Founders

David Senra
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Founders

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

  1. APR 14

    #385 Michael Dell

    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.

    1h 48m

  2. APR 1

    #384 Ken Griffin: Founder of Citadel and Citadel Securities

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

    1h 7m

  3. MAR 23 · BONUS

    The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig

    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.

    50 min

  4. MAR 17

    #383 Todd Graves and his $10 Billion Chicken Finger Dream

    Todd Graves is one of my favorite living entrepreneurs. He's a great example of Charlie Munger's maxim: Find a simple idea and take it seriously. Todd wanted to create a quick service restaurant that only focused on quality chicken finger meals and nothing else. Everyone told him that couldn't possibly work. The college paper that described the idea that would turn into Raising Canes got the lowest grade in the class. Banks wouldn't loan him any money —but nothing could stop Todd from living out his "chicken finger dream." He worked 95 hour weeks as a boilermaker, risked his life on a commercial fishing boat off the coast of Alaska, and scrounged up startup money from his bookie and a guy named Wild Bill. Todd made every mistake in the book, over leveraged himself, almost lost everything and yet he refused to give up or sell out. Today he has over 800 locations, 50,000 employees, and owns 90% of a business that's worth at least $10 billion. Todd's maxim is "Do one thing and do it better than anyone else."

    1h 8m

  5. MAR 7

    #382 Who Is Michael Ovitz?: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Most Powerful Man in Hollywood

    At the core of Michael Ovitz's success is his relentless work ethic and commitment to mastering his craft. 50 years ago he founded Creative Artists Agency. CAA starts out as just five young guys in a run down office and eventually becomes the most powerful agency in the world. Ovitz's autobiography explains how that happened. As the Wall Street Journal wrote: When the history of Hollywood is written, few people will have played a larger role than Michael Ovitz. This episode is what I learned from reading (for the 2nd time!) Who Is Michael Ovitz?: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Most Powerful Man in Hollywood by Michael Ovitz.

    1h 31m

  6. MAR 7

    #381 I Had Dinner With Michael Ovitz

    What I learned from having an intense and fun 3 hour dinner with Michael Ovitz.

    27 min

  7. FEB 25

    #380 Four Hundred Pages of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger In Their Own Words

    For over 30 years the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meetings were recorded. Munger and Buffett answered over 1700 questions from shareholders during that period. Alex Morris watched hundreds of hours of these meetings and then he gathered, organized, and edited the most interesting ideas into 450+ pages — all in Buffett and Munger's own words. I thought it would be fun to rip through a bunch of Munger and Buffett's best ideas very rapidly. It was. This episode is what I learned from reading Buffett and Munger Unscripted: Three Decades of Investment and Business Insights from the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meetings by Alex Morris.

    1h 22m

  8. FEB 18

    #379 Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys)

    Jerry Jones rolled the dice until his knuckles bled. He started working at 7 years old. Jerry could sell, sell, sell. He sold fruit at his father’s grocery store in grade school and sold shoes out of the trunk of his car in college. After failing to sell pizza franchises he tried real estate and insurance. He never met a high risk deal he didn’t like. Jerry got pitched a deal to drill for oil that everyone else had already said no to. Jerry said yes. That well made $4 million. He hit again on the next 14 wells. Jerry decided to drill for natural gas next. He drills 200 wells. He hit on 199 of them. He sells that company for $175 million. He has $90 million in the bank. He buys the Dallas Cowboys for $140 million. 75 other people had the opportunity to buy the team and said no. He empties his bank account and borrows $50 million at steep interest rates. The year before Jerry bought the team the Cowboys lost $9 million. Financial advisors told Jerry that the Cowboys were ridiculously overpriced and that he was committing financial suicide. Within a few years the team is printing $30 million a year in profit. The Dallas Cowboys are worth $10 billion today. This episode is what I leaned from reading King of the Cowboys: The Life and Times of Jerry Jones by Jim Dent.

    1 hr
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About

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

Information

  • Creator
    David Senra
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2025
  • Episodes
    402
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Founders

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