What I learned from reading How To Succeed in Mr. Beast Production and how ideas from Sam Zell, Charlie Munger, Nick Sleep, Warren Buffett, Sam Zemurray, Bob Kierlin, Steve Jobs, Li Lu, Edwin Land, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, James Cameron, Anna Wintour, Walt Disney, Bernard Arnault, and Brad Jacobs immediately came to mind. 

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

The best investors are not investors at all. They're entrepreneurs who have never sold. — Nick Sleep

Nick Sleep’s letters are a masterclass on the importance of understanding the underlying reality of a business — what he calls the engine of its success.

I read all 110,000 words of Nick’s letters (twice!) to make this episode and what I found most important is Nick’s ability to develop a deep understanding of “honestly run compounding machines” (like Costco and Amazon) years before everyone else.

Nick explains clearly how Jim Sinegal and Jeff Bezos set up their companies for long term success —from the very beginning — and gives us a few hints along the way on how we can do the same in our business.

And the absolute entrepreneurial history nerd in me loved the references to Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Rockefeller and other greats from the past that are sprinkled throughout Nick’s letters.

No surprise that someone who was able to make $2 billion for his clients has a deep understanding of the great work that came before him.

If you want to read all of Nick Sleep’s partnership letters you can do so here for free

You can also read William Green’s book Richer, Wiser, Happier: How The World's Greatest Investors Win In Markets and Life —which both Nick and I recommend. It has an excellent chapter on How Nick and Zak built their firm. 

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

How Nick Sleep and Qais Zakaria built their radically unconventional investment partnership. From the incredible book Richer, Wiser, Happier: How The World's Greatest Investors Win In Markets and Life by William Green. 

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I’m doing a LIVE podcast in New York next Monday with Patrick from Invest Like The Best.  It’s FREE to attend because of the great people at Ramp ! Space is limited so register here fast! 

Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

I sent a friend this text: I'm working on another Li Lu episode but this one is about his remarkable investing career. Can be summarized by: 1. Studied Buffett and Munger. 2. Did that. Last episode was about how Li Lu survived one of the most horrific childhoods imaginable. This episode covers how he thinks about investing and entrepreneurship—in his own words. 

Sources: 

The forward to the Chinese edition of  Poor Charlie’s Almanack written by Li Lu 

Li Lu's Colombia Business School lecture 2006

Li Lu’s San Francisco State University lecture 2012

Graham & Doddsville interview with Li Lu 

13th Colombia Business Conference 2021 

Li Lu's Reflections On Reaching Fifty 

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Charlie Munger said that Li Lu was the only outsider he ever trusted with his money.  Decades before Li Lu made Munger half a billion dollars, Li survived one of the most horrific childhoods imaginable:

Born into poverty, abandoned, hungry, beaten, surrounded by death. Persistent. Smart. Disciplined. Intensely curious. Obsessed with reading and learning. Determined to escape. This is a story you absolutely cannot miss. 

What I learned from reading Moving The Mountain: My life in China from the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square by Li Lu.

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger said it was a crime that more business schools didn't study Henry Singleton. I think it's a crime that more entrepreneurs don't study Estée Lauder. She is one of the best founders to ever do it. This is the story of how she went from a childhood obsession, to a single counter in a beauty salon, to a multibillion dollar empire. 

This is my third time reading this book. It gets better every time I read it. This episode is what I learned from rereading Estée: A Success Story by Estée Lauder. 

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Since its founding in 1967 Fastenal has grown from a small fastener store in Winona, Minnesota, into a multibillion-dollar global organization. How did a small town “nuts and bolts” shop become one of the world's most dynamic growth companies? Whenever asked, company founder Bob Kierlin attributes Fastenal's success to the company's high-quality employees and their commitment to a common goal: Growth Through Customer Service.

What I learned from reading The Power of Fastenal People by Robert Kierlin.  

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Other books mentioned in this episode: 

Les Schwab Pride In Performance: Keep It Going! by Les Schwab.

Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton.

All I Want To Know Is Where I'm Going To Die So I'll Never Go There: Buffett & Munger – A Study in Simplicity and Uncommon, Common Sense by Peter Bevelin.

Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg.

Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung.

The Bugatti Story by L’Ebe Bugatti.

Sol Price: Retail Revolutionary by Robert Price. 

How To Make A Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs.

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

The name of Nobel usually calls to mind Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, and the internationally prestigious prizes that bear his name. But Alfred was only one member of a creative and innovative family who built an industrial empire in prerevolutionary Russia. The saga begins with an emigre from Sweden, Immanuel Nobel, who was an architect, a pioneer producer of steam engines, and a maker of weapons.

Immanuel's sons included Alfred; Robert, who directed the family's activities in the Caspian oil fields; and Ludwig, an engineering genius and manufacturing magnate whose boundless energy and fierce determination created the Russian petroleum industry.

Ludwig's son Emanuel showed similar mettle, shrewdly bargaining with the Rothschilds for control of the Russian markets and competing head-on with Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell for lucrative world markets.

Perhaps no family in history has played so decisive a role in building an industrial empire in an underdeveloped but resource-rich nation. Yet the achievements of the Nobel family have been largely forgotten. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Emmanuel had to flee the country disguised as a peasant.

The Nobel empire with its 50,000 workers lay in ruins. An empire which had taken eighty years to design and build, was nearly destroyed, bringing a sudden and bitter end to one of the most remarkable industrial odysseys in world history.

This episode is what I learned from reading The Russian Rockefellers: The Saga of the Nobel Family and the Russian Oil Industry by Robert Tolf.

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Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from having dinner with John Mackey and reading his autobiography The Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism.

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Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir by Haruki Murakami. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. 

Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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Build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives at a Founders Event

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(3:01) No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act.

(4:00) Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

(4:00) The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.

(10:00) You can't fake passion — someone else, that really loves the job, will out run you. Somebody else sitting in some other MBA program has a deep passion for whatever career path you're going down, and they are going to smoke you if you don't have it yourself.  — Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love 

(12:00) What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away.

(14:00) Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.  — David Ogilvy

(16:00) If you absolutely can't tolerate critics, then don't do anything new or interesting. — Jeff Bezos

(16:00) So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets.

(19:00) Failure was not an option. I had to give it everything I had.

(19:00) My only strength has always been the fact that I work hard and can take a lot physically. I’m more a workhorse than a racehorse.

(22:00) I was more interested in having finished it than in whether or not it would ever see the light of day.

(26:00) I’m the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do.

(29:00) The entrenched professional is always going to resist far longer than the private consumer. — James Dyson

(34:00) You really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing,

(37:00) You can’t please everybody. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and said he’d come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it the other way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten didn’t like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I learned through running a business.

(40:00) The reason we're surprised is that we underestimate the cumulative effect of work. Writing a page a day doesn't sound like much, but if you do it every day you'll write a book a year. That's the key: consistency. People who do great things don't get a lot done every day. They get something done, rather than nothing. — How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)

(41:00) When you follow what you are intensely interested in this strange convergence happens where you're working all the time and it feels like you're never working. — How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)

(43:00) No matter how strong a will a person has, no matter how much he may hate to lose, if it’s an activity he doesn’t really care for, he won’t keep it up for long.

(44:00) Nobody ever recommended or even desired that I be a novelist—in fact, some tried to stop me. I had the idea to be one, and that’s what I did.

(45:00) I decided who I want to be, and that is who I am. — Coco Chanel

(46:00) Once, I interviewed an Olympic runner.  I asked him, “Does a runner at your level ever feel like you’d rather not run today, like you don’t want to run and would rather just sleep in?” He stared at me and then, in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, “Of course. All the time!”

(47:00) I pity the poor fellow who is so soft and flabby that he must always have "an atmosphere of good feeling" around him before he can do his work. There are such men. And in the end, unless they obtain enough mental and moral hardiness to lift them out of their soft reliance on "feeling," they are failures. Not only are they business failures; they are character failures also; it is as if their bones never attained a sufficient degree of hardness to enable them to stand on their own feet. There is altogether too much reliance on good feeling in our business organizations. —  Henry Ford’s Autobiography

(50:00) If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again.

(51:00) Focus and endurance can be acquired and sharpened through training.

(54:00) Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life.

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

What I learned from reading The Tinkerings of Robert Noyce: How the Sun Rose on Silicon Valley by Tom Wolfe. 

Read The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone with me. 

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Founders Notes gives you the superpower to learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. You can search all my notes and highlights from every book I've ever read for the podcast. 

Get access to Founders Notes here. 

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(1:00) America is today in the midst of a great technological revolution. With the advent of the silicon chip, information processing, and communications, the national economy have been strikingly altered. The new technology is changing how we live, how we work, how we think. The revolution didn't just happen; it was engineered by a small number of people. Collectively, they engineered Tomorrow. Foremost among them is Robert Noyce.

(2:00) Steve Jobs on Robert Noyce: “He was one of the giants in this valley who provided the model and inspiration for everything we wanted to become. He was the ultimate inventor. The ultimate rebel. The ultimate entrepreneur.”

(4:00) When you read biographies of people who've done great work, it's remarkable how much luck is involved. They discover what to work on as a result of a chance meeting, or by reading a book they happen to pick up. So you need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions.  — How To Do Great Work by Paul Graham. (Founders #314)

(7:00) Bob Noyce had a passion for the scientific grind.

(10:00) He had a profound and baffling self-confidence.

(15:00) They called Shockley’s personalty reverse charisma. —  Broken Genius: The Rise and Fall of William Shockley, Creator of the Electronic Age by Joel Shurkin. (Founders #165)

(25:00) What the beginning of an industry looks like: Anywhere from 50 to 90% of the transistors produced would turn out to be defective.

(33:00) Young engineers were giving themselves over to a new technology as if it were a religious mission.

(41:00) Noyce's idea was that every employee should feel that he could go as far and as fast in this industry as his talent would take him. He didn't want any employee to look at the structure of Intel and see a complex set of hurdles.

(43:00) This wasn't a corporation. It was a congregation.

(43:00) There were sermons. At Intel everyone, Noyce included, was expected to attend sessions on "the Intel Culture." At these sessions the principles by which the company was run were spelled out and discussed.

(45:00) If you're ambitious and hardworking, you want to be told how you're doing.

(45:00) In Noyce's view, most of the young hotshots who were coming to work for Intel had never had the benefit of honest grades in their lives. In the late 1960s and early 1970s college faculties had been under pressure to give all students passing marks so they wouldn't have to go off to Vietnam, and they had caved in, until the entire grading system was meaningless. At Intel they would learn what measuring up meant.

(49:00) When you are trying to convince an audience to accept a radical innovation, almost by definition the idea is so far from the status quo that many people simply cannot get their minds around it. They quickly discovered that the marketplace wasn’t just confused by the concept of the microprocessor, but was actually frightened by its implications. Many of my engineering friends scoffed at it was a gimmick. Their solution? The market had to be educated. At one point, Intel was conducting more seminars and workshops on how to use the microprocessor than the local junior collage’s total catalog of courses. Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove became part of a traveling educational roadshow. Everyone who could walk and talk became educators. It worked.  —  The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World's Most Important Company by Michael Malone. 

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“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. ” — Gareth

Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast