Founders

This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of John D. Rockefeller—and nothing else.

This episode is about Bill Gates' obsessive drive and hardcore work ethic.

When Tamara Mellon’s father lent her the seed money to start a high-end shoe company, he cautioned her: “Don’t let the accountants run your business.” Little did he know that over the next fifteen years, the struggle between “financial” and “creative” would become one of the central themes as Mellon’s business. Mellon grew Jimmy Choo into a billion dollar brand and her personal glamour made her an object of global media fascination. Vogue photographed her wedding. Vanity Fair covered her divorce and the criminal trial that followed. The Wall Street Journal reported on her relentless battle between “the suits” and “the creatives" and Mellon’s triumph against a brutally hostile takeover attempt. But despite her eventual fame and fortune, Mellon didn’t have an easy road to success. Her early life was marked by a tumultuous and broken family life, battles with anxiety and depression, and a stint in rehab. Determined not to end up unemployed, penniless, and living in her parents’ basement under the control of her alcoholic mother, Mellon honed her natural business sense and invested in what she knew best—fashion. In creating the shoes that became a fixture on Sex and the City and red carpets around the world, Mellon relied on her own impeccable sense of what the customer wanted—because she was that customer. What she didn’t know at the time was that success would come at a high price—after struggles with an obstinate business partner, a conniving first CEO, a turbulent marriage, and a mother who tried to steal her hard-earned wealth. Now Mellon shares the whole larger-than-life story, with shocking details that have never been presented before. From her troubled childhood to her time as a young editor at Vogue to her partnership with the cobbler Jimmy Choo, to her very public relationships, Mellon offers an honest and gripping account of the episodes that have made her who she is today. In My Shoes is a definitive book for fashion aficionados, aspiring entrepreneurs, and anyone who loves a juicy true story about sex, drugs, money, power, high heels, and overcoming adversity. This episode is what I learned from reading In My Shoes: A Memoir by Tamara Mellon.

(I fixed the audio and uploaded a new episode!) "To read Jeff Bezos’s shareholder letters is to get a crash course in running a high-growth internet business from someone who mastered it before any of the playbooks were written." That is the best description of Bezos's letters I have ever read. I just finished rereading these letters for the 4th or 5th time. With clear thinking and ferocious intelligence, Bezos provides a masterclass in building a customer-obsessed, enduring franchise. With relentless repetition Bezos teaches us about the importance of invention, risk-taking, wandering, differentiation, technology, judgement, high-standards, customer obsession, long-term orientation, and why value trumps everything.

My friend Patrick O’Shaughnessy asked me to come to New York and record a conversation. Patrick had just finished listening to episode "#383 Todd Graves and his $10 Billion Chicken Finger Dream" and he believed there was an important conversation to have on focus and finding your life's work. This conversation was off-the-cuff and from the soul. I hope you find it useful.

Jim Simons never took a single class on finance, wasn’t interested in business, and didn’t start trading full time until he was 40. The company he founded — Renaissance Technologies — has made over $100 billion in profits. Starting out with the heretical belief that there was a hidden structure in financial markets, Jim decided to staff his “crazy hedge fund” with mathematicians, computer scientists, and physicists. He went to great lengths to collect more historic financial data than anyone else, spent a lot of time recruiting “killers” (people with single minded focus that wouldn’t quit), invested heavily in computers (and the people who ran them), and designed the most collaborative work environment. Jim was a world-class mathematician, code breaker, exceptional manager of people with exceptional minds, a genius in system design, and deeply understood the power of incentives. He was also incapable of giving up, willing to endure a decade of struggle and pain, and hell-bent on doing something “historic” with his life. Jim Simons lived a life defined by persistence, unconventional thinking, and an unwavering pursuit of excellence. Studying his life and work is time well spent. This episode is what I learned from rereading The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution by Gregory Zuckerman.

Akio Morita was a visionary entrepreneur and co-founder of Sony. Born as the first son and fifteenth-generation heir to a 300-year-old sake-brewing family in Japan, Akio eschewed the traditional path to forge his own legacy in electronics. In post-war Japan, Akio joined forces with Masaru Ibuka to found Sony. They started in a burned-out department store with limited resources—to build their first product they had to buy supplies on the black market. Akio was determined to change the global perception of Japanese goods as poor quality. From day one he set out to build high-quality, differentiated products, targeted at affluent markets. Akio believed in long-term vision over short-term profits, product innovation without market research, and brand building over immediate profits. Against all opposition, including inside of his own company, Akio invented one of the most successful consumer products of all time: The Walkman. It sold over 400 million units and inspired countless other entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, James Dyson, and Phil Knight. This episode is what I learned from rereading Akio's classic 1986 autobiography Made In Japan.

