In this episode about J-PogGetty, you're going to hear that Getty made it a priority to build relationships with other top entrepreneurs and businesspeople.
Infact, he's so dedicated to this idea that he set up a thing that he calls the liaison center solely for thispurpose.
I am doing something similar with the founder events that I'mhosting.
If you want to come build relationships with otherfounders,investors, and executives that listen to FoundersPodcast, make sure you come to a Foundersevent.
There is one happening in beautiful ScotsValley, California on July 29th through the31st, and another one happening inAustin, Texas on September 27th through the29th.
These events are allinclusive, which means all you have to do is get yourself there and I take care of therest.
So you're lodging yourmeals, access to every talk andsession, everything isincluded.
If you want to come hang out with me and other founders and investors for twodays, make sure you go to Founders Podcasts.com for such events that's Founders Podcasts.com for slash events and signup.
Hope to see you there and I hope you enjoy this episode on J PaulGetty.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouragingthrift.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wagepayer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging classhatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying therich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than youearn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man'sinitiative.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do forthemselves.
I accept these tenets wholeheartedly withoutreservation.
That is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk about today that is John Paul Getty actually quoting AbrahamLincoln.
Abraham Lincoln is the one that said those words and that comes from the book I'm going to talk abouttoday, which is as I seeit, the autobiography of J PaulGetty.
This book is incredible for a number ofreasons.
One, when he's writingit, J Paul Getty is considered the richest private citizen in theworld.
He's also writing it in the last year of hislife.
This book is over 50 yearsold.
It gets published in 1976 right before it ispublished.
J Paul Gettydies. So this book is really his last words on his remarkablelife.
It is also incredible because of the way it isstructured.
It's almost like you're sitting down and having a one-sided conversation with a wise 83-year-old grandfather and he's recounting hislife.
It's not in chronological order atall.
He's just going to tell you whatever happens to be on his mind at thattime.
He also gives you a lot of great advice because he had been an entrepreneur for over 60 years by the time he sits down and he's stillgoing.
He works until the day hedies.
So something that J Paul Getty repeats over and over again throughout the book is the fact that he considers himself anentrepreneur.
His friends areentrepreneurs.
He really is just writing down the lessons that he learned in his six-day career for the future benefit of the entrepreneurs that are going to come afterhim.
And so as he's telling this life story ofhis, there's just a lot of really great advice for you andI.
Before I getthere, and that's going to be like90% of what I want to talk to you abouttoday, I have to start with the relationship that he had with hisfather.
His father is the one that got him involved in the oil business to beginwith.
He says over and over again he has a great line that herepeats.
That my seat was set for me without the love and training of myfather.
I would not be the man Ibecame.
And I think the best way to introduce you to that idea actually comes at the very end of thebook.
He's talking about the fact that he becomes friends with the world'selite.
There's so many stories about the King of England and all the presidents and all the greatentrepreneurs.
He knowseverybody. This book isthrilling.
I hope you wind upbuying.
It's very fun to readactually.
But there's a great story at the very end that illustrates this self-awareness that hehas, this respect andhonor.
Remember, he's writing these words 45 years after his father passesaway.
And this is what hesays.
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller did me the honor of saying that my entrepreneurial success in the oil business put me on par with hisgrandfather, John D Rockefellersenior.
My response was that comparing me to John D senior was like comparing a sparrow to aneagle.
My words were not inspired bymodesty, but byfacts.
John D Rockefeller began his lifepoor.
He began work as a lowly paid bookkeeper and worked and fought his way up theladder.
I enjoyed the advantage of being born into an already wealthyfamily.
And when I began my businesscareer, I was subsidized by myfather.
While I did make money and quite a bit of it on myown, I doubt if there would be a getty empire today if I had not taken over my father's thriving oil business after hisdeath.
He attempt to compare the Rockefeller empire with the getty empire isridiculous.
John D senior went into the oil business at a time when America's petroleum industry was inchaos.
He brought order out of thatchaos.
Rockefeller seniors monopolization saved the US oil industry from totaldisintegration.
And so just because getty doesn't think he should compare him to JohnD.
Imean, how many people can you compare to John D forgotsay,right?
It doesn't mean he wasn't a phenomenalentrepreneur.
A lot of people try to discount getty's achievements because he had a really relatively small but successful oilcompany.
His dad had a successful oil company and getty when his dad dies getty takes over his dad's oil companylike,oh, you got a huge head start inlife.
That's true by getty's ownadmission.
When he inherits and takes over his dad'scompany, it's worth $15 million in1930.
20 yearslater, that company is valued well over a billiondollars.
It is Jay Paul getty that is responsible for that value creation from 15 to well over a billiondollars.
So I want to go into I'm going to start where he just talks a lot about his dad and his dad just seems like a greatman.
I would love for my kids when I'm older or maybe even when I'm long gone to describe me the way that getty describes hisfather.
So his father was a successful attorney before he founded his oilcompanies.
He's actually sent on client business to Oklahoma in 1903 and at his perfectplace, perfect time because in1903, there's a gigantic oil boom happening inOklahoma.
And it is during this visit where his dad gets infected with what they call oilfever.
And his dad decides to switch careers and found an oilcompany.
He starts drilling for oil and he leases this small plot of land inOklahoma.
He tries to drill 43wells.
This is hisfirst, this is his heads first attempt in building an oilcompany,right?
He attempts to drill 43wells.
42 of them came back as producingoil.
And getty's dad does something that's extremelysmart.
His name isGeorge. So George getty does something that's extremelysmart.
He has his son just visit him while on the oilfields.
This is well before this is going to be a getty familybusiness.
His son is gaining this valuable experience in the oil industry just by being on site and observing what's goingon.
He said that drilling fascinated him and he starts picking up on how drilling isdone.
All the jargon that is inside of theindustry, all the different jobs that are required to bring about a successfulwell.
And his father imparts in him something that never leaves him and actually only leaves him for two years out of his long 83 yearlife.
And it's the idea that you look at drilling foroil, the oil exploration that they'redoing.
It is a challenge andadventure.
We're not just building a business we're hunting and we're hunting foroil.
So this is where his dad starts teaching himself-reliant, the value of self-reliance and hardwork.
Getty is 15 years old when he's doingthis.
So I'm just going to read this description of what's going on when he's 15 yearsold.
Let's get his business flourish and expand it during the next threeyears.
When I was not yet16, I asked my father if I could spend my summer vacations from school working in the oilfields.
My father's reply wascharacteristic.
It is all right with me if you're willing to start at thebottom.
This meant that I would be employed as a roustabout.
That's an oil field laborer whose job it was to perform the heaviest and usually the dirtiest work on the drillingsite.
My father was explicit about the terms under which I would beemployed.
I would receive the roust about's going wage which was $3 a day for a 12 hourshift.
I could expect no preferential treatment because I was the boss'sson.
I would have to learn to hold my own with the othermen.
I had long enjoyed the advantages and comforts that might be expected to go with being a wealthy man's onlyson.
To myastonishment, I adapted readily to this abrupttransition.
I took to bunkhouse living and grub shack eating in stride and I enjoyedboth.
His dad is just making one great decision afteranother.
It literally changes the trajectory of his son'slife.
AndJ. Paul Getty got his full attention becauseJ.
Paul Getty was his onlyson.
He talks about a lot in the book that from the time that he could remember that his dad concerned himself with developing hischaracter.
He says like my dad believed in workethic.
He made me learn that money must beearned.
He would not give his son just money just because he wasrich.
He taught him his son how to dosales.
Oh, and he was rather strictdisciplinarian.
So a few years after he starts working in the oilfields, I think he's around 16 years all thetime.
During the schoolyear, he's getting bad grades and he's fucking off is essentially what he'sdoing.
He's just notbehaving.
So his father'slike,well, you want to get badgrades, you want to fuckoff?
That'sfine. You're going to militaryschool.
For the last two or three years of highschool, he makes him go to a military school and then the line that Jay Paul Getty has about this was looking back atthis.
Now it'san, youknow, an 83 oldman.
He said this strict regimented environment was good forme.
His father also taught him thebalance.
Even they were both voraciousreaders.
So Jay Paul Getty's like readingNapoleon, he's like 12 yearsold.
But he said his dad also taught him the importance of physicalculture.
So he'd make his sonbox,run,swim, liftweights, and then emphasis on physical culture is really important because he's going to start out in the oil business as a laborer as a roughneck.
And to learn the business from A toZ, which isreally, really importanttoo.
And so when Jay Paul Getty is incollege, he repeats exactly what he did in highschool.
During the schoolyear, he's incollege.
During thesummers, he's working in the oilfields.
And during onesummer, he builds a really importantrelationship.
And it is with what he calls a leathery veteran of the oiltrade.
This guy they callgrizzle.
So grizzle becomes Jay Paul Getty'smentor.
These two sentences is why this is soimportant.
Grizzle taught me all he knew about virtually every phase of field operations and his knowledge of these fields wasencyclopedic.
And so by the time that Jay Paul Getty is 22 yearsold, by the time he is done withcollege, think about what his father did forhim.
He's 11 yearsold, he's observing all the stuff goingon.
He starts working in the field when he's15.
He's got somewhere around a decade of experience before he begins full time in thetrade.
He's got his father'sguidance, the fact that he knew and believed that his father loved him and that he concerned himself with developing his character that he wanted his son to be asuccess.
He's got the confidence that he's worked in every singleaspect.
He knew the business from A toZ.
He was mentored by people that had decades of experience in the oilbusiness.
All of this is going to come toplay.
It's going to be really important because Jay Paul Getty's going to start his own oil company at 22 and he's going to make a million dollars and he's going to retire at 24 yearsold.
And when Jay Paul Getty describes the way his dad gently guided hiscareer, I pray that I have this patience and tolerance for my ownkids.
I'm not sure Iwill. Hesays, my father then asked the question that most fathers ask sons who have completed their formaleducations, but have not decided on thecareers.
What do you intend on doingnow?
Listen to the description of hisfather, many positive qualities for which GeorgeF.
Getty was widely liked and admired was his unfailing habit of presenting any arguments in acalm, holy reasoned yet always tolerantmanner.
And so he's laying out the case to hisson.
He'slike,listen, youknow, youcan, what do you intend to donow?
Here is mysuggestion. I've built an oil business that's worth some millions ofdollars.
I am nearing the age of 60 and you are my onlychild.
And he explicitly tells theson, I've built what I hoped would be a familybusiness.
Would you be willing to considerit?
And then this speaks to the wisdom that his fatherhad.
He's notlike,okay, you're 22 coming in and take over mybusiness.
He knows he's going to be operating formany, manyyears.
Still, he's not yet ready toretire.
So he'slike,hey, why don't you dothis?
Try your hand as an independent operator in the oilfields.
If this experiment doesn't work out and if you'reunhappy, you don't like thebusiness, when the year isover, you can do whatever you wish and I will not say anotherword.
And so this is thedeal. This is why Getty says that his seat at the table will reserve forhim.
This is what his fatherproposed.
Hesays,okay, if you find a promisinglease, I will furnish the capital for the purchase of the lease and any kind of like drilling equipment that youneed.
And if there's anyprofits, I'll get70%.
You'll do all thework. I'll put up thecapital,obviously.
I will get70% of the profits and you can get30%.
And Jay Paul get you a grease tothis.
Now his experience in the beginning of the oil industry is not like hisfather.
Youknow, his father drove 43wells, 42 of them come back in your firstshot,right?
He is not having any kind ofsuccess.
He's not finding oil atall.
And he almost quits multipletimes.
And then we see something that reoccurse in the books that you and I talk about over and overagain.
And the way I would say this is that words of encouragementmatter.
Older,successful, more seasoned entrepreneurs and businesspeople.
There's many examples of them of encouraging youngerentrepreneurs, younger versions ofthemself.
I think of Henry Ford who idolized Thomas Edison at the time they meet Henry Ford'sunknown.
He's anobody. He hasn't really accomplishedanything.
He'sunknown. Thomas Edison might be the most famous person inAmerica.
Henry Ford describes this idea aslike,hey, this doesn't makesense.
All the very few cars that wehave, they're all either at the time either electric orsteam.
I want to build a car that runs on an eternal combustionengine.
And Edison immediately understands the impact of Henry Ford'sidea.
And hesays, that's the thing young man keep atit.
And Henry Ford wrote two books when he wasalive.
And he references the factthat, youknow, the handful of words that sentence from his hero kept him and motivated him to persevere through the inevitable struggles of bringing that idea tolife.
And we see something very similar in the life of Jay Paul Getty as a youngman.
He's22. 23 years old when this ishappening.
I was frequently on the verge of givingup.
That I did not is do a large part to thewarm, hearted encouragement and advice I received from older seasoned oilmen like John Markham and RMMcFarland.
McFarland was the owner of McMahon OilCompany, one of America's most successful oil-producingfirms.
He went out of his way to befriendme.
He bolstered my sagging morale and gave me invaluable counsel and passed on knowledge and lessons that he had learned through longexperience.
And so this yearexperiment, it's almost at the very end and hesays, I had nothing to show for my efforts as a wildcutter,nothing.
But he didn't giveup. He's encouraged by hisfather, by these older seasonedoilmen.
Hedecides,hey, I'm going to take another shot at this other piece ofland.
He gets the lease for a shockingly low priceof $500, starts drilling and the well starts coming in at 700 barrels of oil aday.
And listen to what hesays.
Words cannot adequately describe the elation and triumph that one experiences when he brings in his first producingwell.
The feelings do not diminish when it's the tenth or hundredth and tenth well that comes in as aproducer.
Even later in hiscareer, he still felt the same exactfeeling, one of elation andtriumph.
And he tries his best to describe why it's thecase.
The sense of elation and triumph is alwaysthere.
It stems from knowing that one has beaten nature's incalculable odds by finding and capturing a most elusiveprey.
That is how he describesit.
He'sconsi-scribing, exploring and drilling for oil as a hunt foroil.
And this is when he makes his million dollars reallyrapidly.
He looksup, he'slike, oh mygod, I'mrich, I'm amillionaire, I'll never be able to spend this muchmoney.
And he makes amistake.Like, youknow, think about all the mistakes you made when you were in early20s.
And so he'slike, allright, I'mrich, I'mretiring.
And so he immediately shuts everythingdown.
He abandons all constructive activities as how he describesit.
And he chooses a life of laziness andpleasure.
But it'sfascinating, he'slike, youknow, I have everything Iwant.
I'mrich, I'mpoppin'bottles.
Like he literally saysthat.
I'm dating all thesewomen.
I'm in the perfectplace.
And he'slike, I amdepressed.
And he realizes that he wants back in the game ofbusiness.
And this isthen, once he gets backin, it's a game he never stopsplaying.
But I love his description ofthis.
And he's just seeing there's another oil boom happening thistime.
It's in the fields ofOklahoma.
It's right next to him in SouthernCalifornia.
And hesays, other men were bringing ingushers.
They were opening up newfields.
I opened up nothing that could possibly gush except for far too many champagnebottles.
This state of affairs firstnagged, then nod and finally becameintolerable.
Iunretired. And then we get another example of goodguy,dad.
When hegoes, talks his dad aboutit, I gotta get back in thegame.
Retiring'sboring. This isridiculous.
And hesays, my father saidnothing, not even I told youso.
So before I move on to how J Paul Gettyworked, I want to close this section about his dad with his father'sdeath.
His father suffers a stroke when he's 75 yearsold.
And this is how J Paul Getty describes the impact that the death of his fatherhad.
Remember, he is writing this 45 years after his fatherdies.
Hesays, thelove, respect and admiration I had and still have for my father wereboundless.
His death was a blow that the passing years have onlynumbed.
And for his entirelife, J Paul Getty would keep adiary.
So large chunks of this book are words that he wrotemany, many yearsago.
And this is hisdescription.
Hesays, I wrote these words from theheart.
They were from the heart and they remain so and they're about hisfather.
His loving kindness and great heart combined with the charming simplicity of manner made George Getty the idol of all who knewhim.
His mental ability was outstanding to thelast.
I can only strive to carry on to the best of myability, the life work of an ablerman.
He thought his father was a better man than hewas.
This is said in no sense aseulogy, but as an impartial appraisal of the facts later on thebook, he said that hisdeath, his father'sdeath, was the heaviestblow, the greatest loss that J Paul Getty had ever suffered in hislife.
Itsays, I was 37 when he died and no longer had any freedom of choice over what I would do with the rest of my ownlife.
He is describing a sense of obligation and a desire to carry on the life's work of the greatest man that he had evermet.
Okay, so now we're going to get into how heworked.
And he was like this from his very early days in the oilindustry.
He's still like this as he's writing thebook.
So there's a handful of things I've tried to organize around specific topics because if you saw the notes that Ihave, it's just the same note over and overagain, handful ofnotes.
One, he's aworkaholic.
Two, he is what many people would consider a micro manager as actually dinner at two founder friends ofmine.
And we were talking about this idea where like the micro management or being a micro manager has a really bad like branding aroundit.
And yet it's just a very common theme over and over again in thesebooks.
And they were telling about somebody else that had re they had rebranded being a micromanager.
He says the other founder says that he's not a micromanager.
He's that he's just in thedetails.
So the second trait that he has over and over again is that he is in thedetails.
He's definitely a micromanager.
Third, if you know your business for me tosee.
There's no problem you can'tsolve.
And that is related to being in the details of micromanager.
Numberfour, he's going to say over and overagain, I'm anautocrat.
I want control and thingsmust.
They must be done myway.
And then five relationships run theworld.
Jay Paul Getty went out of his way to build relationships with the most powerful politicians in country leaders in theworld.
And the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in theworld.
Infact, the way he did this and I'll get to this later is reallysmart.
He has a company headquarters that he calls it's called SuttonPlates, but he calls it a liaisoncenter, which is really a relationshipcenter.
And he used that for the sole purpose of building relationships with very successful and powerfulpeople.
But I'll get to that a little lateron.
And so at the time he's writing thesewords, he'sgot, he owns over 200 businessbusinesses.
He's got this just relentless constant flow ofinformation.
He's got thousands ofemployees.
And so he talks tome, he'slike,listen, 12 hour work days arecommon.
And many stretch to 14 hours ormore.
A steady stream oftelecsis,cables, rigged reports and letters of all kinds poured in from every conceivable corner of theglobe.
They were countless phonecalls.
They were executives of Getty companies and engineersaccounts, attorneys and other businessmen who had to be seenpersonally.
And he wouldn't have it any otherway.
He says in thebook, even 83 yearsold, I am still an oilman.
I am a wild-cading operator atheart.
And several times throughout thebook, he's trying to describe to the reader thismisconception.
A lot ofpeople, when you and I know this is thecase.
A lot of people from the outsidethink, oh entrepreneurs are motivated bymoney.
And obviously we want to build wealth for ourselves and ourfamily.
But he picks up onexactly, he'slike, this guy'sdecades.
He's a half century past the need to work formoney.
And he's talking about why he's doingthis.
And he says entrepreneurs are people whose mind and energies are constantly being used at peakcapacity.
In otherwords, he'salive.
He is fully alive when he's engaged in this game that he loves toplay.
And so when he'snot, he applies his work on alltendencies.
Obviously towork. So when he's notworking, he's buildingrelationships, but he's also a voraciousreader.
And so when I'm thinking aboutthis, like this isnot.
This guy'slike,dedicated.
Remember, he's reading thepolling, and he's like 12 yearsold.
Now he's 83 when he's talking to you andI.
And so what pops into mymind?
They get exactly the observation that that Charlie Mungermain is like the people that rise in life are usually not the smartest and sometimes not even the mostdiligent.
But they're learningmachines.
They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were thatmorning.
Andboy, does that habithelp?
Particularly when you have a long run ahead of you when when J Paul Getty started ahabit.
He didn't know he had a 70 year run ahead ofhim.
And there's something that I skipped over in his childhood that I think I should point out to you now is the fact that when he was incollege, he went to these colleges inCalifornia.
He thought they wereterrible.
And it wasn't until J Paul Getty transferred to Oxford that he actually ignited this lifelong love for self-directedlearning.
He said before he was beingtaught.
And he's like the key is not to betaught.
It's tolearn. And so the environment atOxford, when Getty wasthere, waslike,well, you pick yourpath.
You figure out what is what ignites yoursoul?
What do you actually want tolearn?
Learned lifelong learning is self-directed bynature.
It's not going to work any otherway.
And so I don't have to even read any part of this section when he's at Oxford to tell you what I feel is the most importantidea.
The great founders apply their fierce work ethic to lifelong learningtoo.
And all throughout thisbook, you see when Getty doesn't understandsomething, his first step islike, I'm going to read everything I can possibly find about thesubject.
It is self-directed lifelonglearning.
And then the last thing I'll say about thisaddiction, this obsession that he had worked withwork, he speaks about why he never retiredagain.
And he worked until the day hedied.
And hesays, I've been an active businessman for more than 60years.
I still mind thestore. My hand is never far from thethrottle.
And so something that appears over and overagain, there's large chunks of the book that are about this large parts of Getty's life is the fact that he was amicromanager.
He's in thedetails. That even though he's running this giganticempire, he is activelyinvolved.
Heis, in manycases, he almost everycase, he wants to be where the work is actually beingdone.
And I just saw this recently in the two-part series on WaltDisney.
He was the sameway. Two-part series on SteveJobs, that he's the exact sameway.
And so there's a greatstory, Ithink, we'll illustratethis.
That's told by hiscousin.
Hiscousin,June, is a close friend withFDR.
FDR'spresident, when this story is takingplace.
And so he askedJune, he'slike, how do you find FDR as aperson?
Is he easy to get alongwith?
And June's response wasfantastic.
Says he's the easiest man in the world to get alongwith.
As long as you do exactly what hewants, shereplied, that's one thing you and he have incommon.
And so I think when I'm analyzing the way that he approached hiswork, the fact that he worked all thetime, that he's amicromanager, that he's in thedetails, that he knows his business for me tosee, the fact that he knows he wantscontrol, that he has to haveit, he isautocratic, the fact that he leveraged relationships throughout his entirelife, all of thesethings, Ithink, interact with eachother.
I think this is a greatoverview.
And this is happening in the early days of hiscareer.
Hesays, my tendency is to beautocratic.
I had long ago recognized this inmyself.
I chose to be my own drilling superintendent because it was the only way that I could be sure that my cruise did exactly what Iwanted.
Andparadoxical, as it mayseem, it gave me a unique sense of independence andself-sufficiency.
I never had to search further than myself when seeking to lay final blame for mistakes or wrongdecisions.
He quotes a bunch ofleaders.
One thing he loved about Harry Truman was that the sign that he kept on hisdesk, that he was knownfor.
And hesays, essentially that sign describes in the mostclear, most succinct way possible is how Getty operated hisbusiness.
He believed the leader of thecompany, the founder of thecompany, the CEO of thecompany.
You have to take a streamownership.
And hesays, Truman provided theclearest, most succinct explanation of what I mean with the sign that he kept on his presidentialdesk.
The sign was fourwords.
The buck stopshere. When the man incharge, it could be a candyfactory.
What drilling operation are the nation's government acceptsdirect, final responsibility he makes full advance payment for the rewards and privileges hereceives.
He is released from any need to feel beholden orindebted.
There's also another positive byproduct of this becauseremember, he's an oilman.
He's a wildcatard. But he talks about the fact that he's onsite.
I want to be where the work isdone.
I know how to doeverything.
And in manycases, I will do it if I needto.
I will directlysupervise.
I will make sure my personal involvement makes sure that it gets done the correctway.
And so he talks aboutthat, like even at thispoint, there's independent oil companies which he considers himself because he's onsite.
And then there's vast oil corporations and there at far away headquarters and the oilmen, the actualrough, rough necks and roused abouts and wild caters are onsite.
They just don't respect these like far away suits and officesessentially.
And so he says an oil man who was a workingboss.
And that's what he considered himself a workingboss, enjoyed a distinctadvantage.
Oil field workers that also know as roughnecks,rigors, aredrillers, were and still are a fiercely proud and clannishlot.
When a boss knew his way around a rig and could perform anytask, oil field workers accepted him as a full member of their exclusivefraternity.
So think aboutthat.Remember, we go back to the wisdom of hisfather.
He is in his thirties whenhe's, this part of the story is in his thirties and the decisions that his dadmade.
Hey, let me bring my 11 year old son outhere.
He'llobserve, he'll learn toosmosis.
He'll ask questions and then he's15.
He's working the fields and he's working every summer and he does that for half of adecade.
That decision is paying dividendsnow.
What 15 yearslater? And so then like 200 pageslater, 150 pageslater, I come across this hilariousstory.
Because youknow, in thedetails, obviously means knowing how to do everyjob, being where the workhappens, getting applies it to like the most smallestdetails.
Many yearslater, he's already one of the richest people in theworld.
Okay. There's these letters that are reprinted in the book and he's going back and forth with the people because he's inEngland.
He sets up because he has to be inEurope, even though he loved many parts of this book is like a love letter toCalifornia.
And he much rather bethere, but he's willing to do things that he doesn't want to do that he's not comfortablewith.
He's willingto, youknow, subjugate his own personal desires if it's better for hisempire.
And so for the last like third of hislife, he's set up in Europe because their business is in SaudiArabia.
And Southern California is way too far from the Middle East where he reprised primarybusinesses.
He's also got businesses and obviously in theAmericas, he's got it inEurope, he's got it in MiddleEast, but he'slike,okay, I have to set up in a very convenientlocation, even though this isn't the place I want tobe.
And so he's having this argument over letters with the people that are in charge of his museum inCalifornia.
And he's pissed off because they're spending too much money on airconditioning.
And sohe's,again, there's one thing to say that you're in thedetails.
Another one to pay attention to how many days the AC is running at thismuseum.
That's what 5,000 miles away fromyou.
And so I just want to read this toyou.
Airconditioning. I'm not impressed with the argument that our art objects will be ruined if air conditioning is not available 168 hours perweek.
I seem to remember that air conditioning was invented only a few yearsago.
And then all of our 18th century objects necessarily passed a great many decades without the benefit of airconditioning.
My instructions are that air conditioning in the museums shall be turned off at all times at night and shall be used during the daytime only on those days which are exceptionallyhot.
We should have very little need for airconditioning.
And then he obviously applies that to the finances of hisbusiness.
He talks a lotabout, he gives advice fellow entrepreneurs throughout this entirebook.
And one of thisis, don't be like William RandolphHearst.
You should reinvest in your business and you have to keep a fortress of cash and use debtsparingly.
This is what hesays. I like to keep a lot of financial fat under mybelt.
There's nothing that can ever take the place ofcash.
The overwhelming majority of business problems and so many recent business failures result from businessmen exceeding themselves toofar.
There is most definitely a place and a need for the use of credit inbusiness.
However, I have always believed that the businessman who uses credit the most sparingly is the one who has the greatest chance for achievingsuccess.
And he talks about the fact that he lived nextdoor.
Oh, this ishilarious. So he's comparing the difference between the way William Randolph Hearst ran his business and the way that he that get he ran hisbusiness.
So hesays, I have always spent95% or more of my money on mybusiness, meaning reinvesting it into thebusiness.
Okay. While William Randolph Hearst was theopposite, he liked to live like a Romanemperor.
This beach house in Santa Monica costs $3million.
I was his next doorneighbor.
My housecost $100,000.
So think aboutthat. They both live in Santa Monica at thetime.
Hurses and this is for his mistressactually.
So I don't think William Randolph Hearst lived there most of thetime.
So that house costs $3million.
I live nextdoor. I paid $100,000 for myhouse.
This is a good illustration of the differences in our attitudes towardsmoney.
In1935, when this is taking place when these neighbors next to Hursesmistress, in1935, I was one third as rich asHearst.
And by1950, I was twice asrich.
Soagain, advice for entrepreneurs don't be likeHearst.
That's what Getty would tell you reinvesting your business keep a fortress of cash and use debtsparingly.
So then he has more advice for his fellowentrepreneurs.
He'slike,listen, I know a ton of greatentrepreneurs.
All the great entrepreneurs I know have thesetraits.
So I want to read this section to you because I absolutely lovedit.
He's really good friends with Aristotle andassets, which I'll talk more aboutlater.
But I just love all these likestories.
I'm just obsessed with these stories of the great entrepreneurs and knew eachother.
They're how their livesintersected.
And howmany, youknow, how similar they were to eachother.
I've been friends with a great many entrepreneurs during my businesscareer.
All were men who devoted their minds and energies to building productiveenterprises.
They concentrated on expanding their businesses and making them more efficient to produce more and better goods and services for morepeople.
They created jobs andwealth.
It is the mark of the entrepreneur that he reinvests in hisbusiness.
And he is always personallyinvolved.
Aristotle, NASA's was an outstandingexample.
So this is why I'm reading this entire section toyou.
I lovethis. He's a very good friend and is always fascinating experience to see himoperate.
I discuss business with him manytimes.
Listen to this veryoften.
I had a retinue ofassistance,executives, attorneys and engineers withme.
Aristotle would come to such meetingsalone.
Yet he easily held his own on all points that werediscussed.
Every enterprise he owned or controlled was his personalbusiness.
He was thebusiness, one of hisex-wisers.
Firstwife, Tino NASA said this aboutAristotle.
Arv is what everybody calledhim.
Arv can't think of anything on anything but a hugescale.
If he had been an artist instead of abusinessman, he would paint nothing but immensemurals.
This innate capacity to think on a large scale is one of the several characteristics that all entrepreneurs have incommon.
And if you think aboutthat, he's describing what he admires in otherpeople.
And so the list of traits that he just described to us in twoparagraphs.
The great entrepreneurs I know have thesetraits.
They devoted their minds and energy to building productive enterprises over the longterm.
Rememberboth? NASA's could have retired decades before hedid.
They're not in it just for themoney.
If they were just in it for themoney, they would have quit a long timeago.
Think aboutthat. They devoted their minds and energy to building productive enterprises over the longterm.
They concentrated on expanding theirempire.
They concentrated on making their companies moreefficient.
They reinvested heavily in theirbusiness, which can then help efficiency andexpansion.
They are always personally involved in the business and they know their shit down to theground.
And you just saw that with theNASA.
So NASA shows it by himself and he canhandle, you have 10 people across thetable.
I know my business down to theground.
It's been a while since I've made an episode about aNASA.
I think it's episode 84 and then the last time wastwo, episode211.
I'm goingto, I haveanother, I think two more geographies on them that I haven't readyet.
I just pulled some highlights and notes I reread them as I was thinkingabout.
And we found our notes and just start searching onNASA.
And I found a highlight that I think explains exactly how he was able to do what Gettie justdescribed.
Hesays, onassus spent almost all of his timeworking.
He would pour over shipping journals fromAntwerp,Vancouver,Hamburg, and NewYork, looking forintelligence,trends, andopportunities.
He wouldscan,study, and memorizetonnage,prices, insurancerates, and schedules of the world's great and small steamshipcompanies, and then attempt to outbuild hiscompetitors.
He read the maritime sections of at least six foreign language daily newspapers eachday.
And then before moving on from thesection, he reiterates more traits that he admires andothers.
And it's verysimple. He loves people that areresilient,self-starting, and then self-restarting because he repeats over and overagain,you're, it's inevitable you're going to get knockeddown.
You have to get backup. So youresilience,self-starting, and thenself-restarting.
And he talks freely over and overagain.
Look, there's downsides tothis.
Like, I'm giving my life to mybusiness.
And as aresult, Imean, I was married fivetimes.
You think he's at home alot?
He speaks over and over again about the fact that just manybusinessmen, myself very muchincluded, frequently complain that there aren't enough hours in the day to take care of the work athand.
And so he takes his time and attention that he would dedicate to having a relationship with his kids or hiswife.
And he dedicates it to hisbusiness.
I gave more time and attention to oil wells than to myhome.
My autocratic tendencies were no less apparent in my personal life than inbusiness.
Do you see what Imean?Like, what's refreshing about this bookis, youknow, I waslike,oh, he's a richest man in theworld.
He must beperfect. He'slike, first ofall,Rockefeller, I'm a sparrow compared to hiseagle.
Youknow, I had a wonderfuldad, a wonderful position in mylife.
And I was ashit. He sayslike, I was a shithusband.
He doesn't try to hideit.
My autocratic tendencies were no less apparent in my personal life than inbusiness.
I was often shorttempered,brusque.
I forgotbirthdays,anniversaries, and dinnerengagements.
Each of my wives was jealous and resentful of my preoccupation withbusiness.
And then he also has a little line inhere, a little zingerthough.
Okay. He'slike, they're jealous of all the time procurationalbusiness.
Yet none showed any visible aversion to sharing in the proceeds of thatpreoccupation.
And himself-analysing, justlike, how can I be so great at business and so terrible andmarriage?
He goes on throughout the entire book and just tried organizing one section andgoes, I see my marital patterns as a violation of Cicero'smaxim.
To stumble over the same stone twice is a proverbialdisgrace.
Yet I doggedly persisted in tripping over the sameboulder.
Herepeats, I was very irrational with marriage because work always camefirst.
And he talks aboutthe, so here's theproblem.
He does some interesting thingsagain.
This is one of the benefits of reading biographies and autobiographies in myopinion, because you have some of thesmartest, most productive people that ever live and you see them making bad decisions and mistakes over and overagain.
And you realizelike, perfection is not required to attain wonderful professionalsuccess.
And in Getty'scase,like, undeniable businessgenius.
And let me give you anexample.
I'm just making up theyears, but at the verybeginning, so he gets married fivetimes.
But the first three marriages are verybizarre.
So it'd belike, get married in1931, get divorced in1932, get married in1932, get divorced in1933, get married in1933, get divorced in1934.
And you look at the sequence of events likehow,how, how are you making thesedecisions?
And then another thing is like notdescribe, not communicating with your wifeenough, because a few of his wife's complainlike, why are you away from the home somuch?
You're alreadyrich. Why do you have towork?
They didn't understand what was actually drivinghim.
Andthen, youknow, he's a very extremeperson.
Hesays, my business interests createdproblems.
I was drilling several wellssimultaneously, and it was by no means uncommon for me to stay on the sites overnight for two or moredays.
And when I wasn't onthe, when he wasn't on thewells, he's traveling extensively all over theworld, looking for more opportunity to drilloil.
And he didn't see the need to change his habits just because he gotmarried.
Hesays, I found it extremely difficult to change my habits and my patterns merely because a marriage license had been signed andsealed.
And then he's able to finally summarize like his failure of marriage and then his success and nearly everythingelse.
There's a great line that I attributed previously to Munger because he repeatsit, but he said Buffett is the actual one that taught himthat.
And more and Buffett would say that it's not greed that drives theworld.
It'senvy. And Gettys says he's not envious of anybody else except the people that were able to actually make marriagessucceed.
Hesays, whatever my other flaws andweaknesses, I've never been given toenvy.
Today for theenvy, I feel towards people who have the ability to make marriage work and endurehappily.
It is an art in which I have never been able to master myrecord, fivemarriages, fivedivorces, fivefailures.
And he continues in this speaks to my soul because I feel this waytoo.
A hatred of failure has always been part of mynature.
And I suppose one of the more pronounced motivating forces in mylife.
Once I have committed myself to anyundertaking, a powerful inner drive cuts in and I become intent on seeing it through to a satisfactoryconclusion.
Think aboutthat. Hatred of failure is a main motivatingforce.
It is a powerful innerdrive.
It is not the love of success is the fear of failure that is pushinghim.
How and why is it that I've been able to build my ownautomobile, drill oilwells, run an aircraftplant, build and head a businessempire, yet remain unable to maintain even one satisfactory maritalrelationship.
It is one hell of aquestion.
And so I want to get into a few giantleaps.
Giant leaps forward that happened in hisbusiness.
And I think before I describe two of these suchoccasions, he talks about the importance of concentration in his ownlife.
And soJ. Paul Getty saysthis.
Hesays, my own nature is such that I'm able to concentrate on whatever is before me and I'm not easily distracted fromit.
That comes up over and over again in thesebooks.
A great description of Edwin Land that I pulledup.
He concentrated ferociously on hisquest.
Let's do a quote from Getty'shero, John DeRoccafellorSr.
This is what hesaid. Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things fail because we lackconcentration.
The art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everythingelse.
A great enabler of concentration is having a long attention span because if you hear what just Getty justsaid, my own nature is that that I'm able to concentrate on whatever is before me and not easily distracted fromit.
Charlie Mungersaid, I did not succeed in life byintelligence.
I succeeded because I have a long attentionspan.
Getty had a long attentionspan.
So that leads me to these two giant leap forward in hisbusiness.
The first one happens in the1930s.
The second one happened in the late 40s and then he'll reap the benefits in the mid50s.
But it goes back to when his fatherdies.
He takes over thecompany, it is valued around $15.5 million in1930.
And so the executors of his father's estate tried to restrict the behavior thatJ.
Paul Getty had and what he wanted to do because they were in a greatdepression.
And they're excessively worried about the economicsituation.
The patriarch of the family isdead.
Who knows this may be the high watermark of ourwealth.
What are we going todo? They'rescared.
And Getty thought that was the exact wrongresponse.
He said my own views were in directopposition.
So now at the time they'rejust, they just explore and they drill foroil.
He'slike,no,no,no, I believe now this is the time the time is right right now to verticallyintegrate.
And this is how he describes his thinking that I was convinced of eventual economic recovery and I firmly believed in the business dictum that you should buy when prices arelow.
I urged a program of expansion stocks in publicly owned companies with huge if temporarily undervalued assets were selling at prices that made them barely believablebargains.
There were shares selling for as little as a 20th of their net underlying assetvalue.
That means anyone who purchased them was in effect buying $20 for every dollar hespent.
The Gettycompanies, my fathers and myown, were primarily engaged in oil exploration andproduction.
Their crude had to be sold to refineries or pipelinecompanies.
I reasoned that with share prices being where theywere, the time was ideal to obtain control of a company withrefinery, facilities and marketingoutlets.
In otherwords, economic conditions created a unique opportunity to put together an integrated well to consumer oilcompany.
It's one thing to know that is the rightidea.
It's completely another thing to actually have the temperament to act on that belief when everybody around you ispanicking.
He's in the middle of a financialpanic.
You know what I thought of when I got to thissection?
Sam Zimuri from the book TheFish, The Eight theWhale, The Life and Times of America'sBananaking.
There was a great paragraph in that book where Sam Zimuri does something verysimilar.
He knew the time was right for him toexpand.
Listen to thisdescription.
I'm going to read this paragraph toyou.
It'sexcellent. There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the commonpile.
When certain properties becomeavailable, that will never be availableagain.
A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the parametricpressure.
A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot affordto.
So going against the advice of the people advisinghim,right?
Going against the current economicclimate, he starts buying shares in this oil company called tidewater associated oilcompany.
His idea was to accumulate enough shares so that he can win control oftidewater.
Now this ishilarious. Listen to what hesays.
Tidewater actually belonged to standard oil of NewJersey, which was controlled by the Rockefellerfamily.
He didn't know it at the time because if you listen to the multiple episodes I've done on Rockefeller'sfamily, they constantly wouldhide.
They'd have secret ownership in companies over and overagain.
They did not want people to know how rich theywere.
They did not want people to know how powerful theywere.
They love this network of secretallies.
It says they actually belonged to the standard oil of NewJersey.
Standard oil of New Jersey was controlled by the Rockefellerfamily.
Had I known thisoriginally, I would never have begun buying tidewater shares for a pygmy independentoperator, such as Iwas, could hardly stand a chance against one of the world's largest and most powerful major oilcompanies.
By the time I discovered thetruth, I was too deeply committed to withdraw from thefray.
And so now some of theowners, it's not just the Rockefeller family ownstidewater, but some of the other owners like what we don't want to be taken over by this gettyguy.
So they have anidea. And so at New Year'sDay, he gets acall.
He is hanging out at William Randolph-Hers Castle in SanSimian,California.
I also visited there lastyear.
It's incredible if you ever get thechance.
You shouldvisit. It's open to the publicnow.
I think it's owned by the state ofCalifornia.
It really is this great illustration of this idea that you and I talk about all thetime.
Mute the world and then build yourown.
Hirst, built his own world and you get to visit a part ofit.
It'sremarkable. On New Year'sDay, he's at the HirstCastle.
They'relike,hey, there's some guy on the phone looking for agetty.
And so he's going to talk to the guy calling him is JayHopkins.
Jay Hopkins in the near future is going to be the founder of GeneralDynamics, which is one of the biggest defense companies that still exists to thisday.
But at thetime, Jay Hopkins works for JohnD.
Rockefeller,Jr. And so he's telling Getty what's goingon.
He'slike,listen, standard oil ofJersey, they decide they're going to transfer all of its tidewater shares to this holding company called MissionCorporation.
Their idea waslike,well, we can disperse our holding so widely that control the company would be out of Getty's reachforever.
The problem was that they never told JohnD.
Rockefeller,Jr. why they were doingthis.
And so nowRockefeller,Jr.
finds that he owns a bunch of shares to this mission corporation that he's willing to share to sell his rights to the mission corporation stock for $10 ashare.
And so he has Jay Hopkins to help him sellthis.
And Jay Hopkins calls Jay PaulGetty.
And so Jay PaulGetty, ofcourse, I guess I want to buyit.
But hegoes,hey, suppose the Jersey standards management hears that Rockefeller intends tosell, they'll try to talk him out ofit.
And Jay Hopkins responds to Jay PaulGetty.
And hesays, not achance.
Rockefeller,Jr. is aboard a train bound forArizona.
They can't reachhim. It's not like they can send an email or text at this time inhistory,right?
They can't reachhim. And I have his authorization tosell.
So we closed the transaction right then and there over thetelephone.
He needed that domino to fall because then it brought downanother, a bunch of other dominoes withit.
He talks about this arm with JohnD.
Jr.'s assignment ofrights.
I approached the other Jersey standards stockholders with predictableresults.
Many of them felt that if a Rockefeller thought it was wise to sell his mission corporationrights, that they would be wise to do thesame.
That was a huge leap forward in his business is going to unlock anotheropportunity, the opportunity of thelifetime.
So he is going to secure the rights for what is known as the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia andKuwait.
And I just think there's an abundance of lessons in here forus.
So this is the year 1948 to1949.
Hesays,Getty,interest, obtain the oil concession on Saudi Arabia's half interest in the neutralzone.
This is this ground that's lying in between Saudi Arabia andKuwait.
Four years and tens of millions of dollars were spent before a drop of oil was brought to thesurface.
By1954, it was evident that the neutral zone had immense oilreserves.
Getty companies had done considerable international business before he's describing a giant leapup,right?
He does not become wise why they considered the world's richest private citizen without thesteel.
Getty companies had done considerable international business before neutral zone finds and production transformed us into a truly globalenterprise.
Which work and capital and a sweeping organizational restructuring was needed to make this new business empireviable.
Tankers, supertankers,pipelines, storagefacilities, and refineries had to bebuilt.
This is my favorite sentence of this entiresection.
The list of things to be done wasawesome, but those things weredone.
And so I want to spend some time on thisdeal.
There's so many interesting lessons for you andI.
So think aboutthis, he's going to miss out on the deal of alifetime.
Then he's going to get the deal of a lifetime which I'll spend two in aminute.
He's willing to move his entire life for his biggestdeal.
This is what I meant about even after he's a wealthyman.
He's willing to subjugate his comfort where he wants tobe, what he'd rather be doing if it's for the betterment of hiscompany.
We'll also see that it's hard to overpay for a truly greatbusiness.
Remember what Charlie Mungersaid?
When he's analyzing the success of Berkshire Hathaway lookingback, he'slike,oh, we really made the money out of the high qualitybusinesses.
So I absolutely love this part because he's talking about missing out on the deal of a lifetime and then getting the deal of alifetime.
This isgreat. I have made more than a few business mistakes during mycareer.
Some werewhoppers. In1932, he had the opportunity to bid on the Iraqi oilconcession.
We were close to reaching an agreement that would have given my companies the right to explore and drill for oil over a vastarea.
The initial cost would have beenminimal, a matter of some tens of thousands ofdollars.
But there was an abrupt and disastrous break in US crude oilprices.
The great East Texas oil fields had been opened up andcrude, so the price ofcrude, craters and it goes down to 10 cents abarrel.
This was a full on financialpanic.
I was reluctant to expand into the Middle East under theseconditions.
Think aboutthis. This iswhy,again, I guess so hyped up reading thisstuff.
Because it's one thing to know what the right thing to dois.
It's another thing to have the courage and the temperament to doso.
He knew the time was toexpand.
We cannot just stay oil explorersforever.
We got to verticallyintegrate.
There's a big financialcrash.
We can pick up stock for120th, what wecould.
We have to buynow. Two yearslater, same situationhere.
This is tens of thousands of dollars to get for the opportunity to drill inIraq.
But I didn't do it because I was scared because there was other financialpanic.
This is not just an overall financial panic with the GreatDepression, but it's a financial panic within myindustry.
I was reluctant to expand into the Middle East under these conditions and ordered my agents to break off the concessionnegotiations.
It is impossible to estimate how much revenue the Getty company lost because of mydecision.
That is1932. It's going to take almost 17 years to get another shot at fixing them a stake and this time at a giganticcost.
Butagain, it's a weird thing about this game we'replaying.
It's trulyhard. It sounds so silly to sayit, but it's truly hard to overpay for a truly greatbusiness.
I realized it was imperative that my companies obtain a foothold in the oil rich MiddleEast.
17 yearslater, most of the giant corporations that had many times the financial resources that Getty had at this point had already got all of these greatconcessions.
There was one very significant area that had been passed over and that was the NeutralZone.
This zone that I've already described is 2,400 square mile in between Saudi Arabia andKuwait.
He'slike,oh, this might be an opportunity to make up for my mistake that I made in1932.
He sends the biggest opportunity of hislife.
He sends the geologist out to look at the Neutral Zone and he getsback.
He says he sent me this tersecable.
It is threewords, structures indicateoil.
I absolutely lovethat.
Are you and I confused that what that message is meant to be interpreted for J PaulGetty?
No, structures indicateoil.
Sign the damndeal. This deal is going to be really expensive and what I love is everybody around Gettysaying,oh, he lostit, paid toomuch.
This guy's anidiot. He doesn't know what he'sdoing.
I'm just going to give you a little bit of like overview of thedeal.
He had to pay the Saudi Arabian government an immediate cash of $10.5million.
We have to pay them a million dollars a year and a55% per barrel royalty on all oilproduced.
We have to pay25% of our net profits to the Saudi Arabiangovernment.
We have to build a refinery and storage facilities in SaudiArabia.
We have to deliver 100,000 gallons of gasoline and 50,000 gallons of caracene annually to the Saudi Arabiangovernment.
We have to pay the salaries of Saudi government inspectors and otherpersonnel.
We have to providepension, retirement and insurance and other benefits for Saudi Arabian employees of thecompany.
And this is what I mean about his hard to repay for a truly greatbusiness.
This deal makes him oneof, if not the richest private citizen in theworld, by the standards of some oil companies operating in the MiddleEast, the terms reviewed as being toomuch.
They were calledoutrageous.
It was widely predicted that Paul Getty has finally overreached and he'll lose his shirt in the Middle East when in fact the exactopposite, the exact oppositehappened.
And so with this expansion of the Getty Empire at the sametime, he is trying to get his sons involved in the family business as his dad got himinvolved.
And this desire ends in tragedy to the point where he has to ask himself thequestion, did I cause the pressure that killed myson?
And I think the way to start this is a conversation thatJ.
Paul Getty is having with Winston Churchill sonRandolph.
And Randolph is tellingJ.
Paul Getty that he suffered handicaps and hardships in life because he was the son of a great and famousman.
And he says that no matter what Ido, I will always bemeasured.
They'll always measure the son's talent against those of hisfather.
And essentially his point is that even if he does achieve his own independent greatness that he'llnever, he can't possibly live up to his father so they'll say that I wasn't goodenough.
Churchill, youknow, I've read a bunch of books onthem, done a bunch of episodes onthem.
He was pretty upset with the way that Randolph lived hislife.
Infact, I found a quote that Churchill has on hisson.
Itsays, your idol and lazy life is very offensive tome.
You appear to be leading a perfectly uselessexistence.
And what is fascinating about this is the contrast that Getty makes because throughout the first two decades of his owncareer, he knew he's like other oil men are going to measure my performance against that of myfather.
And it seems like Randolph kind oflike, youknow, had a little pity party and got upset about it and Getty just workedharder.
And my own guess is that one of Getty's greatest regrets in life is the factthat, youknow, he was the son of a greatfather.
And I don't think his kids would describe him asthat.
And part of his is like this fracture and lifestyle he had five differentwives, four different babymamas, if I'm countingcorrectly, most of them are not living withhim.
I think about how much time Getty's dad spent with his son when they were growingup, Getty did not do thesame.
And Getty talks aboutthat.
My father'sinfluence, anexample, were the principal forces that formed my nature andcharacter.
Unfortunately, I had no like degree of influence and control over the lives of my ownsons.
The reason for this was of course the failure of mymarriages.
I had hoped and desired that my sons would enter the family business eventually taking over for me just like I had taken over for myfather.
I had a wish to perpetuate adynasty.
I would experience many disappointments before learning that I could not predetermine their careers or the course of theirlives.
So none of his sons wereinterested.
There was one son that showed an interest in that worked in the familybusiness.
And that was hisson,George.
And so there's many times throughout the book where he's just so excited to have a son that's interested in the same things that he's interested talks about in his like the direentries.
Oh, met with George Day inLondon.
We talked business for 12 straighthours.
This went on andon. And so he's going to call his son's death andaccident.
Other people have described it as asuicide.
I do not know which description isaccurate.
All I know is that what they all agree on that he drank and he combined drinking with takingbarbituets.
And so this is where he's talking about the fact that oh myGod, did I cause the pressure that killed myson?
And so he gets called to the telephone and he immediately knows something's wrong because he gets on the line and theysaid, I think you better braceyourself,Mr.
Getty. He is told that George his son had a stroke and that he's unconscious in ahospital.
And then it's updated and it says George died a few minutesago.
And he's not alone when he takes thecall.
So we have a description of whathappens.
He says it's impossible for me to recall much about my emotions orreactions.
My memories are vague andconfused.
I am told that I sat for hours staring into space sayingnothing.
And I can only remember one thought that it wasuntrue, that it wasimpossible.
I had always believed that my first son George would outlive me by at least 35years.
The next day I learned from thenewspapers, television andradio, what they had refrained from tellingme.
George had not died from astroke, but from the effects of a lethal combination of alcohol andbarbituets.
One question will continue to not me to the end of my owndays.
I remember the conversations I had with Randolph Churchill and I know that all too many businessman and executives rely on a few evening drinks and sometimes barbituets as a means of easing the tensions and pressures created by theirwork.
Is it possible that these were unduly greater for George because he strove too hard to live up to the images of his grandfather andme?
In otherwords, did I cause the pressure that killed myson?
Did he have asitting? His 12-year-old son died from complications ofsurgery.
He had survived having a tumor taken out and then had a series of ongoing surgeries and died from complications ofone.
One of his grandson gets kidnapped and he's famous or infamous for trying to negotiate withhim.
His whole point is I got 15 other grandchildren and if I just keep immediately paying outmoney, I'm signaling to the world that if you want to makemoney, just kidnap one of mykids.
There's entirebooks. I ordered five different books onGetty, one of which is dedicated to whathappens.
This dangerof, youknow, hesays, I wanted to create a dynasty and much like the Kennedyfamily, the Kennedy family dynasty because Joseph Kennedy had similarinstincts,desires.
There's just a lot of tragedy that happensthere.
So I'll read thebook. I'm not sure if I'll make a podcast onit.
If there is some lessons in there for you andI, then Iwill.
But this guilt ispresent.
He mentions it multipletimes.
He definitely had to live with doubt and guilt over the role that he played in his son'slives.
So moving on toanother, I would say tenet of his career is the fact that relationships are on theworld.
He went out of his way when he's not working and I guess this is considered work as well to build relationshipswith, youknow, world classentrepreneurs.
Heknew, especially every single USpresident, nearly all the leaders of the countries in Europe and MiddleEast, but he did thisintentionally.
He does something that's veryfascinating.
Imean, he talks about why it's soimportant.
So he sets this thingup, which I mentioned called the liaisoncenter.
So he buys this gigantic estate and it was a very oldestate.
I think it was first created in like the 1500s and it's called SuttonPlace.
And if you Google SuttonPlace, getit.
You'll seeit. I think it sits on like a thousandacres.
It's like 72 differentrooms.
It served as a de facto corporateheadquarters.
And so he would invite all the people he wanted to build relationshipswith.
They could work out ofit.
They could stay fordays.
And he sayswhy? He says the liaison center would provide aneasy, relaxed atmosphere and pleasant surroundings in which Getty executives and businessmen from all over the world could meet exchange views and ideas yet conduct no formalbusiness.
Naturally, plans and programs could and probably would grow out of suchmeetings.
And there are many such examples in the book where Jay Paul Getty does this in his own life and so he knows it's valuable and I just want to give you oneexample.
I already mentioned his very close friendship with Aristotle andAsus.
And he says during the1950s, Aristotle and Asus and I formed a close friendship and association in several businessventures.
This plays a role because as he continues to expand and now his empire is essentially at almost near itszenith, he's going to need to hammer out a deal withhim.
Asussaid,Oh, NASA would not offer to other people that weren't his friend relationships run theworld.
Aristotle and Asus had obtained what amounted to monopoly on tanker transportation of all oil produced in SaudiArabia.
The oil companies were up in arms for they had their own taker fleets or tankers undercharter.
The Getty interests were in the middle of a large scale tanker construction program in anticipation of the neutral zoneproduction.
Anonasis monopoly would wreak havoc with those programs and with much other Getty companyplanning.
But Ari and I werefriends.
There was a bond of mutual trust and confidence betweenus.
As always when the two of us sat down andtalked, obstacles were quickly ironedout.
Our conversation ended successfully and with a handshake which for Ari constituted an ironcladagreement.
As can begathered, these meetings with Arion Asus had far reachingconsequences.
And so by the 1950s he is abillionaire, a legitbillionaire.
And that's what they callhim.
And he's talking towards the end of thebook.
Like what he's reflecting back as his life on his life as an 80-thrioledman.
Like what actually droveme?
And I think this series of reflections is the perfect place toclose.
He says thebillionaire.
I harbored no desire to be the world's richestman, not at any time in mylife.
I have gone this far on this particularpath.
There is no reason why I should not go further and see where itleads.
It may well be that I will learn something from itmyself.
I made my first million dollarsquickly, almostovernight.
I was stunned at the realization that I had somuch.
I believed it was all the money I could ever use or need and I stopped workingentirely.
I can face myself squarely in the privacy of mystudy, late atnight, and say that it was not greed or any desire for more money that caused me to come out of retirement at the age of 26 and began workingagain.
I looked back over the years and searched my memory and myconscience.
For the reasons that motivatedme, I recall the elementsclearly.
The challenge inherent in the search for oil was a powerfulfactor.
As was the sense of responsibility I felt towards my father in the business that he had created andbuilt, what followed was a constant source of astonishment tome.
If I can claim personal credit for having made the best of myadvantages, it is by likening myself to a tennisplayer.
Once into thegame, I did my damnedest to becompetitive.
I always sought to return theball, no matter from which direction or with what velocity it came into my side of thecourt.
I always sought to return theball.
That is a great summary of why he kept getting afterit.
The challenge inherent init, the continuation of hishero, his father's life'swork, and then Getty's inner competitivedrive.
I really enjoyed thebook.
I hope you readit. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your podcastplayer, or availablefounderspodcast.com, you will be supporting the podcast at the sametime.
That is 352 books down 1,000ago, and I'll talk to you againsoon.
One of the things I loved about this book was how Getty repeated that he made it a priority to learn fromhistory.
If you really think aboutit, what Getty learned about how Rockefeller built his oil company wound up being worth billions when Getty was building his own oilcompany.
Into this constant reading that he mentions in this love ofhistory, I think Getty understood the truth in what Charlie Munger said that learning from history is a form ofleverage.
I think that is why so many Charlie just puts to thebest.
It's like why so many of the people that you and I study in thepodcast, they just spent so much time learning from the great people they came beforethem.
Getty obviously included in thatnow.
Learning from history is a form ofleverage, and I built atool.
They actually gives you the superpower to do this ondemand.
It is called Founder'sNotes.
Founder's Notes started out as the internaltool.
I built this for myself to keep track of all mynotes, all myhighlights, all my transcripts for every episode that I've evermade.
Everything that I've ever used to make the podcast is now in one searchabledatabase, and by searching thisdatabase, it actually gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs and use it when you needit.
Existing subscribers of Founder's Notes have been using it to make decisions inside theircompany.
They've been using it to prepare for clientmeetings.
They've been using it to prepare for boardmeetings.
They've been using it to find ideas onhiring,marketing,leadership,recruiting, anytime that you hear me reference up past Founder or a past idea on thatpodcast, that ability comes from me searching Founder'sNotes.
So what you are about to hear is a demo of me using Founder'sNotes.
Included with Founder's Notes is a private podcastfeed.
There's actually these 50 short episodes waiting for youthere.
I am going to play one of those short episodesnow.
I was asked how did history's greatest founders think abouthiring?
What strategies did they use tohire?
All I did was a keyword search in Founder's Notes to answer thisquestion.
It is a perfect demo of how valuable a subscription to Founder's Notesis.
If you want to have the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders ondemand, you can get access to by going to Founder's Notes.com that is Founder's with an S just like the podcast Founder'sNotes.com.
I want to start out first with why this is soimportant.
There's actually this book that came out in like1997.
It's called In The CompanyGiants.
I think it's episode 208 of Founder'sNotes.
It's two Stanford MBA students if I remembercorrectly.
They're interviewing a bunch of technology companyfounders.
In their Steve Jobs is one ofthem.
This isright, I think even before he came back toApple.
They were talkingabout,well,yeah, we know it's important tohire, but in a typicalstartup, a manager or a founder may not always have time to spend recruiting otherpeople.
I first readthis, Steve's answer tothis, I don'tknow, two yearsago.
I never forgotit. I think it'sexcellent.
I guess up why this question is soimportant.
You should really bespending, especially in the earlydays, basically all your time doingthis.
In a typical startupmanager, may not always have the time to spend recruiting otherpeople.
Then Steve Jobssaid, I disagreetotally.
I think it's the most importantjob.
Assume you're by yourself in a startup and you want apartner.
You take a lot of time finding apartner,right?
He would be half of yourcompany.
I'm going to pausethere.
This idea of looking at each new hire as a percentage of the company isgenius.
Why should you take any less time finding a third or a fourth of your company or a fifth of yourcompany?
