Founders

What I learned from reading Ted Turner's Autobiography. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Listen to Art of Investing #4 David Senra Lessons from the Founder Historian.  ---- (9:00) My net worth dropped by about 67 million per week, or nearly 10 million per day, every day for two and a half years. (10:00) Once to drive home a point about the difficulties of attracting good loyal employees he told me: Jesus only had to pick 12 disciples and even one of those didn't turn out well. (10:00) Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise . (11:00) Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141) (13:30) The problem isn't getting rich, it's staying sane. — Charlie Munger (17:00) I learned a lesson that would stick with me throughout my career. When the chips are down in the pressure's on it's amazing to how creative people can be. (20:00) My father always maintained many of the di

What I learned from reading Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell.  ---- 1. If you need tax prep and bookkeeping check out betterbookkeeping.com/founders. It's like having a full time CFO and super cheap grandpa sitting on your shoulder.  2. Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you.  Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy: Vesto Advisors, LLC (“Vesto”) is an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Vesto and our partnership can be found here We are entitled to compensation for promoting Vesto Advisors, LLC. Accordingly, we have an incentive to endorse Vesto and its team and services. We are not current advisory clients of the Vesto. 3. I went to Notre Dame and spoke to the Art of Investing class. You can listen to the full conversation here.  ---- (8:00) She knows the ecosystem in which she operates

What I learned from reading How Larry Gagosian Reshaped The Art World by Patrick Radden Keefe.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (4:00) The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them. (5:45) We think of genius as being complicated, but geniuses have the fewest moving parts. Gagosian is simple. He's basically a shark, a feeding machine. (6:00) A novice is easily spotted because they do too much. Too many ingredients, too many movements. Too much explanation. A master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention. (10:00) His own publicist described him as “A Real Killer” (12:00) The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292) (17:30) There is always a blueprint. Joseph Duveen was the art dealer to the Robber Barons.  Biographies of Duveen: Duveen: A Life in Art Secrets Of An Art Dealer Duveen The Artful Partners: The Secret Ass

What I learned from reading The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son by John D. Rockefeller.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (5:00) My Influence had been extended to all corners of the oil industry.  If I say that I have the power of life and death over oil producers and oil refiners, that is not a lie. I can make them wealthy or I can make them worthless. (7:25) I never thought I would lose. As far as my nature is concerned, I do not meet competition. I destroy competitors. (8:30) Retreat means surrender. Retreat will turn you into a slave. The war is inevitable. Let it come. (9:00) Bring a steel like determination to face all kinds of challenges. (13:45) I firmly believe that our destiny is determined by our actions and not by our origins. (15:45) Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius

What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- [2:08] Answering to no one is the ultimate situation. [3:02] Twitter thread on Michael Bloomberg by Neckar.Substack.com [5:28] We never made the error that so many others have: mistaking their product for the device that delivers it. [6:27] We knew our core product was data and analytics. [7:01] We were motivated by an idea that we could build something new that just might make a difference. [9:04] Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger [10:05] I was willing to do anything that they wanted. I would have never left voluntarily. [16:00] Street smarts and common sense were better predictors of career achievements. [17:40] Almost all occupations have a big selling component: selling your fir

What I learned from reading Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way by Ryan White and A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett. ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- (8:00) Q: What are you going to do with your life? A: Live a pretty interesting one. (10:00) A lesson that his grandfather taught him: The only thing standing between Jimmy and the world would be a lack of imagination an an over abundance of caution. All he had to do was leap and the world would be his. (13:00) There is a lot of Mark Twain in Jimmy Buffett. Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. (Founders #312)  (13:30) There was nothing normal about me. My drive was not normal. My vision of where I wanted to go in life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryp

What I learned from reading Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg and  Herb’s Heroes by David Sanders.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- (2:30) Reality is chaotic; planning is ordered and logical. The two don’t square with one another. (5:30) You undergo a lot of stress all the time. How do you handle it? I don’t handle it. I like it. (7:30) He smoked 5 packs of cigarettes a day. He drank Wild Turkey Bourbon daily. He said “Wild Turkey and Phillip Morris cigarettes are essential to the maintenance of human life.” (8:00) He built the most successful airline in history. Southwest was profitable for 47 straight years. (9:30) All that matters is to survive. The rest is just words. — Charles de Gaulle (18:00) Kelleher didn’t mince any words: “I told La

What I learned from reading Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr. --- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here.  --- (8:00) Principles Jeff Bezos would repeat: customer obsession, innovation, frugality, personal ownership, bias for action, high standards. (10:30) Single threaded leadership: For each project, there is a single leader whose focus is that project and that project alone, and that leader oversees teams of people whose attention is focused on that one project. (11:00) The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing. Every employee’s one thing was unique, and everyone knew I would evaluate him only on that one thing. I had started doing this just to simplify the task of managing people. Bu

What I learned from reading Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden.  ---- Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here.  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- (5:00) It was better for the world that he had known failure and suffered moments of self doubt. (6:00) There was something in Churchill's character that simply wouldn't allow him to give up. He was a dangerous optimist. (8:00) History likes winners. (9:30) The adventures and ordeals of those early years were essential to the making of a man who triumphed in the second world war. (10:00) At 40 he was largely written off as a man whose best days were behind him. (Churchill shares a lot of parallels with Steve Jobs) (10:30) He fashioned his career as a grand experiment to prove that he could work his will on hi

What I learned from rereading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- [4:47] This story can shock and infuriate us, and it does. But I found it invigorating, too. It told me that the life of the nation was written not 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. [8:56] Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55) [10:00] Unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries William Walker was not afraid of Cornelius when he should have been. [12:21] The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children. [12:42] The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen [12:54] He was driven

What I learned from reading Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard.  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:30) He was meant not just to fight for his country, but one day to lead it. Although he believed this without question, he still had to convince everyone else. (3:30) He didn't even have a plan. Just the unshakeable conviction that he was destined for greatness. (4:00) Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) (4:30) Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden (5:00) The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. (Founders #175) (8:00) In his open pursuit of fame and popular favor, Churchill seemed far less Victorian than Rooseveltian. (8:30) Winston advertises himself as simply and as unconsciously as he breathes. Churchill was widely criticized for being a self advertiser. (9:30) “I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In f

What I learned from the first 6 years of making Founders. I recorded a new episode with Patrick. It should be out soon. Follow Invest Like the Best in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss it.  ---- 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

What I learned from reading The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific by Alistair Urquhart. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (4:00) I hope that this book will be inspirational and offer hope to those who suffer adversity in their daily lives. (10:00) You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Larson. (Founders #251) (13:30) When you reach a large goal or finally get to the top, the distractions and new assumptions can be dizzying. First comes heightened confidence, followed quickly by overconfidence, arrogance, and a sense that “we’ve mastered it; we’ve figured it out; we’re golden.” But the gold can tarnish quickly. Mastery requires endless remastery. In fact, I don’t believe there is ever true mastery. It is a process, not a destination. — The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh

What I learned from rereading Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull.  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:00) Walt Disney created a made-up world, used cutting-edge technology to enable it, and then told us how he’d done it. (7:30) Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #187) (7:30) Both Einstein and Disney inspired me, but Disney affected me more because of his weekly visits to my family's living room. (7:45) Every time some technological breakthrough occurred, Walt Disney incorporated it. (9:30) His dad was the son of an Idaho dirt farmer. His dad was one of 14 kids. 5 of his dad's siblings died as infants. His dad was the first person in his family ever to go to college. He had to work while he was going to college and pay his own way. His dad built the family house with his own hands. (10:30) When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how

