Founders

By: David Senra
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  • Summary

  • 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
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Economics Leadership Management & Leadership World
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Episodes
  • #385 Michael Dell

    #385 Michael Dell
    Apr 14 2025

    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.

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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 ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. 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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    Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. 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
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    1 hr and 48 mins
  • #384 Ken Griffin: Founder of Citadel and Citadel Securities

    #384 Ken Griffin: Founder of Citadel and Citadel Securities
    Apr 1 2025

    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 Ken recommends: Hardball: Are You Playing to Play or Playing to Win.

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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.

    ----

    Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.

    ----

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

    ----

    Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.

    ----

    “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
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 7 mins
  • The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig

    The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig
    Mar 23 2025
    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. ----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. ----Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ----Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book----EPISODE OUTLINE 1. Obsessed with privacy, Ludwig pays a major public relations firm fat fees to keep his name out of the papers.2. An associate speaks of his unlimited ingenuity in dreaming up new ways of doing things.3. Ludwig’s most notable characteristic, besides his imagination and pertinacity, is a lifelong penchant for keeping his mouth shut.4. I'm in this business because I like it. I have no other hobbies.5. Pertinacity: Holding strongly to an opinion, purpose, or course of action, stubbornly or annoyingly persistent.6. Risk Game: Self Portrait of an Entrepreneur by Francis Greenburger (Founders #243)7. At his peak, he owned more than 200 companies in 50 countries.8. War makes the demand for Ludwig's products and services skyrocket.9. Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Founders #290)10. He did not mellow as he grew richer and older.11. Some years later, the captain of a Ludwig ship made the extravagant mistake of mailing in a report of several pages held together by a paper clip. He received a sharp rebuke for his prodigality: "We do not pay to send ironmongery by air mail!"12. Ludwig’s tightfistedness, however, persisted after the Depression, putting him in sharp contrast to such free spenders as Onassis and Niarchos. It also was largely responsible for many of his innovations in the shipbuilding industry.13. Onassis: An Extravagant Life by Frank Brady. (Founders #211)14. Ludwig’s ridding his ships of any feature that did not contribute to profits pleased his own obsessive sense of economy and kept him a step ahead of the competition. When someone asked why he didn't put a grand piano aboard his ships, as Stavros Niarchos did, Ludwig snapped, "You can't carry oil in a grand piano."15. Stay in the game long enough to get lucky.16. The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think. The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50)17. The yacht was as much a business craft as any of his tankers and probably earned him more money than any of them.18. Like the Rockefeller organization, Ludwig had mastered the practice of keeping his money by transferring it from one pocket, one company to another, while appearing to spend it.19. He had learned something by now. Opportunities exist on the frontiers where most men dare not venture, and it is often the case that the farther the frontier, the greater the opportunity.20. The way to escape competition is to either do something no one else is doing or do it where no one else is doing it.21. Much of Ludwig's success was due to his willingness to venture where more timid entrepreneurs dared not go. ----Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ----“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
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    50 mins
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Profile Image for Šimon

Best for business

My favourite podcast, keep grinding! You are helping a lot with your insights! I am thinking of subscribing to the notes too, the autobiographies really are better than any businessbook!

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