Founders

What I learned from reading Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins and Elizabeth Gardner Hines ---- The grandson of slaves, born into poverty in 1892 in the Deep South, A. G. Gaston died more than a century later with a fortune worth well over $130 million [0:01] A 10 year old’s first business idea [5:35]  A.G. finds a blueprint to follow: A.B. Loveman [9:00] The remarkable story of Carrie Tuggle and The Tuggle Institute [12:10] The influence of Booker T. Washington [13:35] The power of positive examples [15:27] Joining the army for discipline and opportunity / Lessons from World War I [18:32] Keep your eyes open. Study the people around you. How do they live? What makes them tick? What do they need? [25:05] A. G. Gaston was relentless [27:20] The parallels between Andrew Carnegie and A. G. Gaston [30:26] Exhausted, depressed, and hopeless right before his big breakthrough [33:38] And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under — Benjamin Franklin  / B

What I learned from reading Plagued by Fire: The Dreams and Furies of Frank Lloyd Wright by Paul Hendrickson.  ---- [0:01] Frank Lloyd Wright suffered a personal catastrophe that would have destroyed a man of lesser will and lesser ego.  [7:20] Ben Franklin writing about vanity 250 years ago: Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor.  [12:38] He held a press conference on Christmas Day to explain his actions. He said ordinary people can not live without rules to guide his conduct. He - Frank Lloyd Wright - is not ordinary.  [13:44] Frank Lloyd Wright had a single minded pursuit of his own potential.  [18:50] Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.  [19:30] Find something you love to do and don’t stop until you die.  [23:00] Everything is malleable. Including the truth.  [25:25] All Frank Lloyd Wright had was a complete faith in h

What I learned from reading The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood by Tom King.  ---- He told me he had recently read Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, Buffett was Geffen's hero.Geffen—with searing focus, unyielding drive, and outlandish nerve—had devised and implemented strategies to propel himself to the top of the heap of Hollywood powerbrokers.I used to have phone conversations with David that would leave me sweaty.David might not have realized it, but he was being educated by a master entrepreneur. Batya succeeded in teaching him the value of hard work and the possibilities of life under even the most difficult circumstances. She was a brilliant businesswoman who could account for every penny that went into and out of the enterprise. She kept her overhead low by driving hard bargains with her suppliers and by closely monitoring her expenses.His mother determinedly drilled into him the same advice she often repeated to herself. "You may not be very tall, but you

What I learned from reading Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It by Dr. George Roberts.  ---- Henry was much more than a salesman, mathematician, engineer, inventor, and chess champion. He was a student. An observer of the history of manufacturing, of the progress and growth of corporations from the days of Henry Ford, the growth of General Motors, the manner of successful corporations in growing by acquisition. [0:01] Henry reminds me of de Gaulle. He has a singleness of purpose, a tenacity that is just overpowering. He gives you absolute confidence in his ability to accomplish whatever he says he is going to do. [2:00] Henry spent time doing exactly what we are doing — learned from entrepreneurs and great people of the past. [3:45] According to Buffett, if one took the top 100 business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would not be as good as that of Singleton, who incidentally was trained as a scientist, not an MBA. / Here is a d

What I learned from reading Sneaker Wars: The Enemy Brothers Who Founded Adidas and Puma and The Family Feud That Forever Changed The Business of Sports by Barbara Smit. ---- This story begins at a time in history when money and sports were still two separate worlds [0:01] A family business struggling to survive / drafted into WWI / Adi Dassler’s EXTREME resourcefulness and personality / [3:15] Early distribution and marketing of sports shoes [10:06] The Dassler Brothers were opposites: Adi was the quiet craftsman with soul in the game. Rudolf was ostentatious and loud. [12:46] The chronicle and biography of Adi Dassler: A story about someone obsessed with making high quality products [14:00] Was Adi Dassler a Nazi? / My experience with the totalitarianism of the Castro regime / tearing up thinking of having to risk the lives of your children [24:30] Adi Dassler reminds me of Henry Royce [29:30] The difficulties of building a business during World War II [32:15] Adi starting over at the age of 46 / How the Ad

What I learned from reading The Man Who Solved The Market: How Jim Simons Launched The Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman  ---- The story of the greatest moneymaker of all time [0:01] Simons prefers to move in silence [1:40] Unknown Unknowns > Known Knowns / Wise people always know exactly why something won’t work. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. —Henry Ford [2:42] A one word summary of the book: PERSISTENCE [4:15] Simons’ early life / Only the arrogant are self-confident enough to push their creative ideas on others. —Nolan Bushnell [4:44] Advice from his father: Do what you like in life, not what you feel you should do. [6:16] Personality: Jim had a persistent and burning desire to be wealthy [7:20] A seed has been planted + Jim’s existential crisis [9:55] Lessons from codebreaking that Jim applies to his business later [14:08] Jim Simons at 29 years of age: Fired, father of 3 young children, no idea what his future holds [20:00] Jim Simons at 33 years of age: Genius and madness are n

What I learned from reading Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary & Social Innovator by Robert E. Price. ---- What was it about this man that engendered so much admiration and respect? [0:01] Sol Price’s early life  [4:39] Sol Price was a misfit / “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.”  [5:40]  Learning to love being productive / Sol Price on the importance of time / DO IT NOW! [12:20] The beginning of FedMart [16:00]  Sol Price learned from other founders [21:25]  Sol Price’s business philosophy [28:50] What happened when Sol opens a pharmacy in FedMart / A creative solution to being cut off by gasoline suppliers [36:25]  Sol Price’s idea on teaching and “alter egos” / “You train an animal. You teach a person.” —Sol Price [39:13]  The intelligent loss of sales [42:00]  The idea for Price Club [52:37]  What Sol Price meant to his son [1:05:28] ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap

What I learned from reading The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh.  --- [0:01] I believe it’s much the same in one’s profession: Superb, reliable results take time.  [4:55] How Jack Dorsey describes The Score Takes Care of Itself: He took at team that was at the bottom and brought them to the top. He focused on the details. He didn’t say you need to win games. He said you need to tuck in your shirts. You need to clean your lockers. This is how we answer the phones here. He set a new standard of performance.  [6:53] Bill Walsh on his father / What he learned from his early life  [10:15] Bill Walsh on why should you care about your standard of performance: Pursuing your ambitions, especially those of any magnitude, can be grueling and hazardous, and produce agonizing failure along the way, but achieving those goals is among life’s most gratifying and thrilling experiences.  [14:15] A great description of the book: Bill Walsh loved to teach. This is his final lecture on leader

What I learned from reading Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab.  ---- 16 ideas from the book:  Intensity is the price of excellence —Warren Buffett I am 68 years old now. And I've run it in overdrive my whole life. I've always wanted to be the best tire dealer, not necessarily the largest tire dealer. The people serving your customers are the most important people in your company: We have had over the years some people in the office that sometimes think they are more important than the stores. The office serves only one purpose, and that is to serve the stores. Some of our office people sometimes wonder about this. But I’ve warned them, don’t bitch to me because that is the way I want it. If you want to go out and start at the bottom changing tires and work into a manager job, then hop right to it. If it weren’t for those men in the stores working their butts off in all kinds of weather, missing meals, God awful hours, etc. you wouldn’t even have a job. If you’re not serving the cus

What I learned from reading Leading By Design: The Ikea Story by Ingvar Kamprad and Bertil Torekull. ---- [0:01]  He aims to give his company eternal life  [3:45] Early life and entrepreneurship   [8:00] The beginning of IKEA  [11:40] Learning entrepreneurship by imitating  [16:30] IKEA almost dies in infancy / how Ingvar worked his way through it  [26:00] Ingvar’s greatest regret in life: Neglecting his children for his business. “Everyone with children knows that childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered.”  [32:20] Only those asleep make no mistakes. — Ingvar Kamprad  [36:00] Thinking of the first store as a laboratory  [43:43] Why IKEA stumbled upon self assembled furniture  [46:30] A summary of the early history of IKEA  [49:00] How Ingvar managed  [54:00] Why Ingvar refused to go public  [1:03:30] The IKEA Company Bible: The Testament of a Furniture Dealer  [1:19:10] Ingvar the Misfit   ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepre

What I learned from reading The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach.  ---- [0:10] She was  the smartest woman on Wall Street, a financial genius, a railroad magnate, a real estate mogul, a Gilded Era renegade, a reliable source for city funds. [0:19] “I have had fights with some of the greatest financial men in the country. Did you ever hear of any of them getting ahead of Hetty Green?” [1:10] I go my own way, take no partners, risk nobody else’s fortune. [1:29] She was considered the single biggest individual financier in the world. [1:58]  A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95) [2:55] Watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. [3:31] Don’t close a bargain until you have reflected on it overnight. [4:00] I am always buying when everyone wants to sell, and selling when everyone wants to buy. [4:51] I never set out for anything that I don’t conquer. [5:55] To live content with small

What I learned from reading Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony by Akio Morita.   --- [0:01] Forty years ago, a small group gathered in a burned-out department store building in war-devastated downtown Tokyo. Their purpose was to found a new company, their optimistic goal was to develop the technologies that would help rebuild Japan's economy. [5:00] I was born the first son and fifteenth-generation heir to one of Japan's finest and oldest sake-brewing families. The Morita family has been making sale for three hundred years. Unfortunately, the taste of a couple of generations of Morita family heads was so refined and their collecting skills so acute that the business suffered while they pursued their artistic interests, letting the business take care of itself, or, rather, putting it in other hands. They relied on hired managers to run the Morita company, but to these managers the business was no more than a livelihood, and if the business did not do well, that was to be regretted, but it was not crucial to t

What I learned from reading The Tao of Warren Buffett by David Clark and Mary Buffett.  --- [0:01]The more I heard Warren speak, the more I learned. Not only about investing, but about business and life.  [4:02] The great personal fortunes in this country weren’t built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business.  [5:45] It is impossible to unsign a contract, so do all your thinking before you sign.  [8:35] I don’t try to jump over seven-foot bars; I look around for one-foot bars that I can step over.  [14:27] The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.  [19:00] My idea of a group decision is to look in the mirror.  [22:14] When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.  [23:07] Managing your career is like investing—the degree of difficulty does not count. So you can save yourself money

What I learned from reading The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. ---- [0:01] What he was teaching were the lessons that had emerged from the unfolding of his own life  [4:35] The dichotomy of Warren Buffett  [9:20] Warren Buffett wants to be remembered as a teacher  [11:52] Buffett’s idea of Inner scorecard vs Outer scorecard  [13:49] Warren Buffett’s early family life  [18:03] Learning to avoid the habit of thinking in only one direction (18:03),  [24:30] Warren’s WHY  [29:58] A young troublemaker and how Warren’s dad convinced him to change his behavior  [32:20] Warren did what you are doing right now: Since a young age Warren had studied the lives of men like Jay Cooke, Daniel Drew, Jim Fisk, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. [33:48] Turning a rejection into one of the best things to ever happen to him [38:30] Mimicry instead of independent thought: Warren didn’t understand why they couldn’t see what was right before their eyes. 

What I learned from reading Carroll Shelby: The Authorized Biography by Rinsey Mills.  --- [3:27] I love everything about this person. I like the way he thought. I like the way he lived his life. [3:38] It is almost unbelievable all the different events that could happen in one human lifetime. [3:52] He lived to 89 years old and he used every single year that he was alive. [5:22] He could talk his way out of anything. [6:40] He knew what he wanted. He didn't want anybody else telling him what to do. [7:41] He had a love for anything that would go fast. [10:48] He didn’t know what to do with his life. [15:54] Follow your natural drift. —Charlie Munger [17:00] I can't work for anybody. [18:42]  He has fun his entire life. As soon as they stop being fun he runs away. [22:20] A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #93 and #222)  [24:17]  Money only solves money problems. [26:32] Scratching around doing insignificant races with inferior mac

What I learned from reading Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte. --- [0:01] Ferrari was animated by an extraordinary passion that led him to build a product with no equal [3:52] Lee Iacocca on why Enzo Ferrari will go as the greatest car manufacturer in history: "Ferrari spent every dollar chasing perfection."  [8:50] Business lessons from his father   [11:47] Enzo Ferrari was not interested in school. He wanted to start working immediately.  [16:36] The deaths of his father and brother  [18:20] No job. No money. No connections. A young man desperate to succeed in life.  [23:06] He learned something that he would never forget for the rest of his life: Not even the best driver had any chance of victory if he was not at the wheel of the best car.  [24:20] Starting his first business which ends in bankruptcy. [28:31] Enzo learned from those who already accomplished what he was trying to do.  [31:10] He does the best possible job at whatever task he is given. Ev

What I learned from reading Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A. J. Baime. ---- [0:01] Racing was the most magnificent marketing tool the industry had ever known. [2:42] Founders vs Managers  [3:43] Founders Podcasts on Henry Ford: #9, #26, and #80.  [4:29] The passion Enzo Ferrari had for his products  [5:50] The same broad features keep recurring over and over again/ In their detailed appearance these broad features are never twice the same.  [8:09] Steve Jobs on passion.  [12:00] Steve Jobs on building the Macintosh/ Artisans have soul in the game.  [13:05] Enzo Ferrari’s schedule at 58 years old / His early life  [17:08] Ferrari’s 3 principles for winning  [20:20] How Enzo Ferrari started his company / Racing as marketing / Ferrari’s personality and his philosophy on building a business [24:49] Enzo Ferrari’s extreme level of dedication  [25:48] How Enzo Ferrari described his product  [26:54] How and why the Ford/Ferrari negotiations begin [35:37] How Enzo Fer

What I learned from reading James J. Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest by Michael P. Malone. ---- James J. Hill demonstrates the impact one willful individual can have on the course of history [1:00] 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 [3:30] Early life and education [7:58] What James Hill learned from history: The power of one dynamic individual [9:09] Hill strikes out for adventure [10:48] Hill makes it a priority to seek out mentors to learn from [14:44] Starting his first business [18:22] Hill’s strategies on building businesses & insights into his business philosophy [21:50] Hill’s edge: An obsession with knowing every detail of his business [29:22] Burn the boats/ going all in/ when you have an edge, bet heavily [34:31] St

What I learned from reading A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman  ---- [0:25] Claude Shannon trained a powerful intellect on topics of deep interest, and continued to do so beyond the point of short term practicality [5:50] Insulated from opinion of all kinds [9:09] A simple way to describe the impact of information theory [10:39] Resourceful at a young age [11:50] An ordinary childhood [12:41] Follow your natural drift [14:40] Too many facts; too few principles [16:10] His indecisive nature inadvertently helps him [17:00] An important turning point in Shannon’s life [18:30] Vannevar Bush: The first person to see Claude Shannon for who he was  [21:00] The results of Claude Shannon’s thesis [23:20] How Claude Shannon worked in his 20s [25:30] The main takeaway from the book: The world isn’t there to be used, but to be played with, manipulated by hand and mind [30:00] Succeeding with no prior knowledge in the specific field [31:20] Working on what natural

What I learned from reading The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike. ---- [0:30] The failure of business schools to study men like Henry Singleton is a crime— Warren Buffett [2:40]Buffett and Singleton: Separated at birth? [8:35]The Singular Henry Singleton [14:40] Supremely indifferent to criticism [19:50] Teledyne breaks up huge business into a bunch of small profit centers [29:30] Risk is controlled. Divisions will remain relatively small.[32:00} Building a cash generating machine [36:30] Bet heavily when you have an edge. [44:00] Singleton has found a way to run a multibillion dollar company in an entrepreneurial, innovative way. [50:16] Singleton had a different focus: Capital allocation. [50:37] Getting Rich vs Staying Rich  [55:18] What the people profiled in this book have in common [59:00] Early career and the founding of Teledyne [1:00:38] How Henry Singleton thought about acquisitions 1:02:00] Actions express priority [1:07:12