What I learned from reading Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr.---I'm doing a live show with Patrick O’Shaughnessy from Invest Like the Best on October 19th in New York City. Get your tickets here!---Sponsors: I use EightSleep to get the best sleep of my life. Find out why EightSleep is loved by founders everywhere and get $150 off at eightsleep.com/founders/----Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy:Vesto Advisors, LLC (“Vesto”) is an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Vesto and our partnership can be found hereWe are entitled to compensation for promoting Vesto Advisors, LLC. Accordingly, we have an incentive to endorse Vesto and its team and services. We are not current advisory clients of the Vesto.----Join Founders AMAMembers of Founders AMA can:-Email me your questions directly (you get a private email address in the confirmation email) -Promote your company to other members by including a link to your website with you question -Unlock 40 Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes immediately-Listen to new Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes every week ---Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book---(8:00) Principles Jeff Bezos would repeat: customer obsession, innovation, frugality, personal ownership, bias for action, high standards.(10:30) Single threaded leadership: For each project, there is a single leader whose focus is that project and that project alone, and that leader oversees teams of people whose attention is focused on that one project.(11:00) The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing. Every employee’s one thing was unique, and everyone knew I would evaluate him only on that one thing. I had started doing this just to simplify the task of managing people. But then I noticed a deeper result: defining roles reduced conflict. — Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Futureby Peter Thiel. (Founders #278)  (12:30) Jeff said many times: We need to eliminate communication, not encourage it. Communication is a sign of dysfunction.(14:30) Jeff is insisted that instead of finding new and better ways to manage our dependencies, we figure out how to remove them.(15:30) Jeff on decision making speed: “Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you're good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure."(16:30) The best way to fail at inventing something is by making it somebody's part-time job.(21:00) Even though you cannot hear it, with a well-written narrative there is a massive amount of useful information that is being transferred in those 20 minutes.(23:00) A simple tip on how to produce unique insights:Jeff has an uncanny ability to read a narrative and consistently arrive at insights that no one else did, even though we were all reading the same narrative. After one meeting, I asked him how he was able to do that. He responded with a simple and useful tip that I have not forgotten: he assumes each sentence he reads is wrong until he can prove otherwise. He's challenging the content of the sentence, not the motive of the writer. Jeff was usually among the last to finish reading.(26:30) Jeff wanted to know exactly what we were going to build and how it would be better for customers. To Jeff a half-baked mockup was evidence of half-baked thinking.(27:00) Founders force the issue.(28:00) Writing required us to be thorough and precise. We had to describe features, pricing, how the service would work, why customers would want it. Half baked thinking was harder to disguise on the written page than in PowerPoint slides.(34:30) Failure and invention are inseparable twins.(35:30) Working backwards exposes skill sets that your company needs but does not yet have.(36:30) Differentiation with customers is often one of the key reasons to invent.(44:00) To read Bezos’ 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.(46:00) The idea that Amazon, a pure e-commerce distributor of retail products made by others, would become a hardware company and make and sell its own reader device was controversial.(46:00) If you outsource then your company doesn’t acquire those skills. Amazon wants the skills.(54:00) Jeff wanted to build a moat around his best customers.(58:00) We had acquired a core competency only a few other companies could match.List of Jeff Bezos episodes to learn more:#282 Jeff Bezos shareholder letters#180 Jeff Bezos (Invention of a Global Empire)#179 Jeff Bezos (Everything Store)#155 Jeff Bezos (Invent and Wander)#71 Jeff Bezos Shareholder Letters#38 Space Barons#17 Jeff Bezos (Everything Store)----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden. ---I'm doing a live show with Patrick O’Shaughnessy from Invest Like the Best on October 19th in New York City. Get your tickets here!----Sponsors: I use EightSleep to get the best sleep of my life. Find out why EightSleep is loved by founders everywhere and get $150 off at eightsleep.com/founders/----Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy:Vesto Advisors, LLC (“Vesto”) is an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Vesto and our partnership can be found hereWe are entitled to compensation for promoting Vesto Advisors, LLC. Accordingly, we have an incentive to endorse Vesto and its team and services. We are not current advisory clients of the Vesto.----Listen to Invest Like The Best #343 David Senra ----Join Founders AMAMembers of Founders AMA can:-Email me your questions directly (you get a private email address in the confirmation email) -Promote your company to other members by including a link to your website with you question -Unlock 39 Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes immediately-Listen to new Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes every week ---Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book---(5:00) It was better for the world that he had known failure and suffered moments of self doubt.(6:00) There was something in Churchill's character that simply wouldn't allow him to give up. He was a dangerous optimist.(8:00) History likes winners.(9:30) The adventures and ordeals of those early years were essential to the making of a man who triumphed in the second world war.(10:00) At 40 he was largely written off as a man whose best days were behind him. (Churchill shares a lot of parallels with Steve Jobs)(10:30) He fashioned his career as a grand experiment to prove that he could work his will on his times. Persevering in that approach, despite repeated setbacks and often harsh ridicule of those who didn't share his high opinion of himself.(13:00) At the heart of this story is an irrepressible spirit.(17:30) Little men let events take their course. I like things to happen. And if they don't happen, I like to make them happen.(15:00) In every age there are great men. Why not us? And why not now?(19:30) Churchill mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.(22:00) While other politicians were content to get their information from a scattering of newspapers, Churchill devoured whole shelves.(23:00) Winston Churchill wanted to be the dominant political figure of his time.(23:30) Robert Caro's books on Lyndon Johnson(26:30) Listen to Invest Like The Best #343 David Senra (30:00) If a man is sure of himself it only sharpens him and makes him more effective.(35:00) Another thing Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill had in common: High Energy. This story about Steve Jobs in incredible. (36:00) The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) (44:00) Churchill to his son: “Your idle and lazy life is very offensive to me. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence."  — The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) (48:00) Larry Ellison: I know that most people think trying to build a hard wing of this size is crazy. But that’s the beauty of the idea. The other side isn’t trying to build one. So we’ll have a wing, and they won’t. — The Billionaire and The Mechanic(Founders #126) (50:30) Winston's opponents never tired of saying that he was unreasonable.(58:00) All of the Winston Churchill episodes: The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson. (Founders #196) Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225) Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. (Founders #319)----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from rereading The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen.----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! ----Sponsors: I use EightSleep to get the best sleep of my life. Find out why EightSleep is loved by founders everywhere and get $150 off at eightsleep.com/founders/----Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy:Vesto Advisors, LLC (“Vesto”) is an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Vesto and our partnership can be found hereWe are entitled to compensation for promoting Vesto Advisors, LLC. Accordingly, we have an incentive to endorse Vesto and its team and services. We are not current advisory clients of the Vesto.----Join Founders AMAMembers of Founders AMA can:-Email me your questions directly (you get a private email address in the confirmation email) -Promote your company to other members by including a link to your website with you question -Unlock 39 Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes immediately-Listen to new Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes every week ----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book----[4:47] This story can shock and infuriate us, and it does. But I found it invigorating, too. It told me that the life of the nation was written not only by speech-making grandees in funny hats but also by street-corner boys, immigrant strivers, crazed and driven, some with one good idea, some with thousands, willing to go to the ends of the earth to make their vision real.[8:56] Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer by Stephen Dando-Collins (Founders #55)[10:00] Unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries William Walker was not afraid of Cornelius when he should have been.[12:21] The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children.[12:42] The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: World's Greatest Negotiator by Rich Cohen[12:54] He was driven by the same raw energy that has always attracted the most ambitious to America, then pushed them to the head of the crowd. Grasper, climber-nasty ways of describing this kid, who wants what you take for granted. From his first months in America, he was scheming, looking for a way to get ahead. You did not need to be a Rockefeller to know the basics of the dream: Start at the bottom, fight your way to the top.[14:01] There is no problem you can't solve if you understand your business from A to Z.[17:08]  Sam spotted an opportunity where others saw nothing.[18:17] As far as he was concerned, ripes were considered trash only because Boston Fruit and similar firms were too slow-footed to cover ground. It was a calculation based on arrogance. I can be fast where others have been slow. I can hustle where others have been satisfied with the easy pickings of the trade.[18:42] The kid on the streets is getting a shot at a dream. He sees the guy who gets rich and thinks, yep, that'll be me. He ignores the other stories going around.  // There's no way to quantify all that on a spreadsheet, but it's that dream of being the exception, the one who gets rich and gets out before he gets got that's the key to a hustler's motivation. —Decoded by Jay Z. (Founders #238)[26:36] He was pure hustle.[28:15] Preston later spoke of Zemurray with admiration. He said the kid from Russia was closer in spirit to the banana pioneers than anyone else working. "He's a risk taker," Preston explained, “he's a thinker, and he's a doer.”[30:33] They don't write books about people that stopped there.[32:48] Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller by Ron Chernow (Founders #248) and John D: The Founding Father of the Rockefellers by David Freeman Hawke. (#254)[34:22] He seemed to strive for the sake of striving.[34:44] If you're on a mans side you stay on that mans side or you're no better than a goddamn animal.[35:11] The world is a mere succession of fortunes made and lost, lessons learned and forgotten and learned again.[39:41] A man whose commitment could not be questioned, who fed his own brothers to the jungle.[40:00] The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacificby Alistair Urquhart.[41:02] Why the Founders of United Fruit were the Rockefellers of bananas.[47:23] He kept quiet because talking only drives up the price.[48:19] There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to.[53:30] He believed in the transcendent power of physical labor—that a man can free his soul only by exhausting his body.[1:02:04] He disdained bureaucracy and hated paperwork. So seldom did he dictate a letter that he requires no full-time secretary.[1:04:01] He was respected because he understood the trade. By the time he was 40 he had served in every position. There was not a job he could not do nor a task he could not accomplish. He considered it a secret of his success.[1:05:02] Rick Rubin: In the Studio by Jake Brown. (Founders #245)[1:08:00] Zemurray was the founder, forever on the attack, at work, in progress, growing by trial and error.[1:10:44] Here was a self-made man, filled with the most dangerous kind of confidence: he had done it before and believed he could do it again. This gave him the air of a berserker, who says, If you're going to fight me, you better kill me. If you’ve ever known such a person, you will recognize the type at once. If he does not say much, it's because he considers small talk a weakness. Wars are not won by running your mouth. I'm describing a once essential American type that has largely vanished. Men who channeled all their love and fear into the business, the factory, the plantation, the shop.[1:11:44] Founder Mentality vs Big Company Mentality: When this mess of deeds came to light, United Fruit did what big bureaucracy-heavy companies always do: hired lawyers and investigators to search every file for the identity of the true owner. This took months. In the meantime, Zemurray, meeting separately with each claimant, simply bought the land from them both. He bought it twice paid a little more, yes, but if you factor in the cost of all those lawyers, probably still spent less than United Fruit and came away with the prize.[1:13:04] His philosophy: Get up first, work harder, get your hands in the dirt and blood in your eyes.[1:17:02] For every move there is a counter move. For every disaster there is a recovery. He never lost faith in his own agency.[1:17:57] A man focused on the near horizon of costs can sometimes lose sight of the far horizon of potential windfall.[1:20:22] You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out.[1:23:03] In a time of crisis the mere evidence of activity can be enough to get things moving.[1:23:42] Zemurray was never heard to bitch or justify. He was a member of a generation that lived by the maxim: Never complain, never explain.[1:27:08] The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relationsby Larry Tye[1:28:14] He should link his private interest to a public cause.[1:29:32] In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.[1:32:28] Sam's defining characteristic was his belief in his own agency, his refusal to despair. No story is without the possibility of redemption; with cleverness and hustle, the worst can be overcome. I can't help but feel that we would do well by emulating Sam Zemurray–not the brutality or the conquest, but the righteous anger that sent the striver into the boardroom of laughing elites, waving his proxies, shouting, "You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out.—“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers. ”— GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard. ---Vesto makes it easy for you to invest your businesses idle cash. Schedule a demo with Vesto's founder Ben and tell him David from Founders sent you. Here's the legal disclosures to make the lawyers happy:Vesto Advisors, LLC (“Vesto”) is an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training. More information about Vesto and our partnership can be found hereWe are entitled to compensation for promoting Vesto Advisors, LLC. Accordingly, we have an incentive to endorse Vesto and its team and services. We are not current advisory clients of the Vesto.---I'm doing a live show with Patrick O’Shaughnessy from Invest Like the Best on October 19th in New York City. Get your tickets here!---Join Founders AMAMembers of Founders AMA can:-Email me your questions directly (you get a private email address in the confirmation email) -Promote your company to other members by including a link to your website with you question -Unlock 38 Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes immediately-Listen to new Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes every week ---Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book---(2:30) He was meant not just to fight for his country, but one day to lead it. Although he believed this without question, he still had to convince everyone else.(3:30) He didn't even have a plan. Just the unshakeable conviction that he was destined for greatness.(4:00) Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)(4:30) Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden(5:00) The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. (Founders #175)(8:00) In his open pursuit of fame and popular favor, Churchill seemed far less Victorian than Rooseveltian.(8:30) Winston advertises himself as simply and as unconsciously as he breathes. Churchill was widely criticized for being a self advertiser.(9:30) “I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod."(9:30) Churchill did not need encouragement. He only needed a chance.(11:00) "I have faith in my star. That I am intended to do something in the world."(12:30) "I do not believe the Gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending."(13:30) The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words edited by J. Christopher Herold. (Founders #302)(17:30) Winston had spent the best years of his life composing his impromptu speeches.(18:00) He had no one who believed in him quite as much as he believed in himself.(20:30) He was defiantly determined to decide for himself where he would go and what he would do.(27:00) From studying the outcome of past expeditions, he believed that those that burdened themselves with equipment to meet every contingency had fared much worse than those that had sacrificed total preparedness for speed. — Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing. (Founders #144)(31:00) Nothing but being shot at will ever teach men the art of using cover.(32:00) The greater the obstacle, the greater the triumph.(34:00) He had hated his captivity with an intensity that surprised even him. He could not bear the thought of being in another man's control.(35:00) Who shall say what is possible or impossible, in these spheres of action one cannot tell without a trial.(36:00) Always more audacity.(43:30) He read for four or five hours every day.(45:00) He would be obliged to rely on someone else's intelligence and cunning. This state of affairs was far less appealing to him than the dangerous he would face if he were on his own.----Join Founders AMAMembers of Founders AMA can:-Email me your questions directly (you get a private email address in the confirmation email) -Promote your company to other members by including a link to your website with you question -Unlock 38 Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes immediately-Listen to new Ask Me Anything (AMA) episodes every week ----“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from the first 6 years of making Founders.---I'm doing a live show with Patrick OShaughnessy (Invest Like the Best) on October 19th in New York City. Get your tickets here!---I recorded a new episode with Patrick. It should be out soon. Follow Invest Like the Best in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss it.