Founders

What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. 

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(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 highest standards of workmanship. It will cost a great deal of money and entail much risk.”

(26:00) Balenciaga never commented on other designers.

(28:00) Balenciaga had a religious like devotion to his craft: Balenciaga regarded making dresses as a vocation, like the priesthood, and an act of worship. He felt that he served God by suitably adorning the female form, which God had made beautiful.

(29:00) Customers were called patrons.

(30:00) His remoteness was not a pose but part of his dedication to his art. He worked fanatically hard.

(31:00) His fundamental principles as a dressmaker:

Make women happy. Make dresses the customer never wants to take off.

Permanence. You should bequeath your dress to your daughter. And her to her daughter.

Best material from the best textile creators.

(33:00) You don’t wear a Balenciaga dress, you present it. (Make up your own terms!)

(35:00) The essence of his creations was the work of human hands, bringing into existence the images projected on paper from his powerful and inventive brain. The archives of his firm survive intact, and they reveal the extent to which everything was done by hand:

(37:00) Cut against the bias.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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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. 

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham.

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(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 of work are like except by doing them. You may have to work at something for years before you know how much you like it or how good you are at it.

(13:00) When it comes to figuring out what to work on, you're on your own.

(14:00) Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr. (Founders #312)

(17:15) One sign that you're suited for some kind of work is when you like even the parts that other people find tedious or frightening.

(17:50) Make what you are most excited about.

(19:00) If you're interested, you're not astray.

(19:30) Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300)

(20:15) At each stage do whatever seems most interesting and gives you the best options for the future. I call this approach "staying upwind." This is how most people who've done great work seem to have done it.

(22:50) In many projects a lot of the best work happens in what was meant to be the final stage.

(25:00) A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy

(26:00) Great work usually entails spending what would seem to most people an unreasonable amount of time on a problem.

(26:30) The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing.

(27:10) Something that grows exponentially can become so valuable that it's worth making an extraordinary effort to get it started.

(27:30) Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version)

(30:00) If you don't try to be the best, you won't even be good. This observation has been made by so many people in so many different fields that it might be worth thinking about why it's true.

(36:00) Originality isn't a process, but a habit of mind. Original thinkers throw off new ideas about whatever they focus on.

(38:00) Change breaks the brittle.

(43:45) What might seem to be merely the initial step — deciding what to work on — is in a sense the key to the whole game.

(45:00) Being prolific is underrated. + Examples of outlandishly prolific people

(48:30) Just focus on the really important things and ignore everything else.

(50:30) One of the most powerful kinds of copying is to copy something from one field into another. History is so full of chance discoveries of this type that it's probably worth giving chance a hand by deliberately learning about other kinds of work. You can take ideas from quite distant fields if you let them be metaphors.

(51:30) Seek out the best colleagues.

(54:30) Solving hard problems will always involve some backtracking.

(56:30) Don't marry someone who doesn't understand that you need to work, or sees your work as competition for your attention. If you're ambitious, you need to work; it's almost like a medical condition; so someone who won't let you work either doesn't understand you, or does and doesn't care.

(57:50) The prestige of a type of work is at best a trailing indicator and sometimes completely mistaken. If you do anything well enough, you'll make it prestigious.

(58:00) Curiosity is the best guide. Your curiosity never lies, and it knows more than you do about what's worth paying attention to.

If you asked an oracle the secret to doing great work and the oracle replied with a single word, my bet would be on "curiosity."

The whole process is a kind of dance with curiosity.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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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 Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone.

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(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 Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride. (Founders #209)

(22:45) Nolan is relentlessly resourceful. He wants to spend as as little money as possible so he can maintain as much control over the project as possible.

(23:30) He makes his first movie on the weekends while he working a full-time job!

(29:30) The efficiency of filmmaking is for me a way of keeping control. The pressure of time, the pressure of money. Even though they feel like restrictions at the time, and you chafe against them, they're helping you make decisions. They really are. If I know that deadline is there, then my creative process ramps up exponentially.

(34:00) The result of making a billion dollar blockbuster: Suddenly his position at Warner Brothers went from solid to unassailable.

(37:00) Stories can add to your own thinking but you need your own foundation to add them to first.

(38:00) I know it's more fun when we're all together and we can do the thing together. That's why we keep it as a family business.

(39:00) Rolls-Royce: The Magic of a Name: The First Forty Years of Britain s Most Prestigious Company by Peter Pugh. (Founders #287)

(43:30) Every time a new feature or product was proposed, he decreed that the narrative should take the shape of a mock press release. The goal was to get employees to distill a pitch into its purest essence, to start from something the customer might see—the public announcement—and work backward. Bezos didn’t believe anyone could make a good decision about a feature or a product without knowing precisely how it would be communicated to the world. — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179)

(45:30) Once your children are born, you can never look at yourself through your own eyes anymore; you always look at yourself through their eyes.

(49:30) I often have terrible luck with the weather, but my philosophy is to shoot no matter what the weather is, always shooting no matter what weather, just keeping going, keeping going. Letting everybody on the crew and cast know we're really serious about doing that, no matter what the conditions are, so they're not looking out the window first thing and going, Oh, we will or won't shoot today.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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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. 

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemens Headed West and Became Mark Twain by Roy Morris Jr.

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One of the best podcasts I've heard this year: Listen to Invest Like The Best #336 Jeremy Giffon Special Situations in Private Markets 

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(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 daily. Orphans preferred.” Hundreds of adventure-seeking young men quickly responded.

(24:30) Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West by Hampton Sides

(27:45) The purest veins were usually the deepest.

(28:00) The trouble with this business is that everybody expects to find oil on the surface. If it was up near the top, it wouldn't be any trick to it. You've got to drill deep for oil. — The Big Rich (Founders #149)

(32:30) Get the facts first, then you can distort them as much as you like.

(33:30) People are attracted to confidence and repelled from nuance.

(37:00) The whole point of the performance was not so much what was being said, as how it was being said.

(47:30) Ambassador Burlingame gave the author a well-meaning piece of advice. “You have great ability; I believe you have genius,” Burlingame said. “What you need now is refinement of association. Seek companionship among men of superior intellect and character. Refine yourself and your work. Never affiliate with inferiors; always climb.”

It was an admonishment Twain would take to heart and follow, virtually to the letter, for the next forty-four years.

(53:00) When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it. — Jeff Bezos

(57:30) Mark Twain produced a remarkable stream of novels, short stories, essays, and travel pieces that today stands as one of the great bodies of work in English literature.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

----

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 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 college education in visual effects and cinematography while I was driving a truck.

(16:00) Every idea is a work in progress.

(17:30) He's been on a planet of his own making ever since.

(18:00) The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron

(22:00) Cameron's career has been built on questioning accepted wisdom and believing in the power of the individual.  His outlook is that we can take fate in our own hands.

(27:00) All creative individuals build on the works of their predecessors. No one creates an a vacuum. — Walt Disney and Picasso (Founders #310)

(31:00) Cameron would go to the library at the University of Southern California, photocopying graduate student theses on esoteric filmmaking subjects.

He filled two fat binders with technical papers.

For the cost of a couple hundred dollars in photocopying, he essentially put himself through a graduate course in visual effects at the top film school in the country without ever meeting a single professor.

(34:00) Cameron had only been at Corman's for a matter of days, but he was already taking charge. He seems constitutionally incapable of doing otherwise. (What a line!)

He had a very commanding presence.

(35:30) Your mediocrity is my opportunity.

(37:40) Cameron finds writing torture. He does it anyway.

(43:00) Cameron is willing to let ideas marinate for decades.

