Podcast Notes Playlist: Business

• Paradoxically, life gets easier when you choose to do hard things 
• Have a goal that you can strive towards, but be cognizant of how you feel along the way in pursuit of that goal 
• One of the hardest things in life is figuring out what you want 
• “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” – Jim Carey 
• You have emotional sovereignty in how you choose to react to everything that happens in life; exercise and develop that sovereignty so that you can live the fullest life possible 
• How Cheap is Your Happiness: Don’t let the smallest inconvenience take you out of the beautiful state of being that is happiness
• “I just do what’s cool to me, and sometimes the whole world agrees.” – Mike Posner 

Episode 640: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP )sits down with Mike Posner ( https://x.com/MikePosner ) about his insane hustle, fame, loss and reinvention.

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My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano

• “If Steve Jobs studied Edwin Land, I think every other founder should as well.” – David Senra 
• Optimize for breadth as well as depth; hire the chemist who does photography on the side! 
• Something magical exists at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences 
• “Missionaries make better products.” – Jeff Bezos 
  • Missionaries and mercenaries are the two types of people that will be attracted to a company
  • While the mercenaries are there for the perks, status, and money, the missionaries are there to make better products because they believe in what the company is doing
• Leverage the power of demonstration: No argument in the world can compare with one dramatic demonstration
• A first-class product needs first-class packaging and marketing! 
• The founder is the guardian of the company’s soul 
• If you are lucky enough to find your life’s work, why would you quit? 
• You should take yourself seriously, but don’t make yourself miserable; none of us get out of this alive 

What I learned from rereading Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Episode Outline: 

— The most obvious parallel is to Apple Computer. Both companies specialized in relentless, obsessive refinement of their technologies. Both were established close to great research universities to attract talent. Both fetishized superior, elegant, covetable product design. And both companies exploded in size and wealth under an in-house visionary-godhead-inventor-genius. At Apple, that man was Steve Jobs. At Polaroid, the genius was Edwin Land. Just as Apple stories almost all lead back to Jobs, Polaroid lore always seems to focus on Land.

— Both men were college dropouts; both became as rich as anyone could ever wish to be; and both insisted that their inventions would change the fundamental nature of human interaction.

— Jobs expressed his deep admiration for Edwin Land. He called him a national treasure.

— Books on Edwin Land:

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 Experience by Mark Olshaker (Founders #132)

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

— Biography about Steve Jobs: Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli

— Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a  desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor. —  Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (Founders #214)

— Book on Henry Ford:

I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Snow (Founders #9)

The Autobiography of Henry Ford by Henry Ford (Founders #26) 

Today and Tomorrow Henry Ford (Founders #80) 

My Forty Years With Ford by Charles Sorensen  (Founders #118)

The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn (Founders #190) 

— Another parallel to Jobs: Land's control over his company was nearly absolute, and he exercised it to a degree that was compelling and sometimes exhausting.

— When you read a biography of Edwin land you see an incredibly smart, gifted, driven, focused person endure decade after decade of struggle. And more importantly —finally work his way through.

— Another parallel to Jobs: You may be noticing that none of this has anything to do with instant photography. Polarizers rather than pictures would define the first two decades of lands intellectual life and would establish his company. Instant photos were an idea that came later on, a secondary business around which his company was completely recreated.

— “Missionaries make better products.” —Jeff Bezos

— His letter to shareholders gradually became a particularly dramatic showcase for his language and his thinking. These letters-really more like personal mission statements-are thoughtful and compact, and just eccentric enough to be completely engaging. Instead of discussing earnings and growth they laid out Land's World inviting everyone to join.

— Land gave him a four-word job description: "Keeper of the language.”

— No argument in the world can ever compare with one dramatic demonstration. — My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins (Founders #170)

— The leap to Polaroid was like replacing a messenger on horseback with your first telephone.

— Hire a paid critic:

Norio Ohga, who had been a vocal arts student at the Tokyo University of Arts when he saw our first audio tape recorder back in 1950. I had had my eye on him for all those years because of his bold criticism of our first machine.

He was a great champion of the tape recorder, but he was severe with us because he didn't think our early machine was good enough. It had too much wow and flutter, he said. He was right, of course; our first machine was rather primitive. We invited him to be a paid critic even while he was still in school. His ideas were very challenging. He said then, "A ballet dancer needs a mirror to perfect her style, her technique.

— Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita.

— Another parallel to Jobs: Don't kid yourself. Polaroid is a one man company.

— He argued there was no reason that well-designed, wellmade computers couldn't command the same market share and margins as a luxury automobile.

A BMW might get you to where you are going in the same way as a Chevy that costs half the price, but there will always be those who will pay for the better ride in the sexier car. Rather than competing with commodity PC makers like Dell, Compaq and Gateway, why not make only first-class products with high margins so that Apple could continue to develop even better first-class products?

The company could make much bigger profits from selling a $3,000 machine rather than a $500 machine, even if they sold fewer of them.

Why not, then, just concentrate on making the best $3,000 machines around? — Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney.

— How To Turn Down A Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story by Billy Gallagher 

— Books on Enzo Ferrari

Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J. Baime. (Founders #97) 

Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and The Making of an Automotive Empire by Luca Dal Monte (Founders #98) 

Enzo Ferrari: The Man and The Machine by Brock Yates (Founders #220) 

— Soul in the game. Listen to how Edwin Land describes his product:

We would not have known and have only just learned that a new kind of relationship between people in groups is brought into being by SX-70 when the members of a group are photographing and being photographed and sharing the photographs: it turns out that buried within us—

there is latent interest in each other; there is tenderness, curiosity, excitement, affection, companionability and humor; it turns out, in this cold world where man grows distant from man,

and even lovers can reach each other only briefly, that we have a yen for and a primordial competence for a quiet good-humored delight in each other:

we have a prehistoric tribal competence for a non-physical, non-emotional, non-sexual satisfaction in being partners in the lonely exploration of a once empty planet.

—  “Over the very long term, history shows that the chances of any business surviving in a manner agreeable to a company’s owners are slim at best.” —Charlie Munger

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

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

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

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

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

• Some failure is inevitable; learn from it, do not beat yourself up over it, and keep moving forward
• Business is not a battle to be waged; it is a puzzle to be solved 
• True entrepreneurs never fail; sometimes the business venture doesn’t work out for them, but they never fail 
• Go to where it is less crowded; there is no substitute for limited competition 
• Be someone that people make money with 
• Have a long-term view and do not sacrifice your ability to do future deals by burning bridges to close the current one 
• If you love what you do, then you will get really good at it and do it for a long time;money will come as a result
• The true test of an entrepreneur is someone who spends his life constantly testing his limits 
• “Fear and courage are cousins – and very closely related.” – Sam Zell 

What I learned from reading Money Talks, Bullsh*t Walks: Inside the Contrarian Mind of Billionaire Mogul Sam Zell by Ben Johnson.

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

----

Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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

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Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube (Video coming soon!) 

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

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

----

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

----

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

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

• Check out the episode page

You know him as the CEO of OpenAI — but did you know that Sam Altman is an avid writer? 

As one of today’s most successful entrepreneurs, Sam champions the tremendous value of writing: how it clarifies your thinking, expands your ideas, and levels-up your life in every sense, both personally and professionally. Plus, he has a love for the creative. (Have you ever met someone who can recite Percy Bysshe Shelley poems from memory? Well, Sam can.) 

In this episode, we discuss how Sam uses ChatGPT in his daily life; how LLMs are changing the future of writing; what it means to be a novelist in the age of technology; and Sam’s best-learned writing lessons from Paul Graham. If you want to learn how the king of ChatGPT writes, this episode is for you. 

SPEAKER LINKS: 

WRITE OF PASSAGE: 

PODCAST LINKS: 

• “The founder has to be accountable for the story. The founder holds this secret knowledge and vision that other people do not.” – Lulu Meservey 
• Go Direct: If the founder’s secret has to go through seven layers of filtering before it is shared with the world, then it will become something that is already familiar to people and that already exists
• The Core Ingredients of Founder Communications:
  • 1. Have a willingness and eagerness to take on the company’s comms 
  • 2. Have a clear vision of the company’s goals 
  • 3. Know your audience
  • 4. Reach people where they intellectually hang out
• “Communication is a vector, not a scalar. It only matters if there is a direction attached to it.” – Lulu Meservey 
• Know your audience; if you are talking to the wrong people, then you would be better off talking to nobody because you may be making new enemies or unwanted friends 
• Do not worry about converting your haters into believers; doing so successfully is so rare that it is probably not worth your scare time
• Know where your target audience intellectually hangs out so that your message can reach them in that medium 
• Do not worry about converting your haters into believers; doing so successfully is so rare that it is probably not worth your scare time 
• Craft your hook and know the erogenous zone of your target audience, then present them with a “gateway drug” that bridges them into the new world that you are creating

My guest today is Lulu Meservey. Lulu is the Founder and CEO of Rostra, a company that partners with founders to level up their communications around all strategic initiatives, from hiring to fundraising. She is also on the board at Shopify. I have been recently fascinated by the challenge of founders telling their story and Lulu is an expert in comms and a believer in creative problem-solving through effective communication and compelling storytelling. We discuss the evolution of media and its pitfalls, innovative methods for managing crises, and the power of going direct with your communication. Please enjoy my conversation with Lulu Meservey.

I’m excited to announce that we are hiring an Editor in Chief at Colossus. This will be a critical and central role in our growing media platform and in our quest to find and showcase the best people, businesses, and ideas in the world. This person will work on existing shows like Invest Like the Best and Founders, our soon-to-be-announced print publication, and more. We aim to be the dominant media company exploring business and investing frontiers, so this person needs to be obsessed with these topics and bring serious operational chops. I firmly believe this role can help define someone’s career. Go to joincolossus.com/eic to apply.

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The story of how John Wooden won ten national championships on the way to becoming the greatest coach of all time.

Writing, production, and sound editing by Ben Wilson with support from Michael Lackner.

• Writing invokes clarity of thought; it forces you to ensure that every you say is actually correct 
• Productive writers are always thinking about the topics they write about, even if they are not sitting in front of their computer 
• The goal of writing is not to convince the reader that you are right, but to force the reader to think about the issue that you are discussing
• “The most important article you write is the second article someone reads.” – Ben Thompson 
• Develop a framework for writing by using “The Writing Machine”:
  • Have an overall view of the world and how it works
  • Process news and information as it happens
  • Fed that information into your worldview machine
  • The output that this machine churns out is your content 

What if writing a newsletter could pay your rent? Well, it can. And today, you’re going to learn how.

SPEAKER LINKS: 

WRITE OF PASSAGE: 

PODCAST LINKS: 

• “Every tap on a mobile app is a miracle for you as a product developer.” – Nikita Bier 
• Teens see each other everyday; this is one of the most important factors for why teen consumer apps have a higher probability of going viral 
• If you are building a product with network effects and that is a communication tool, then you want to be positioned on that upward curve of adding connections to your social graph, because there is a higher urgency to connect 
• Search for product ideas by using the concept “latent demand”: Identify the user’s motivation, clear up what they are actually trying to do, and then crystalize the process for them; this leads to intense adoption
• The most important thing to increase your probability of success: Develop a reproducible testing process 
• You will know when your product is working; if there is any uncertainty, then your product is not working 
• People download apps to make or save money, find a mate, or unplug from reality 
• How to take a product from Zero to One: Execute at 100% for the thing you are trying to validate at that specific stage of the product development cycle
• Always do right by users; if you do wrong to users, the internet will eventually find a way to seek its revenge on you 
• While discovering a new communication product is a once-in-a-decade black swan event, growing a product can be more of a science 
• Your app must demonstrate value in the first three seconds or it is not going to work  
• “Consumer products live and die in the pixels.” – Nikita Bier 

Nikita Bier is one of the most in-demand consumer, social, and growth experts in the world. He’s the co-founder of TBH (sold to Meta for more than $30 million) and Gas (sold to Discord for millions more) and has helped more consumer apps that have hit #1 in the app stores than any other person I’ve come across. He currently spends his time advising founders on growth, product, and design and is an investor and advisor to some of the best consumer tech companies, including Flo, Locket, Eight Sleep, Citizen, BeReal, Captions, and more. In our conversation, we discuss:

• The inside story of how TBH and Gas achieved explosive growth

• Strategies for building viral consumer apps

• Why teens are such a great audience

• Fighting the human trafficking hoax at Gas

• The challenge of creating durable social products

• His experience working as a PM at Facebook

• Advice for founders on building consumer apps

• Much more

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Brought to you by:

• Webflow—The web experience platform

• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security

• Explo—Embed customer-facing analytics in your product

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Book Nikita for 1:1 consultation/mentoring: https://intro.co/NikitaBier

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Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-consistently-go-viral-nikita-bier

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Where to find Nikita Bier:

• X: https://x.com/nikitabier 

• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@nikitabier

• Website: https://intro.co/NikitaBier

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Nikita’s background 

(06:08) Nikita’s early ventures: Politify and Outline

(08:42) Transition to consumer apps

(13:45) The birth of TBH

(16:43) Building for teens vs. adults

(20:00) TBH’s viral success

(32:18) Leveraging live chat

(34:08) Lasting lessons from TBH

(37:00) Selling TBH to Facebook

(42:19) Big-tech product management

(48:46) Nikita on why “product management is not real”

(51:49) The Tim Cook painting story

(53:53) Leaving Facebook and starting a new venture

(58:02) Rebuilding TBH and overcoming challenges

(59:46) Addressing criticism

(01:04:24) The human trafficking hoax

(01:09:51) Selling to Discord and lessons learned

(01:11:36) Lasting lessons from Gas

(01:13:14) Building durable consumer apps

(01:22:35) The VC route

(01:23:27) Contact permissions in iOS 18

(01:26:53) The success of Dupe

(01:31:53) Advice for startup founders

(01:34:14) Work with Nikita

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

The name of Nobel usually calls to mind Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, and the internationally prestigious prizes that bear his name. But Alfred was only one member of a creative and innovative family who built an industrial empire in prerevolutionary Russia. The saga begins with an emigre from Sweden, Immanuel Nobel, who was an architect, a pioneer producer of steam engines, and a maker of weapons.

Immanuel's sons included Alfred; Robert, who directed the family's activities in the Caspian oil fields; and Ludwig, an engineering genius and manufacturing magnate whose boundless energy and fierce determination created the Russian petroleum industry.

Ludwig's son Emanuel showed similar mettle, shrewdly bargaining with the Rothschilds for control of the Russian markets and competing head-on with Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell for lucrative world markets.

Perhaps no family in history has played so decisive a role in building an industrial empire in an underdeveloped but resource-rich nation. Yet the achievements of the Nobel family have been largely forgotten. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Emmanuel had to flee the country disguised as a peasant.

The Nobel empire with its 50,000 workers lay in ruins. An empire which had taken eighty years to design and build, was nearly destroyed, bringing a sudden and bitter end to one of the most remarkable industrial odysseys in world history.

This episode is what I learned from reading The Russian Rockefellers: The Saga of the Nobel Family and the Russian Oil Industry by Robert Tolf.

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Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

----

Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

----

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

----

Follow Founders Podcast on YouTube (Video coming soon!) 

----

“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

• The nine non-obvious lessons that Shaan Puri has learned while building an audience: 
  • 1. Forget the numbers  
  • 2. Find your inner nerd 
  • 3. Build a magnet, not an audience 
  • 4. The First, Last, Best, Worst, Weirdest framework 
  • 5. Use the Five D’s
  • 6. Nothing is too long, only too boring 
  • 7. Don’t worry about style or production quality 
  • 8. Create a Binge Bank 
  • 9. Be so good that they cannot ignore you 

Episode 620: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) breaks down the 9 lessons he’s learned while building an audience. 

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Get our business idea database here https://clickhubspot.com/mfm

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My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano