293 David Senra Passion and Pain !----Gates read the encyclopedia from beginning to end when he was only seven or eight years old.Gates had an obsessive personality and a compulsive need to be the best.Everything Bill did, he did to the max. What he did always went well, well beyond everyone else.You want to maneuver yourself into doing something in which you have an intense interest. —  Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.Gates devoured everything he could get his hands on concerning computers and how to communicate with them, often teaching himself as he went.A young man with no money and tons of enthusiasm. — The D

What I learned from reading The Dream of Solomeo: My Life and the Idea of Humanistic Capitalism by Brunello Cucinelli.----This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: Tiny is the easiest way to sell your business. Quick and straightforward exits for Founders.----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra Passion and Pain ![4:00] I am reminded of Machiavelli: during his exile, he too spent his afternoons playing board games and drinking wine, while at night, in the austere silence of his studio, he engaged in solitary, literary conversations with the ancient scholars.[6:00] The true meaning of my life seems to be a spontaneous drive and energy.[7:00] I am driven by an immense desire: that my life, when it reaches its end, will not have been useless.[7:00] Brunello Cucinelli by Om Malik [8:00] God assigns to all of us a mission to fulfill. Our task is first to discover the nature of our summons, then to follow it.[11:00] We schedule time to think. Most people sched

What I learned from reading Ralph Lauren: The Man Behind the Mystique by Jeffrey Trachtenberg.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 311 John Fio — Creating Magic for Consumers, episode 307 Jeremiah Lowin: Explaining the New AI Paradigm, and episode 293 The Business of Gaming. ----[2:01] When I lumped him together with a handful of other designers during casual conversation, he snapped: “Don't put me with those designers. My business is not compared to anybody else's."[3:00] In practice Ralph Lauren is a tough, intensely ambitious businessman.[3:00] Ralph has always possessed immense self-confidence; it is central to his character, an asset as valuable as his sense of color, fabric, style.[4:00] Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie. (Founders #199)[7:00] Few outsiders understood fully how lucrative the licensing business had become. Ra

What I learned from rereading Rolls-Royce: The Magic of a Name: The First Forty Years of Britain s Most Prestigious Company by Peter Pugh.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode Mitch Lasky—The Business of Gaming----[2:31] Henry Royce had known poverty and hardship all his life. The only university he had graduated from was the one of hard knocks.[3:00] Rolls on Royce: I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Mr. Royce and in him I found the man I had been looking for for years.[5:00] A great product has to be better than it has to be. Relentlessness wins because, in the aggregate, unseen details become visible. All those unseen details combine to produce something that's just stunning, like a thousand barely audible voices all singing in tune. — Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham (Founders #277)[6:00] You can always understand the son by the st

What I learned from reading All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode Mitch Lasky—The Business of GamingFollow the podcast Gamecraft to learn more about the history of the video game industry. ----[2:01] Buffett and Munger have a remarkable ability to eliminate folly, simplify things, boil down issues to their essence, get right to the point, and focus on simple and timeless truths.[3:00] The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson.  (Founders #191)[4:00] Warren Buffet or Charlie Munger are the very wise grandfather figure that I never had.[5:00] To try to live your life totally free of mistakes is a life of inaction. —Warren Buffett[5:00] The si

What I learned from reading American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune by Greg Steinmetz.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----[0:01] A series of spectacular financial triumphs had made Gould fabulously rich. At age thirty-six, he was the most notorious businessman in the country.[1:00] Vanderbilt told a newspaper that Gould was "the smartest man in America." Rockefeller, when asked who he thought had the best head for business, answered "Jay Gould" without pausing to think.They  recognized Gould as a master of his craft. No one disputed that he was an extraordinary problem solver, an unparalleled negotiator, an expert communicator, a lightning-fast thinker, and a masterful tactician with a staggering memory.[2:00] Railroads changed America in the nineteenth century much as automobiles changed the country in the twentieth century and the internet has changed the twenty first century.[5:00] American Rascal s

What I learned from rereading Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  and check out these great episodes: #137 Bill Gurley: All Things Business and Investing#88 Sam Hinkie: Data, Decisions, and Basketball#204 Sam Hinkie: Find Your People—[0:01] Frick had been the man Carnegie trusted above all others to manage the affairs of Carnegie Steel.[2:00] Carnegie had delegated the job of holding the line on wages and other demands to Frick—a Patton to Carnegie's FDR.[3:00] The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie.  (Founders #283)[5:00] Here's a starter pack of essentials  for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making. —Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters (Founde

What I learned from rereading The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  ----(1:01) 3 part series on Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick:Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73) The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie (Founders #74) Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist by Quentin Skrabec Jr. (Founders #75) (2:00) What these guys all had in common is they were hell bent on knowing their business down to the last cent. They were obsessed with having the lowest cost structure in their industry.(2:00) Highlights from Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America:—Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of

What I learned from rereading Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters (for the 3rd time!) Read Jeff's letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  [2:30] Amazon hopes to create an enduring franchise[3:00] Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh trade-offs differently than some companies.[4:00] We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.[4:00] We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture.[4:00] We set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way.[5:00] Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool that we have.[5:00] We are working to build something important, something that m

What I learned from rereading Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  [2:01] We're going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because perfection is not attainable. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because, in the process, we will catch excellence.[2:01] I'm not remotely interested in being just good.[3:00] Gentlemen, this is the most important play we have. It's the play we must make go. It's the play that we will make go. It's the play that we will run again, and again, and again.[4:00] In any complex effort, communicating a well-articulated vision for what you're trying to do is the starting point for figuring out how to do it.[4:00] A significant part of attaining excellence in any field is closing the gap between the accidental

What I learned from reading Copy This!: How I turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and 100 square feet into a company called Kinkos by Paul Orfalea.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow Invest Like The Best in your favorite podcast player hereTwo episodes I recommend: Paul Orfalea - It's About the Money episode 299David Senra - Passion & Pain episode 292 [5:23] I've never met a more circular, out-of-the-box thinker. It's often exhausting trying to keep up with him.[6:21] I graduated from high school eighth from the bottom of my class of 1,200. Frankly, I still have no idea how those seven kids managed to do worse than I did.[9:29] I also have no mechanical ability to speak of. There isn't a machine at Kinko's I can operate. I could barely run the first copier we leased back in 1970. It didn't matter. All I knew was that was I could sell what came out of it.[11:24] Building an entirely new sort of business from a single Xerox copy mac