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David Senra

Learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and find ideas you can use in your work. This quote explains why: "There are thousands of years of history in which lots and lots of very smart people worked very hard and ran all types of experiments on how to create new businesses, invent new technology, new ways to manage etc. They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put these lessons down in a book. For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone’s accumulated experience. There is so much more to learn from the past than we often realize. You could productively spend your time reading experiences of great people who have come before and you learn every time." —Marc Andreessen

Founders

What I learned from reading Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

The conventional wisdom of the time said to take a deep breath and wait for the next big thing to arrive in due course. Musk rejected that logic by throwing $100 million into SpaceX, $70 million into Tesla, and $10 million into SolarCity. Short of building an actual money crushing machine, Musk could not have picked a faster way to destroy his fortune. He became a one-man-ultra-risk taking venture capital shop and doubled down on making super-complex physical goods in two of the most expensive places in the world, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. [2:13]

What Musk has developed that so many of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley lack is a meaningful worldview. He’s the possessed genius on the grandest quest anyone has ever concocted. He’s less a CEO chasing riches than a general marshaling troops to secure victory. [9:17]

The life that Musk has created to manage all of these endeavors is preposterous. [9:53]

He felt as if the public had lost some of its ambition and hope for the future. [14:34]

His fears that mankind had lost much of its will to push the boundaries were reinforced one day when Musk went to the NASA website. He expected to find a detailed plan for exploring Mars and instead found bupkis. [14:58]

The men were heading to Russia at the height of its freewheeling post-Soviet days when rich guys could apparently buy space missiles on the open market. [24:32]

Musk wheeled around and flashed a spreadsheet he’d created. “Hey guys, I think we can build this rocket ourselves.” [27:53]

Some of these people had spent years on the island going through one of the most surreal engineering exercises in human history. They had been separated from their families, assaulted by the heat, and exiled on their tiny launchpad outpost— sometimes without much food — for days on end as they waited for the launch windows to open and dealt with the aborts that followed. So much of that pain and suffering and fear would be forgotten if this launch went successfully. [32:17]

It took six years-about four and half more than Musk had once planned — and five hundred people to make this miracle of modern science and business happen. [34:38]

Well that was freaking awesome. There are a lot of people who thought we couldn’t do it. There are only a handful of countries on Earth that have done this. It’s normally a country thing, not a company thing. My mind is kind of frazzled, so it’s hard for me to say anything, but this is definitely one of the greatest days in my life. [35:19]

To avoid bankruptcy Musk made a last-ditch effort to raise all the personal funds he could and put them into the company. “It was like the fucking Matrix,” Musk said, describing his financial maneuvers. [42:53]

The 2008 period told him everything he would ever need to know about Musk’s character. He saw a man who arrived in the United States with nothing, who had lost a child, who was on the verge of having his life’s work destroyed. “He has the ability to work harder and endure more stress than anyone I’ve ever met. What he went through in 2008 would have broken anyone else. He didn’t just survive. He kept working and stayed focused.” [48:37]

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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

#1 Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, & the Quest for a Fantastic Future

What I learned from reading Walt Disney based on the book Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler.

 

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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

#2 Walt Disney

What I learned from reading The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented The Modern World by Randall Stross

Edison starts his first business at 12 years old (11:00)

Edison's discipline (20:00)

Edison's rivalry with Alexander Graham Bell (38:00)

Edison's friendship with Henry Ford (1:00:00)

Edison's stoic nature (1:15:00) 

The death of Thomas Edison (1:21:00)

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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. 

----

“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

#3 The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Edison Invented The Modern the Modern World

What I learned from reading The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

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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

#4 The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

What I learned from reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

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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. 

----

“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

#5 Steve Jobs

What I learned from reading Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton.

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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. 

----

“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

#6 Sam Walton

What I learned from reading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc.

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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. 

----

“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

#7 Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's

What I learned from reading The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone.

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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. 

----

“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

#8 The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company

What I learned from reading I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford by Richard Snow.

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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. 

----

“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

#9 I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford

What I learned from reading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight.

The best teacher I ever had, one of the finest men I ever knew, spoke of the Oregon Trail often. It’s our birthright, he’d growl. Our character, our fate—our DNA. “The cowards never started, the weak died along the way—that leaves us.” [0:35]

Some outsized sense of possibility mixed with a diminished capacity for pessimism. [1:03]

I found it difficult to say what or who exactly I was, or might become. Like all my friends I wanted to be successful. I didn’t know what that meant. [2:11]

Deep down I was searching for something else, something more. I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know. And I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all . . .different. [2:35]

I asked myself: What if there were a way, without being an athlete, to feel what athletes feel? To play all the time, instead of working? Or to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing? [4:23]

The only answer was to find some prodigious, improbable dream that seemed worthy, that seemed fun, that seemed like a good fit, and chase it with a single-minded dedication and purpose. [4:47]

Maybe my Crazy Idea just might . . . work? Maybe. No, no, I thought. It will work. By God, I’ll make it work. No maybes about it. [5:29]

So much about those days has vanished. Faces, numbers, decisions that once seemed pressing and irrevocable, they’re all gone. [6:39]

What remains is this one comforting certainty, this one anchoring truth that will never go away. At 24 I did have a Crazy Idea, and somehow, despite being dizzy with existential angst, and fears about the future, and doubts about myself, as all young men and women in their mid-twenties are, I did decide that the world is made up of crazy ideas. History is one long processional of crazy ideas. The things I loved most — books, sports, democracy, free enterprise — started as crazy ideas. [7:03]

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. Whatever comes, just don’t stop. [7:45]

That is the 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. [8:08]

I knew Japanese cameras had made deep cuts into the camera market, which had once been dominated by Germans. I argued in my paper that Japanese running shoes might do the same thing. [9:00]

He was impressed. It took balls to put together an itinerary like that, he said. Balls. He wanted in. [12:01]

Carter never did mess around. See an open shot, take it—that was Carter. I told myself there was much I could learn from a guy like that as we circled the earth. [12:14]

What Phil was doing was looked upon by most of his family as crazy and extremely dangerous. [12:37]

Go home, a faint inner voice told me. Get a normal job. Be a normal person. Then I heard another faint voice equally emphatic, “No. Don’t go home. Keep going. Don’t stop.” [14:15]

Bill 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. [15:55]

He always had some new scheme to make our shoes softer and lighter. One ounce sliced off a pair of shoes is equivalent to 55 pounds over one mile. [16:42]

Lightness, Bowerman believed, directly translated into less burden, more energy, and more speed. Lightness was his constant goal. [17:11]

Frugality carried over to every part of the coach’s makeup. [17:56]

Bowerman didn’t give a damn about respectability. He possessed a prehistoric strain of maleness. Today its all but extinct. He was a war hero, too. Of course, he was. [18:47]

Bowerman never considered himself a track coach. He detested being called coach. He called himself a professor of competitive responses. His job, as he saw it, was to get you ready for the struggles and competitions that lay ahead. [19:41]

In my mind, he was Patton with a stopwatch. [20:00]

He had tested me. He had broken me down and remade me just like a pair of shoes. [23:31]

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. [23:57]

He always went against the grain. Always. He was the first college coach to emphasize rest, to place as much value on recovery as on work. [24:12]

He [his Dad] said he hadn’t sent me to Oregon and Stanford for me to become a door to door shoe salesman. How long do you think you’re going to keep jackassing around with these shoes? I shrugged. I don’t know, Dad. [26:19]

My sales strategy was simple. I drove all over to various track meets. Between races, I’d chat up the coaches and runners, and show them my wares. The response was always the same. I couldn’t write orders fast enough. [28:17]

I’d been unable to sell encyclopedias, and I’d despised it to boot. I’d been slightly better at selling mutual funds, but I’d felt dead inside. So why was selling shoes so different? Because I realized, it wasn’t selling. I believed in running. I believed if people got out and ran a few miles every day the world would be a better place. And I believed these shoes were better to run in. People sensing my belief wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief is irresistible. [28:44]

Johnson believed that runners are God’s chosen, that running, done right, in the correct spirit and with the proper form, is a mystical exercise, no less than meditation or prayer, and thus he felt called to help runners reach their nirvana. [33:18]

Not even the Yahweh of running, Bowerman, was as pious about the sport as Blue Ribbon’s Part-Time Employee Number Two. [33:43]

I shook my head. I tell the man Blue Ribbon is sinking like the Titanic, and he responds by begging for a berth in first class. [35:58]

At the time I was reading everything I could get my hands on about generals, samurai, shoguns, along with biographies of my three main heroes—Churchill, Kennedy, Tolstoy. . . I wasn’t that unique. Throughout history, men have looked to the warrior for a model of Hemingway’s cardinal virtue, pressurized grace.[37:03]

Each new customer got his, or her own index card. Each index card contained that customer’s personal information, shoe size, and shoe preferences. He had hundreds and hundreds of customer correspondents, all along the spectrum of humanity, from high school track starts to octogenarian weekend joggers. [40:17]

In all the world there had never been such a sanctuary for runners, a place that didn’t just sell them shoes but celebrated them and their shoes. [42:54]

I wanted what everyone wants. To be me, full-time. [45:29]

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. [45:59]

If my life was to be all work and no play, I wanted my work to be play. [46:15]

Phil Knight is in his 5th year in business and still has a full-time job. How many people would be willing to do that? [46:51]

Right before my thirty-first birthday I made the bold move and went full-time at my company. [48:21]

When you read this book you really feel like you get to know Phil Knight and you were there throughout his struggles. [49:39]

I struggle to remember. I close my eyes and think back, but so many precious moments from those nights are gone forever. Numberless conversations, breathless laughing fits. Declarations, revelations, confidences. They’ve all fallen into the sofa cushions of time. I remember only that we always sat up half the night, cataloging the past, mapping out the future. I remember that we took turns describing what our little company was, and what it might be, and what it must never be. How I wish, on just one of those nights, I’d had a tape recorder. Or kept a journal. [49:50]

For the first eight years of Blue Ribbon they are selling other people’s shoes. [54:00]

This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. No more selling someone else’s brand. No more working for someone else. If we are going to succeed or fail we should do so on our own terms. [56:05]

How he felt after the IPO: I asked myself. What are you feeling? If I felt anything, it was . . . regret. Good God, I thought. Yes. Regret. Because I honestly wished I could do it all over again. [59:31]

Above all, I regret not spending more time with my sons. [1:01:42]

God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing. [1:02:01]

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. [1:02:06]

I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties 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. [1:02:34]

I’d like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that they will always have a bulls-eye on their backs. The better they get, the bigger the bulls-eye. It’s not one man’s opinion; it’s the law of nature. [1:03:10]

I’d like to remind them that America isn’t the entrepreneurial Shangri-La people think. Free enterprise always irritates the kinds of trolls who live to block, to thwart, to say no. Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned, outnumbered. They’ve always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrepreneurial, not more. A Harvard Business School study recently ranked all the countries in the world in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit. America ranked behind Peru. [1:03:27]

Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop. [1:04:23]

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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. 

----

“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

#10 Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

What I learned from reading Built From Scratch: How A Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank. 

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The creation of The Home Depot began with two words: "You're fired!" [0:01]

Blinders on focus on the customer [5:45]

Learning how not to manage people from Ming the Merciless [8:37]

Meeting Ken Langone / the prehistory of Home Depot [11:00]

81% private / 19% public partnerships [18:40]

Ken sells to Ming. Predicts Ming will fire Bernie [28:30]

Getting fired was the best thing that ever happened [35:00]

Bernie Marcus at 49 years old: little cash and a ruined reputation [38:15]

How Bernie Marcus walks away from Ross Perot [38:50]

The importance of equity [49:19]

Do not work with people who don't know how to care about other people [51:00]

How they got the money to open The Home Depot [55:30]

The critical importance of selling at the right price [58:32]

Knowing the right way to do something by seeing it done the wrong way [1:08:54]

Mistakes can teach us we're never as smart as we think we are [1:11:25] 

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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. 

----

“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

#45 Built From Scratch: How A Couple of Regular Guys Grew The Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion

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