Founders

What I learned from reading American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune by Greg Steinmetz.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----[0:01] A series of spectacular financial triumphs had made Gould fabulously rich. At age thirty-six, he was the most notorious businessman in the country.[1:00] Vanderbilt told a newspaper that Gould was "the smartest man in America." Rockefeller, when asked who he thought had the best head for business, answered "Jay Gould" without pausing to think.They  recognized Gould as a master of his craft. No one disputed that he was an extraordinary problem solver, an unparalleled negotiator, an expert communicator, a lightning-fast thinker, and a masterful tactician with a staggering memory.[2:00] Railroads changed America in the nineteenth century much as automobiles changed the country in the twentieth century and the internet has changed the twenty first century.[5:00] American Rascal s

What I learned from rereading Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America by Les Standiford.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  and check out these great episodes: #137 Bill Gurley: All Things Business and Investing#88 Sam Hinkie: Data, Decisions, and Basketball#204 Sam Hinkie: Find Your People—[0:01] Frick had been the man Carnegie trusted above all others to manage the affairs of Carnegie Steel.[2:00] Carnegie had delegated the job of holding the line on wages and other demands to Frick—a Patton to Carnegie's FDR.[3:00] The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie.  (Founders #283)[5:00] Here's a starter pack of essentials  for Day 1 defense: customer obsession, a skeptical view of proxies, the eager adoption of external trends, and high-velocity decision making. —Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters (Founde

What I learned from rereading The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  ----(1:01) 3 part series on Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick:Meet You In Hell: Andrew Carnegie Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Transformed America by Les Standiford. (Founders #73) The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie by Andrew Carnegie (Founders #74) Henry Clay Frick: The Life of the Perfect Capitalist by Quentin Skrabec Jr. (Founders #75) (2:00) What these guys all had in common is they were hell bent on knowing their business down to the last cent. They were obsessed with having the lowest cost structure in their industry.(2:00) Highlights from Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership That Changed America:—Cut the prices, scoop the market, watch the costs, and the profits will take care of

What I learned from rereading Jeff Bezos' Shareholder Letters (for the 3rd time!) Read Jeff's letters in book form: Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos or for free online: Amazon Investor Relations----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  [2:30] Amazon hopes to create an enduring franchise[3:00] Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh trade-offs differently than some companies.[4:00] We will continue to focus relentlessly on our customers.[4:00] We will work hard to spend wisely and maintain our lean culture. We understand the importance of continually reinforcing a cost-conscious culture.[4:00] We set out to offer customers something they simply could not get any other way.[5:00] Word of mouth remains the most powerful customer acquisition tool that we have.[5:00] We are working to build something important, something that m

What I learned from rereading Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs by Ken Kocienda.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow one of my favorite podcasts Invest Like The Best  [2:01] We're going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because perfection is not attainable. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because, in the process, we will catch excellence.[2:01] I'm not remotely interested in being just good.[3:00] Gentlemen, this is the most important play we have. It's the play we must make go. It's the play that we will make go. It's the play that we will run again, and again, and again.[4:00] In any complex effort, communicating a well-articulated vision for what you're trying to do is the starting point for figuring out how to do it.[4:00] A significant part of attaining excellence in any field is closing the gap between the accidental

What I learned from reading Copy This!: How I turned Dyslexia, ADHD, and 100 square feet into a company called Kinkos by Paul Orfalea.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----Follow Invest Like The Best in your favorite podcast player hereTwo episodes I recommend: Paul Orfalea - It's About the Money episode 299David Senra - Passion & Pain episode 292 [5:23] I've never met a more circular, out-of-the-box thinker. It's often exhausting trying to keep up with him.[6:21] I graduated from high school eighth from the bottom of my class of 1,200. Frankly, I still have no idea how those seven kids managed to do worse than I did.[9:29] I also have no mechanical ability to speak of. There isn't a machine at Kinko's I can operate. I could barely run the first copier we leased back in 1970. It didn't matter. All I knew was that was I could sell what came out of it.[11:24] Building an entirely new sort of business from a single Xerox copy mac

