Founders

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 [https://amzn.to/3X3KNkV] by Jim Dent.  ---- Ramp [https://ramp.com/] 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 [https://ramp.com/].  ---- Vesto [https://www.vesto.com/]: All of your company's financial accounts in one view. Connect and control all of your business bank accounts from one dashboard. Go to Vesto and schedule a demo with the founder Ben [https://www.vesto.com/]. Tell him David sent you.  ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book [https://davidsenra.com] ---- ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast]

Your father goes bankrupt. You work for 50 cents a day to try to help your family survive the Great Depression. At 19 you see an opportunity where others see nothing. You start “a little fuel delivery business” with one used truck. Five years later you have 10 trucks. World War II breaks out and you serve as the fuel supply officer for General Patton. You come back to America and apply what the war taught you about logistics and moving fuel efficiently. You expand from fuel delivery to storage, refining, and open gas stations in 16 states. You take your company public. You merge with an oil exploration firm. You build the largest refinery in the Western Hemisphere. You buy the New York Jets. You built your “little fuel delivery business” into a multibillion-dollar, multinational, vertically integrated energy behemoth. You are Leon Hess, founder of the Hess family dynasty. This episode is what I learned from reading Hess: The Last Oil Baron [https://amzn.to/4jQNobG] by Tina Davis and Jessica Resnick-Ault. ---- Ramp [https://ramp.com/] 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 [https://ramp.com/].  ---- Vesto [https://www.vesto.com/]: All of your company's financial accounts in one view. Connect and control all of your business bank accounts from one dashboard. Go to Vesto and schedule a demo with the founder Ben [https://www.vesto.com/]. Tell him David sent you.  ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book [https://world.hey.com/davidsenra/buffett-and-munger-a-study-in-simplicity-and-uncommon-common-sense-6ae80a40] ---- ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast]

Marcus Wallenberg Jr's impact on Swedish industry was so substantial that during the 1970s, Wallenberg family businesses employed about 40% of Sweden's industrial workforce and represented 40% of the total worth of the Stockholm stock market. The Wallenberg family is one of the most fascinating family dynasties you could read about. The family has survived — and continues to thrive — for 170 years. In a family full of talented entrepreneurs and investors Marcus Wallenberg Jr. stands out. This episode is what I learned from reading Furthering A Fortune: Marcus Wallenberg Swedish Banker and Industrialist [https://amzn.to/4hu4DO3] by Ulf Olsson. ---- Ramp [https://ramp.com/] 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 [https://ramp.com/].  ---- Vesto [https://www.vesto.com/]: All of your company's financial accounts in one view. Connect and control all of your business bank accounts from one dashboard. Go to Vesto and schedule a demo with the founder Ben [https://www.vesto.com/]. Tell him David sent you.  ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book [https://world.hey.com/davidsenra/buffett-and-munger-a-study-in-simplicity-and-uncommon-common-sense-6ae80a40] ---- ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast]

What I learned from reading The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant [https://amzn.to/4h32atI] by Tae Kim. ---- Ramp [https://ramp.com/] 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 [https://ramp.com/].  ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book [https://world.hey.com/davidsenra/buffett-and-munger-a-study-in-simplicity-and-uncommon-common-sense-6ae80a40] ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast] ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast]

Hetty Green bailed out New York City. Her decisions on what interest rates to charge moved markets and were reported in major newspapers. She was a one woman bank and the single biggest individual financier in the world. She took no partners and ran her own money. She built a financial empire of stocks, bonds, railroads, and real estate. She battled the great men of her day and kept a gun on her desk. She did all of this alone. Defiantly independent and ferociously intelligent she built a vast, liquid fortune at a time when women couldn't even vote. She used her intelligence to increase her wealth, her independence to live as she wished, and her strength to battle anyone who stood in her way. This episode is what I learned from reading Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon [https://amzn.to/4j1sHJD] by Charles Slack and The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age [https://amzn.to/3W6kfiC] by Janet Wallach.  ---- Ramp [https://ramp.com/] 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 [https://ramp.com/].  ---- Vesto [https://www.vesto.com]: All of your company's financial accounts in one view. Connect and control all of your business bank accounts from one dashboard. Go to Vesto and schedule a demo with the founder Ben [https://www.vesto.com]. Tell him David sent you.    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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book [https://world.hey.com/davidsenra/buffett-and-munger-a-study-in-simplicity-and-uncommon-common-sense-6ae80a40] ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast] ---- 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 [https://www.foundersnotes.com/].  ---- “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 [https://www.amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast]