Founders

What I learned from reading Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. 

----

Listen to one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best

----

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

----

(4:15) When Fortune published an article about me and titled it: "Is David Ogilvy a Genius?," I asked my lawyer to sue the editor for the question mark.

(4:45) The people who built the companies for which America is famous, all worked obsessively to create strong cultures within their organizations. Companies that have cultivated their individual identities by shaping values, making heroes, spelling out rites and rituals, and acknowledging the cultural network, have an edge

(5:30) We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance. We pursue knowledge the way a pig pursues truffles. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they grow in oak forests.

(5:48) We hire gentlemen with brains.

(6:16) Only First Class business, and that in a First Class way.

(6:25) Search all the parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees.

(9:45) Buy Ogilvy on Advertising

(10:45) One decent editorial counts for a thousand advertisements. + 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. — Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #300)

(15:22) It was inspiring to work for a supreme master. M. Pitard did not tolerate incompetence. He knew that it is demoralising for professionals to work alongside incompetent amateurs.

(16:66) You have to be ruthless if you want to build a team of A players. It's too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players. The Macintosh experience taught me that A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can't indulge B players.

(18:12) In the best companies, promises are always kept, whatever it may cost in agony and overtime.

(18:33) I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principal responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.

(19:38) I admire people who work hard, who bite the bullet.

(19:58) I admire people with first class brains.

(20:23) I admire people who work with gusto. If you don't enjoy what you are doing, I beg you to find another job. Remember the Scottish proverb, "Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead."

(20:50) I admire self-confident professionals, the craftsmen  who do their jobs with superlative excellence.

(21:40) The best way to keep the peace is to be candid.

(23:18) That’s been the most important lesson I’ve learned in business: that the dynamic range of people dramatically exceeds things you encounter in the rest of our normal lives—and to try to find those really great people who really love what they do.  —  Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words. (Founders #299)

(24:39) The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz. (Founders #206)

(25:09) Claude Hopkins episodes:

My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins. (Founders #170)

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. (Founders #207)

(25:47) Talent is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.

(26:49) The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.

(28:21) This podcast studies formidable individuals.

(31:40) Samuel Bronfman: The Life and Times of Seagram’s Mr. Sam by Michael R. Marrus. (Founders #116)

(37:47) I doubt whether there is a single agency (or company) of any consequence which is not the lengthened shadow of one man.

(39:51) Don't bunt. Aim out of the park. Aim for the company of immortals.

(40:13) Most big corporations behave as if profit were not a function of time.

When Jerry Lambert scored his first breakthrough with Listerine, he speeded up the whole process of marketing by dividing time into months. Instead of locking himself into annual plans, Lambert reviewed his advertising and his profits every month.

The result was that he made $25,000,000 in eight years, where it takes most people twelve times as long. In Jerry Lambert's day, the Lambert Pharmaceutical Company lived by the month, instead of by the year.

(41:30) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)

(41:36) I am an inveterate brain picker, and the most rewarding brains I have picked are the brains of my predecessors and my competitors.

(43:27) We make advertisements that people want to read. You can't save souls in an empty church.

(44:05) You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.

(45:13) The headline is the most important element in advertisements.

(47:47) Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley

(48:15) Set yourself to becoming the best-informed man in the agency on the account to which you are assigned.

If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read text books on the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroleum products. Read all the trade journals in the field. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, pumping gasoline and talking to motorists. Visit your client's refineries and research  laboratories. Study the advertising of his competitors. At the end of your second year, you will know more about gasoline than your boss.

Most of the young men in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial.

----

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

----

“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 Working by Robert Caro. 

----

Listen to one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best: Sam Hinkie: Find Your People 

----

[3:40] You can't get very deep into Johnson's life without realizing that the central fact of his life was his relationship with his father.

[8:00] It was the hill country and his father's failures that taught him how terrible could be the consequences of a single mistake.

[8:45] Lyndon Johnson wouldn't understand. He would refuse to understand. He would threaten you, would cajole you, bribe you or charm you. He would do whatever he had to do, but he would get that vote.

[9:00] What mattered to him was winning because he knew what losing could be. What its consequences could be.

[9:50] Robert Caro books I've read: 

The Power Broker 

The Path to Power

Means of Ascent

Master of The Senate (currently reading) 

[11:00] About what I wanted to do with my life and my books (which are my life)

[11:40] I am a reflection of what I do. — Steve Jobs

[23:20] There are certain moments in your life when you suddenly understand something about yourself. I loved going through those files, making them yield up their secrets to me.

[24:10] Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamn page.

[27:50] Robert Caro snaps: No, that's not why highways get built where they get built. They get built there because Robert Moses wants them there.

[28:15] Robert Moses had power that no one understood. Power that nobody else was even thinking about.

[29:50] There are sentences that are said to you in your life that are chiseled into your memory.

[34:00] Three of the editors took me to some fancy restaurant and told me they could make me a star. Bob Gottlieb said, Well, I don't go out for lunch but we can have a sandwich at my desk and talk about your book. So of course I picked him.

[37:15] Robert Moses was a ruthless genius with savage energy.

[38:30] Ambitious people are rare, so if everyone is mixed together randomly, as they tend to be early in people's lives, then the ambitious ones won't have many ambitious peers. When you take people like this and put them together with other ambitious people, they bloom like dying plants given water. Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers, whatever their age.

— Paul Graham’s essays. (Founders #275-277)

[42:30] in a couple of sentences these two men —idols of mine — had wiped away five years of doubt.

[42:50] There is not a more mysterious craft than entrepreneurship.

[48:15] I now had a picture of Lyndon Johnson's youth, that terrible youth, that character hardening youth.

[54:00] I wasn't fully understanding what these people were telling me about the depth of Lyndon Johnson's determination, about the frantic urgency, the desperation, to get ahead, and to get ahead fast.

As if the passions, the ambitions that he brought to Washington, strong though they were, were somehow intensified by the fact that he was finally there, in the place where he had always wanted to be.

I wanted to show the contrast between what he was coming from the poverty, the insecurity —and what he was trying for.

[55:15] I wanted to make the reader see the contrast between what he was coming from and what he was trying for. Something on the way to work had excited him and thrilled him so much that he'd break into a run every morning.

[56:15] And as Lyndon Johnson came up Capitol Hill in the morning, he would be running.

Well, of course he was running—from the land of poverty to this. Everything he had ever wanted, everything he had ever hoped for, was there.

----

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

----

“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 Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary by Robert Price. 

----

[6:50] He believed in developing strong operating efficiencies, and he continually emphasized passing on savings to customers.

[8:48] It's pretty incredible to think about that Sol's ideas have created trillions of dollars of value.

[11:18] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. —Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

[14:00] Stephen King on the belief and support he received from his wife: “Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference”— Stephen King On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftby Stephen King. (Founders #210)

[16:00] True education is gained through the discipline of life. —Henry Ford

[19:45] Sol kept a small sign in his office: “Do it now.”

[24:00] Sol finds an idea future generations of entrepreneurs will use: A membership retail store targeted to a specific niche.

[24:45] When you have people driving far distances to save money that is a very good sign. — Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. (Founders #234)

[26:45] Daniel Ek interview on the Acquired podcast. 

[39:10] If you’re not spending 90% of your time teaching, you’re not doing your job. —Jim Sinegal.

[39:45] You train an animal, you teach a person.

[40:00] He was not a fan of training manuals because he believed that manuals were a substitute for thinking.

[43:00] What does limited selection have to do with efficiency? Because payroll and benefits represent 80% of a retailer’s cost of operations, pricing advantage follows labor productivity. Fewer items result in reduced labor hours throughout all of the product supply channels. Put simply, the cost to deal with 4,500 items is a lot less than the cost to deal with 50,000 items.

[50:21] The operating efficiencies of the warehouse concept and the direct delivery of products from the suppliers to Price Club made it possible to sell merchandise for less.

[55:00] Costco and Sam's were expanding aggressively while Price Club remained tentative.

[1:03:30] Sol was a poster child for the American dream. His immigrant parents were born in a small Russian village. Sol was the first in his family to graduate college. He earned a law degree. He became an exceptionally successful businessman and philanthropist, celebrated 70 years of marriage, was a good father who instilled high values in his sons, and he never walked away from responsibility. It doesn’t get much better than that.

----

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

----

“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 Women of Berkshire Hathaway: Lessons from Warren Buffett's Female CEOs and Directors by Karen Linder. 

----

Follow one of my favorite podcasts: Invest Like the Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas—A New Blueprint for Homebuilding 

----

Episode outline:

Mr. Buffett, we're going to put our competitors through a meat grinder. — Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein. (Founders #182)

There are several "Going Out of Business" advertisements from competitors' stores framed and hanging on the wall.

As a general rule, bet on the quality of the business, not on the quality of the management-unless, of course, you've got a Mrs. B. in your hand. If that is the case, go all in. She was a business genius. —  The Tao of Charlie Munger (Founders #295)

Retirement is fatal. — David Ogilvy (Founders #189)

Business like raising a child, you want a good one. A child needs a mother and a business needs a boss.

What is your favorite thing to do on a nice evening? Drive around to check the competition and plan my next attack.

He was 52 and famous. I was 33 and a junior account executive. Early on, he wrote a letter to one of my clients. After listing eight reasons why some ads prepared by the company’s design department would not be effective, he delivered his ultimate argument: The only thing that can be said in favor of the layouts is that they are “different.” You could make a cow look different by removing the udder. But that cow would not produce results. So began my “David” file. Almost everyone who worked at the agency kept one. — The King of Madison Avenue: David Ogilvy and the Making of Modern Advertising by Kenneth Roman. (Founders #169)

Buffet said: If she ran a popcorn stand I’d wanna be in business with her. She's just plain smart. She's a fierce competitor and she's a tireless worker.

Buffett “on how Mrs. B ran her business: One question I always ask myself in appraising a business is how I would like, assuming I had ample capital and skilled personnel, to compete with it. I'd rather wrestle grizzlies than compete with Mrs. B. They buy brilliantly, they operate at expense ratios on to t competitors don't even dream about, and they then pass on to their customers much of the savings. It's the ideal business—one built upon exceptional value to the customer that in turn translates into exceptional economics for its owners."

She hired a chauffeur who drove her around Omaha each day. The driver took her to other stores. She looked in the windows and checked to see how many cars were in their parking lots. It didn't take long for her to plan her revenge.

There was no looking back. She just swung.

Aspiring business managers should look hard at the plain, but rare, attributes that produced Mrs. B’s incredible success. Students from 40 universities visit me every year, and I have them start the day with a visit to NFM. If they absorb Mrs. B’s lessons, they need none from me.

----

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

----

“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 Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. 

----

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 326 Alexis Rivas

----

(3:45) A man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree.

(4:45) He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present.

(5:15) Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine.

(6:05) Napoleon: A Concise Biography by David Bell (Founders #294)

(9:25) To aim at world empire seemed to Napoleon a most natural thing.

(10:00) To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is not to have lived at all.

(10:55) The greatest improvisation of the human mind is that which gives existence to the nonexistent.

(11:45) The best way to understand a person is to listen to that person directly. —  Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words (Founders #299)

(12:55) The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late.

(16:10) The worst way to live according to Napoleon:

When on rising from sleep a man does not know what to do with himself and drags his tedious existence from place to place; when, scanning his future, he sees nothing but dreadful monotony, one day resembling the next; when he asks himself, "Why do I exist?”—then, in my opinion, he is the most wretched of all.

(17:45) Instead his (Steve Jobs) ego needs and personal drives led him to seek fulfillment by creating a legacy that would awe people. A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company. He wanted to be in the pantheon with, indeed a notch above, people like Edwin Land, Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. — Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #214)

(19:15) He must know himself. Until then, all endeavors are in vain, all schemes collapse.

(20:15) Napoleon on George Washington: Britain refused to acknowledge either him or the independence of his country; but his success obliged them to change their minds and acknowledge both. It is success which makes the great man.

(21:15) Washington saw the conflict as a struggle for power in which the colonists, if victorious, destroyed British pretentions of superiority and won control over half of a continent. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnershipby Edward Larson. (Founders #251)

(23:15) If you do everything you will win: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

(23:45) Warren Buffett: We are individually opportunity driven. — 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. (Founders #286)

(24:15) Imagination rules the world.

(25:00) Ambition is a violent and unthinking fever that ceases only when life ceases.

(34:52) The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.

(35:30) Roots of Strategy: Book 1

(38:45) Robert Caro profiled two men who seeds were not high (in a tournament) they were without many advantages. And to get all the way to the top you probably had to sacrifice everything to the effort. The meta lesson is if you are not willing to pay that price presume someone else will.

If you want something like the presidency (or being a billionaire) you should presume there is someone out there who will devote all their time, money, relationships, sense of ethics, everything in sacrifice of that one goal. Of course that person would win that race.  — Invest Like The Best Sam Hinkie Find Your People 

(40:45) I do not want be roadkill on the modern-day Napoleon's path to glory.

(43:15) The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen pushers.

(44:05) A wasted life should be your greatest fear.

(46:30) Make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory.

(48:55) Paul Graham on Be Hard to Kill:

The way to make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do anyway: run it as cheaply as possible.

For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be the cockroaches of the corporate world. The immediate cause of death in a startup is always running out of money. So the cheaper your company is to operate, the harder it is to kill. —  Paul Graham’s essays (Founders #275)

(51:30) Winning is the main thing. Keep the main thing, the main thing.

----

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

----

Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes

----

“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 Tiger Woods by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian.

----

Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 326 Alexis Rivas

----

[3:00] He was someone no one had ever seen or will ever see again.

[5:20] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. — Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. (Founders #242)

[7:15] His output was enormous, much greater than that of nine tenths of other composers. He was a mature artist in most forms at the age of twelve. There was never a month, often scarcely a week, when he did not produce a substantial score. — Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240)

[7:50] Tiger's opponents were never people; it was always history.

[14:05] I've always been a practice player. I believe in it. — Michael Jordan: The Lifeby Roland Lazenby. (Founders #212)

[17:00] Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc. (Founders #293)

[18:30] Tiger was filling his mind with words that were intended to make him great. He wrote some of the messages from the self-help cassettes on a sheet of paper that he taped to his bedroom wall:

I believe in me

I will own my own destiny

I smile at obstacles

I am first in my resolve

I fulfill my resolutions powerfully

My strength is great

I stick to it, easily, naturally 

My will moves mountains

I focus and give it my all

My decisions are strong

I do it with all my heart

Tiger listened to those tapes so often that he wore them out.

[31:50] People would ask him how did you get so good Tiger? And he would answer, practice, practice, practice.

[32:10] The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think.  —The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen.

[36:45] The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. (Founders #106)

[40:15] That’s all training is. Stress. Recover. Improve. You’d think any damn fool could do it. But you don’t. You work too hard and rest too little and get hurt. — Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: The Story of Oregon's Legendary Coach and Nike's Cofounder by Kenny Moore. (Founders #153)

[46:15] Money didn't motivate him. Nor did fame. He played for the hardware. He played for the win.

[53:45] Robert Caro’s Books

----

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

----

“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 Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson for the 4th time. You can also find the book on Book Finder. 

----

Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain 

----

Episode Outline: 

[4:30] Invention: A Life by James Dyson (Founders #205)

[2:41] I am a creator of products, a builder of things, and my name appears on them. That is how I make a living and they are what have made my name at least familiar in a million homes.

[11:00] Isambard Kingdom Brunel: The Definitive Biography of The Engineer, Visionary, and Great Briton by L.T.C. Rolt. (Founders #201)

[13:10] 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.

[14:15] Difference for the sake of it. In everything. Because it must be better. From the moment the idea strikes, to the running of the business. Difference, and retention of total control.

[18:00] I would not be dragged into something I didn't want to do.

[22:40] They were all running round and round the track like a herd of sheep and not getting any quicker. Difference itself was making me come in first.

[23:34] 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, which makes me keep working at success.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was unable to think small, and nothing was a barrier to him. The mere fact that something had never been one 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.  While I could never lay claim to the genius of a man like that —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.

[30:33] The vision of a single man pursued with dogged determination that was nothing less than obsession.

[36:30] The root principle was to do things your way. It didn't matter how other people did it.

[41:38] 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.

[49:30] A direct relationship with the customer is the holy grail. Do not abandon it.

