Founders

What I learned from reading The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson. Read the book online for free here. 

----

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. 

----

Naval has changed my life for the better, and if you approach the following pages like a friendly but highly competent sparring partner, he might just change yours.

Books make for great friends, because the best thinkers of the last few thousand years tell you their nuggets of wisdom.

If you don't know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out.

Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.

Ignore people playing status games, They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.

You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.

The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers, Most people haven't figured this out yet.

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others.

Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated.

Fortunes require leverage.

Code and media are permissionless leverage. They're the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.

An army of robots is freely available-it's just packed in data centers for heat and space efficiency. Use it.

If you can't code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.

Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment.

Set and enforce an aspirational personal hourly rate. If fixing a problem will save less than your hourly rate, ignore it. If outsourcing a task will cost less than your hourly rate, outsource it.

Work as hard as you can. Even though who you work with and what you work on are more important than how hard you work.

Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.

Apply specific knowledge, with leverage, and eventually you will get what you deserve.

When you're finally wealthy, you'll realize it wasn't what you were seeking in the first place. But that is for another day.

Your summary says "Productize yourself"-what does that mean? “Productize" has leverage. “Yourself" has accountability.

Technology democratizes consumption but consolidates production. The best person in the world at anything gets to do it for everyone.

When I talk about specific knowledge, I mean figure out what you were doing as a kid or teenager almost effortlessly. Something you didn't even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. Your mother or your best friend growing up would know.

No one can compete with you on being you. Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.

If you're not 100 percent into it, somebody else who is 100 percent into it will outperform you. And they won't just outperform you by a little bit-they'll outperform you by a lot because now we’re operating the domain of ideas, compound interest really applies and leverage really applies.

Escape competition through authenticity.

If you are fundamentally building and marketing something that is an extension of who you are, no one can compete with you on that.

The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.

The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner.

If you don't own a piece of a business, you don't have a path towards financial freedom.

Find a position of leverage. We live in an age of infinite leverage.

Forget rich versus poor, white-collar versus blue. It's now leveraged versus un-leveraged.

The most interesting and the most important form of leverage is the idea of products that have no marginal cost of replication.

This newest form of leverage is where all the new fortunes are made. The new generation's fortunes are all made through code or media.

Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay.

What you want in life is to be in control of your time.

Demonstrated judgment-credibility around the judgmentis so critical. Warren Buffett wins here because he has massive credibility. He's been highly accountable. He's been right over and over in the public domain. He's built a reputation for very high integrity, so you can trust him. People will throw infinite behind him because of his judgment. Nobody asks leverage him how hard he works. Nobody asks him when he wakes up your or when he goes to sleep. They're like, "Warren, just do thing."

Being at the extreme in your art is very important in the age of leverage.

Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you're with, and what you do.

Your real résumé is just a catalog of all your suffering. If I ask you to describe your real life to yourself, and you look back from your deathbed at the interesting things you've done, it's all going to be around the sacrifices you made, the hard things you did.

My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.

The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. 

Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves.

The more you know, the less you diversify.

Inversion. I don't believe I have the ability to say what is going to work. Rather, I try to eliminate what's not going to work. I think being successful is just about not making mistakes. It's not about having correct judgment. It's about avoiding incorrect judgments.
 

In the intellectual domain, compound interest rules.

Simple heuristic: If you're evenly split on a difficult decision, take the path more painful in the short term.

What are the most efficient ways to build new mental models? Read a lot—just read.

The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant-it's the desire to learn that is scarce.

I probably read one to two hours a day. That puts me in the top .00001 percent. I think that alone accounts for any material success I've had in my life and any intelligence I might have.

There is ancient wisdom in books. If you're talking about an old problem like how to keep your body healthy, how to stay calm and peaceful, what kinds of value systems are good, how you raise a family, and those kinds of things, the older solutions are probably better. Any book that survived for two thousand years has been filtered through many people. The general principles are more likely to be correct. I wanted to get back into reading these sorts of books.

A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought. They must be earned.

The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse.

All the real scorecards are internal.

You decide it's important to you. You prioritize it above everything else. You read everything on the topic.

No exceptions—all screen activities linked to less happiness, all non-screen activities linked to more happiness.

Self-discipline is a bridge to a new self-image.

Enjoy yourself. Do something positive. Project some love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little bit. Appreciate the moment. And do your work.

To make an original contribution, you have to be irrationally obsessed with something.

Health, love, and your mission, in that order. Nothing else matters.

----

Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. 

----

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

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

What I learned from reading The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn. 

----

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. 

----

Ford generally accepted the responsibilities of his celebrity-he'd worked diligently to cultivate it, realizing early on that his personal fame heightened demand for Model Ts.

Ford's Model T changed everything. Thanks in great part to Ford's innovative assembly line, Model Ts were mass-produced on a previously unimaginable scale. In competitors factories, it took workers several hours to assemble an individual car. At the Ford plant, a completed Model T rolled off the line every two and a half minutes.

Ford continued tinkering with the manufacturing process, aggressively seeking ways to cut production expenses and Model T prices even more. The best example fostered a popular joke that you could buy any color Model T that you liked, so long as the color was black. Few realized that Ford insisted the cars come in that color because black paint dried quickest, meaning Model Ts could be whipped through the assembly line and off to dealerships at an even faster pace, saving additional time and labor related dollars.

The Model T alone would have established Henry Ford as a household name, but he'd further cemented his reputation as a friend of the working man with a stunning announcement. In an era when factory line workers were lucky to earn $2 a day for their labor and toiled through ten-hour shifts six days a week, Ford pledged to pay $5 a day, and to reduce workdays to eight hours. Everyone in America was talking about it.

Over the years, as Ford founded and failed with two auto manufacturing companies before succeeding with his third, he endlessly reminisced about the meeting and Edison's words of encouragement: “Young man, that's the thing. You have it. Keep at it.”

Ford was a cannier businessman than his hero, much wealthier.

They found themselves in complete agreement about the evils of Wall Street and the crass men there who cared only for profit and not for the public. Both were poor boys who made good. Neither had a college degree, and both were disdainful of those who believed classroom education was superior to hands-on work experience and common sense.

Like Edison, Ford didn't have many friends. Ford was a prickly man and also a complicated one, burning to make the world better for humanity as a whole while not enjoying personal contact with most individuals.

Ford never doubted his own beliefs and decisions, forbidding disagreement from employees and ignoring any from outsiders. Ford's hobby was work. He devoted almost every waking minute to it.

When he and the inventor quickly became the closest of friends, Ford felt energized again, thanks in great part to Edison's inspiration.

For all of Ford's professional life he'd had to overcome skepticism from other successful men. He had always been the outsider, the one with the crazy ideas and clumsy social graces. Edison sympathized, because in his earliest years of prominence he was criticized for some of the same traits. The inventor not only accepted Ford for the rough-edged man that he was, he recognized in him the fine qualities that offset the carmaker's obvious flaws.

Henry Ford was always a man of strong opinions, and one who absolutely trusted his own instincts. He especially disdained anyone identified as an expert: "If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means, I would endow the opposition with experts. No one ever considers himself an expert if he really knows his job."

When prominent, better educated men and their hired experts insisted that the future of the automobile market was limited to manufacturing expensive cars for the wealthy, Ford believed that the real potential lay in sales of a modest but dependable vehicle to the growing American middle class; there would be less profit in individual transactions, but the sheer number of sales would yield greater cumulative returns. With the Model T, Ford was proved right, and he reveled in it.

Their main goal was to have a good time. But few business magnates in America had a shrewder understanding of marketing than Edison, Ford, and Firestone. If rank-and-file consumers liked what they saw and read about, as they surely would, then sales of cars and light bulbs and phonographs and tires would directly benefit, too.

Ford shocked America by resigning as company president. He was going to start an entirely new automobile manufacturing enterprise. Ford Motor Company stockholders assumed the threat was real, and within weeks agreed to sell Ford their shares at a whopping $12,500 a share. (James Couzens, who knew Ford best, held out and received $13,000 for each of his.) Though Ford had to borrow $60 million of the near $106 million total cost, he was still glad to do it. It had been an elaborate bluff, but he was now in complete control of Ford Motor Company.

Ford received thousands of letters with the general message that if he were an anarchist, then America needed more of them. Ford was the son of a Michigan farmer, and like  most rural Americans of the time his formal education was limited to a few years in local schools and teachers who themselves had often not graduated high school. Then he had to leave school to make a living. Like Ford, many of his countrymen read only with difficulty, if at all. Their understanding of American history was limited. They, too, might not remember the exact date of the American Revolution, but they knew that Henry Ford introduced the $5 workday and a car that ordinary people could afford. They identified with Ford so strongly that newspaper attacks on him were taken as insults directed at them.

They were shocked to receive shipments of Model Ts that they hadn't ordered. The edict on these cars was the same-Ford Motor Company must be paid for them. Refusal would terminate the dealer-company relationship. If they refused to accept these additional Model Ts and were fired by Ford, they could be ruined. Or, as the parent company suggested, they could accept the cars, if necessary get loans from their own banks to pay Ford for them, and then aggressively keep trying to sell Model Ts and hang on until the national economic crisis was over. The dealers had little choice but to accept. That provided Ford with enough money to meet his immediate corporate debts-the dealers had to risk wrath from their banks instead.

She never complained when Ford spent most of his off-the-job hours trying to build a combustion engine in their kitchen. Clara encouraged Ford to pursue his dream of creating "a car for the great multitudes," remaining supportive when his first two companies failed, encouraging  him during the difficult first years of Ford Motor Company, his third.

Ford fixated on even the smallest details.

Patience was never Ford's strength.

Ford had no interest in laurel-resting.

Ford’s cars were built to last. Never flashy, in every way efficient, always dependable, much like the man whose company assembled them. And, just as Ford never saw any reason to change himself, he felt no pressure to change the Model T.

Ford's stubbornness gave competitors the opening they needed. When Alfred Sloan took over General Motors in 1923, the new boss emphasized a marketing plan based on Americans wanting not just transportation, but selection. Enough people now owned cars so that ownership itself was no longer special. What was going to matter soon was driving a car that reflected the personality, the specialness, of the individual owner.

As individuals, Edison, Ford, and Firestone created the means for the "great multitudes" to enjoy leisure entertainment far beyond what was previously imagined. As the Vagabonds, their summer car and camping trips exemplified what they had helped make possible: See what we're doing? You çan do it, too. By their example, the Vagabonds encouraged countless ordinary Americans to pursue their own dreams.

----

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 Unpublished David Ogilvy by David Ogilvy. 

----

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. 

----

[0:01] Will Any Agency Hire This Man? He is 38, and unemployed. He dropped out of college.

He has been a cook, a salesman, a diplomatist and a farmer. He knows nothing about marketing, and has never written any copy. He professes to be interested in advertising as a career (at the age of 38!) and is ready to go to work for $5,000 a year.

I doubt if any American agency will hire him.

However, a London agency did hire him. Three years later he became the most famous copywriter in the world, and in due course built the tenth biggest agency in the world.

The moral: it sometimes pays an agency to be imaginative and unorthodox in hiring.

[2:39] Words were what made him. Reading this collection, one is struck, piece after piece by how David's words surprise and seduce, tease and provoke.

[2:58] His writing is opinionated, forceful, and urgent.

[4:24] David was building his first-class business in a first-class way.

[5:37] Every advertisement must tell the whole sales story.

[5:41] The copy must be human and very simple.Every word in the copy must count. Concrete figures must be substituted for atmospheric claims; clichés must give way to facts, and empty exhortations to alluring offers.

[6:08] Permanent success has rarely been built on frivolity. People do not buy from clowns.

[7:38] The worst fault a salesman can commit is to be a bore.

[11:49] I have a new metaphor. Great hospitals do two things: They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. Ogilvy & Mather does two things: We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people. Ogilvy & Mather is the teaching hospital of the advertising world. And, as such, to be respected above all other agencies.

[12:44] I plead for charm, flair, showmanship, taste, distinction.

[16:42] Dear Ray: Nineteen years ago you wrote me the best job application letter I have ever received. I can still recite the first paragraph. The first paragraph read: "My father was in charge of the men's lavatory at the Ritz Hotel. My mother was a chambermaid at the same hotel. I was educated at the London School of Economics.

[18:04] I find extravagance esthetically repulsive. I find the New England Puritan tradition more attractive. And more profitable.

[21:14] So the time had come to give the pendulum a push in the other direction. If that push has puzzled you, caught you on the wrong foot and confused you, I can only quote Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds... Speak what you think today in words  as hard as cannonballs, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today."

[22:01] I prefer a posture of confident authority.

[22:19] You have a first-class mind. Stretch it.

[22:38] David on how he lasted so long: 

1. I have outlived all my competitors. 

2. My obsessive interest in advertising has not dimmed. 

3. My younger partners have tolerated my presence in their midst. 

4. I had the wisdom to give them a free run. As a result, Ogilvy & Mather has outgrown its founder.

[27:02] An account manager wrote to David wondering what he considered his worst shortcomings. The reply:

I am intolerant of mediocrity – and laziness.

I fritter away too much time on things which aren't important.

Like everyone of my age, I talk too much about the past.

I have always funked firing people who needed to be fired.

I am afraid of flying and go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it.

When I was Creative Head in New York, I wrote too much of the advertising myself.

I know nothing about finance.

I change my mind – about advertising and about people.

I am candid to the point of indiscretion.

I see too many sides to every argument.

I am over-impressed by physical beauty.

I have a low threshold of boredom.

[28:09] Somebody recently asked me for a list of the most useful books on advertising – the books that all our people should read. Here is what I sent her: 

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. 

Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. 

Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy.

How to Advertise by Kenneth Roman and Jane Maas. 

Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves.

The Art of Writing Advertising : Conversations with Masters of the Craft: David Ogilvy, William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, Rosser Reeves by Denis Higgins.

The 100 Best Advertisements by Julian Watkins.

[29:26] Don't be dull bores. We can't save souls in an empty church.

[31:28] What guts it takes, what obstinate determination, to stick to one coherent creative policy, year after year, in the face of all the pressures to "come up with something new" every six months.

[31:57] The manufacturer who dedicates his advertising to building the most favourable image, the most sharply defined personality, is the one who will get the largest share of the market at the highest profit – in the long run.

[32:05] We try to create sharply defined personalities for our brands. And we stick to those personalities, year after year.

[32:58] Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up tọ them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second-rate work.

[33:57] For Pete's sake write shorter memos. Cut your wordage in half.

[34:12] How does the OBM of 1962 compare with the agency I dreamed of in 1948? To tell you the truth, it looks a million times better than I ever dreamed it could look. I just cannot believe what a good agency this has grown to be. I am terribly proud, and terribly grateful.

[35:07] David is often astonished by working habits that differ from his own. Once, discussing a copywriter at another agency whom he admired in some respects, he said: "Listen to this - every day at precisely five o'clock that man gets up from his desk, puts on his hat and his coat, and goes home." Long pause to let it sink in. Then, leaning forward for emphasis: "Think of the extraordinary self-discipline that requires!"

[36:49] My old friend advised you to avoid excess in all things. Mr. Ashcroft used to say the same thing – avoid excess in all things. That is a recipe for dullness and mediocrity.

[38:09] I will begin with an old-fashioned affirmation in the supreme value of hard work. I believe in the Scottish proverb: “Hard work never killed a man." Men die of boredom, psychological conflict and disease. They never die of hard work.

[38:36] On the other hand, I believe in lots of vacations. Sabbaticals recharge batteries.

[39:18] Are we freewheeling entrepreneurs, ready to take risks in new ventures? Or are we too frightened of making mistakes? When the toy-buyer at Sears made a mistake which cost his company 10 million bucks, I asked the head of Sears, “Are you going to fire him?" “Hell no," he replied, “I fire people who don't make mistakes."

[41:06] It is the duty of our top people to sustain unremitting pressure on the professional standards of their staffs. They must not tolerate sloppy plans or mediocre creative work. 

[41:30] If you ever find a man who is better than you are– hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.

[41:56] Five characteristics for rapid promotion

He is ambitious.

He works harder than his peers – and enjoys it. 

He has a brilliant brain – inventive and unorthodox.

He has an engaging personality.

He demonstrates respect for the creative function.
 

[42:56] The line between pride in our work and neurotic obstinacy is a narrow one.

[43:07] We have a habit of divine discontent with our performance. It is an antidote to smugness.

[43:50] Raise your sights! Blaze new trails! Compete with the immortals!

[48:13] Great leaders almost seem to exude self-confidence.

[49:13] Great industrial leaders are always fanatically committed to their jobs. They are not lazy, or amateurs.

[52:00] What would you have done differently if you could do it all over? I wouldn't have made so damn many mistakes, and most notably, I would not have sold so many of my Ogilvy & Mather shares.I was scared. We were being fantastically successful. I kept saying to myself: easy come, easy go. This thing could go up in smoke at any moment. I was frightened and I wanted to get the money out and put it into something safe.

[53:22] Did you ever think the agency was going to fail? Yes. Every day for years I thought it was going to fail. I was always scared sick-always a terrible worrywart when I was in my heyday at the agency. I remember saying one day: If this is success, God deliver me from failure.

[53:47] Personal dislike made me resign many accounts. I didn't like having to deal with the sonofabitch. Why should I? We pass this way only once.

[54:02] Anything you've always wanted that eluded you? A big family. Ten children.

[54:10] Retiring can be fatal.

[56:04] I was talking at my old school not long ago in Scotland and I gave them a little sermon on the subject of success. They should stop thinking about success entirely in terms of material achievements and careers and all that stuff and think of success in terms of their own happiness and the happiness of their family.

[56:45] I had to make my own bed. I was a very, very good salesman. And that's an important thing to be.

[58:22] I had a short period in my life, I think maybe ten years, when I was pretty close to being a genius and I can look back on that with interested curiosity and affection and some nostalgia. Then it ran out. But I was.

----

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 Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe.

----

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. 

----

[0:01] I wrote this book to help entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. That's why there's a lack of miracles and a surplus of marketing details including buying, advertising, distributing, and running stores; and lots of discussion of how we built a successful business on high wages.

[18:09] Chapter 11 was a possibility. But I was reading The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman, with its implicit concept of multiple solutions to non-convex problems.

[19:07] This is my favorite of all managerial quotes: If all the facts could be known, idiots could make the decisions. —Tex Thornton, cofounder of Litton Industries, quoted in the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1960s.

[22:33] The most basic conclusion I drew from her book was that, if you adopt a reasonable strategy, as opposed to waiting for an optimum  strategy, and stick with it, you'll probably succeed. Tenacity is as important as brilliance.

[24:31] The one core value that I chose was our high compensation policies. This is the most important single business decision I ever made: to pay people well.

[30:30] The basic problem is that convenience store retailing is a commodity business that is hard to differentiate. What I needed was a good but small opportunity for my good but small company: a non-commodity, differentiated kind of retailing.

[33:38] As we evolved Trader Joe's, its greatest departure from the norm wasn't its size or its decor. It was our commitment to product knowledge, something which was totally foreign to the mass-merchant culture, and our turning our backs to branded merchandise.

[38:25] Most of my ideas about how to act as an entrepreneur are derived from The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gasset, the greatest Spanish philosopher of the twentieth century. I believe this book still offers the clearest explanation of the times in which we live. And I believe it offers a master “plan of action" for the would-be entrepreneur, who usually has no reputation and few resources.

[40:22] From the beginning, thanks to Ortega, I've been aware of the need to sell everybody. . . I took a cue from General Patton, who thought that the greatest danger was not that the enemy would learn his plans, but that his own troops would not.

[47:32] We assumed that our readers had a thirst for knowledge, 180 degrees opposite from supermarket ads. We emphasized "informative advertising," a term borrowed from the famous entrepreneur Paul Hawken, who started publishing in the Whole Earth Review in the early 1980s. These informative texts were intended to stress how our products were  differentiated from ordinary stuff.

[52:09] All businesses have problems. It's the problems that create the opportunities. If a business is easy, every simple bastard would enter it. My point is that a businessperson who complains about problems doesn't understand where his bread is coming from.

[57:00] We violated every received-wisdom of retailing except one: we delivered great value, which is where most retailers fail.

[1:14:05] But do I regret having sold? Yes. I admit it. To mine own self I was not true when I sold. I regret not having had the guts to ride out the loss of the surtax exemptions, the employee ownership problem, the threat of death taxes, Carter's threat to eliminate capital gains preference, and all the other fears, real or phantom, of late 1978. I have to admit the truth, that I regret having sold Trader Joe's. And I have had to pay something for this, beyond the loss of my shadow.

-----

Other episodes mentioned in this episode:

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

#20 Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

#89 Confessions of an Advertising Man

#107 Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator

#110 Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation (Henry Singleton)

#170 My Life in Advertising

#179 Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

#181 Copy This!: How I turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and 100 square feet into a company called Kinkos

----

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 Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. 

----

Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. 

----

[0:01] In a drama that would seem fake were it not so horrifying, Einstein’s brain ended up being, for more than four decades, a wandering relic.

[4:22] Einstein remained consistent in his willingness to be a serenely amused loner who was comfortable not conforming.

[6:49] “In teaching history,” Einstein replied, “there should be extensive discussion of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.” 

[8:33] It is important to foster individuality, for only the individual can produce the new ideas.

[11:39] He had an allergic reaction against all forms of dogma and authority.

[14:37] It made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority.

[20:24] It would be an astonishing nine years after his graduation and four years after the miracle year in which he upended physics before he would be offered a job as a junior professor.

[26:24] How To Win With People You Don't Like

[35:22] Had he given up theoretical physics at that point, the scientific community would not have noticed. There was no sign that he was about to unleash a remarkable year the like of which science had not seen since 1666, when Isaac Newton, holed up at his mother’s home to escape the plague developed calculus, an analysis of the light spectrum, and the laws of gravity. 

[41:41] To dwell on the things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone.

[44:30] He responded by saying that he planned to “smoke like a chimney, work like a horse, eat without thinking, go for a walk only in really pleasant company.”

[54:25] The whole affair is a matter of indifference to me, as is all the commotion, and the opinion of each and every human being. 

[55:56] I am truly a lone traveler and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.

[1:10:47] When shown his office, he was asked what equipment he might need. "A large wastebasket so I can throw away all my mistakes.”

[1:18:57] I do not know how the Third World War will be fought but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth — rocks.

[1:22:26] Brief is this existence, as a fleeting visit in a strange house. The path to be pursued is poorly lit by a flickering consciousness.

-----

Other episodes mentioned in this episode:

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

#25 Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson 

#94 The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success (Henry Singleton) 

#95 A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age

#110 Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation (Henry Singleton)

Bonus episode between #168 and #169 Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II

Bonus episode between #179 and #180 Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon 

----

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 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight. 

----

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. 

----

[2:02] I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know, short as a morning run, and I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all...different.

[6:18] So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy... just keep going. Don't stop. Don't even think about stopping until you get there, and don't give much thought to where "there" is. Whatever comes, just don't stop. That's the precocious, prescient, urgent advice I managed to give myself, out of the blue, and somehow managed to take. Half a century later, I believe it's the best advice-maybe the only advice-any of us should ever give.

[10:32] They greeted my passion and intensity with labored sighs and vacant stares.

[16:48] Carter never did mess around. See an open shot, take it. I told myself there was much to learn from a guy like that.

[20:25] If I didn't, if I muffed this, I'd be doomed to spend the rest of my days selling encyclopedias, or mutual funds, or some other junk I didn't really care about.

[27:45] Bowerman was a genius coach, a master motivator, a natural leader of young men, and there was one piece of gear he deemed crucial to their development. Shoes. He was obsessed with how human beings are shod.

[32:30] Bowerman didn’t give a damn about respectability. He possessed a prehistoric strain of maleness. Today it’s all but extinct. He was a war hero, too. Of course he was.

[32:49] The most famous track coach in America, Bowerman never considered himself a track coach. He detested being called coach. He called himself a “Professor of Competitive Responses,” and his job, as he saw it, and often described it, was to get you ready for the struggles and competitions that lay ahead.

[35:40] In my mind he was Patton with a stopwatch. That is, when he wasn't a god.

[38:17] "Buck," he said, "how long do you think you're going to keep jackassing around with these shoes?" I shrugged. "I don't know, Dad."

[40:00] So why was selling shoes so different? Because, I realized, it wasn't selling. I believed in running.

[1:00:57] My life was out of balance, sure, but I didn't care. In fact, I wanted even more imbalance. Or a different kind of imbalance. I wanted to dedicate every minute of every day to Blue Ribbon. I'd never been a multitasker, and I didn't see any reason to start now. I wanted to be present, always. I wanted to focus constantly on the one task that really mattered.

[1:05:40] I spent a fair portion of each day lost in my own thoughts, tumbling down mental wormholes, to solve some problem or construct some plan.

[1:10:40] More than once, over my first cup of coffee in the morning, or while trying to fall asleep at night, I'd tell myself: Maybe I'm a fool? Maybe this whole damn shoe thing is a fool's errand? Maybe, I thought. Maybe.

[1:23:10] I told myself, Don’t forget this. Do not forget. I told myself there was much to be learned from such a display of passion, whether you were running a mile or a company.

[1:36:50] When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer, or better, and when you do it all crisply and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but so seldom is-you're participating more fully in the whole grand human drama. More than simply alive, you're helping others to live more fully, and if that's business, all right, call me a businessman. Maybe it will grow on me.

[1:38:10] I asked myself: What are you feeling? It wasn't joy. It wasn't relief. If I felt anything, it was... regret? Good God, I thought. Yes. Regret. Because I honestly wished I could do it all over again.

[1:40:32] Of course, above all, I regret not spending more time with my sons. And yet I know that this regret clashes with my secret regret that I can't do it all over again. God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing.

[1:40:50] I'd like to share the experience, the ups and downs, so that some young man or woman, somewhere, going through the same trials and ordeals, might be inspired or comforted. Or warned. Some young entrepreneur, maybe, some athlete or painter or novelist, might press on. It's all the same drive. The same dream. It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. I'd tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years. I'd tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don't know what that means, seek it. If you're following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you've ever felt.

[1:42:22] Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn't mean stopping. Don't ever stop.

----

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 Ritz and Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef, and the Rise of the Leisure Class by Luke Barr. 

----

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. 

----

[1:00] The words echoed in his head, even now. The idea that they should be seen as servants was the cruelest of insults. César Ritz, Auguste Escoffier, servants?

[11:28] He hasn't the least idea how much work and care, how much imagination and effort, go into the proper running of a hotel. 

[20:44] This was the very heart of a world that had shaped him, a world of privilege and luxury in which he had forged a place for himself, against all odds. Ritz had not been born to this life. Raised in a tiny village (population 123) in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, he was the last of eleven children, and had left home at the age of twelve.

[21:04]  He was a self-made man. And beneath his placid, imperturbable Swiss poise lay enormous ambition. 

[22:26] Ritz knew better than anyone the importance of the kitchen in creating a truly luxurious hotel experience. He had built his success in the hotel business in tandem with the brilliant chef Auguste Escoffier. 

[26:48] Ritz had spent years working for others and was now, finally, a hotel owner himself. Yes, his hotels were small, but they were his. 

[27:48] Ritz was proud, but also full of insecurities: about his Swiss peasant family background, his lack of education. 

[30:20] "You'll never make anything of yourself in the hotel business," his boss at one of his very first jobs had told him. "It takes a special knack, a special flair, and it's only right that I should tell you the truth: you haven't got it." Well, he'd got it now. 

[40:18] Escoffier was not an educated man, but he had quickly discovered that he had a real talent for cooking, which he saw as both a science and an art. 

[40:37] He had begun to establish a new ethos for the professional kitchen, one that depended on respect: respect for the chefs, respect for the ingredients, respect for the artistry of cooking.

[44:41] The food itself was less complicated than it had been, shorn of unnecessary ornamentation, inedible decoration, and too many sauces. "Above all, make it simple." was his motto. 

[49:40] He was the elegant and cultivated César Ritz, mastermind of luxury, but he couldn't escape the feeling that he might be revealed, at any moment, to be an impostor, nothing more than a servant. The truth, he feared, was detectable in the size of his hands and feet. They were large, peasant-size hands and feet, he was convinced, and he did everything possible to keep them hidden. He wore his shoes a half size too small.

[53:39] The Provence was his and his alone. It was almost impossible to explain to Marie what that meant to him, how deep that feeling went. For Ritz, owning his own hotel was the signal achievement of his life, marking his escape from his past. 

[1:02:07] The most damning charge in the entire letter was that Escoffier was taking kickbacks on all the food orders coming into the Savoy. 

[1:05:11] Escoffier and Ritz had been fired. 

[1:06:57] "The best is not too good," Ritz would say. This was his philosophy about everything. 

[1:08:01] It should instead be "a work tool more than a book, a constant companion that chefs would always keep at their side." A book for working professionals. 

[1:12:17]Again, a tiny detail, a solution to a problem no one had ever even put into words, but one that Ritz, in his obsessive way, had noted and now acted upon.  

[1:14:35] Ritz was filled with overwhelming pride and, at the same time, a creeping sense of inadequacy. 

[1:16:25] To think that his parents had lived and died in Niederwald, had never even left Switzerland, not once, and here he was, the proprietor of the Hôtel Ritz in Paris, the most famous hotelier in the world, and now he was opening a new property in London. 

[1:18:29] They both looked back with amazement at what they had achieved together in the 1890s, how different the world was then, how they themselves had changed it.

----

Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work.  Get access to Founders Notes here. 

----

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

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

What I learned from reading Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy by Isadore Sharp.

----

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. 

----

[0:01] When I built my first hotel I knew nothing about the hotel business. 

[4:28] He refused to settle for the pragmatic dictum of maturity. Issy also skipped skepticism and "Let's be sensible." People said he was naïve, with a kind of glandular optimism. Perhaps. But as it turned out naïveté served him well. 

[6:32] Early on he made some audacious statements that sounded like pipe dreams. He told me once that his aim was to make the name Four Seasons a worldwide brand, synonymous with luxury, like Rolls-Royce.

[8:39]Once, when Dad was excavating a basement with horse and plough, he broke his shoulder. But he shrugged it off and uncomplainingly kept on working, something I never forgot. 

[26:52] I decided to go ahead. I foresaw only one difficulty, but it loomed large: How do you build a two-hundred-room resort without any money? This was literal fact. My earnings barely covered my rising family costs. 

[35:23] I asked Sir Gerald Glover, "How do you keep your lawn so perfect?"  “No problem”, he replied. “You just cut it every week for three hundred years.” 

[43:48] I owe my success to my freedom. I think for me independence has an incalculable value. 

[44:44] All business proceeds on belief: Trying to run a company without a set of beliefs is like trying to steer a ship without a rudder. 

[56:03] The experience made me realize what I would really like to do: create a group of the best hotels in the world. And what we really want to do is usually what we do best.

[56:51] We will not be all things to all people. We will specialize. 

----

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 Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin. 

----

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. 

----

[13:50] He often told me that all it took to turn the most electrifying film stars into dullards was to be around them for a while. But he felt that way around everybody. There were very few social scenes in which he was ever really comfortable.

[14:07] Johnny was comfortable in front of twenty million but just as uncomfortable in a gathering of twenty.

[15:44] Carson grasped that he owned the camera the way Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra had grasped that they owned the microphone. That understanding made him more natural, more relaxed, cooler.

[21:29] Johnny continued. “If a doctor opened up my chest right now, he couldn’t find a heart, or any goddamn thing. Just a lot of misery. My mother made sure of that. She deprived us all of any real goddamn warmth."

