# David Senra on How to Become a World Class Founder

Channel: Greg Isenberg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN1OU2kmMPs
Duration: 1 hr 17 min
Language: English
Words: 16178
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/qN1OU2kmMPs

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[0:00] the reason I run a solo History Podcast is because I think the best podcast I ever Liv is Dan Carlin from Harker history and so for like [ __ ] years before I did my own podcast I would fall asleep listening to Dan every night and almost every night I still fall asleep listening to Dan Carlin and so I just fell in love I think there should be way more monologue podcasts I think it's a huge like opportunity what do you love about Dan's podcast [Music] him just him his personality how he talks his stories he's a phenomenal Storyteller yeah and I think somebody said something one time one of the best

[0:45] Tweets I ever read was that they said newspapers were a fad The Village Storyteller is as old as language and now the campfire is 6 billion people connected to the internet and for Dan like something his download number are nuts he's only talked about it a few times my guess would be his audience size you know for some of his bigger things were probably like 10 to 15 million people I would guess um because I remember one time he said that he mentioned he never mentioned downloads he's like my last episode got like 19 million downloads I was like that's insane but then he said that there was a

[1:19] a glitch and it was double counted so even if it's double count it's 9 million people totally um and yeah I just think he's a phenomenal Storyteller and then the the the way he does the podcast is crazy cuz I've listened to interviews on this where I thought again sounds like it's I thought it was scripted and it's like no he's going to read 30 books right he's going to spend half a year doing that and he's going to sit down and he records it little by little so he record you know little segments over half a year nine months and then stitches them all together and I was

[1:48] like that's that's incredible but the the benefit he had is he was on he was on the radio for like yeah 20 years or 15 years or whatever it was a long time before podcast he started his podcast in 2005 yeah yeah dude I went to uh pod Camp Boston 2006 which was like a event for podcasters let me let me put it this way the people at that podcast at that event there was some there was like Fringe people like you were to be a podcaster in 2005 2006 you were Fringe I mean I didn't how did you discover it that early I went to go visit Boston and I

[2:29] saw someone wearing a t-shirt that says that said I pod therefore I am so I said hey where did you get that t-shirt yeah and they said at pod camp and I said what's pod camp and they said have you ever heard of podcast and I was like yeah I have because I had been working on uh the iPod video actually so do you remember the iPod video no the iPod came out this is not that of an interesting story but the iPod came out and Steve Jobs had this idea that wouldn't it be cool if you can play videos on your iPod yeah so they built it but they didn't have

[3:16] any content and I was working on a website called start cooking.com which was animations for learning how to cook yeah so start cooking was a partner to the iPod video oh wow yeah anyways she had a front row seat so I was like bro I know about podcast I but you weren't listening to them yeah then I just knew that what would you listen to back then it'd be Dan Carlin yeah exactly um one of the early ones I got into too were Bill Burr the comedian yeah so he was so early that the way he recorded his podcast is you would call a phone number

[3:47] and you would leave a voicemail and there's a service that CH that changed the voicemail into an MP3 player they would take that MP3 and then upload it for you so he would literally his early podcast he just calling a number just rambling into a voicemail and that's converted into a podcast it's incredible I really do feel feel it's an absolute miracle and I still feel this to this day where it's like it doesn't matter what in the world that you're interested in you can find we were just talking about before we start recording about like what the hell do you do like you I have two kids like what is what is what

[4:22] is schooling and what is education in the world of chaty PT like my 12-year-old daughter is just using chaty PT for everything thing and the school is just acting like this doesn't exist and the idea is like what I try to teach her is like obviously like she's kind of forced to listen to podcasts in the car and audiobooks and my my thing with her is like I don't care what you're interested in it's like anything you're interested in just search the directory you're going to find some absolute nut that is dedicated like their entire lives to teaching about whatever subject matter you're into and they've done it

[4:54] in many cases for you know a decade half a decade there's hundreds of hours you can consume all on demand and you can go as deep as you want like that is a a miracle like I remember my mom taking me and dropping me off at the public library when I was a kid because we didn't have any money I remember going to Barnes & Nobles and sitting there because they would let you read it's like you know how hard it was to get information as like some young you know smart kid which you know my daughter definitely is it's just like you you don't even know what you have that's in

[5:22] front of you um and then if you podcast isn't the way you learn that's fine read readings not the way you learn watch videos it's like there's world class education everywhere it's just it's just absolutely crazy so yeah I still to this day don't ever like take it for granted and I still can't believe that anybody like no one gave you permission to start this podcast so just like I'm going to start it one day you're going to upload it and then people all over the world get to enjoy it that's [ __ ] crazy one of the we were talking before about you know I started this podcast

[5:51] with sahill Bloom and it was I love sah he's a friend of mine yeah he's I see him every time he comes to behind me and he we named it where it happens mhm horrible name by the way horrible name because I call it a tofu name why what's a tofu name tofu name is quick break in the Pod to tell you a little bit about startup Empire so startup Empire is my private membership where it's a bunch of people like me like you who want to build out their startup ideas now they're looking for content to help accelerate that they're looking for potential co-founders they're looking

[6:28] for uh tutorials from people like me to come in and tell them how do you do email marketing how do you build an audience how do you go viral on Twitter all these different things that's exactly what startup Empire is and it's for people who want to start a startup but are looking for ideas or it's for people who have a startup but just they're not seeing the traction uh that they need so you can check out the link to Startup empire.co in the description like tofu doesn't really have a taste takes on the sauce of whatever it is you know tofu name is something that isn't

[7:05] memorable uh in in people's brains like it's just um but you know when you're talking about your daughter how you know go search for you know if she's into design yeah or um she's into animation she can just go search animation so I renamed this podcast to the startup ideas podcast the thesis was that people are searching for startup ideas since doing that the Pod has like I I think like 90 days after I I renamed it I think the Pod grew like three act I I think I read every single biography I can find on Larry Ellison and I find him a infinitely FC fascinating person in in

[7:45] fact a friend of mine was at dinner with Elon Musk a few months ago in Palm Beach right before the election and everybody at dinner you can imagine was just lighting Elon up with questions and he was asked like who's his mentor who he turns to for advice and he's like the person I asked I I admire the most he used different words he's like Larry Ellison he's just like he's like Larry Ellison is [ __ ] awesome I don't know did you see the leaked text messages that between Larry Ellison and Elon that came out recently but I saw it but I didn't go deep in it so I I didn't

[8:12] either I just saw one that that was hilarious where um Elon texts him he's like hey are you in for for I'm raising money to buy to buy Twitter are you in he's like yeah of course he's like I'm Not Gon to hold you to anything Larry but like are do you know the amount and he's like I don't know a billion whatever you want and elon's like I appreciate it but like I think you should at least do two billion and I think Larry responds okay it's exciting whatever and it's like the thumbs up emoji it's like I'm just going to raise two billion from a friend of mine

[8:38] through text message which by the way sorry to interrupt but the thumbs up emoji is the official Emoji of dads yeah I use it all the time you know I don't know what it is about dads but it's like you can write to your dad I love you yeah and they'll respond with a thumbs up or like hey you know I think that there's you know someone's robbing my house and it's like thumbs up Larry Ellison hell yeah so in one of Larry's biographies he talks about the fact that he thinks especially for technology companies that names are actually really important um and I always think about this so it it was

[9:17] funny you know because I knew that the podcast is about startup ideas and so I was talking to a friend on my drive over here I was like well it's I'm it's very nice for Greg to invite me on but like my startup idea is like whatever you're doing if you love it just do it until you die so like don't start anything new just like keep doing what you're doing forever like if you think about the people I study it's like they just find something and they usually do it for for decades um but I do think uh the startup idea I would have is like around

[9:43] podcasts like I I think a lot about like the open space and podcasting um my friend Eric glyman who's the co-founder and CEO of ramp I just gave him this book that a friend of mine gave me I gave me extra copies for it's the guy that uh it's the guy that did like what's the chicken company it's like um Tyson chicken I'm going to pull up this this excert because I think it's really important Jamie pull up pull up yeah do we have do we have a Jamie here there's a um I'll I'll find out the uh the exact uh excert and I'm just going to

[10:19] read this to you um because I think it's a good way to find startup ideas because it's just like what do you think about when as soon as your eyes open and what are you thinking about before you go to bed uh the the name of the book is called tough man tunder tender chicken can you tell me the company that he started tough man tender chicken is the book so it's Purdue okay so there's a great line that my friend Eric tweeted out I want to read to you real quick and they wanted to start a line they want to start selling hot dogs and so he's asked he's

[10:53] like Frank how's the chicken hot dog thing going and he goes it's too early to tell the guy goes what do you mean he goes I haven't been able to find my Mr hot dog and he goes what do you mean your Mr hot dog and this guy that's writing the book tough man tender chicken responds he goes there's a guy who goes to bed thinking about chicken hot dogs and then the first thing he thinks of when he wakes up is chicken hot dogs and uh so his whole point is like you have to find your like your chicken hot dog your hot dog guy right

[11:21] and so for for my version as like podcasts um and so when I think of like new podcasts to start one I actually think you should spend a lot of time based on the story you just said thinking about the goddamn name right I lucked into Founders I think it's a very good name I think you're not going to click on Founders like I wonder what this is about you have an idea what what it's about and then the first five words in the description is gives you the value proposition which is learned from History's Greatest entrepreneur the two other names that I heard that I think

[11:52] are even better than that or Ben Wilson's how to take over the world right the value prop is in the title and then Patrick oanes invest like the best and I think naming like think about what you what you want the podcast to be but also thinking about the name is really really important because you're just infinitely scrolling and I think there's like a lot of like if you think about how much information that we're all reading or consuming a different different on a daily basis like how much time are you giving into every single tweet or every single video it's like seconds and so the name has to like jump

[12:23] out of you where it's like startup ideas I wonder what that's about I I [ __ ] know what it's about it's about startup ideas how to find them generate them to maybe hear another guest sharing one you could possibly do so I actually think that's really smart the way people think is they bucket people ideas businesses right so when you just got to dumb it down right so I think naming comes the best names with respect to podcasting I think has to dumb it down I'm I'm a big believer in that right now yeah and the ones we we were talking about earlier how I

[12:56] don't think about its media I think about it's like it's a way to be authentic self I think it's podcasting is building relationships at scale and I think there's there's something to the fact that you know most of the the biggest podcasts in the world they don't have a name other than the person's name like that's a lot harder to grow especially if you're not famous or if you're not known but once you have that audience it's like they're really attached to you um I remember I had dinner with Daniel e the founder of Spotify who's been like a massive supporter and absolutely love and we

[13:24] were talking about he it was like over a 4-Hour conversation was telling me like the history of Spotify Daniel's [ __ ] brilliant as you can imagine super polite but also like you could tell that he's really intense and he was talking about how one of the most stressful times of building Spotify is when you had that controversy you know they signed Rogan to this massive deal he's making this huge bet on podcasting and there's this huge cancellation um campaign that that happens in Rogan's for a few weeks and Daniel's like you know very stressed about this and he's like and then his subscriber count over

[13:58] the few weeks went up he added 2 million new subscribers and I was like of course that happened because if you listen to Rogan or anybody else and you've heard them talk him talk for a thousand in his case I bet you he's a large percentage of his fans that have heard him speak for a over a thousand hours there's nothing that a two-minute clip on the mainstream media can tell you about the guy that you've heard talk for a thousand hours there's no educ form of Education that could take place you know who he is cuz you've heard him speak for so long um so I think there's actually

[14:32] this I don't think it was intentional but this wisdom of just naming these shows after yourself again crewing that audience is a lot harder but once you get it it's like they're there for you for you know for a very long time if not forever what else what else have you learn from Daniel e cuz I feel like you know he's a legend no question but maybe it's in my bubble I don't see him at you know in the Limelight very much I talked about this where it's like it's very biz bizarre like okay uh almost said Shopify they always do the the joke that Spotify and Shopify

[15:06] and then they kind of look Al like um you have a a founder and CEO who been running the company for 18 years right it's over it's worth over hundred billion he's only 41 or something like that he and yet he's still somehow underrated um I I just think every single person so I get to meet a lot of like remarkable people as a result of the podcast and almost all of them I'm not like it's not the same personality type but it's the same kind of archetype over and over again they're just like unbelievably intense and dedicated to their work um and so that's it I just

[15:44] left the conversation was just like I thought I was pretty intense and I thought I was working a lot and I'm like he makes me look like nothing so it's like I just left there it's like with a lot of motivation we were right before we started recording you had another guest here that was really big on Tony Robbins and like spending a lot of money to spend time with him and I know some people $250,000 per year well like I know some people could be like oh that's [ __ ] or whatever the case is but this idea I don't think I I I I think and the way

[16:13] somebody makes you feel and the energy transfer that occurs between two people is like actually underrated and this isn't some like Willy Fufu nonsense [ __ ] uh you go back and read old biographies of Warren Buffett and way before he was known there was this thing where like there would be like small group that gets together every year and I remember in one of the books there was this guy's wife that was like bitching at him because he spent like $1,500 to travel to like Omaha and this is you know probably in the 70s or something like a long time ago so even $1,500 even a lot

[16:43] more money even back then and his wife's like why are you spending all this money he's like and his response was great he goes because he gives me energy and again like I think that is a very real thing um our friend our mutual friend George Mack has this idea of he calls it sofa friends and treadmill friends he's like pay attention to the energy that you get when you're interacting with your friends some people are like oh my God go home you need to like lay into the sofa and just like recover and other people you want to go home and you want to run on the treadmill you want to like

[17:10] run through walls and I think being around like a Warren Buffett Tony Robbins I felt that way when I had dinner with danielak I feel that way when I get to meet a lot of these people it's like oh there's like levels to this and I have so much more to learn and so much more room for improvement and it just [ __ ] excited me I think the same the same is true sofa versus treadmill with respect to cities right like there's some cities New York City for example treadmill City yes definition of treadmill city um and some cities that are sofa cities or towns yeah I would

[17:40] get out of sofa towns as much as possible I almost move I mean I think Miami Beach to some degree is a is a sofa Town especially because I don't party like it's like I don't want to go out like I just want to work I want to spend time I want to take care of my health spend time with my family and work that's all I'm interested in and um I almost left before Co and then after Co we had a huge influx of like way more talented people a lot of them have since returned they went back to LA or San Francisco or New York the but the people

[18:09] that stayed were good enough where the network is like oh I'd stay here just for the network Alone um but I you know go to New York every month I spend a lot of time in California like I would I I just talked to there's this really talented guy do you know Blake Robbins yeah he was at Benchmark he's really good at like finding these like obscure like people on the internet and he put me and my friend Patrick onto this guy named Maxim and uh I think he found him when he only had like a couple thousand followers or something like that Maxum now has like a million followers it's by

[18:41] maximize on yeah I follow him yeah he's the best I got to spend time with him in New York City because he said the only podcast he listens to is Founders and so if you look at maximus's videos a lot of them are ideas from the podcast I was like dude can you make some videos for me please seriously he's going to but um he's like like it's a you can look at his working like this guy's a [ __ ] worldclass talent and we wind up spending a few hours together in New York and he was thinking about he's like should I move from England and I was

[19:09] like how old are you he's like 23 you got any kids no you married he's like no I go you better get your ass over here immediately like absolutely to be super talented 23 years old no attachments and I even told him like Hey like I will guarantee you a contract for two years to cover your living expenses if you just make videos for us and you want to build your own company or whatever the case is like don't worry about that and I don't even think he needs to do that because I think his his side business is successful enough that he doesn't need that but uh for that it's like Nob

[19:37] brainer dude okay but you know he's world class at what he does no question yeah for someone who wants to be world class who has the ambition to be someone like that should they and they're 23 years old I would still move now that's different from what I did I literally just like locked myself in a room like you know the Kanye line where it's like tra yourself in the uh three Su making five beats a day for three Summers like that is how you get good at anything this is uh so in the background I'm I'm obviously kind of a psycho where um in the background during work I just play

[20:12] the Last Dance that that um Michael Jordan documentary over and over again so like my wife walked and then like sometimes I'll switch it up it'll be like uh I defiant ones is another really great documentary because you just see the work ethic of like a Jimmy aen of a Dr Dre of a spring s of anybody that's good at anything it just takes so much time and that's why like I would say if you want to be world class anything like you really don't have that much competition like the the the very top you know half of a percentile you know is very competitive but the average

[20:45] person on the street is just never even going to attempt it and even if they do attempt they quit at everything um where like Maxim had he had his huge growth he's like no matter what I have to make a video a day and he just made a video about the fact that he made a video a day and he shows his follower account and all the crazy [ __ ] that happened to him when he just committed to the Daily practice of getting better at his craft so even for him even if before he was good I would still get around and try to get access to these people and if you

[21:12] can't access them so like I started the very first episode of Founders in September 2016 the was Ashley Vance's book on Elon Musk this the very first one and part of that was because um I was watching this this guy name Kevin Rose you remember dig he's been on the Pod oh has he okay so Kevin Rose had like one of this worldclass video podcast in 2012 called Foundation yeah like like the the quality of the shoot was incredible the guests were [ __ ] incredible like I thought he was really good at it and he interviews Elon when they're on the Tesla uh they're at Tesla I think the

[21:56] only Tesla on the market they stopped making the Roadster and I think they just started producing the the model S I want to give a little bit of context so he it wasn't just exceptional quality it was exceptional quality when the quality was low was non-existent non-existent so I remember watching some of those First episodes and being like this is better this is the best content I've ever seen it was [ __ ] incredible even though website I lived on YouTube or I I don't even know if he was uploading YouTube he had to be uploading YouTube but like the website it was like foundation. KR or something it was like

[22:37] it was like the [ __ ] website was incredible uh I wonder like the alternate reality where he never stopped kept doing it you know like it just he'd have a decade of practice before not realizing how valuable great podcast can be you know it's interesting because now he's back to podcasting yeah but you you jumped around a lot which is like podcast compound you know what I mean like if you look at yeah go ahead no it just you know goes back to like the bucketing thing right like people the new generation doesn't bucket Kevin Rose is as a podcaster yeah if but if he but

[23:12] if he kept going they would have so I think there's another conversation we can have too about one of the most important ideas I've come across in the books is like The Importance of Being easy to interface with uh which I think Steve Jobs was world class at they're all really good at but he was probably the best there was but the reason I I started with the Advance biography of Elon this goes back to Maxim or any really talented person that's got to figure out what to do is like if you can't act if you can't move to a world class City you don't have any money or

[23:37] you don't have a network this like Kevin asked [ __ ] Elon he's just like you moved from Canada you didn't know anybody in California like who was your Mentor he's like I didn't have a mentor he goes I read he's like did you read business books to learn how to build your [ __ ] first company he's like no I don't read business books I read biographies and this what El says I read biographies and autobiographies I think they're helpful and then he goes on lists you know Ben Franklin every single person ever built a rocket Henry Ford Nicol Tesla all these other people and I

[24:04] was like and he goes I think that's a way to find mentors in historical context that's the sentence that Elon said I was like oh that's a really good idea and I was like I should read more biographies and so I started reading biographies like these things are pretty [ __ ] great they're very useful you can download Toby luk has this great line where he says that biographies are books in general are uh the only the closest thing you'll come to finding a cheat code in real life because you can download the entire learnings of somebody's you know multi-decade long career in a few hours was exactly what

[24:32] Elon was doing and then then when you read more biographies you realize that every person that lived a life so remarkable somebody wrote a book about them all read biographies it's like this weird ongoing chain of hey let's use learning from history as a form of Leverage find ideas from somebody else's experience I can use in my life to kind of get me to where I want to go um so yeah that's what I would do it's like if I was a young kid I I tell this to my my own daughter uh my son's too young for this it's just like the the I buy I

[24:58] probably bought her I don't [ __ ] know 30 40 of these little young biographies it's called um Little People Big Dreams they're in every single bookstore that I've ever gone into um and it's you know every single person Taylor Swift Coco Chanel Walt Disney everybody and it's a biography that now she's getting a little too old for them but when she was young I was just having her read all these biographies like you can do whatever you want to do startup idea for you startup IDE well it's funny we talked about Founders for kids so we talked about s porier before that's literally like the reason I knew he

[25:31] would text back fast is because we're working on a project for Founders for kids it's actually going to be like uh more like comic bookes because Sam's life was changed because when he was a young boy his dad would read him like kid versions of biographies about great Frenchmen they was very specific they had to be great people I'm not surprised why am I not surprised that were that were either living in France or living in Montreal which I thought was funny he like and it inspired him to become an entrepreneur and then led him to the deal fellowship and you know kind of can change the

[26:07] trajectory of a of a young kid's life and I was like I don't know if it's probably a [ __ ] business but it's a great service to the world would be like really cool um so the first one we're working on we'll see if it's good is uh a kids's version of rockefeller's biography I'm surprised it's not a kid's version of sindon but I'm sure that's coming up soon yeah I don't you got to figure out who else we're going to do no KN one Sam would probably be Napoleon it's true so do you want to talk podcast startup ideas I actually now I just feel

[26:40] like I'm not reading enough biographies like how many probably not how many biography should I be reading on a yearly basis as many as you can like I don't know what your day-to-day life is do you like audiobooks how do you like to read I I'm an audio book guy yeah so I I feel like there's no reason you can't read listen to one audio book A Week by the way I made a controversial tweet that got a lot of people angry I said what did I say audio book's not reading what did I say Jordan do you remember Jamie I I said basically the worst form of reading is

[27:17] ebooks I agree with that and and then in a reply I was like for me the best thing is uh physical books is the the best followed by audiobooks followed by ebooks yeah I uh I like I have a a rational like love affair with physical books my workflow for the podcast is like literally twice as long because I insist on reading physical books and if I read um like Kindle versions also I read a lot of old books that there are no [ __ ] Audi ver there is nothing besides the physical book there's no Kindle there's no audio nothing but it's the the way of reading I fell in love

[27:56] with and like for me I actually think there's an important part where like I feel we live in a society where it's like over everything's like over optimized and like way too much prioritization spent on like efficiency and like speeding things up we I actually think spending longer with the material makes my output better like instead of I'm not trying to take what's going to take me 40 hours usually for every 1 hour of audio that I produce it takes about 40 hours of reading and research people are like oh you you do summaries you can do all this other stuff and make it to 20 it's like yeah

[28:26] but then it would be more more than half worse because it's the fact I spend so much time with the material that then I can then turn around and teach it or explain it in a useful way to somebody else so I have this line that I stole from Jerry seld that the hard way is the right way and so I use that for like you know I sit there when I when you look at how I go through these books looks like I'm doing goddamn arts and crafts like I sit down with a pen a ruler a Post-It note scissors like I'm literally doing like an art project into these books um

[28:55] but I think forcing myself to slow down and spend more time with the material and then doing that every day for eight years actually makes that that that compounds and like doing it you don't see what you miss out by taking like the shorter route and I think actually taking like a longer time but I'm one of these people that's just like I have you know I think 600 physical books in my house but I also have like 300 on the Kindle like I'll read whatever I don't care actually told another idea from Elon where he said that he read entire books because they travel so much on the

[29:24] Kindle app on the iPhone I was like that can't work and I started using it I was like that [ __ ] works like especially when you're traveling it's like so much easier than than carrying a book with you or whatever um but I also think that I'm one of the rare people think audio listening to Audi book is reading people are like it's not reading it's like yes it is it's the same thing it's getting the ideas from the book into your head I don't care how you do it but yeah I mean if you can't do a biography a week do one a month like depends on what your

[29:48] schedule is and what like what you have going on but thing about it's like the average person young person especially for like all the people in the room you guys probably are exercising five hours a week even if it's like walking running lifting weights whatever you're doing okay 5 hours of audiobook 20 hours there's two books a month right there and then 24 this year you know just 48 the next year go back and and also I think it's smart idea to go back and like relisten and reread things uh especially like you we forget that we forget and so like I'll go and there's some books James Dyson's autobiography

[30:21] is a great example I've read it four times it's episode 2 25 200 205 and 300 and when you say rdit you mean physical book yes read it and then every time I'm like I forgot that part or like something has happened in my life or I learned something else that then changes the meaning or my interpretation of the words on the page so I'm a huge proponent of that um but yeah I I think uh everybody like I am an evangelist for for reading biographies I just think it's so [ __ ] smart and it sounds like physical books are preferred so have you ever seen what my library looks like no

[30:53] let me see I'll I'll show it to you right now so Patrick treated that out it's in order by episode number starting in the top left hand corner so everywhere where my hand is before that I've read for the podcast everything after that is yet to be read but it's not like the the unread books are not in order I don't know what I'm going to read next week until I just I like pick it up that week I went for dinner recently well very well-known entrepreneur and we we were talking about reading books and he was saying and this is a common very very very common feedback about reading

[31:29] physical books I can't I I don't have the attention span yeah what do you what advice do you have for for people who want to get into physical books but you know it's hard for them to to focus and they don't have you know it sounds like this is you have an innate ability and you just kind of love these books like yeah what advice do you have for people who aren't born with this I don't I don't know because like I I didn't understand that I just have like a shockingly long attention span and I think having a long attention span is going to get more valuable in the world

[32:01] cuz I think I do think because of the tools we use every day it's like shrinking there's a great line that um Charlie merer said where he's just like I didn't succeed because of intelligence I succeeded because I had a long attention span and um like I'm working on an episode uh uh on Jensen Wong right now and what's remarkable is like this guy's been in love with Nvidia and building Nidia and running Nvidia for three decades and he's like more interested in it today than he's ever been it's like that's the definition of a long attention span um I get invited sometimes to give these

[32:33] talks at like these conferences and most of them I fact especially have to travel because I have no kids because I have young kids I was like no like I don't care what the price is like it's like missing one day of my four-year-old's life right now is like missing like a 100 days you know because these these early years are so important so I'm very like hesitant to do that but I've done a few locally there in Miami I'm like oh [ __ ] it I can just like drive over here I'll do it I'll do it for free I don't even care and and one of the funny ones

[32:59] was um there it was a conference run by a friend of mine who I really like and it's for post exit Founders and uh essentially my um my talk was just like when people walk up to me and they're like or text me or call me like I sold my company I always say the same thing like sorry to hear that like your goal especially if if if it's not your life's work right your I think a goal your goal in life is to find what you are uniquely created to do and it should be an active service for other human beings one of my favorite lines from

[33:35] history of Entrepreneurship comes from Henry Ford where he said money comes naturally as a result of service okay what I can't stand is entrepreneurs that are like the I get emails or like hey I want to build like a hundred billion doll company or there's like some kind of [ __ ] number attached and then I'll ask them like who are your entrepreneur Heroes and like Steve Jobs or whatever it's like you think Steve Jobs started Apple because he thought he was going to build a three trillion dollar company it's like you're you're your motivation is wrong for this and so what I think is happening is like people have much

[34:03] shorter attention spans and you're also reflecting that in the fact that there is now such thing as an entrepreneurial industry which did not exist when we were younger right this is something is relatively new most of is funded obviously like you look at the incentive structure in all forms of media most of it's funded from VC like if you think about all the media that Founders are consuming it's like created by and funded by VCS it's really weird [ __ ] weird to me and so like I don't have advice other than if you have a short attention span that probably is a good indicator that you're not you haven't

[34:36] found what you should be working on because I can sit there and read a fascina like I just told you I finish reading before we started recording or maybe I didn't maybe I was talking about on this the phone on the way over no I think I said this to you I just finished reading there's a secret uh biography written by Michael Moritz of Don Valentine that's passed around in seoa and Sequoia Founders have it too I'll tell you it it's only like I sat there and read the whole [ __ ] thing like I had to it was so entertaining I didn't want to go to sleep as I wasn't like oh

[35:06] let me read one page let me go scroll Twitter let me read one page go to scroll Tik Tok it's like this [ __ ] is [ __ ] incredible and I think that you know a lot of the best Founders like I don't think Steve Jobs when he was working at Apple was like you know worried about what else was going on other than what he was working on an Apple um so I think the anecdote to a short attention span is like literally like taking some time to yourself and figuring out like what is authentic to you what is natural to you what are you

[35:33] actually interested in and trying to do monger's advice is like what are you intensely interested in and then do that for money and at the beginning you might not make any money but anything that you're interested in there's probably millions of people that are interested in that as well like I remember when I first started the podcast people were like you can't do an entrepreneurship podcast this is 2016 first they said it's too late to do a podcast which is [ __ ] hilarious and so I was like I don't think that's true they're like why I go there's 750,000 uh podcasts in the Apple directory right now 250,000 of them are

[36:05] active what humans quit at everything all the time and even you fast forward to now um I'm close to the human lab guys they just sent me data even now that's what eight years later there's like only like 333,000 330,000 podcasts that have uploaded a new episode in the last month that is Tiny But back then they're like one it's too late you've already missed the boote two entrepreneurship is a niche subject and I'm like that just doesn't make any sense to me I go how many people own businesses right there's a business owner to me entrepreneur like business owners so my idea was like how many

[36:39] people own a business speak English and are connected to the internet and you run the numbers it's like 140 million people like you grab less than 1% of them and you have a phenomenally successful business like what this is not a niche subject and now it turns out like if you look at what 11 lab is doing what spotify's doing what YouTube's doing my my calculation was way off because it's not just English speaking people at the platform level they're going to you're going to be in Brazil you're going to love Founders it's going to know that you speak Portuguese and you're going to hear me speaking [ __ ]

[37:13] Portuguese um yeah so I don't have a good good answer other than like find something where you don't have an atten a short attention span you ever seen a [ __ ] kid play video games that do they do it for 2 minutes and put it down no they play Forever they just haven't found something they're actually interested in 100% it reminds me uh the too late piece is a really really uh big Insight I remember in 2000 it must have been 2005 2006 I went to my first first and last actually ever fish show the van dude no I thought it was I thought it was actually like fishing no no fish

[37:51] is a wildly profitable there a fascinating business story too go fascinating business but I show up and I get to the campsite because that's how it works you know you don't just get a hotel or something you know there's a campsite near the events it's in uh Burlington Vermont around there and uh I meet this this woman you know she's like hey you're here for the fish fish show and she she slaps my hand I said yeah she goes well it's too late and I was like what do you mean she's like you should have come in '98 fish is like over you missed the good years it's done and I remember

[38:36] thinking to myself I actually felt bad like here I am I traveled the distance spent all this money I convinced my friend to come with me and then and I'm seeing like a a diluted version of this band this sucks go to the show I had an incredible time my friend had an incredible time and and the next day I run into the same lady would you think of the show wasn't it amazing she's like ah no it was horrible and fast forward to like today now I hear stories that like that era of like the early to mid 2000s in fish was like the best possible

[39:14] era I'm sure that lady today was like that show was amazing I think there's an interesting the the fish story uh brought something else to mind where I'm always uh interested in especially for people that build businesses that are essentially complete opposite of the way everybody else in their industry does I think there's like a lot of insight there there two examples I remember reading there's this blog that was run by this guy in San Francisco who actually just started following on Twitter turns out he listens to Founders it's called priceonomics do you remember this sounds familiar they they would publish their blog in a book and one of the blogs they

[39:49] would do is they'd find these like weird you know things about economics and one of them was the economics of fish where it's like they don't have any top 10 hits you know they make almost I I think they gave away a lot of their music for free before people were doing that yet they were making like 140 million a year in tour Revenue at like a decent margin like unbelievable amount of money and so I just did an episode uh last year maybe a year and a half ago on on Jimmy Buffett and I think it's right after he died and the reason I had the idea to do

[40:20] that is because if you look there's like these lists they make of you know top wealthiest people in whatever industry and I remember remember looking one time at the top wealthiest uh musicians and it's everybody you would expect right like you know everybody on the list and then you get down here it's like number seven it's like Jimmy Buffett like what the [ __ ] it's like not like Rihanna has hits you know you two or whoever like all these people Bruce springing like it makes perfect sense why they're on this list how the hell did Jimmy Buffett get on the list so that made it me like

[40:51] really fascinating it's very Sim similar situation to fish where it's like essentially he started like what I would consider like a traveling cult and the way he was able to compound his he made his money on tour right so if you're on tour it doesn't matter what how what what where you chart on the billboard just matters like when you come to Austin Texas in May every year can you sell the amount of tickets you want and then he was doing it so long that his audience would compound so you'd be going there now and then 10 years from now you're bringing your 10-year-old with you and then your

[41:22] 10-year-old is bringing you know now your 10-year-old's 25 and going without you or whatever case is um and there was also a very fascinating way that he would make money is essentially he made the vast majority of his money through licensing right and so as his audience aged and they were you know they were just like him he was in the keys he like to drink all the time they like to party they don't like to work they except he had a fierce work ethic right so everybody else in his audience didn't like to work he worked all the time and so he winds up making like S I forgot

[41:53] the numbers are in the podcast it's like se you fast forward 15 20 years again don't you know find what you're meant to do and then just time carries most of the weight like do not interrupt the compounding time carries most of the weight that's so important and all these entrepreneurs are jumping around are just missing All the Monies in the future so you f for 15 20 years he's making like 75 million a year in in his pocket just from the license agreements right not including the equity value so when he passed away he gave his the equity he had in his company to his wife

[42:20] I think was like another $ 1.7 billion was 1.7 billion Equity but the guy's been pocketing 50 million plus year after year for a decade and a half and I just love that idea it's like he saw what everybody else said he's like I can't make money like B Bono I can't make money like Bruce Springsteen I can't make money like Rihanna I can do it my way there's like there the biggest thing is like there's it's not it's never like what you do it's how you do it like you can find people that make a ton of money in music ton of money in podcasting ton of money in media ton of

[42:50] money in clothing ton of whatever it is ton of money Realtors there's like all the different ways to make money it's like not what you do it's how you do it and I'm fascinated by the people that are just like find their own weird route in and just again compound it for decades like he did it's a fascinating story and the idea that fish I read that blog post probably when you went to that [ __ ] show like 2005 we're talking about it 20 years later are they still touring they're still touring oh my God so like how much money have they made since then they' probably been touring

[43:19] for what 40 years I just watched the defiant ones which is one of my arguably my all-time favorite documentary and there's footage in there I was thinking about this and I might do an episode on BR spring St because of that and they're showing footage when he's 1975 he's doing Born to Run and he has this crazy work ethic that he's still known to this day and I'm like wait a minute 75 like I'm bad at math but that I think that's like 50 years ago it's like the guy just sold 80,000 tickets in Italy like a few weeks ago few months ago it's incred it's incredible all

[43:52] these people that you you study you know all these people you've mentioned like Elon m and Bezos and Bruce Springsteen all these people they have one thing in common I think they have extremely H High work ethic and I'm noticing even on your can it says discipline equals [Laughter] Freedom right yeah um when I meet a lot of these people and I learn about their work work ethic I find that they have very successful businesses but very unsuccessful personal lives you know how do you think about the balance between you know discipline equals freedom and uh and work ethic and and you know H having a

[44:41] balanced life yeah I mean they're not going to write they don't write biographies of people have Balanced Life so it's like there is a selection bias here so I can tell you like my stated preference and then if you look at like my revealed preference it's probably different so I would always said like in many cases is the people I read about it's like cautionary tales CU like exactly what you said they pursue professional achievement to the detriment of every single thing else Health family spouses kids friendships like it can get pretty crazy and uh there's one guy named ed Thorp it's episode 222 of Founders and he's to me

[45:16] the one that came the closest to like Master life so I and I think the subtitle of that episode is like my personal blueprint because he made a he built like he first of all lived a remarkable life he's still alive to this day he's in like 91 in phenomenal shape still super intelligent uh he started the first quantitative hedge fund uh built the world's first wearable uh computer with Claud Shannon uh you know you ever played blackjack yeah you know how counting cards works I mean I don't count cards it works you heard of it that system was invented by Ed Thorp in the 60s and then he wrote a book about

[45:49] the system called beat the dealer so millions of copies uh he was the first LP in Citadel a 19-year-old Ken Griffin comes to to Ed dorp's house after Ed head closes hedge fund gives him all the files is like this is what we were doing and then at the beginning of Citadel Ken runs that Playbook remarkable story uh winds up having dinner uh with a 37-year-old Warren Buffett they walk outside the car he tells his wife hey I think that guy's going to be the richest person in the world one day winds up starting to buy acquire birer hathway stock at like $600 a share or something

[46:19] back then so like phenomenal shape uh great father uh his kids still love him to this day his wife passed away from from cancer like 10 years ago they were happily married forever once he had more money he could spend he stopped trading money for time even though he was really good at making money he's like what the hell am I going to do with it anyways very rare to have like that pullback and that discipline to have it so if you look at that it's like he had a balance of work that just filled him like intellectually simulating he enjoyed it made you know his unborn great grandkids

[46:49] Rich phenomenal husband phenomenal father top 1% in physical shape and also [ __ ] had fun and lived an adventure in fact Nim TB wrote the forward of that book and they said that his autobiography reads like a thriller because it does it's like that guy had incredible life story um so that is my stated preference if you look at how I spend my time it's like almost all on the podcast like my kids were just on uh winter break right and I was like oh they're not in school I'm going to spend a ton of time with them and I got to last night was the last night of the

[47:24] break and I was like oh I [ __ ] this up like I spent we went on walks took her to the park went out to eat did all this other stuff went to the beach but I did not spend nearly it spend half the time I thought I was going to spend with them um so yeah I don't I I just think there's a certain personality type that reappears over and over again and um and that personality type seems to like be find they're they're addicted to what they do they love what they do and they have a hard time putting barriers on it um I just

[47:59] mentioned the defiant ones if you watch part four of the defiant ones Jimmy Ivan's wife and Dr Dre's wife were like it's really hard to be married to people like this Jimmy was already divorced by the time the documentary ends Dr is like oh you know we're not we kind of made it out and then you find out Dr ends and they get divorced a few years later so I I obviously there's no solution to this because every single person I study is smarter more productive than me and they didn't figure it out dude how the hell do remember everything you know you're like I notice you your memory is

[48:33] absolutely insane no it's not though so okay for me it's maddening repetition so like how do I do what what you do that's what I want to do I want to replicate remembering that on episode 222 I said XYZ so here's the thing I got to go to Charlie monger's house and have dinner with him before he died for three hours okay Charlie is like I consider the wisest person I've ever come across like and before I met him and he's also the one that said you should read biographies he's read hundreds of biographies he's read more biographies of me now I'll be able to catch him

[49:06] because he died right so like I will eventually pass him because I started earlier and I just T you copied him um but this is the scary thing about him CU anybody at 99 is going to have some level of cognitive decline doesn't matter who the [ __ ] you are right it's going to be some level cognitive decline I sat in his Library so you start the first the night starts in his library for like the first hour and half then we moved to his dining room and have dinner so first of all I'm I'm sitting there and Charlie was a legit hero of mine I

[49:34] read every single book about him I read all the books he told he he said that he read I watched all the AGM videos on YouTube and I'm sitting there in his library and I'm looking at him I'm like that's [ __ ] Charlie Monger like I had an out of- body experience I was like what is happening how this how is this my life I sat in a room by myself for years reading books talking into a microphone by myself somehow that got me invited here this is bizarre and so my friend who invited me Andrew Wilkinson so this is going on he had met him a

[50:05] bunch him and Chris had met him a bunch and they're talking for like five or 10 minutes I'm just like the [ __ ] is going on I could not believe this and then Andrew looks at me he's like like jump in like what are you doing you got to say something and then I snap out of it and I look behind Charlie's head and I see all these books that he had recommended that I read so then I just started like in him up with questions one that kind of freaked me out because Charlie was like partially blind and so you know he's paying attention to

[50:35] because he turns his head towards you and then he has to look through his bifocal so he goes like this and he's looking down at you so now you know there's no like you're not guessing who he's paying attention to and so then I'm like Charlie [ __ ] Monger is looking at me like what is happening here so I started lighting him up with questions on all these books right dude he knew everything he could name the company their Partners what the revenue was what industry they were in and I I even asked him I was like dude when did you just reread this he's like no I haven't read

[51:04] the book in 15 years after we got done talking I was like Charlie can I go through asked him I was like can I go through your library he's like yes very very polite and he was he was very polite so I pull books off the shelves it gets even worse there's no notes in them so it's like every once every like 150 Pages you'll see like some random like name written in pencil but like I Mark things up I highlight them I add them to a giant database I reread them Charlie had a remarkable memory I don't for me it's all work it's like everything I'm telling you about is just

[51:40] like I go back to the same episodes I'll like relisten to my old episodes again um I'll reread I reread highlights I reread highlights every single day you know for years um all like I get bored and I get frustrated cuz I can't find any new podcast listen to so I'll listen to old episodes of M like over and over again like oh [ __ ] I did that four years ago I forgot about that I just did this with this guy named Chun J young and uh I I spent like a few hours re-editing it uh at the time I was I was recording like a shitty $100 microphone in like my

[52:11] kitchen I didn't know anything I did this episode probably five or six years ago now you can run it through the script they use their AI their Studio sound it sounds [ __ ] perfect right and so what I do I spent like half of my day going back and rereading all my highlights from trying J's autobiography he was the founder of hondai it's the most inspiring autobiography I've ever read he he grew up so poor he had to eat tree bark to survive he dies the richest person in Korea [ __ ] remarkable um life story but the reason I would be able to quote that even now is because I

[52:41] just finished rereading it and just finished re listening to it so it's not like if well you just said you have a good memory you tell my wife that she'd be like she'd laugh at you she's like no she's like he missed my anniversary last week no it's just it's just work and it's just um it's another idea I took from Charlie Monger where he's like you need to find a simple idea and take it seriously and he says you can get outside business success he's like many times a business we find that the winning system goes ridiculously far in maximizing or minimizing one or a

[53:10] handful of variables and so my idea was like once you start reading biographies from the very first biography I read uh for the podcast was Elon Musk it's like oh all these guys read biographies so that's indication like Elon Musk whether you hate him for his politics or anything else seems like he's pretty [ __ ] smart and then you then you read Walt Disney Walt Disney's reading biographies Thomas Edison is reading every single biography in the Detroit library I I'm not as smart as Thomas Edis I'll just [ __ ] copy what this guy does and so then I was like oh so all of History's Greatest entrepreneurs

[53:40] studied History's Greatest entrepreneurs what if I just build literally the world's best podcast that does that and then do it every single day seven days a week for eight years and then just keep doing it and then keep making it better and better and better better I think I told you I'm doing this epis in Jensen Wong and one of his things that he told in a video is like we have to do things that other people cannot do and so my version of aote right which another idea none I don't have any original ideas I just like copy what I find in the books so Warren Buffett and Charlie M says

[54:10] your company should have a moat I'm like okay my the podcast is a podcast but it's also a business and my life works like what's my moat my Mo's like every single episode you listen to today it's not like the Jensen Wong episode I'm recording this week it's not just going to be about Jensen it's going to be how Jensen was like Steve Jobs how he was like Ed L how he was like Alexander Gran Bell how he was like ated dorf all these other people so to catch to be able to compete with me you have to read 375 books to get to where I am now but I'm

[54:37] not going to stop so in my opinion it's like the game's already over as long as I don't stop I just I have to make sure that what I like what I thought of and I probably figured this out a few years ago is like I'm just going to like I'm going to have a really really small but valuable Niche and that's if you want to learn from hist ERS then you're going to go to this podcast anybody does anything else outside of that none of my business you jump in here I'm going to compete very ferociously with you and I'm going to beat you to death because I take this

[55:07] very [ __ ] seriously we talked about uh kind of like going against the grain and weird ways to make money that goes against what other you know main people in your category are doing what's Founders doing that's different in terms of monetization and building the business around that just so there's another idea that I didn't even that wasn't even mine really um so I become friends with Jared Kushner through the podcast and he's a very sharp and fascinating guy I would highly recommend listening to the episode he did with Lex Freeman the ones he just did with my friend patricky and really his idea was

[55:43] just like you have one of the world's most valuable audiences he's like I know all the elite people in the world they're all listening to you uh you're the best in the world at what you do he's like his whole thing and that he's constantly reinforcing he's like constant refinement of Association Conant refinement Association and he's like inventory destroys value so uh just getting in front of the audience you have is excessively valuable to any company he's like so take your time picking partners and then when you do pick Partners you know this what you do you have two long-term Partners you're on twoe contracts with

[56:18] them right uh it's finite it's like like I just did this with ramp so I got to know the founders of ramp I think they are the best in the category uh I spent a ton of time with them two of them are in Miami so I'm with them a couple times a week and I have been for a long time way before we consider working together and I was like these guys are [ __ ] Geniuses I think they have the best technical talent in in their industry by far and I think the technical Talent is just going to win like the gap between them and every else is just going to

[56:45] keep expanding because of that um and so like you just do large instead of selling like most people sell on like a CPM basis we were talking about that right before we got here or right before we started recording there is no CPM it's just like you know who's in the audience uh one of the founders how how this deal came about or this partnership came about it's because one of the founders was talking to me one day he's like I know 10 to 15 billionaires personally that listen to your podcast he's like this is not normal at all he's like what's the chance I I'm I know all

[57:15] the billionaires that are in your audience like [ __ ] zero that is just impossible like this is you know how what is their hourly what is the hourly what is an hour of their time Worth right what would people pay get an hour of their time and they give it to you for free like that is very unusual um and so basically the idea I had it's like they're not even just giving it to you they're not saying a word and listening to you yeah they're consuming and then you become friends with them which is even Wilder um but the idea was hey uh essentially you know

[57:48] um most let's main let's back up business podcast it's like bizarre world it's does not you can't think of it as like a normal podcast so let me explain what how normal podcasts operate you know you'll have a ton of AD Partners hopefully you're vetting them and you're not just like taking anybody right but even like if you're heavily vetted like Hub lab guys they have 8 to 10 advertising Partners on a yearly basis they have over a hundred on their waiting list right they vet the hell out of them and uh they'll like rotate who's in in the podcast uh and usually sold on like a some kind of CP CPM basis now

[58:27] hubman is like the male Oprah so like you're going to pay a higher CPM because he's going to if he says he uses your product his people will buy that product I know how much he he like he can move vast amounts of products that's why he has a huge waiting list um I'm not I don't want one I I work by myself I don't have an assistant I don't have a researcher I don't have anybody it's just me and so therefore like anytime taking I like for me to do ad sales takes time away from making the podcast I have to be very careful about taking

[58:59] time away from making the podcast so Jared's idea of hey just grab you know you have dozens of people that want to advertise in your podcast pick the two best ones that you feel most comfortable with the most like that Mak most sense for your audience like ramp is a perfect example it's like what does ramp do ramp show like cost control the biggest the idea the difference between the the people I study in the podcast with M like how most entrepreneurs are taught today it's like every single great entrepreneur is obsessed with controlling costs they have been for hundreds of years um so it's like perfect partnership there um

[59:32] and so the idea is like you pick you have like two of those long-term Partnerships and you can add in a couple other ones to experiment or if you want to do that um and then you just go to them at month 12 you start developing relationship with other people you take it real slow you vet their product you build relationship with them like I have people thatone adverti on the podcast like I don't know the founder I will never advertise anything where I haven't talked I have to I have to build a relationship with with the founder like the podcast is called Founders for God's

[59:59] sake um and so you start building relationships and you go to your existing Partners six months before your contract expires and say hey I have XYZ this is what they're interested in do you want like do you want to continue the partnership do you want to modify it what do you want to do but essentially just like you pick I I think of them much more as like brand Partnerships like the way like Nike would be with like Tiger Woods and I think that's going to be very way more common than even podcast ads on normal podcasts I talked to a bunch of the the biggest

[1:00:30] podcast advertisers in the world that become friends with the founders of these companies and so because I want like a god level view of the entire industry and they were even saying like for a lot of the early days of the podcast it's like a lot of direct response and I think one a lot of the direct response advertisers they've they've noticed the efficacy of podcast ads because they're saturating the whole ecosystem has greatly declined and a lot of podcasters are I think you're just going to see a lot more brand advertising in general um and so that that's what I'm much more interested it's much more like a partnership we do

[1:01:02] events together I consult I advise on marketing I help them Place ads on other podcasts like it's much more of like you're getting me on the team and everybody in my network is it like I will try to help you as much as I can I love it dude man this has been a lot of fun I just feel I haven't uh I got to read some autobiographies and some biographies dude what are you interested in like well you know whenever the E the easiest way to get started is like who do you most admire when I say who do you most admire give me list of three or four

[1:01:33] names that come to mind right away living or dead I'm going to get judged on this but judge me you know you can't give a [ __ ] what anybody else says so or thans I mean I think Mark Zuckerberg okay just a really fascinating guy that uh he what what's really impressing me of him lately is how much he's been able to reinvent himself I love this concept of constantly reinvention for example like right now he's like he's an AI guy he was a metaverse guy he was a social network guy he was a mobile guy he's a web guy like he's just constantly Reinventing undeniably the most

[1:02:13] impressive young entrepreneur in the world yeah you mention uh Jared Kushner yeah I think he's fascinating I'm also interested in Josh Kushner yep um I met I remember I met Josh when I was he he's about a year or two older than me so when I was 22 maybe around there 21 I remember being having coffee with him in Manhattan which to me was like an exotic place at this fancy hotel and he was kind of like picking my brain around raising his first fund we were talking about his first fund that he was Raising you know how small his first fund was 5 million it was smaller yeah

[1:02:57] it was 2 million if I if if my memory serves me correctly and it was just so cool of him that he like obviously he can raise $2 million yeah but the fact that he was you know getting feedback from other people how do I think about positioning how do I think about portfolio construction yeah um not having an ego about it I think I think Josh Kushner like if Josh Kushner had a book I would read it so I just talked to Josh uh like last week and he listens to Founders a lot he told me he finds it very comforting because he's a very very very

[1:03:34] unbelievably polite if you do any kind of reference check on check on him it's like it's not an act it's like he is he's like old school polite but he's also a grinder which I love and just completely obsessed with every single aspect of his business and what he said about listening to Founders is that it's comforting to realize that he like he's not the only one they're all like this if you want to be great like they're all very similar um I what I would say is like so Zuckerberg right there I'll give you a book recommendation when he was uh before he started Facebook he he's at

[1:04:06] Harvard he goes and watch watches Bill Gates speak because he looked up to Bill Gates so read hard drive have you read hard drive Bill Gates and the making of the Microsoft Empire one of the best [ __ ] books I've read it twice I have two episodes on it this is how I know my memory is not that great I don't remember the episode number on the last one just search and if you search in Founders always listen to the second episode I did on them because I get a lot better with time but there's the first one read hard drive it's one of the best biographies I've ever read it

[1:04:30] covers the first 35 years of Bill Gates life up until the IPO of Microsoft and right after and one of there's crazy [ __ ] stats in that book like for example Microsoft's the first software business in history to sell more than a billion dollars of software might have been the first pure software company in history the first 30 this is why I always [ __ ] and yell at my founder friends because they hire all these [ __ ] people that are not doing actual work I go dude uh I just had a walk with a friend of mine in Miami Beach cuz he's like raising all his money I said no no

[1:05:01] you sell before you have a product he goes what are you talking about I go Bill Gates sold before he had a product Steve Jobs sold before he had a product Larry Ellison sold before he had a product do you need three other examples besides that the first 30 um employees of Microsoft 28 programmers Bill Gates secretary and assistant and Bill Gates and Bill was doing all the sales he was all founder Le sales they were unbelievably profitable that is the biggest bootstrap business of all time it [ __ ] drives me insane we're like oh they raised VC the year before they were public which

[1:05:32] was maybe 1976 can you can you double check to see if I'm right about this they were doing 140 million a year in revenue and 39 million year profit they sold 900 they sold a million shares for $995,000 a couple months before the IPO that's a [ __ ] Venture back that's not a venture back company they wanted the guy's expertise and they wanted to incentivize him for that 1976 boom 1986 1986 yeah there you go they started in 1976 sorry about that Apple I think was founded the same year so there's your first biography to read uh Jared Kushner read his [ __ ] book breaking history

[1:06:05] it's incredible the life experiences that the guy has had and then he will talk about reading The Art of War he'll talk about reading Theodore Roosevelt he'll talk every single book books are made out of books right they will lead you you just named three people you're interested probably have [ __ ] 10 more read pick up one of the books the biography of them or a book they recommend and then in that book they will then recommend other biographies of the person or other people they admire and so what I'll do is I'll map out every single person like I became interested in Charlie merer so

[1:06:36] I go and read everything on Charlie merer but then I also read everything that he read and then what you do is you go and you go on the bibliography of the books and then you'll discover like there's a Bill Gates biography right in that biography there'll be other biographies of Bill Gates or important people in there and then you go and get that book and you just go on and on and on and on you take it very seriously of mapping this out and you have a very fun you can read you know five books on a person and maybe another five books on people they admire and you have a good

[1:07:03] idea of how they think and that's really what I'm trying to go after is like in many cases like what would Monger do like in my situation and it's very simple it's like what are you intentionally I've mentioned it multiple times what are you intentionally interested in do that for work find a simple idea and take it seriously uh just all kinds of ideas Maxim minimize or go out of your way to minimize or maximize one or handful of variables um well that's that's the cool part about reading biographies is it it's not just what would M Munger think it's what would Jared Kushner think in this

[1:07:34] situation what would um this is the other you mentioned the business model of of Founders too it's like I didn't know [ __ ] about [ __ ] when it comes to finance and so now what do you have you have a business that has cash flow right what are you going to do with the money and so now I literally get to have access to some of the greatest Financial Minds I'm like what would you do they become friends and then so another extension of weird businesses like they say hey you should look at this investment or you should look at this or you should do that it's like now I have

[1:08:02] another form of Education where it's like I don't know any of this other than like and I've been interested like the episode I just put out on Hy green she was the single biggest individual financier in the world when she was alive she she was so rich she bailed out the city of New York herself she ran her own money like how did she do that what did she invest in what advice did she have I'm very interested in learning how to do this because it's going to have like a oneman birkshire hathway but Founders it starts at Founders like okay then what do you do now and then you

[1:08:31] have this unfair Advantage then you start building relationships with the founders that listen to your podcast and a lot of them want you involved where they don't even want your money they just start giving you stock what would what would Charlie merer if you asked Charlie Munger hey I've got this business is that what he would tell you to do no he would tell you to learn exactly what he would I think I would do I'm doing what he did which is he he didn't know anything about investing he was an attorney so they set aside a certain amount of his time a day at that

[1:08:59] time I think it was an hour first hour of every day he sold back to himself to learn real estate investing and then investing in stock and then he winds up becoming friends with all the like Buffett and all the other people it wasn't just Buffett though I I talked to Charlie about this at his house cuz his whole point was um the book I gave him I was able to give him a book that because he has two bus in his house it's Lee kuu and Ben Franklin and if you go to Charlie monger's Library he's got every single biography of Ben Franklin you could find and somehow was able to give

[1:09:30] him a biography of Franklin he didn't have and it was this book called Franklin and Washington he didn't read the book but he [ __ ] knew everything in the book already and he was just like yeah one of the things that Ben Franklin did was he sought out a young George this is what the book is about Ben Franklin is 48 years old uh he's the most famous person in the colonies okay he reads uh George Washington is fighting the Native Americans with the British when he's 21 years old uh he winds up seeing one of the best British generals get absolutely killed and massacred uh because he was taking

[1:10:03] the basically the Playbook that worked in Europe and tried to fight the Native Americans with it which is not going to work right and so George Young George Washington writes in a journal about his experience it's ones being published in all the newspapers throughout America Ben Franklin reads it he's like this guy's [ __ ] smart he has information I need I need to get to him and so they start he reaches out to him he starts building a relationship that they wind up having up until in they weave in and out of each other's lives up until 40 7 30 years later something like that when

[1:10:30] when Franklin dies and monger's advice to me was like exactly what Ben did he went out of his way to build relationships with other talented people he's like that's exactly what we did and he goes everybody knows about me and Warren it wasn't just me and Warren it was all these guys we built a seamless web of deserved trust and we did deals together forever and the sad thing was most of them by the time I I met Charlie were had already passed on besides him and Warren um but I think that's he he would like you need to learn stuff you can't Outsource it he he let other

[1:11:00] people run his money this why hdy green was so interesting to me I love people are running their own like the idea of running their own money is fascinating um and I I don't I'm I'm uniquely uh unfit to manage institutional money I don't have that personality a good friend of mine was mentored by Sam zel and I just did another episode on Sam zel and he's like come over to my house the night before I'll tell you all these stories from Sam you can put in your episode and one of that was just like Sam was too wild and crazy and would say crazy [ __ ] so he can't he's like he was

[1:11:29] he said something like um he was constitutionally unfit to run institu to manage institutional money which is a nice way of saying Sam's a [ __ ] crazy guy um but I think monger's point was like he only let one other person run one other Outsider manage Monger family money that was a lelu and he said in once in 95 years he gave money to an extra to an outside person he's like can leelu and he has a fascinating story with this where he's like I read Baron's magazine for 40 years for 50 years I found one idea I could act on in that 50 years of reading

[1:12:07] that magazine I made 40 million no I made $80 million on that Charlie Charlie speaking Charlie's like I made $80 million on that deal then I gave that 80 million and lelu I gave the 80 million to lelu and lelu turned it into 400 million so he goes so I made 400 million by reading Baron's magaz for 50 years and giving that money to lelu so he's very very you know selective and he's like you have to learn yourself we got to wrap this up but dude this has been super special [Music] um if you've made it this far you have to go check out Founders

[1:12:43] podcast absolutely go check it out um I guess the recommendation is just scroll the list of pick yeah the weird thing about Founders is like um if you most other podcasts will they like they'll have like a consensus this is the best episode there is no consensus it's like depends there's 375 of them as of today actually 391 because I have 16 that are not numbered uh I checked that today so that's not memory I literally checked it today um 16 bonus episodes that are not numbered um but yeah I just think like the obvious thing is find one if you already know you're interest somebody

[1:13:23] like Bill Gates what I would do is up you I would search Bill Gates and I listen to that and in the episodes I'm going to reference other episodes and so it's like oh this is like you know Ed Thorp or this is like Edwin Lan or whoever it was and so in every single episode will be like a pathway to other episodes um and then I I think the thing I'm most interested s poier we referenced a few times um the first time I had dinner with him he was in town for the teal Fellowship Meetup and he skipped it to have dinner with me which

[1:13:48] I thought was very like nice of him and he says the product Market fit of your podcast is not the Steve Jobs episodes or the Alexander grah Bell or the Thomas Edison or the Walt Disney he's like it's the guys I've never [ __ ] heard of that are remarkable like one of my favorite ones is episode 292 can you check this for me Daniel Ludwig the invisible billionaire um might be wrong in that uh he was the richest person in the world I got it right okay 292 Daniel lugwig inv invisible billionaire he was the richest person in the world and no one knew his name he paid a PR agency to

[1:14:25] keep his name out of the papers and it's just like that book was written it was published in 1980 1980 something it's just like this guy lived a remarkable life no one knews who he was I went up randomly picking up a book probably a used bookstore reading about him and now you get to know that he existed and learn from him read the book it's remarkable the is it Brad Jacobs is that his name yeah Brad Jacobs the man the man I I heard about him through what episode no this was the one that 331 no that's wrong there's is there two so Brad was a huge fan of Founders okay

[1:15:00] so he's like my LinkedIn reply guy it's hilarious and 330 33 3 37 no no that's the breakfast of Brad Jacobs there's another one yeah it's called how to make a few billion dollars see what episode number that is so I can talk about this publicly because Jared said it on the conversation you had with Patrick he's very [ __ ] nice to say this and I don't I don't deserve it 3 335 so was off by four um he talks about the St Patrick's podcast he's like he heard about Brad Jacobs way listening to that episode goes to meet him they get they hit it

[1:15:36] off he hears about Brad's uh idea for his new company XPO I think it's called he winds up investing $150 million to joining the board so Brad uh is another person where it's like the amount of information that's in that guy's head is scary yeah he's 68 years old the most energetic person I just went to his house 68 years old the most energetic person I've ever been around and just Relentless Note Taker Relentless reader Relentless podcaster in his book how to make a few billion dollars you got to read the section on the research he does before he invests it's [ __ ] incredible absolutely incredible the

[1:16:13] amount of information he collects must honestly must listen to pod and dude this has been amazing thanks for inviting me sorry we didn't do any startup ideas I don't have any besides next all right cool [Music]

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