What I learned from reading The Days of Duveen by S.N. Behrman. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Founders merch available at the Founders shop ---- Patrick and I are looking for partners. If you are building B2B products get in touch here. ---- (0:01) Duveen noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation. (2:3...
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 4 min
What I learned from reading Wildcatters: A Story of Texans, Oil, and Money by Sally Helgesen. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Founders merch available at the Founders shop ---- Vesto shows you all of your company's finances in one view. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. ---- (0:01) Family and business were the same thing to him. (1:00) We're one-hundred perce...
Feb 13, 2024•1 hr
What I learned from reading Roots of Strategy by Thomas R. Phillips and Napoleon and Modern War by Napoleon and Col. Lanza. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (0:01) Napoleon fought more battles than Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar combined. (5:00) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christophe...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 1 min
What I learned from reading Insull: The Rise and Fall of A Billionaire Utility Tycoon by Forrest McDonald. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (0:01) Insull had been in the electric business as long as there had been an electric business. (4:00) He awoke early, abruptly, completely, bursting with energy; yet he gained momentum as the day...
Feb 01, 2024•1 hr 26 min
What I learned from reading How To Make A Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (0:01) I'm what's called a moneymaker. I've started five companies from scratch—seven if you include two spin-offs and turned them all into billion dollar or multibillion-dollar enterprises. (2:00) I love working with outrage...
Jan 23, 2024•1 hr 13 min
What I learned from reading the transcripts of Young Oprah on Her Life and Career and Oprah on Career, Life and Leadership. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (1:00) Oprah fired her agent and replaced him with a Chicago lawyer named Jeffrey Jacobs. "I heard Jeff is a piranha. I like that. Piranha is good." (3:00) I will just create. And...
Jan 16, 2024•1 hr 10 min
What I learned from reading The Red Bull Story by Wolfgang Fürweger and Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac by Duff McDonald. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (1:30) "In literal financial terms, our sports teams are not yet profitable, but in value terms, they are," he says. "The total editorial media value plus the media assets created aro...
Jan 08, 2024•1 hr 9 min
What I learned from reading Jesus: A Biography from a Believer by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (3:00) Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) Socrates: A Man for Our Times by Paul Johnson. (Founders #252) Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. (Founders #240) Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. (Founders #226) (10:00) Jesus was: -observa...
Dec 24, 2023•35 min
What I learned from reading Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior and Creators by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (4:00) The Taste of Luxury: Bernard Arnault and the Moet-Hennessy Louis Vuitton Story by Nadege Forestier and Nazanine Ravai. (Founders #296) (5:00) Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss. (6:00) Dior was a nobody in his forties, with nothing ...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 1 min
What I learned from rereading Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (8:00) I didn't know how to ride a bike. We never had one. All the other young kids delivered newspapers on a bike. He's got no money. He doesn't have a bike. So he ran his routes for two months in order to get enough money to buy his first bike. He’d run nine or 10 miles a day. (8:00)...
Dec 11, 2023•1 hr 37 min
What I learned from reading the NEW Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger. ---- Listen to this incredible conversation between Charlie Munger and John Collison on Invest Like The Best. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (2:00) The practical wisdom of Poor Charlie's Almanack, this ode to curiosity, generosity, and virtue will similarly compound at successive generations of entrepreneurial...
Dec 05, 2023•1 hr 54 min
Reflections from my dinner with Charlie Munger. Order the new updated version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger Charlie Munger episodes: #295 I had dinner with Charlie Munger #286 Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin. #221 Charlie Munger Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionai...
Nov 29, 2023•31 min
What I learned from reading The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike. ---- I use EightSleep to get the best sleep of my life. Find out why EightSleep is loved by founders everywhere and get $500 off at eightsleep.com/founders/ ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (5:00) Tom Murphy] gave me one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received. ...
Nov 22, 2023•43 min
What I learned from reading Ted Turner's Autobiography. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Listen to Art of Investing #4 David Senra Lessons from the Founder Historian. ---- (9:00) My net worth dropped by about 67 million per week, or nearly 10 million per day, every day for two and a half years. (10:00) Once to drive home a point about the difficulties of attracting good loyal employees he told me: Jesus only ...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 27 min
What I learned from reading Anna: The Biography by Amy Odell. ---- 1. If you need tax prep and bookkeeping check out betterbookkeeping.com/founders. It's like having a full time CFO and super cheap grandpa sitting on your shoulder. 2. Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy: Vesto Advisors, LLC (“Vesto”) is an SEC registered investmen...
Nov 06, 2023•1 hr 12 min
What I learned from reading How Larry Gagosian Reshaped The Art World by Patrick Radden Keefe. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (4:00) The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them. (5:45) We think of genius as being complicated, but geniuses have the fewest moving parts. Gagosian is simple. He's basically a shark, a feeding machine. (6:00) A novice is...
Oct 29, 2023•1 hr 12 min
What I learned from reading The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son by John D. Rockefeller. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- (5:00) My Influence had been extended to all corners of the oil industry. If I say that I have the power of life and death over oil producers and oil refiners, that is not a lie. I can make them wealthy or I can make them worthless. (7:25) I never thought I would lose. As far as...
Oct 21, 2023•1 hr 46 min
What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. ---- 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. ---- [2:08] Answering to no one is the ultimate situation. [3:02] Twitter thread on Michael Bloomberg by Neckar.Substack.com [5:28] We never made the error that so many others have: mistaking their product for t...
Oct 10, 2023•1 hr 21 min
What I learned from reading Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way by Ryan White and A Pirate Looks at Fifty by Jimmy Buffett. ---- 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. ---- (8:00) Q: What are you going to do with your life? A: Live a pretty interesting one. (10:00) A lesson that his grandfather taught him: The ...
Oct 03, 2023•1 hr 6 min
What I learned from reading Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg and Herb’s Heroes by David Sanders. ---- 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. ---- (2:30) Reality is chaotic; planning is ordered and logical. The two don’t square with one another. ...
Sep 26, 2023•43 min
What I learned from reading Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr. --- 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. --- (8:00) Principles Jeff Bezos would repeat: customer obsession, innovation, frugality, personal ownership, bias for action, high standards. (1...
Sep 21, 2023•57 min
What I learned from reading Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden. ---- 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 ---- (5:00) It was better for the world that he had known failure and suffered moments of self doub...
Sep 14, 2023•55 min
What I learned from rereading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- [4:47] This story can shock and infuriate us, and it does. But I found it invigorating, too. It told me that the life of the nation was written not only by speech-making grandees in funny hats but also by street-corner boys, immigrant strivers, crazed and driven, some with one good idea, some with...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 30 min
What I learned from reading Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:30) He was meant not just to fight for his country, but one day to lead it. Although he believed this without question, he still had to convince everyone else. (3:30) He didn't even have a plan. Just the unshakeable conviction that he was destined for greatness. (4:00) Churchill ...
Sep 05, 2023•48 min
What I learned from the first 6 years of making Founders. I recorded a new episode with Patrick. It should be out soon. Follow Invest Like the Best in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss 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 ...
Sep 03, 2023•1 hr 21 min
What I learned from reading The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific by Alistair Urquhart. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (4:00) I hope that this book will be inspirational and offer hope to those who suffer adversity in their daily lives. (10:00) You might as well send a cow in pursuit of a rabbit. The Indians were accustomed to these woods. — Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward Lar...
Aug 27, 2023•48 min
What I learned from rereading Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:00) Walt Disney created a made-up world, used cutting-edge technology to enable it, and then told us how he’d done it. (7:30) Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. (Founders #187) (7:30) Both Einstein and Disney inspired me, but Disney affected me more because of his...
Aug 21, 2023•1 hr 5 min
What I learned from reading The Bugatti Story by L’Ebe Bugatti. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:01) If there was a prototype operation for what Enzo Ferrari envisioned it had to be what the legendary Ettore Bugatti built in Molsheim. — Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates. (Founders #220) (7:00) Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A. J. Baime. (Founders #97) (14:30) I determined to bu...
Aug 14, 2023•58 min
What I learned from reading Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney by Paul Johnson. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:20) Among the masters of Parisian fashion, Balenciaga was the greatest. (3:00) Christian Dior called Balenciaga “the master of us all" and Coco Chanel said that Balenciaga was "the only couturier in the truest sense of the word. The others are simply fashion designers". (3:30) Jay Gould episodes #258 and #285 (5:0...
Aug 07, 2023•36 min
What I learned from reading How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (2:00) All you need to do is find something you have an aptitude for and great interest in. (2:10) Doing great work means doing something important so well that you expand people's ideas of what's possible. (4:15) How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions. —How to Do What You Love by Paul G...
Jul 31, 2023•58 min