This is one of the most extraordinary founder stories you will ever hear. Michael Dell started his company with $1000 when he was 19 years old. The revenues for the first 16 years of Dell look like this: 1984 $6M 1985 $33M 1986 $67M 1987 $159M 1988 $258M 1989 $388M 1990 $546M 1991 $890M 1992 $2B 1993 $2.9B 1994 $3.5B 1995 $5.3B 1996 $7.8B 1997 $12.3B 1998 $18.2B 1999 $25.3B Dell had been profitable for every quarter of its existence. By 2012 the story had changed. The consensus was that Dell was dead. Michael Dell certainly didn't think so — and besides—he was incapable of giving up on the company that bears his name. As he said at the time "I will care about this company after I'm dead!" Michael takes his company private, completes the largest acquisition in technology history, and remerges perfectly positioned for the age of AI. Michael Dell has been working on his company for over 40 years and it feels like he's just getting started. In his autobiography he shares the most important lessons he's learned. It's a treasure trove for entrepreneurs and leaders. This episode is what I learned from reading Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey From Founder to Leader by Michael Dell and Direct From Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry by Michael Dell.

Because of the podcast I get to meet a lot of super successful people. I'm always asking them "Who is the smartest person you know" and "Who do you think has the best business?". "Ken Griffin" is a very common answer. I've heard Ken described in two ways: "Winner" and "Killer". For years I've come across interesting anecdotes about Ken. Like when he appears as a 19 year old kid in Ed Thorp's excellent autobiography A Man For All Markets. Or when John Arnold describe Ken's intense competitive drive following the blowup of Enron. And then consider the fact that I'm obsessed with people who run their business for decades (Ken founded Citadel 35 years ago and Citadel Securities 23 years ago) —and I knew I had to make an episode about his life and work. The only problem was there's no great biography of Ken. So to make this episode I transcribed this talk that Ken gave at Yale. And for additional context I read the book Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win.

Daniel Ludwig was the richest man in the world and no one knew his name. I've read almost 400 biographies of history's greatest founders and this book is one of my all time favorites. Daniel Ludwig started his company at 19 and was working on it well into his 90s. He built a massive conglomerate of over 200 companies operating in more than 50 countries. Spending the time to learn how he did this is a great investment. This episode will tell you what I learned from rereading The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields.

Todd Graves is one of my favorite living entrepreneurs. He's a great example of Charlie Munger's maxim: Find a simple idea and take it seriously. Todd wanted to create a quick service restaurant that only focused on quality chicken finger meals and nothing else. Everyone told him that couldn't possibly work. The college paper that described the idea that would turn into Raising Canes got the lowest grade in the class. Banks wouldn't loan him any money —but nothing could stop Todd from living out his "chicken finger dream." He worked 95 hour weeks as a boilermaker, risked his life on a commercial fishing boat off the coast of Alaska, and scrounged up startup money from his bookie and a guy named Wild Bill. Todd made every mistake in the book, over leveraged himself, almost lost everything and yet he refused to give up or sell out. Today he has over 800 locations, 50,000 employees, and owns 90% of a business that's worth at least $10 billion. Todd's maxim is "Do one thing and do it better than anyone else."

At the core of Michael Ovitz's success is his relentless work ethic and commitment to mastering his craft. 50 years ago he founded Creative Artists Agency. CAA starts out as just five young guys in a run down office and eventually becomes the most powerful agency in the world. Ovitz's autobiography explains how that happened. As the Wall Street Journal wrote: When the history of Hollywood is written, few people will have played a larger role than Michael Ovitz. This episode is what I learned from reading (for the 2nd time!) Who Is Michael Ovitz?: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Most Powerful Man in Hollywood by Michael Ovitz.

What I learned from having an intense and fun 3 hour dinner with Michael Ovitz.

For over 30 years the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meetings were recorded. Munger and Buffett answered over 1700 questions from shareholders during that period. Alex Morris watched hundreds of hours of these meetings and then he gathered, organized, and edited the most interesting ideas into 450+ pages — all in Buffett and Munger's own words. I thought it would be fun to rip through a bunch of Munger and Buffett's best ideas very rapidly. It was. This episode is what I learned from reading Buffett and Munger Unscripted: Three Decades of Investment and Business Insights from the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meetings by Alex Morris.

Jerry Jones rolled the dice until his knuckles bled. He started working at 7 years old. Jerry could sell, sell, sell. He sold fruit at his father’s grocery store in grade school and sold shoes out of the trunk of his car in college. After failing to sell pizza franchises he tried real estate and insurance. He never met a high risk deal he didn’t like. Jerry got pitched a deal to drill for oil that everyone else had already said no to. Jerry said yes. That well made $4 million. He hit again on the next 14 wells. Jerry decided to drill for natural gas next. He drills 200 wells. He hit on 199 of them. He sells that company for $175 million. He has $90 million in the bank. He buys the Dallas Cowboys for $140 million. 75 other people had the opportunity to buy the team and said no. He empties his bank account and borrows $50 million at steep interest rates. The year before Jerry bought the team the Cowboys lost $9 million. Financial advisors told Jerry that the Cowboys were ridiculously overpriced and that he was committing financial suicide. Within a few years the team is printing $30 million a year in profit. The Dallas Cowboys are worth $10 billion today. This episode is what I leaned from reading King of the Cowboys: The Life and Times of Jerry Jones by Jim Dent.

Your father goes bankrupt. You work for 50 cents a day to try to help your family survive the Great Depression. At 19 you see an opportunity where others see nothing. You start “a little fuel delivery business” with one used truck. Five years later you have 10 trucks. World War II breaks out and you serve as the fuel supply officer for General Patton. You come back to America and apply what the war taught you about logistics and moving fuel efficiently. You expand from fuel delivery to storage, refining, and open gas stations in 16 states. You take your company public. You merge with an oil exploration firm. You build the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere. You buy the New York Jets. You built your “little fuel delivery business” into a multibillion-dollar, multinational, vertically integrated energy behemoth. You are Leon Hess, founder of the Hess family dynasty. This episode is what I learned from reading Hess: The Last Oil Baron by Tina Davis and Jessica Resnick-Ault.

Marcus Wallenberg Jr's impact on Swedish industry was so substantial that during the 1970s, Wallenberg family businesses employed about 40% of Sweden's industrial workforce and represented 40% of the total worth of the Stockholm stock market. The Wallenberg family is one of the most fascinating family dynasties you could read about. The family has survived — and continues to thrive — for 170 years. In a family full of talented entrepreneurs and investors Marcus Wallenberg Jr. stands out. This episode is what I learned from reading Furthering A Fortune: Marcus Wallenberg Swedish Banker and Industrialist by Ulf Olsson.

What I learned from reading The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant by Tae Kim.

Hetty Green bailed out New York City. Her decisions on what interest rates to charge moved markets and were reported in major newspapers. She was a one woman bank and the single biggest individual financier in the world. She took no partners and ran her own money. She built a financial empire of stocks, bonds, railroads, and real estate. She battled the great men of her day and kept a gun on her desk. She did all of this alone. Defiantly independent and ferociously intelligent she built a vast, liquid fortune at a time when women couldn't even vote. She used her intelligence to increase her wealth, her independence to live as she wished, and her strength to battle anyone who stood in her way. This episode is what I learned from reading Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon by Charles Slack and The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach.

Chung Ju-yung grew up so poor he had to eat tree bark to survive. He founded Hyundai and became the richest person in Korea. When Chung was in his 80s, he wrote an autobiography that tells the devastating reality of growing up in dire poverty, how he escaped through manual labor, and how he founded and grew one of the world's largest conglomerates. Along the way he shares advice like why you should emulate bedbugs, the importance of going where the money is, and why people called him "The Bulldozer." This episode is what I learned from reading Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung.

Jeff Bezos on retirement being lame, AI, the electricity metaphor for AI, the good fortune of being alive during multiple golden ages, long term life long passions, refusing to underestimate opportunity, dancing with curiosity, inventing, wandering, crisp documents and messy meetings, willing to be misunderstood, and why he doesn't do many interviews. This episode is what I learned from reading and watching Jeff Bezos at DealBook Summit and Jeff Bezos: The Electricity Metaphor.

Brad Jacobs is one of the most talented living entrepreneurs. Brad has started 8 different billion dollar or multi-billion dollar businesses. He has done over 500 acquisitions and has raised over $30 billion. He started his first company at 23, has over 40 years of experience as an entrepreneur, and is the most energetic person I have ever been around. Earlier this year he published his life story: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. How to Make a Few Billion Dollars was one of my favorite books that I've read this year and the episode I made about the book was one of the most popular episodes of Founders. This episode is what I learned from having breakfast with Brad Jacobs and reading his book How to Make a Few Billion Dollars.

Amancio Ortega is one of the wealthiest people in the world. Ortega is the founder of Inditex, a pioneer of fast fashion, an entrepreneur with over 60 years of experience, and has created a business model that is studied in universities that he could not access. His life story is inspiring, educational, and full of valuable ideas for future generations of founders. This episode is about what I learned from reading This is Amancio Ortega: The Man Who Created Zara by Covadonga O'Shea.

What I learned from rereading James J. Hill: Empire Builder by Michael P. Malone.

What I learned from reading Leading By Design: The Ikea Story by Ingvar Kamprad and Bertil Torekull and The Testament of a Furniture Dealer by Ingvar Kamprad.

What I learned from rereading Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX by Eric Berger.