[23:20] Facts revealed themselves. Curious facts. Disturbing facts. Like the fact that Johnny Carson wasn’t wealthy. Indeed, he had very little money. He had little money because the people around him, whom he trusted, were serving him poorly.

[28:43] I was shocked to realize that he owned no equity interest in the new company. Instead, half was owned by the manufacturer and half by Sonny Werblin. Carson, in effect, was paid a salary to wear clothes from the company that bore his name, while the man he had entrusted with his affairs lined his own pockets.

[29:39] “Look what’s going on,” I said. “His wife is cheating on him. His manager is screwing him, his agents are exploiting him, and his producer’s wife has been conspiring with Joanne to cuckold him. What a goddamn mess.”

[32:46] Johnny Carson lived comfortably in his own skin. He may have been troubled in certain areas, but he was never tormented by insecurity.

[42:57] Carson’s show was earning NBC between $50 and $60 million a year.

[45:45] Being a star in Hollywood was a fabulous thing, but the real money and power went to those who owned the companies that produced the programs. It was Aaron Spelling who called the shots and raked in the dough and lived like the sultan of Brunei. Or to put it another way, Merv Griffin, who was a rival of Carson’s but never his peer, was so much richer than Johnny because he owned the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

[49:14] He had too keen an appreciation for how much work and talent and discipline went into success to be flattered by praise and adulation.

[50:27] Like most oracles, Wasserman gave an opinion that was simple and sensible (but unambiguously presented, thank goodness). “It is not prudent,” replied Wasserman, “to ask people to change their nightly viewing habits. Once they are used to tuning in a given channel, they find it hard to make the move, no matter how good an alternative is being provided elsewhere.” Was that it? All of our thinking and talking and arguing and agonizing came down to the belief that Americans won’t change the dial? Wasserman’s advice sealed our decision.

[54:39] He liked performing. He liked being onstage, being the center of attention, and doing something he did with supreme excellence.

[57:27] To my surprise, the three girls were skinny-dipping in the rooftop swimming pool, while Johnny, wearing nothing but an apron, served them wine from a silver platter.

[1:00:31] Johnny Carson performed on television, but he didn’t watch it.

[1:09:37] Johnny Carson enjoyed the adulation of millions, but his mother could not love him. He carried that pain, and spread it, all his life.

[1:09:56] He has probably been funnier longer and more consistently than any other comedian who ever lived. Johnny just kept rolling on and on, never deviating, seldom surprising, seldom surpassing, but nearly always delivering.

[1:10:35] Once he got control of The Tonight Show he was earning so much that it was like Monopoly money. He was free to do literally whatever he wanted.

----

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 Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein.

----

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. 

----

His talent sprang from his unrivaled independence of mind and ability to focus on his work and shut out the world, yet those same qualities exacted a toll.

He emerged from those first hard years with an absolute drive to become very, very rich. He thought about it before he was five years old. And from that time on, he scarcely stopped thinking of it.

Most of us were trying to be like everyone else. I think he liked being different. He was what he was and he never tried to be anything else.

Warren disgustedly reported that he knew more than the professors. His dissatisfaction-a forerunner of his general disaffection for business schools-was rooted in their mushy, overbroad approach. His professors had fancy theories but were ignorant of the practical details of making a profit that Warren craved.

It seemed too good to be true; if the stocks were so cheap, Buffett figured, somebody ought to be buying them. But slowly, it dawned on him. The somebody was him. Nobody was going to tell you that an investment was a steal; you had to get there on your own.

Buffett knew more about stocks than anyone.

He was working virtually all the time, and loving every minute.

His talent lay not in his range—which was narrowly focused on investing—but in his intensity. His entire soul was focused on that one outlet.

He did not draw the usual line between "work" and other activities.

Wall Street's chorus, all reading the same lyrics, was chanting, "Sell." Buffett decided to buy. He put close to one-quarter of his assets on that single stock.

Buffett visited Walt Disney himself on the Disney lot. The animator was as enthusiastic as ever. Buffett was struck by his childlike enchantment with his work-so similar to Buffett's own.

It was virtually impossible to poke through the fog of his concentration.

Jack asked, "How do you do it?" Buffett said he read "a couple of thousand" financial statements a year.

He would go home and read a stack of annual reports. For anyone else it would have been work. For Buffett it was a night on the town. He did not merely do this nine-to-five. If he was awake, the wheels were turning.

As Buffett explained, Berkshire was something he intended never to sell. “I just like it. Berkshire is something that I would be in the rest of my life. It is public, but it is almost like the family business now.” Not long-term, but the rest of his life. His career-in a sense, his life-was subsumed in that one company. Everything he did, each investment, would add a stroke to that never-to-be-finished canvas. And no one could seize the brush from him.

----

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