When you're in astartup, the first 10 people will determine whether the company succeeds ornot.
Each is10% of thecompany.
So why wouldn't you take as much time as necessary to find all aplayers?
Ifthree, three of the10, we're not sogreat.
Why would you start a company where30% of your people are not sogreat?
A small company depends on great people much more than a big companydoes.
Okay. To answer thisquestion, the advantage that I have making founders and that you have as a bioactive listening to founders is not only that I've read 300-something biographies of entrepreneursnow, but I have all of my notes and highlights stored in my read-wiseapp.
That means I can search for any topic I can look at the past highlights of books or I can search forkeywords.
What I didis, first ofall, what I've started to do with these AMA questions is I readthem, decide which ones I'm going to donext, and then think about it for a fewdays.
I don't putany, I justliterally, that I know that's the nextquestion, just let my brain work on it in the background for a fewdays, and then I'll go through and start searching all of mynotes.
That's what I didhere. There's a bunchof, I might have 10 or 15 different founders talking abouthiring.
The first idea is the mostobvious, but I think probably works best when you're alreadyestablished.
Steve Jobs is talkingabout,hey, great way to hire is just find great work and find the people that did that and then try to hirethem.
When you're SteveJobs, that's a loteasier.
If you're just somebody that doesn't have areputation, maybe you don't haveresources, maybe your company's rather new or not as wellknown.
DavidOgoby, I just did Confessions of an Advertising Man a couple episodesago.
Like 306 or something likethat,307.
He did the samething, but he's David Ogoby at thatpoint.
He wouldfind, he'd go throughmagazines, find greatadvertising, greatcopywriting, and he'd write the personal letter and then set up a phonecall.
He says he was so well known and he's one of the best in his field that he wouldn't even have to offer ajob.
Just theconversation, then the personwould, he would want to hire theperson, never mentionit, and the person would apply tohim.
And soagain, I think if you can dothat, then ofcourse, it'sstraightforward.
Find for somebody who does greatwork.
Usually you can dothis.
I actually have a friend that I can't say who itis.
He's doing this rightnow,actually.
I have a friend that's really good at doingthis.
He's finding people that do great stuff on the internet and then just cold DMing them and then getting convinced them to work onthings.
And that usuallyworks, especially with younger people early in thecareer.
There's a bunch of different ways to think about this and a bunch of different ways toprioritize.
So the first thing that came tomind, when I foundsurprising, is you read any biography on Rockefeller and he had a couple ideas where he felt theoptimization, youknow, table stakes that you're intelligent and you're driven and you'rehardworking,right?
We don't evenhave, like if you're listening tothis, you already knowthat.
But he prioritized hiring people with socialskills.
And so this is what hesaid, the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar orcoffee.
And I payfor, I pay more for that ability than any other under thesun.
There's thetwo, the second part to thisthough.
And this also works well if you have access to moreresources.
He Rockefeller would hire people as hefound, as he found talentedpeople, not as he neededthem.
It's notlike,okay, Standard Oil has six openspots.
Let's go find sixcandidates,right?
He'd come across what he considered a talentedperson.
He didn't even matter if he didn't know what they were going todo.
He'slike, I'm just going to stack histeam.
And if you really think aboutthe, his partner is a StandardOil, he essentially built acompany, an executive team of founders of cause because he was buying up all theircompany.
So it's veryrare. But there's a line from Titan I want to read toyou, taking for granted the growth of hisempire, he hired talented people asfound, not asneeded.
And then I found another idea in thehiring, like the actual interviewprocess.
So there's this kind of VanneverBush.
I did two episodes onthem.
I think it's 270 and271.
He is the most important American ever in history in terms of connecting the scientificfield, private enterprise and thegovernment.
The most important person to keep alive for the American War effort wasFDR.
The second one was VanneverBush.
Vannever Bush is like the force of gum of this historicalperiod.
He is involved ineverything.
The Manhattan Project to discovering like a young Claude Shannon to building a mechanicalcomputer.
Like this guy literally hasdone, hejust, he pops up in these books over and overagain.
If you are reading about American business history during World War II and post World WarII, you are going to come across the name Vannever Bush over and overagain.
I read his fantastic autobiography called Pieces of the Action and I came across this weirdhighlight.
And so this is his brilliant and unusual job interviewprocess.
And so he talked about hisorganization, he's running calledAmrad.
AtAmrad, I hired a young physicist from Texas named CGSmith.
The way I hired him isinteresting.
An interview of that sort is always likely to be on an artificial basis in somewhatembarrassing.
So I discussed with him a technical point on which I was then genuinelypuzzled.
The next day he came in with a neat solution and I hired him atonce.
Here's anotheridea. This is from NolanBushnell.
The founder ofAtari, founder of Chuckishese and Steve Jobsmentor.
He hired Steve Jobs when Steve Jobs was like 19 atAtari.
He would ask people their reading habits ininterviews.
This is why one of the best ways his whole thing was he wanted to build all of his companies laid on a foundation of creativepeople.
So that's what he's lookingfor.
He'slike, I need creativepeople.
One of the best ways to find creative people is to ask a simplequestion.
What books do youlike? I've never met a creative person in my life that didn't respond with enthusiasm to a question about readinghabits.
Actually which books people read is not as important as the simple fact that they read itall.
I've known many talented engineers who hated science fiction but loved say books on bird watching a blatant but often accurate generalization people who are curious and passionate read people who are apathetic in a different don't I remember one that that's such a great line and I obviously agree withit.
I rememberone. I'm going to read it again a blatant but often accurategeneralization.
People who are curious and passionate read people who are apathetic and indifferent don't I remember one particular woman who during an interview told me that she had read every book that I hadread.
So I started mentioning books I hadn't read and she had read thosetwo.
I didn't know how someone in her late 20s found that this much time to read so much but I wasimpressed.
I was so impressed that I hired her right there and assigned her to international marketing which was havingproblems.
This is why this is why I'm reading this whole section toyou.
A job with a lot of moving parts benefits from a brain that has a lot of movingparts.
It wouldn't be possible to have read that many books without such abrain.
So you see what Imean? We start with Steve Jobs saying this is the most important thing that you're roles the leader of the company and the founders todo.
It's so important to study and this is why I'm glad this question exists and why I'm glad that I took the time and I had the foresight tolike,hey, I should really organize my thoughts and notes because there's no way I would have remembered all this without being being able to search my readwise,right?
But you have Rockefeller saying this is what's important tome.
You have Bush saying this is how Ihire.
Now you have Nolan Bush nowsaying,well, here's another weird thing that Ilearned.
Let me go through what Warren Buffett says aboutthis.
So this is about thequality.
One thing that is consistent whether it'sjobs,Buffett,Bezos, PeterTeal, this just pops up over and overagain.
They talk about the importance of trying to find people that are better thanyou.
The hiring bar constantly has toincrease.
Now obviously the larger the companygets, that'simpossible.
Steve Jobs says this is a great quote where he'slike, youknow, Pixar was the first time Isee.
I saw an entireteam, a tire company of Aplayers, but they had 400players.
They had 400 teammembers.
He's like at thetime, Apple3000.
It's like it's impossible to have 3000 Aplayers.
So there is some number that your company may grow to where it's just you're justnot.
You're not going to have thousands of A players in myargument.
I don't even know if you get a400.
I guessyou, Imean, I'll take Steve's word for it on there and Pixar definitely produce greatproducts, but it's probably a lot lower than that aswell.
So Warren Buffett would tell you to use David Ogleby's hiringphilosophy.
And so Warrensaid, Charlie and I know that the right players will make almost any team manager lookgood.
Again, that is why it's the most important function of thefounder.
Maybe directly next to the product or right above the product actually because those of people building yourproduct.
We subscribe to the philosophy of Ogleby and others founding genius DavidOgleby.
This is what Oglebysaid.
If each of us hires people who are smaller than weare, we should become a company ofdwarfs.
But if each of us hires people who are bigger than weare, we should become a company ofgiants.
David or Jeff Bezos rather used a variation of Ogleby's idea to Jeff used to say inAmazon.
Every time we hiresomeone, he or she should raise the bar for the next hire so that the overall talent pool is alwaysimproving.
And he talked about this idea in Amazon where the future hires that we do should be so good that if you had applied for the job you already have anAmazon, you wouldn't getin.
That's a very interestingidea.
Take your time withrecruiting.
Take your time withhiring.
This is great book on the history ofPayPal.
It's writtenback.Actually, I recently become friends with the authors named JimmySony.
And this is in hisbook. The most fascinating thing that I found was that PayPal prioritizedspeed.
So from the time they found it to the time they sell toeBay, it's like fouryears.
Jimmy spent more time researching the book than he spent six years researching thebook.
I was teasing him because you took a long-run book and they took to start and sell theircompany.
It just speaks to the quality he's trying todo.
But as a byproduct ofthat, like obviously they movefast, but they prioritize speed over everything else except in onearea,recruiting.
Max Lutton kept the bar for talent exceedinglyhigh, even if that came at the expense of speedystaffing.
Max kept repeating A's higherA's, B's higherC's.
So the first B you hire takes the whole companydown.
Let's read thatagain. A players hire Aplayers, B players hire Cplayers.
So the first B player you hire takes the whole companydown.
Additionally, theteam, the company leaders mandated that allprospects, here's another idea foryou.
All prospects must meet every single member of theteam.
Now the next one is the mostbizarre.
It makessense. If youstudy, I did this three part on LarryEllison, three part series on LarryEllison, I should read those books again because the podcast is like 50 times bigger than when I publish those episodes and he'sjust, he'scrazy.
So he would hire based on theconfidence, the self-confidence level of thecandidate.
Listen tothis. I have tears of myeyes.
I don't know how tolaugh.
Okay. Because thisis, you read about Larry Ellison and he's one of these people it's like really easy to interface with because youjust, you just know exactly who he is and what's important tohim.
That's why I think it's afunny.
Ellison insisted that his recruiters hire only the finest and cockiest new collegegraduates.
