Founders

What I learned from reading The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes by Bryan Burrough. ---- [3:12] There's truth behind legend. There really were poor Texas boys who discovered gushing oil wells and became overnight billionaires, patriarchs of squabbling families who owned private islands and colossal mansions and championship football teams, who slept with movie stars a...

What I learned from Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller.  ---- [0:16] These incidents which come to my mind to speak of seemed vitally important to me when they happened, and they still stand out distinctly in my memory.  [2:43] That sounds funny, making friends among the eminent dead, but if you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas...

What I learned from reading Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America by Jim Rasenberger. ---- [0:01] Sam Colt embodied the America of his time. He was big brash, voracious, imaginative, and possessed extraordinary drive and energy. He was a classic disruptor who not only invented a world-changing product but produced it and sold it in world-changing ways.  [1:59] He had solved o...

What I learned from reading Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams by Michael D'Antonio. ---- [0:01] Perhaps the only thing about Milton Hershey that is absolutely certain is that he believed in progress. He was always moving.  [2:51] This blew my mind. Only six universities held larger endowments. Which meant that the Milton Hershey School was richer...

What I learned from reading The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw. ---- [0:20] There has never been —nor, most likely, will there ever again be — a publisher like William Randolph Hearst.  [0:26] Decades before synergy became a corporate cliche, Hearst put the concept into practice. His magazine editors were directed to buy only stories which could be rewritten into screenp...

What I learned from reading Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. ---- [0:58] All the men were struck, almost to the point of horror, by the way the ship behaved like a giant beast in its death agonies.  [1:27]  His name was Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the twenty-seven men he had watched so ingloriously leaving the stricken ship were the members of his Imperial Trans-Antarcti...

What I learned from reading Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II by James Conant. ---- [0:01] Few men of Loomis’ prominence and achievement have gone to greater lengths to foil history.  [0:17]  Independently wealthy, iconoclastic, and aloof, Loomis did not conform to the conventional measure of a great scientist. He was too co...

What I learned from reading The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism by Susan Berfield.  ---- [0:17] Morgan was the most influential of these businessmen. He wasn’t the richest but that didn’t matter; he was commanding in a way none could match.  [0:38] Morgan had an aristocrat’s disdain for public sentiment and the conviction that his acti...

What I learned from reading Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger. ---- I decided that the best course for independence was to mind my own business and make my own money. I never felt that I was good enough, strong enough, smart enough. He let me know that there was always room for improvement. A lot of sons would have been crippled by his demands, but instead, the...

What I learned from reading Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson.  ---- Microsoft had become the first software company to sell more than a billion dollars worth of software in a single year. Gates was the undisputed mastermind of that success, a brilliant technocrat, ruthless salesman, and manipulative businessman. Gates had slammed his f...

What I learned from reading The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow.  [0:01] This book is about the rise, fall, and resurrection of an American banking empire—the House of Morgan.  [1:56] What gave the House of Morgan its tantalizing mystery was its government links. Much like the Rothschilds it seemed insinuated into the power structure of ma...

What I learned from reading Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray. ---- [0:01]  I have my periods of restlessness when my brain is crowded with ideas tingling to my fingertips when I am excited and cannot stop for anybody. Let me alone, let me work as I like even if I have to sit up all night all night or even for two nights. When you s...

What I learned from reading Barnum: An American Life by Robert Wilson.  ---- [1:23] He is known today primarily for his connection to the circus, but that came only in the last quarter of his long life. Less well known is that he was also a best-selling author, an inspirational lecturer on temperance and on success in business, a real-estate developer, a builder, a banker, a state legislator, and...

What I learned from reading A Success Story by Estee Lauder. ---- You can probably reach out with comparative ease and touch a life of serenity and peace. You can wait for things to happen and not get too sad when they don’t. That’s fine for some but not for me. Serenity is pleasant, but it lacks the ecstasy of achievement. [0:10] I’ve always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully a...

What I learned from reading Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. ---- [0:20]  Joseph Pulitzer was the midwife to the birth of the modern mass media. Pulitzer’s lasting achievement was to transform American journalism into a medium of mass consumption and immense influence.  [3:04] He was the pioneer of the modern media industry.   [5:06] Teddy Roosevelt tried to...

What I learned from reading A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein.  ---- [0:21] He died in 1991 with 535 patents to his credit, third in U.S. history. His honorary doctorate degrees, too numerous to list, come from the most distinguished academic institutions, including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. He received virtually every distinction the scient...

What I learned from reading Land’s Polaroid: A Company and The Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. ---- [1:14] He was revered to an extraordinary extent by most of the people who worked for him.   [1:36] Land did not earn a college degree, yet he has received more medals and scientific honors than most living Americans.   [3:36]  Land's life seemed to be primarily a life of the mind. His gre...

What I learned from reading The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker.  ---- [1:42] The word “problem” had completely departed from Edwin land's vocabulary to be replaced by the word “opportunity”.  [2:01] What was it about this man and his company that allowed such confidence and seeming lack of concern with the traditional top priorities of American business?  [2...

What I learned from reading The Big Score: Robert Friedland and The Voisey’s Bay Hustle by Jacquie McNish. ---- [0:04] Promoting a stock is like making a movie. You've got to have stars, props, and a good script.  [2:22] He had learned that there was nothing that Robert Friedland could not sell.  [2:50] This book is about how Robert Friedland accidentally discovers the largest nickel deposit in hi...

What I learned from reading Life of an American Workman by Walter Chrysler. ---- [0:56]The kitchen fire was the only heat we knew in the winter. Often I had to scamper barefoot across a floor where snow had drifted through the cracks of badly fitting windows. [1:56] We never spent money on things we could get without spending.  [3:10] This book was written about a year before he had a stroke and a...

What I learned from reading How to Get Rich: One of the World's Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets by Felix Dennis. ---- [0:01] How Felix started his first business with no money.  [4:30] Human nature does not change. We are cooperative animals. Those who wish to start a company cannot expect a free ride, but they might be surprised at the number of people willing to help them to some degre...

What I learned from reading Master of Precision: Henry Leland by Ottilie Leland and Minnie Dubbs Millbrook. ---- [0:17] Henry Leland laid the foundation for the future of American industry. He had established manufacturing procedures never previously so effectively employed and took a position of leadership. In the next decades would be comparable in statute with, although quite different from, Wi...

What I learned from reading The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson ---- [1:06]  You want to know what I think about Larry Ellison? Well, I suppose he had some private sort of greatness but he kept it to himself. He never gave himself away. He never gave anything away. He just left you a tip. He had a generous mind. I don’t suppose anybody...

What I learned from reading The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the America’s Cup, Twice by Julian Guthrie. ---- [0:01] Larry Ellison to Steve Jobs: I’m talking about greatness, about taking a lever to the world and moving it. I’m not talking about moral perfection. I’m talking about people who changed the world the most...

What I learned from reading Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering by Thomas Boyd ---- [3:06] If you had to summarize Charles Kettering this is the way you would do it: “As symbol of progress and the American way of life—as creator of ideas and builder of industries and employment—as inspirer of men to nobler thoughts and greater accomplishments—as foe of ignorance and d...