What I learned from reading Starting At Zero: His Own Story by Jimi Hendrix. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----[0:01] He was also a compulsive writer, using hotel stationery, scraps of paper, cigarette cartons, napkins—anything that came to hand.[0:01] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)[1:00] He always claimed that for him life and music were inseparable.[5:00] I liked to be different.[5:00] The Autobiography of Bob Dylan Chronicles: Volume One by Bob Dylan. (Founders #259)[6:00] Bob Dylan: Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene.I told him, nobody. I really didn't see myself like anybody.What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire.It was more formidable than the rest of the players. There were a lot of better musicians around but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing.[7:00] Anthony Bourdain on Jimi Hendrix: I often compare the experience of going to Japan for the first time,

What I learned from reading What I Learned Before I Sold to Warren Buffett: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Developing a Highly Successful Company by Barnett Helzberg Jr.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----[5:00]  Then, right there on the sidewalk I told one of the most astute businessmen in America why he ought to consider buying our family's 79-year-old jewelry business."I believe that our company matches your criteria for investment, I said. To which he replied, simply, "Send me the information. It will be confidential.”My conversation with Buffett lasted no more than half a minute.[8:00] My dream buyer for the family business all along was Warren Buffet.[11:00] "This can be the fastest deal in history," Buffett said."But what about due diligence?" I asked, surprised at how fast the negotiations were moving.Most suitors demand to see every scrap of paper you've ever generated and to interview every top manager.That wasn't Buffett'

What I learned from rereading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes----[4:01] Jobs's return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business-the creation of new valuecannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.[5:00] A really important sentence to understand one of the main points in Peter’s book: Apple's value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person.[5:00] A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong personal loyalty, and plan ahead for decades.[6:00] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Founders #31)[7:00] Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.[8:00] By creating new technologies we rewrite the plan of the world.[9:00] The paradox of teaching en

What I learned from reading Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas From The Computer Age by Paul Graham ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[4:00] How To Make Wealth by Paul Graham [4:01] Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.[6:00] All a company is is a group of people working together to do something people want.[7:00] It turns out, though, that there are economies of scale in how much of your life you devote to your work. In the right kind of business, someone who really devoted himself to work could generate ten or even a hundred times as much wealth as an average employee.[8

What I learned from reading Paul Graham’s essays.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[4:01] You don't want to start a startup to do something that everyone agrees is a good idea, or there will already be other companies doing it. You have but that you know isn't to do something that sounds to most other people like a bad idea.[5:20] The independent-minded are often unaware how different their ideas are from conventional ones, at least till they state them publicly.[6:20] Founders find themselves able to speak more freely with founders of other companies than with their own employees.[7:40] There are intellectual fashions too, and you definitely don't want to participate in those. Because unfashionable ideas are disproportionately likely to lead somewhere interesting. The best place to find undiscovered ideas is where no one else is looking.[8:30] How much does the work you're currently doing engage your curiosity? If the answer is "not much," maybe you sh

What I learned from reading Paul Graham’s essays.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[4:52] My father told me I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up, so long as I enjoyed it.[5:49] Do what you love doesn't mean, do what you would like to do most this second.[7:41] To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.[8:00] You should not worry about prestige. This is easy advice to give. It’s hard to follow.[10:22] You have to make a conscious effort to keep your ideas about what you want from being contaminated by what seems possible.[12:18] Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail.[16:46] How To Do What You Love by Paul Graham [16:34] What Doesn’t Seem Like Work by Paul Graham [17:16] If something that seems like work to other people doesn't seem like work to you, that's something you're well su

What I learned from rereading The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[1:23] Maybe somewhere in a footnote, it would be mentioned that he came from nothing, grew up poor, dropped out of high school, and made himself three or four billion dollars.[7:41] She explained that the shares in Netscape that Clark had given them had made them rich."And you have to understand," she said, “that when this happened, we were poor. I was ready to cook the cat."I assumed this was a joke, and laughed. I assumed wrong.[12:48] He was expelled from school and left town.  One time he came home talking about nothing but computers. No one in Plainview had even seen a computer except in the movies.[13:21] I remember him telling me when he came back from the Navy, ‘Mama, I’m going to show Plainview.’[14:42] In under eight years this person, considered unfit to graduate from high school, had earned himself a Ph.D. in Computer Sc

What I learned from rereading The Mamba Mentality: How I Play by Kobe Bryant. ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes----Episode outline: If you really want to be great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. A lot of people say they want to be great, but they're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness. They have other concerns and they spread themselves out. That's totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody. Greatness isn't easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time.You can't achieve greatness by walking a straight line.Respect to those who do achieve greatness and respect to those who are chasing that elusive feeling.May you find the power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own.He dedicates a lot of time in this book to the importance of learning from and studying the great people that came before you.Showboat: The Life of

What I learned from reading Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant by Roland Lazenby.  ----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[9:15] Notes from The Redeem Team documentary:30 seconds into the first practice Kobe is diving for loose balls. That set the tone.Players go clubbing. Come back at 5:30am and see Kobe working out. "This motherfucker Kobe was already drenched in sweat. Yeah he’s different"— LeBron James. By the end of the week the whole team was on Kobe’s schedule.Understand the responsibility. I know I’m not going to fucking lose. I am not going to fucking lose. Not when I’m wearing this (team USA jersey) and not at this time in my career. You’re going to have to fucking shoot me. That’s how I want you to play. — Coach KAt one point you will have a grandkid on your lap and they will ask you weren’t you in the Olympics ? What did you do? You wanna say: Well son, we lost to that fucking Greek team? —Coach KWhen you’re in the Olympic village you're around pe

What I learned from reading Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[7:31] Acts of importance were the measure of his life and they are the reason that his life deserves study today.[8:10] Suspicious of big institutions Bush objected to the pernicious effects of an increasingly bureaucratic society and the potential for mass mediocrity.[8:20] He believed the individual was still of paramount importance."The individual to me is everything," he wrote  "I would restrict him just as little as possible."He never lost his faith in the power of one.[8:57] Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush (Founders #270)[9:32] Dee Hock — founder of VISA episodes:One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization by Dee Hock (Founders #260)Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1and Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition

What I learned from reading Pieces of the Action by Vannevar Bush.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----Outline: Pieces of the Action offers his hard-won lessons on how to operate and manage effectively within complex organizations and drive ambitious, unprecedented programs to fruition.Stripe Press Books:The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell WaldropThe Making of Prince of Persia: Journals 1985-1993 by Jordan Mechner.] Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century by G. Pascal Zachary— Any exploration of the institutions that shape how we do research, generate discoveries, create inventions, and turn ideas into innovations inevitably leads back to Vannevar Bush.— No American has had greater influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush.— That’s why I'm going to encourage you to order this book —because when you pick it up and you read it —you're reading the words of an 80 year old genius. One of the most formidable and

What I learned from reading Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel by Sam Zell.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----[6:37] I have an embedded sense of urgency. What I can’t figure out is why so many other people don’t have it.[6:50] I was willing to trade conformity for authenticity.[8:26] Problems are just opportunities in work clothes.  —Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West by Mark Foster. (Founders #66)[9:36] Once I have formed my opinion, I have to trust my perspective enough to act on it. That means putting my own money behind it. My level of commitment is usually high. And I stay with my decision even when everyone is telling me I’m wrong, which happens a lot.[10:37] Long term relationships reflect the most important lesson imparted to me by my father. He taught me simply how to be. He often told me that nothing was more important than a man’s honor. A good name. Reputation is your most important asset.[11:10] Whe

What I learned from reading Cable Cowboy: John Malone and the Rise of the Modern Cable Business by Mark Robichaux.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----Outline:Thread of highlights from Cable Cowboy by @LoadlinefinanceMalone was stalwart about building long term value through leveraged cash flow. Earnings didn’t count. He wasn’t constrained by quarterly expectations.Malone built the pipes, then bought the water that flows through them.Malone took spartan operations to another level. Absolutely no bureaucracy. No waste. We don’t believe in staff. Staff are people who second-guess people.Malone averaged one M&A deal every two weeks over 15 years. That’s insane. These guys were slinging billion dollar deals like bowls of breakfast cereal.One of the best parts of the book is Robichaux’s exploration of Malone’s complex personality. It’s not just a fawning glow piece.The beginning of industries are always filled with cowboys, pirates, and misfits.This book— b

What I learned from reading Edison: A Biography by Matthew Josephson.----Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com----Outline:  He had known how to gather interest, faith, and hope in the success of his projects.I think of this episode as part 5 in a 5 part series that started on episode 263:#263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg.#264 Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. #265 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli#266 My Life and Work by Henry Ford.Follow your natural drift. —Charlie MungerWarren Buffett: “Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.’ And Bill said the same thing.” —Focus and Finding Your Favorite Problems by Frederik GieschenFocus! A simple thing to say and a nearly impossible thing to do over the lo