When they were recruiting fromuniversities, they'd askpeople, are you the smartest person youknow?
And if they saidyes, they would hirethem.
They saidno, they would say who is and they would go hire that guy andsaid, I don't know if you got the smartest people thatway, but you definitely got the mostarrogant.
Ellison's and this is why the personality of the founder is largely the culture of thecompany.
Apple is SteveJobs. Apple is just Steve Jobs in 10,000lives,right?
I was just texting a founder friend ofmine.
He was a socialpodcast.
I actually met him through the podcast and he's going through this like process ofself-discovery.
He's already started a bunch of companies are reallysuccessful, but he'slike, I think I'm more of this type of founder than the other type offounder.
And that's good that he's doing that because he's hopefully his next mission is like his life'smission, youknow?
And you can't get your life's mission unless you figure out who youare.
Ellison knew who hewas.
Ellison's swaggering combative style became a part of the company'sidentity.
This arrogant culture had a lot to do with Oracle'ssuccess.
Here's another odd idea foryou.
IzzySharp, the founder of FourSeasons, actually could figure it out that in hisbusiness, which ishotels,right, that hiring could hire the right person could actually be a form of distribution for hishotel.
He gave me the idea because ofwhat?
What do weknow? What do you and I know in our bones that history's greatest founders all readbiographies.
They all read biographies of people that came before them and took ideas fromthem.
Izzy Sharp is trying to build fourseasons.
What do you think hedid?
He picked up a biography of CesarRitz, the guy that Ritz Carlton's namedafter.
Thegreat, arguably the greatesthotel, the year of alltime.
And when herealized,oh,shit,Ritz, he says remembering that Cesar Ritz made his hotels world famous by hiring some of the foremostchefs.
We decided to do somethingsimilar.
So what is he talkingabout?
Cesar Ritz went out and partnered with AugustEscaffier.
What Cesar Ritz was to buildinghotels, August Escaffier was to Frenchcooking.
And so what happened is you partnered with world famouschefs.
People come into your restaurant that's in the hotel because of the world famouschef.
And now they know about your hotel that leads tomore, that leads to more activity in your restaurant that youown, but also leads to more brand recognition of yourhotel.
And then by as abiopartic, that more people staying at thehotel.
So hiring as a form ofdistribution, this isfascinating.
And it's a fascinatingidea.
Okay, here's aproblem.
You can identify greatpeople,right?
Maybe they even want to comework.
Like if you've identifiedthem, you've soldthem,hey, this iswhat, this is ourmission.
This is what we'redoing.
Andyet, humans have complicatedlives.
They havespouses. They havekids.
A reason maybe they can't move across the country to work foryou, even though they wantto.
So there's a problem solving element that you see in these bookson, you have tosolve.
Like you've already identified theperson, you've recruitedthem.
They can't go for some otherreason.
Okay.Well, the great founders are not going to take no for ananswer.
I read in this book called LiftOff, which is about the first six years ofSpaceX.
This is what Elon mustdid.
They had anticipated his friend'sissue.
And convinced must they needed to bring this brilliant young engineer from Turkey onboard.
It became a matter of solving theproblem.
His wife had a job in SanFrancisco.
She would need one in LosAngeles,right?
Because that's for SpaceX's at thetime.
These were solvable problems and Elon's better at solving problems than almost anyoneelse.
Must therefore came into his jobinterview, prepared about halfway through must told the guy that he wants tohire.
So I heard you don't want to move to LA and one of the reasons is that your wife works forGoogle.
Well, I just talked to Larry and they're going to transfer your wife down toLA.
So what are you going to do now to solve thisproblem?
Must could call his friend LarryPage, the co-founder ofGoogle, the engineer sat and stunned silence for amoment.
But then hereplied, given allthat, he would come to work atSpaceX.
That's reallysmart. There is another idea when you'repromoting.
Are you going to promote one within or fromwithout, youknow, that's dependent onyou, depending on what's goingon.
I do think this is interestingthough.
This is a guy named Les Schwab who built this really valuable chain of like tire companies in the PacificNorthwest.
I actually found out about him because Charlie Munger islike,hey, you should read thisbiography.
He said itin, he didn't say it to mepersonally.
He said itto, in like one of the Berkshire meetings that to study Les Schwab had one of the most one of the smartest financial incentive structures or any company that that Charlie Munger had comeacross.
This is what Les Schwabdid, he did not want to hirefrom, he didn't want to hire other people from other companies because they might come with badhabits.
He liked to train his ownexecutives.
And so he says in our 34 years ofbusiness, we have never hired a manager from theoutside.
Every single one of our more than 250 managers and assistant managers started at the bottom changingtires.
They have all earned their management job by workingup.
And then anotherthing, if you're going to hire the best of the best in aplayers, there are a players don't like to bemicromanaged.
And so this came in Larry Miller's autobiography calledDriven.
He owns like 93 companies all throughoutUtah,Cardiola,Shows, Movietheaters, all kinds of crazystuff.
But he also owned the NBA team UtahJazz.
And what was fascinating is he's trying to recruit Jerry Sloan as the coach at thepoint.
And Jerry Sloan would only take the job on one condition and I really likeit.
I really like thisidea.
If you hireme, let me run the team inbusiness.
That's what you're hiring mefor.
One of the best things we had ever done was hire Jerry Sloan ascoach.
At the time hesaid, I'm only going to ask you for onething.
If I getfired, let me get fired for my owndecisions.
If you hireme, let me run the team slashbusiness.
Here's another idea from Thomas Edison that I think isfascinating.
Really, the way I think about a founder is like you're developing skills that you can't hirefor.
You're going to hire for everythingelse, but you shouldn't behireable.
And Edisonwasn't. Edison expressing his views on the preeminent role of appliedscientists, which is what he consideredhimself.
Coing theexpression, I can hiremathematicians, but they can't hireme.
And so when I read that paragraph for the firsttime, a note I left myself was develop skills that you can't hirefor.
Capitalism rewards things that are both rare andvaluable.
Estee Lauder would give you advice that you need to hire people online with your thinking andvalues.
Hire the bestpeople. This isvital.
Hire people who think as you do and treat them well in ourbusiness, they are toppriority.
So this idea islike, that seems kind ofweird.
Hire people who think likeyou.
There's obviously not one right way to build abusiness.
I think that your business should be an expression of your personality and who are as a person at thecore.
And so I think there is an art to the building of yourbusiness.
And the reason to use the wordart, I don't mean in like ahoidy,toyty, youknow, pretentiousmanner.
That's not me atall. I don't even care aboutit.
I don't art atall. I mean that you're making decisions not just based oneconomics.
Like there are noneconomic, important decisions based on how you're building yourbusiness.
Like you could probably make more money doing a decisionA, but decision A goes against who you are as a person or you just don't like it or it's just not as elegant orbeautiful.
And so therefore you don't doit.
So that's what I mean about youknow, hire people who think as you do and what for whatever reason when I read Estee Lauder saythat, I waslike,okay, there's like this art to what she'sdoing.
One thing that's going to be helpful inrecruiting, this comes for PeterTeo.
I think this is the book zero toone.
Understand that most companies don't even differentiate their pitches to potential recruits intohiring.
So therefore like they're just going to buy as a byproduct ofthat.
You're going to wind up with a lower overall talentbase.
And so hesays, what's wrong with valuable stock smart people are pressingproblems.
Nothing, but every company makes this theseclaims.
So they won't hope you standout.
General and undifferentiated pitches to join yourcompany.
Don't see anything about why a recruits should join your company instead ofmoney, instead of manyothers.
So that idea of like yourpitch, youractual, he would tellyou, you shouldn't be building an undifferentiated commoditybusiness.
But even above and beyondthat, like the mission that you're trying to engage everybody to join you in thatpitch, thatsale, sale you're trying to make to potential recruits should bedifferentiated.
Shouldnot, if that person's applying to five otherjobs, there should not belike, it'slike, they may not like yourmission.
They may not like yourpitch.
They shouldn't be able to compare anythingelse.
Another quote from NolanBushnell, hire for passion andintensity.
That's what he woulddo.
Allright. That's what he did when he found SteveJobs.
If there was a single characteristic to separate Steve Jobs from the massiveemployees, it was his passionateenthusiasm.
Steve had onefull, but one speed fullblast.
This was the primary reason we hiredhim.
And one thing all these founders have in common is that he know how important hiringis.
And when something isimportant, you do ityourself.
This isagain, Elon Musk onhiring.
He interviewed the first 3000 employees atSpaceX.
That's how important itwas.
One of Musk's most valuable skills was his ability to determine whether someone would fit hismold.
His people had to bebrilliant.
They had to be hardworking and there could be nononsense.
There are a ton of phonies out there and not many who are the real deal Musk said of his approach to interviewingengineers.
I can usually tell within 15 minutes and I cansure, I can for sure tell within a few days of working with them Musk made hiring apriority.
He personally met with every single person in the company hired through the first 3000employees.
It required late nights andweekends, but he felt it was important to get the right people for hiscompany.
And then the close on this we started with Steve Jobs telling us why it was so important and why should be a large part of how you spend yourtime.
And now we'll close with what you doafter.
What do you do after you hire theperson?
This what hesays, it's not justrecruiting.
Afterrecruiting, it's building an environment that makes people feel they are surrounded by equally talented people and their work is bigger than theyare.
The feeling that their work will have a tremendous influence and it's part of astrong, clearvision.
So that is the end to that 20 minute miniepisode.
I just relist into the whole thing and it reallydoes.
I think it's a perfect explanation and illustration of why I think founders notes are so valuable because some of those books I haven't read infive, six years and just the ability to have a searchable database of all theseideas, like this collected knowledge of some of the pastures greatest entrepreneurs to reference and then contextually apply to our ownbusinesses.
It's nothing short of like it'smagic.
That's the really the way I think aboutit.
I think it's a massivesuperpower.
It gives me a massivesuperpower.
I couldn't make the podcast withoutit.
I also think if you have access toit, it will make your businessbetter.