[52:00] One of 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, I have been trying to say, 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 and to inspire others to give their very best efforts to developing it, and to remain true to it, and to see it through all the way to its optimum point. To total fruition, if you like.

[1:02:20] Before I went into production with the dual cyclone I had built 5,127 prototypes.

[1:02:30] 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.

[1:03:30] While it is easy, of course, for me to celebrate my doggedness now and say that it is all you need to succeed, the truth is that it demoralized me terribly. I would crawl into the house every night covered in dust after a long day, exhausted and depressed because that day's cyclone had not worked. There were times when I thought it would never work, that I would keep on making cyclone after cyclone, never going forwards, never going backwards, until I died.

[1:06:20] I was broke, hungry and depressed. The outlook was very dreary. My doggedness and self-belief in the absence of any real evidence that they were justified was beginning to look more and more like insanity.

[1:10:30] Persistent trial and error allows them to wake up one morning after many, many mornings with a world beating product.

[1:13:15] I began to consider forgetting the whole thing and doing something else with my life.

[1:16:00] The poor buggers were so wrong, to think that designers knew nothing about business, or about marketing, or is about selling. It is the people who make the things that understand them, and understand what the public wants.

[1:21:30] Go further. There is nothing wrong with making the consumer laugh. Conventional looks do not make a product more marketable.

----

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

----

“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 Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words.

----

Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com

You 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 Founders Notes here. 

----

Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best and listen to episode 293 David Senra: Passion and Pain 

----

(3:48) He gave an extraordinary amount of thought to how best to use our fleeting time.

(4:24) He imagined what reality lacked and set out to remedy it.

(7:27) Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview Video and My Notes.

(10:02) Edwin Land episodes:

Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. (Founders #264)

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)

A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein (Founders #134)

Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #133)

The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)

Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid(Founders #40)

(13:23) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.

(14:10) One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock. (Founders #260)

(15:42) Read Jeff Bezos's shareholder letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations(Founders #282)

(19:45) If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. (Founders #297)

(30:47) How important product is based on how much time you spend with it: People are going to be spending two, three hours a day interacting with these machines—longer than they spend in the car.

(39:02) Return to the Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and the Creation of Appleby Michael Moritz. (Founders #76)

(40:32) The real big thing is: if you’re going to make something, it doesn’t take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it’s really great.

(45:07) Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull 

(45:31) Steve’s enthusiasm kept him writing check after check to Pixar, ultimately investing some $60 million.

(47:47) It is better to have fewer people even if it means doing less. Let's build our company slowly and carefully.

(53:36) 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)

(54:40) You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times in the process of getting there.

(1:00:11) There wasn’t a hierarchy of ideas that mapped onto the hierarchy of the organization.

(1:03:33) Don’t be a career. The enemy of most dreams and intuitions, and one of the most dangerous and stifling concepts ever invented by humans, is the “Career.” A career is a concept for how one is supposed to progress through stages during the training for and practicing of your working life. There are some big problems here. First and foremost is the notion that your work is different and separate from the rest of your life. If you are passionate about your life and your work, this can’t be so. They will become more or less one. This is a much better way to live one’s life.

(1:05:11) Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.

(1:05:58) Think of your life as a rainbow arcing across the horizon of this world. You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear.

(1:09:27) In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208)

(1:10:52) Much of it is also drive and passion—hard work makes up for a lot.

(1:13:28) A risk-taking creative environment on the product side required a fiscally conservative environment on the business side.

(1:13:57) You've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully.

(1:14:38) A remarkably consistent set of values that Steve held dear: Life is short; don’t waste it. Tell the truth. Technology should enhance human creativity. Process matters. Beauty matters. Details matter. The world we know is a human creation—and we can push it forward.

(1:19:24) Steve Jobs speaking to Apple employees (Video) 

(1:29:48) Apple is the world’s premier bridge builder between mere mortals and the exploding world of high technology.

(1:30:14) Steve’s favorite quote: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle

(1:32:29) The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley by Leslie Berlin. (Founders #166)

(1:42:27) That’s been the most important lesson I’ve learned in business: that the dynamic range of people dramatically exceeds things you encounter in the rest of our normal lives—and to try to find those really great people who really love what they do. 

(1:43:00) Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Productsby Leander Kahney. (Founders #178)

(1:47:27) It’s a circus world, and you never know what’s around the next corner.

(1:53:40) Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever. (Founders #219)

(2:01:00) All glory is fleeting.

----

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

----

“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 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.com

You 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 Founders Notes here. 

Episode Outline: 

[27:31] Start of episode on Zeckendorf’s autobiography

[27:44] 26 years of work was now moving down the chute.

[28:36] The secret of any great project is to keep it moving, keep it from losing momentum.

[34:55] If you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. — Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. (Founders #297)

[36:21] Zeckendorf: Revisiting the legacy of a master builder

[45:08] This ruthless industry has created far more bankruptcies than it has billionaires. — Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger. (Founders #243)

[48:49] If you want to know whether you are destined to be a success or a failure in life, you can easily find out. The test is simple and it is infallible: Are you able to save money? If not, drop out. You will lose. You may think not, but you will lose as sure as you live. The seed of success is not in you. — James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest by Michael P. Malone.

[53:20] I brought energy and drive. I became the chief enthusiast.

[1:08:42] I was also deeply in debt. Never, except for rare moments, have I ever had my head very far above the financial water and never have I Iet this trouble me.

[1:10:51] The importance to me of being on the heights was that in an hour I could achieve what previously would've taken a year or more of effort to perform.

[1:11:13] One way to succeed is by aiding and supporting the position of others through new or ingenious ideas or projects. This usefulness to others is in large part the reason for my own success.

[1:14:44] Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell. (Founders #269)

[1:15:04] The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields. (Founders #292)

[1:21:28] The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw 

[1:25:52] More businesses die from indigestion than starvation. — The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company by David Packard. (Founders #291)

[1:29:23] Wisdom is prevention. –Charlie Munger + Be hard to kill. —Paul Graham (Founders #275)

----

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

----

“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 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 a particular price point.” It means “make the best,” period.

[9:58] 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.

[14:32] We were like a wild species living on the edge of an ecosystem: adaptable, resilient, and tough.

[14:49] I believe the way towards mastery of any endeavor is to work towards simplicity. The more you know, the less you need.

[15:49] The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

[17:59] 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.

[21:29] Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. (Founders #186)

[28:02] Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. (Founders #188)

[28:55] 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.

[31:33] 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.

[35:47] I was still wondering why I was really in business.

[38:17] We had to begin to make all of our decisions as though we would be in business for a hundred years.

[39:02] Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita. (Founders #102)

[39:13] Jeff Bezos on what he learned from Akio Morita and how it influenced the building of Amazon:

"Right after World War II, Akio Morita, the guy who founded Sony, made the mission for Sony that they were going to make Japan known for quality.

And you have to remember, this was a time when Japan was known for cheap, copycat products. And Morita didn’t say we’re going to make Sony known for quality. He said we’re going to make Japan known for quality. He chose a mission for Sony that was bigger than Sony.

And when we talk about earth’s most customer-centric company, we have a similar idea in mind. We want other companies to look at Amazon and see us as a standard-bearer for obsessive focus on the customer as opposed to obsessive focus on the competitor."

[42:13] Keep your company in Yarak: Super alert, hungry but not weak, and ready to hunt.

[42:45] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200)

[44:02] Jay Z: What am I here for? To be second best? I don’t think so.

[44:13] The more you know, the less you need.

[51:33] Teach, inform, and inspire. Do so relentlessly and the sales will follow.

[53:04] I was taught by some wise people that if you manage the top line of your company-your customers, your products, your strategy-then the bottom line will follow. But if you manage the bottom line of the company and forget about the rest, you’ll eventually hit the wall because you'll take your eyes off the prize. — Steve Jobs

In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. (Founders #208)

[56:03] 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.

[56:59] Huberman Lab Podcast

[57:19]  I cannot imagine any company that wants to make the best product of its kind being staffed by people who do not care passionately about the product.

[57:39] One of my all time favorite quotes:

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

[58:56] You should not see change as a threat, rather as an opportunity to grow and evolve to a higher level.

----

Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes

----

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

----

“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