What I learned from reading The Bugatti Story by L’Ebe Bugatti. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:01) If there was a prototype operation for what Enzo Ferrari envisioned it had to be what the legendary Ettore Bugatti built in Molsheim. — Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates. (Founders #220) (7:00) Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A. J. Baime. (Founders #97) (14:30) I determined to build a car of my own. I had realized by then that I was completely taken by mechanics. My ideas gave me no rest. (16:00) The two inventors described to each other a singular experience: Each had imagined a perfect new product, whole, already manufactured and sitting before him, and then spent years prodding executives, engineers, and factories to create it with as few compromises as possible. — Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264) (22:00) Faster progress would be made in all fields if c

What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson.  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:20) Among the masters of Parisian fashion, Balenciaga was the greatest. (3:00) Christian Dior called Balenciaga “the master of us all" and Coco Chanel said that Balenciaga was "the only couturier in the truest sense of the word. The others are simply fashion designers". (3:30) Jay Gould episodes #258 and #285  (5:00) For the next seventy-four years Balenciaga did a piece of sewing every day of his life. (5:20) Being prolific is underrated. — Paul Graham (Founders #314) (8:45) From the age of three to his mid-twenties he learned thoroughly every aspect of his trade. (17:00) Bernard Arnault (Founders #296) (23:00) What Dior told Boussac: What you need, and I would like to run, is a craftsman’s workshop, in which we would recruit the very best people in the trade, to reestablish in Paris a salon for the greatest luxury and the hi

What I learned from reading How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:00) All you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in. (2:10) Doing great work means doing something important so well that you expand people's ideas of what's possible. (4:15) How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions.  —How to Do What You Love by Paul Graham (5:10) Always preserve excitingness. (Let what you are excited about guide you) (8:15) If you're excited about some possibility that everyone else ignores, and you have enough expertise to say precisely what they're all overlooking, that's as good a bet as you'll find. (9:15) How To Work Hard by Paul Graham (10:05) When you follow what you are intensely interested in this strange convergence happens where you're working all the time and it feels like you're never working. (10:20) You can't tell what most kinds o

What I learned from reading The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:00) The only way I know how to work is to sort of burrow in on one project very obsessively. (7:25) People will say to me, "There are people online who are obsessed with Inception or obsessed with Memento.” They're asking me to comment on that, as if I thought it were weird or something, and I'm like, Well, I was obsessed with it for years. Genuinely obsessed with it. So it doesn't strike me as weird. . . I feel like I have managed to wrap them the up in it way I try to wrap myself up. (8:30) The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Keegan and The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron. (Founders #311) (11:00) I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m a craftsman. I don’t make a work of art; I make a movie. — George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones.  (15:30) Steven Spielbe

What I learned from reading Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. --- One of the best podcasts I've heard this year: Listen to Invest Like The Best #336 Jeremy Giffon Special Situations in Private Markets  --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:20) A great way to think about power law people: Their absence leaves of void that no one else can fill. (8:00) His death would not have lengthened the life of the Confederacy or the Union, by a single day. It would, however, have reduced the literary inheritance of the United States by an incalculable amount. (11:20) Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss. (13:00) In another life Mark Twain would be a cocaine dealer. (17:30) I knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating. (21:15) The ad itself became legendary: “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death d

What I learned from reading The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Keegan and The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron. (4:00) I watched Titanic at the Titanic. And he actually replied: Yeah, but I madeTitanic at the Titanic. (7:10) I like difficult. I’m attracted by difficult. Difficult is a fucking magnet for me. I go straight to difficult. And I think it probably goes back to this idea that there are lots of smart, really gifted, really talented filmmakers out there that just can’t do the difficult stuff. So that gives me a tactical edge to do something nobody else has ever seen, because the really gifted people don’t fucking want to do it. (7:20) At 68 years old, Cameron wakes up at 4:45 AM and often kick boxes in the morning. (7:45) Self doubt is not something Cameron has a lot of experience with. His confidence preceded his achievements. (9:00) I was going through this stuff, chapter and verse, and making my own notes and all that. I basically gave myself a colleg