Founders Podcast
Finance & Business · Podcast notes

Founders Podcast

Learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and find ideas you can use in your work. This quote explains why: “There are thousands of years of history in which lots and lots of very smart people worked very hard and ran all types of experiments on how to create new businesses and invent new technology. They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put these ideas down in a book. For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone’s accumulated experience. There is so much more to learn from the past than we often realize. You could productively spend your time reading experiences of great people who have come before and you learn every time.” –Marc Andreessen

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Finance & Business

#422 Joseph Pulitzer

This episode is a solo deep-dive by the host into Pulitzer A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris, a biography of Joseph Pulitzer — the Hungarian immigrant who transformed Americ…

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Finance & Business

Kelly Johnson: Skunk Works

This episode explores the life and principles of Kelly Johnson, legendary aircraft designer and founder of Lockheed's Skunkworks, through his autobiography More Than My Share of It All written at age …

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Finance & Business

Phil Knight: Founder of Nike

This episode explores Shoe Dog, Phil Knight's entrepreneurial autobiography about founding Nike, which the host considers a nearly perfect entrepreneurial memoir that provides energy and new insights …

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Finance & Business

The Relentless Missionary Creating AGI: Demis Hassabis

This episode explores The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby, a biography of Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind and 2024 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry. Hassabis transformed from chess prodigy…

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Finance & Business

How Elon Thinks

This episode features a comprehensive walkthrough of The Almanack of Elon Musk by Eric Jorgensen, who spent years compiling thousands of hours of Elon Musk's interviews, writings, and statements into …

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Finance & Business

How SpaceX Works

This episode explores Max Olson's introduction essay for his upcoming book SpaceX Foundation, a historical account of SpaceX's first decade told through first-hand sources like Elon's company updates …

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Finance & Business

How To Run Down A Dream

This episode explores Bill Gurley's Running Down a Dream, which profiles individuals who achieved their dream careers through obsessive preparation and authentic passion. The book examines Sam Hinkie'…

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Finance & Business

How Roger Federer Works

This episode analyzes Roger Federer's career through The Master The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer by Christopher Clary, focusing on the mental and strategic principles that enabled his …

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Finance & Business

Excellent Advice for Living

This episode features a deep dive into Kevin Kelly's Excellent Advice for Living Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier, a collection of 450 pieces of life wisdom that Kelly began compiling on his 68th birth…

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Finance & Business

The Creative Genius of Rick Rubin

This episode explores The Creative Act A Way of Being by legendary music producer Rick Rubin, who has worked with artists from Johnny Cash to Jay-Z over his 40+ year career starting at age 18. The boo…

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Finance & Business

How to Make a Few MORE Billion Dollars: Brad Jacobs

The episode covers Brad Jacobs' new book How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars, a sequel to his first book covered on episode 335. Jacobs has founded eight separate billion-dollar companies over a 46…

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Finance & Business

The Life of Jesus

The episode examines Jesus A Biography from a Believer by Paul Johnson, a historian who has written extensively on figures including Winston Churchill, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Socrates, Mo…

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Finance & Business

Bruce Springsteen Repairs the Hole in Himself

This episode explores Bruce Springsteen's autobiography Born to Run, a 600-page memoir he hand-wrote in notebooks and rewrote multiple times like composing a record. The host was initially drawn to th…

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Finance & Business

Christian von Koenigsegg

Christian von Koenigsegg is the founder and CEO of Koenigsegg Automotive, a Swedish hypercar manufacturer he started at age 22 with no engineering background. Daniel Ek, Spotify's founder, first recom…

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Finance & Business

Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac Founder

This episode explores the life and business philosophy of Dietrich Matischitz, the Austrian entrepreneur who created Red Bull and revolutionized the beverage industry by inventing the energy drink cat…

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Finance & Business

How Rockefeller Worked

The episode features David Senra analyzing John D., The Founding Fathers of the Rockefellers by David Freeman, which he considers the best Rockefeller biography for understanding how Standard Oil was …

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Finance & Business

How Larry Ellison Thinks

The episode explores Softwar An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle by Matthew Simmons, a 25-year-old book featuring brutally frank conversations with Oracle's founder. Ellison annotated the…

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Finance & Business

How Jensen Works

The episode features insights from The Nvidia Way by Tay Kim, focusing exclusively on Jensen Huang's operational philosophy and management principles. Jensen is the longest-running founder-CEO of a te…

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Finance & Business

My Conversation with Michael Dell

The episode features Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, reflecting on 41 years of building and transforming one of the world's largest technology companies. Dell started the company a…

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Finance & Business

The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson

This episode covers James Dyson's two autobiographies: Against the Odds (his first) and his second autobiography written 20 years later. The host has previously covered Dyson on episodes 25, 200, and …

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Finance & Business

How Elon Works

The episode analyzes Walter Isaacson's 615-page biography of Elon Musk, focusing exclusively on his company-building principles rather than controversies or politics. The host spent over 60 hours read…

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