(43:45) "I like doing things I know others can’t.” That's part of what attracts him to shooting movies in water.  "Nobody likes shooting in water. It's physically taxing, frustrating, and dangerous. But when you have a small team of people as crazy as you are, that are good at it, there is deep satisfaction in both the process of doing it and the resulting footage."

(49:15)  I was stunned by Jim's allegiance to the project and the extent of his physical abilities. Jim was there for every minute of it. It was beyond belief, his commitment to what we were doing.

(55:30) I'd just made T2 for Carolco and I admired how they rolled, being their own bosses, mavericks, entrepreneurs. I’d been fed up with the studio system. So I figured I could set up a structure which would allow me to call the shots myself.

(57:30) Mute the world. Build your own world.

(1:04:50) Opportunity is a strange beast. It commonly appears after a loss.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

----

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 Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. 

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(3:30) Disney made use of the new technologies throughout his creative life.

(4:45) Lists of Paul Johnson books and episodes: 

Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) 

Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson.(Founders #226)

Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240) 

Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252) 

(5:55) Picasso was essentially self-taught, self-directed, self-promoted, emotionally educated in the teeming brothels of the city, a small but powerfully built monster of assured egoism.

(7:30) Most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end. If you are both killer and poet, you get rich. — Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. (Founders #306)

(10:00) Whatever you do, you must do it with gusto, you must do it in volume. It is a case of repeat, repeat, repeat. — Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab. (Founders #105)

(11:30) Picasso averaged one new piece of artwork every day of his life from age 20 until his death at age 91. He created something new every day for 71 years.

(15:30) Power doesn't always corrupt. But what power always does is reveal. — Working by Robert Caro (Founders #305)

(17:30) Many people find it hard to accept that a great writer, painter, or musician can be evil. But the historical evidence shows, again and again, that evil and creative genius can exist side by side in the same person. In my judgment his monumental selfishness and malignity were inextricably linked to his achievement.

He was all-powerful as an originator and aesthetic entrepreneur precisely because he was so passionately devoted to what he was doing, to the exclusion of any other feelings whatever.

He had no sense of duty except to himself, and this gave him his overwhelming self-promoting energy. Equally, his egoism enabled him to turn away from nature and into himself with a concentration which is awe-inspiring.

(21:30) It shows painfully how even vast creative achievement and unparalleled worldly success can fail to bring happiness.

(24:00) Walt Disney (at age 18) wanted to run his own business and be his own master. He had the American entrepreneurial spirit to an unusual degree.

(27:00) Recurring theme: Knowing what you want to do but not knowing how to do it—yet.

(26:20) All creative individuals build on the works of their predecessors. No one creates in vacuum.

(28:30) Why Walt Disney moved to Hollywood: The early 1920s, full of hope and daring, were a classic period for American free enterprise, and for anyone interested in the arts—Hollywood was a rapidly expanding focus of innovation.

(28:00) Filmaker episodes: 

Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride. (Founders #209)

George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #35) 

(30:10) The relentless resourcefulness of a young Walt Disney!

(34:30) This is wild: It is significant that Mickey Mouse, in the year of his greatest popularity, 1933, received over 800,000 fan letters, the largest ever recorded in show business, at any time in any century.

(36:00) Something that Disney does his entire career —he has this in common with other great filmmakers— he is always jumping on the new technology of his day.

(37:00) Lack of resources is actually a feature. It’s the benefit. — Kevin Kelly on Invest Like the Best #334

(38:45) Imagination rules the world. — The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)

(41:15) Disney put excellence before any other consideration.

(41:45) Disney hired the best artists he could get and gave them tasks to the limits of their capacities.

(47:45) Disney’s Land: Walt Disney and the Invention of the Amusement Park That Changed the World by Richard Snow. (Founders #158)

(49:30) I Had Lunch With Sam Zell (Founders #298)

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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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 Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby.

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(5:07) His competence was exceeded only by his confidence.

(5:58) He worked at the game, and if he wasn't good at something, he had the motivation to be the best at it.

(6:33) It seemed that he discovered the secret quite early in his competitive life: the more pressure he heaped on himself, the greater his ability to rise to the occasion.

(14:06) At each step along his path, others would express amazement at how hard he competed. At every level, he was driven as if he were pursuing something that others couldn't see.

(16:10) Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I'd close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it, and that got me going again.

(19:29) Jordan could sense immediately that he had something the others didn't.

(59:53) The Jordan Rules succeeded against the Bulls so well that they became textbook for guarding athletic scorers. The scheme helped Detroit win two NBA championships, but it also helped in the long run, by forcing Jordan to find an answer. "I think that 'Jordan Rules' defense, as much as anything else, played a part in the making of Michael Jordan," Tex Winter said.

(1:16:35) Jordan had been surprised to learn how lazy many of his Olympic teammates were about practice, how they were deceiving themselves about what the game required.

(1:19:56) I have always liked practice and I hate to miss it. When you miss that one day, you feel like you missed a lot. You take extra work to make up for that one day. I've always been a practice player. I believe in it.

(1:29:47) Jordan presented a singleness of purpose that was hard to dent.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

----

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 Arnold and Me: In the Shadow of the Austrian Oak by Barbara Outland Baker.

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(6:30) He forced his sons to eat with silverware at perfect right angles. They had to keep their elbows to their waists. If the boys did not obey, the back of his hand was quick to strike their cheeks.

(7:30) His life began to flourish through the art and science of bodybuilding.

Arnold ate it, slept it, worked it, imagined it, thought it, believed it, and trusted it.

Bodybuilding became his existence.

(8:10) He had no time to waste on naysayers. He aligned only with those who shared his passion. 

(8:15) He knew that to succeed according to his manic standards he needed to master an individual sport.

(8:30) His intelligence did not show on his report cards yet he mastered his goals like a wizard. (If you do everything you will win)

(8:50) His singular concentration provided a rock solid belief in his potential.

(9:30) Not even his peers could understand the enormity of his lifetime dreams.

(11:00) Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #193)

(11:15) Gradually a conflict grew up in our relationship. She was a well-balanced woman who wanted an ordinary, solid life, and I was not a well-balanced man and hated the very idea of ordinary life. She had thought I would settle down, that I would reach the top in my field and level off.

But that's a concept that has no place in my thinking.

For me, life is continuously being hungry.

The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

(13:40) If you do everything you will win.

(13:45) And I then saw very clearly what I could achieve, and that gave me a tremendous amount of motivation.

(13:55) Instead of training two hours a day like most kids did, I would train twice a day, two hours.

Totally abnormal.

Sometimes three times a day and sometimes four times a day. I would go home during my lunch time, and then do, for an hour straight, just sit-ups to get that extra hour that no one else has gotten in, just to be ahead of everyone else.

(16:20) Arnold was not a man of many surprises. He was clear in his focus, firm in his decisions, and egocentric at all costs.

(17:55) Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners. — The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106)

(21:20) He made it clear that his world was huge and I must learn to accept that other people and activities demanded his attention.

(23:30) His family foundation was instrumental in setting up his intense motivation to succeed.

This negative motivation pushes him to achieve the maximum potential in every activity.

(27:30) No one could restrain his mutinous energy.

(27:55) Arnold always felt self-confident, no matter the disparity in sophistication, income or status.

(29:30) Francis could sell ice to the Eskimos, Lucas said later. He has charisma beyond logic. I can see now what kind of men the great Caesars of history were, their magnetism. — George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (Founders #35)

(31:30) 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 From Within by Michael Jordan  (Founders #213)

(22:40) Problems are just opportunities in work clothes. — Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66)

(33:10) Optimism is a moral duty. — Edwin Land A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein. (Founders #134)

(33:50) A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.  — The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. (Founders #283)

(35:30) Stay public. You gotta promote, promote, promote, or it all dies. You just gotta be out there all the time. — Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219)

(37:00) He maintained his rigorous training schedule.

(38:30) He craved the interaction with each new expert and remembered every tip.

Arnold already recognized that he had the ability to learn any content he chose.

(38:45) The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets. — The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. (Founders #191)

(39:15) Imitation precedes creation. — Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. (Founders #210)

(44:35) Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #141)

Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Founders #193)

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

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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. 

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading Glock: The Rise of America's Gun by Paul Barrett. 

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

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(5:22) What struck me is how his inexperience was a great advantage. He didn't assume anything about how to design a handgun because he's never designed one before. Consequently he designed the best one ever. He didn't know what was out of bounds.

(8:20) Gaston Glock himself put it in an interview: "That I knew nothing was my advantage.”

(8:55) He began disassembling the guns, putting them back together, and noted the contrasting methods used to make them.

(9:00) More on Glock’s initial research process: I started intensive studies in such a manner that I visited the Austrian patent offices for weeks examining generations of handgun in innovation.

(9:10) Learning from history of a form of leverage.

(10:25) Crucially, the gun should have no more than 40 parts. This is one of the most important ideas in the book. He designed a product —and a company— based on limiting the amount of moving parts.

(12:00) My intention was to learn as much as possible as fast as possible.

(12:30) Move fast: I worked for two years, day and night, to bring the sample to the Army on time.

(12:45) Difference for the sake of it and retention of total control. — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300)

(15:00) The important thing that gave him his big price advantage was that he designed the pistol for complete production on computer controlled tools.

(15:20) The book is all simplicity, focus, and differentiation.

(15:30) Glock produced the simplest handgun with only 34 components.

(18:30) He's got all these very unique and unusual forms of distribution.

(18:35) How did a pistol produced by an obscure engineer in Vienna, a man who barely spoke English and had no familiarity with America, become in the space of a few years, an American icon?

The answer to that question is distribution.

(20:20) There's a lot of money to be made if we could convert U.S police departments from revolvers to pistols.

(22:50) The only conventional thing about the Glock was the method of operation he adopted for his handgun. Glock borrowed his basic mechanics from John Moses Browning, the greatest gun designer of the late 19th century.

(24:08) He objected to the Pentagon's insistence that the rights to manufacture the winning gun design would be open to competitive bidding. Glock intended to collect all profit from the production of his gun himself.

(24:35) Quality will always bring you more money.

(25:50) Glock's gross margins exceeded 65%. The Glock's simpler design and the computerized manufacturing methods allowed for larger profits.

(27:45) Working by Robert Caro. (Founders #305)

(30:40) David Ogilvy said the word FREE is magical to customers.

(31:00) Glock began putting some of the country's most admired shooting instructors on contract to spread the word about the Austrian pistol.

(32:00) Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves. + The deals worked financially because of the company's startingly low manufacturing costs.

(32:30) Glock is just running Sam Colt’s playbook — just doing it 140 years later. — Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America by Jim Rasenberger. (Founders #147)

(33:00) Sam Colt relentlessly pursued public contracts, regardless of the profit margin. “Government patronage, Sam Colt once said, is an advertisement, if nothing else.”  Gaston Glock became the Sam Colt of the 20th century.

(34:30) Glock was able to focus. They put all of their effort and resources behind a single product: American handgun makers offered many diverse models in the fashion of the Detroit car companies. Glock saw that as competing with himself and resisted the temptation.

(36:20) He evolved from a provincial manager of a radiator factory to a world traveling industrialist.

(41:45) That was Glock's theme. I did it my way.

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

----

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 Dynasties: Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Great Family Businesses by David Landes.

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

Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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

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

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

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

(11:00)

Rothschild episodes:

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

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

JP Morgan episodes:

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

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

Rockefeller episodes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Sakichi Toyada

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

----

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