Founders

What I learned from reading Constellation Software Inc. President's Letters by Mark Leonard. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:10] Business lessons from Mark Leonard by Tren Griffin [2:11] Newsletter: Liberty’s Highlights The Serendipity Engine: Investing & business, science & technology, and the arts. [2:59] I don’t like anyone tellin...

What I learned from reading Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- Rick Rubin on Lex Fridman Podcast #275 Rick Rubin on The Peter Attia Drive Podcast #57 Shangri-La Documentary Rick’s podcast Broken Record [1:39] Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238) [3:19] Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. [3:31]...

What I learned from reading In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:03] This is an absorbing case study on how a family business came to be at the center of its own cheerful cult. [2:42] Aliens, Jedi, & Cults: A Mental Model for Poten...

What I learned from reading Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:26]  I can be extremely stubborn when I have a hunch about something. [3:31] I knew all too well that markets can turn on a dime. [5:40] Money that had once flowed freely dried up over night. [6:41] I always...

What I learned from reading Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker's Life by Michael Schumacher. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:49] You can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. [5:33] I had spent a lifetime with a frustrated, and often unemployed man, who hated anybody who...

What I learned from reading Birdmen: The Wright Brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and the Battle to Control the Skies by Lawrence Goldstone. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:07] The Wright Brothers (Founders #239) [3:47] Avoid any activity that distracts you from improving the quality of your product and the quality of your business. [5:58] Co...

What I learned from reading Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:52] Churchill by Paul Johnson (Founders #225) [2:15] A life of constant hard work, lived at the highest possible level of creative concentration. [3:05] Mozart worked relentlessly. [3:56] He started earlier than anyone else and was still compo...

---- Come see a live show with me and Patrick O'Shaughnessy from Invest Like The Best on October 19th in New York City.  Get your tickets here!  ---- On Steve Jobs #5 Steve Jobs: The Biography #19 Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader #76 Return To The Little Kingdom: Steve Jobs and The Creation of Apple #77 Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing #204 Inside Ste...

What I learned from rereading The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:40] Relentlessly Resourceful by Paul Graham [4:11] If I were running a startup, this would be the phrase I'd tape to the mirror. "Make something people want" is the destination, but "Be relentlessly resourceful" is how you get there...

What I learned from reading Decoded by Jay Z.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:39] I would practice from the time I woke in the morning until I went to sleep [2:10] Even back then I though I was the best. [2:57] Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography  (Founders #219) [4:32] Belief becomes before ability. [5:06] Michael Jordan: The L...

What I learned from reading The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon by John Paul Rathbone. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:02] Beyond Possible: One Man, Fourteen Peaks, and the Mountaineering Achievement of a Lifetime (Founders #236) [3:22] This is a cautionary tale. [6:18] One of the main lesson...

What I learned from reading Beyond Possible: One Man, Fourteen Peaks, and the Mountaineering Achievement of a Lifetime by Nims Purja. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:36] Walking out on my career felt risky, but I was prepared to gamble everything for my ambition. [4:20] Your extremes are my normal. [12:04] Wow, this is my shit. I'd b...

What I learned from reading To Pixar And Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History by Lawrence Levy. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:34] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley (Founders #233) [3:42] Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in...

What I learned from rereading Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:56] The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) [5:45] We just got after it and stayed after it. [6:06] Foxes and Hedgehogs [6:39] Hedgehogs may not be as clever as foxes but they obsessiv...

What I learned from reading The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:50] Your life will be shaped by the things that you create and the people you make them with. [2:45] A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age (Founders #95...

What I learned from reading Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History's Greatest Conqueror--As Told By His Original Biographers by Arrian, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:28] Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulleby Paul Johnson (F...

What I learned from reading Time to Make the Donuts: The Founder of Dunkin Donuts Shares an American Journey by William Rosenberg. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [5:18] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley [5:30] A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age (Founders #93)...

What I learned from reading Love, Lucy by Lucille Ball.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:19] Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #141)  [3:28] Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Founders #193)  [4:37] Lucille Ball gave me advice about Hollywood. “Just remember...

What I learned from reading Mind Your Own Business: A Maverick's Guide to Business, Leadership and Life by Sidney Harman ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [3:46] Foxes and Hedgehogs [7:17] The thing with Hedgehogs is that they never give up. They keep at it – and they don’t ever get bored because they just love what they do – and they hav...

What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:08] Answering to no one is the ultimate situation. [3:02] Twitter thread on Michael Bloomberg by Neckar. Substack.com [5:28] We never made the error that so many others have: mistaking their product for the device that delivers it. [6:27] We...

Here are 10 episodes to start with:  #168 Driven: An Autobiography by Larry Miller #171 The Billionaire Who Wasn't: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune #219 Anthony Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend #216 Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans #212...

What I learned from reading The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett and Lawrence Cunningham. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:39] Founders #88 Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters — All of them! [2:36] Buffet and Charlie Munger built this sprawling enterprise by investing in businesses with excellent economic characteristics an...

What I learned from reading Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:55] I have always had a soft spot for those who speak out against the conventional wisdom and who are not afraid to speak the truth, even if it puts them in a minority of one. [1:2...

What I learned from reading Churchill by Paul Johnson.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [2:09] Churchill never allowed mistakes, disaster, illnesses, unpopularity, and criticism to get him down. [4:19] The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) [4:57] He wrote be...

What I learned from reading Charles de Gaulle by Julian Jackson.  ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [6:45] The Winston Churchill episode is #196 based on the book The Splendid and The Vile [7:07] Don’t turn your back on he who will not accept defeat. [7:54] The greatest founders in history have identified a series of ideas that are extrem...