Founders
Hosted by David Senra
About this Show
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, invent new technology, new ways to manage etc. They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put these lessons 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
Latest Episodes
#437 The Tycoons: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould & Morgan
What I learned from reading The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
#436 Ari Emanuel's Autobiography
What I learned from reading Ari Emanuel's incredible autobiography Roll The Calls. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
#435 Mark Zuckerberg's Empire
What I learned from reading Mark: A journey to the heart of history's largest nonterritorial empire by Jeremy Stern. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders 0:00 — "For these, I set no bounds in space or time. I h...
#434 Sam Walton
What I learned from reading Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance Trimble. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders 0:00 — "To him, making money was only a game, a test of his imagination and expe...
#433 How Michael Bloomberg Works
What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders Sage: https://founderspodcast.com/sage
#432 The Mind of Napoleon
What I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon by Napoleon. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders Sage: https://founderspodcast.com/sage Some of my favorite quotes: 0:00 — " The book gives you insight into t...
#431 How Henry Singleton Worked
What I learned from reading Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and The Man Who Created It by George Roberts and The Outsiders by William Thorndike. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founde...
#430 How to Write Ads That Sell
Claude Hopkins was the greatest copywriter of all time. His ideas were so valuable that when he wrote them down in a book the founder of his advertising firm locked the manuscript in a safe for 20 years. When the book was finally published it sold over 8 million copies. David Ogilvy said that n...
#429 Bob Dylan's Autobiography
What I learned from rereading Bob Dylan's autobiography. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
#428 How Claude Shannon Worked
Claude Shannon changed your life and you probably don't even know it. Claude is the father of information theory. He transformed information into bits and created the intellectual foundation for computers, the Internet, digital media, high-speed communication, and Artificial Intelligence. The w...
#427 How Raymond Plank Built a $50 Billion Oil Company
Raymond Plank founded Apache Corporation with just $250,000 in 1954. 50 years later his company was worth $50 billion. This episode examines the life and entrepreneurial philosophy of Raymond Plank through his memoir A Small Difference Rather than presenting a conventional history of Apache, ...
#426 How Obsession Built Christopher Nolan
Obsession is the engine of Nolan’s career. This episode examines Christopher Nolan’s life, working methods, and philosophy through The Nolan Variations by Tom Shone. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders ...
#425 The Merchant Bankers
This episode discusses Joseph Wechsberg’s 1966 book, The Merchant Bankers. Rather than recounting the histories of families like the Rothschilds, Barings, Hambros, Warburgs, and Lehman Brothers, I wanted to extract the principles they shared. Merchant banking is fascinating. It's a ...
#424 Peter Thiel on How to Build a Creative Monopoly
What I learned from reading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters (for the 3rd or 4th time) Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com/ Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
#423 Soichiro Honda
What I learned from reading Honda: The Man and His Machines by Sol Sanders. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com/ Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders