I just finished listening to this episode. I think it's going to blow your mind. It is very,
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at the end of this episode. I hope you enjoy it. This is a wild story. Cornelius Vanderbilt was only
interested in two things, making money and winning. Often he temporarily subjugated the need for
the former to achieve the latter. Vanderbilt had an unquenchable thirst for conquest. There was nothing
he would not do to conquer. Cornelius Vanderbilt and his enemy William Walker were alike in several
respects. Both were opportunists. Both were prepared to suffer through short term adversity to achieve
long term victory. Both Vanderbilt and Walker were loyal to those who were loyal to them, attracting
lifelong allegiance from their closest associates. But that's where their similarities ended. William
Walker, because of his limited resources, was prepared to give his trust to readily to achieve his
ends, giving his trust to men who turned out to be liars, braggarts, and fools. The cunning Vanderbilt
was a much better judge of character. And here is where the two men differed most. If you crossed
William Walker, he would banish you from his world. If you crossed Vanderbilt, he would set out to
conquer you, no matter how long it took. Ultimately, that conquest would be signified by a surrender,
and that surrender would usually take the form of a deal. At one time or another, Vanderbilt got into
bed with all of his enemies. If they were prepared to submit to him, and most of them were.
The exception was William Walker. He was not a businessman. He achieved his short-lived successes
using war and the law as his tools. And unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries,
William Walker was not afraid of Vanderbilt when he should have been. That is an excerpt from the book
that we talked about today, which is Tycoon's War, how Cornelius Vanderbilt invaded a country
to overthrow America's most famous military adventurer who in turn had previously invaded multiple
countries. That's William Walker. And this book was written by Stephen Dando Collins. So I first read
this book about five years ago. And the great thing about the book is it's a biography, really a
joint biography of Vanderbilt and William Walker, but it starts right in the middle of the story.
And so it'll give us background on both the early life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Walker,
but the entire story, 90% of the book is about this war that happens when William Walker invades
Nicaragua, winds up becoming, making himself president of the country, and then making this very
fatal mistake of taking some of Cornelius's property and other business assets that Cornelius had
in Nicaragua. And so I would say out of all the people that you and I studied together on this
podcast, I don't think there is, in many cases, you know, there's some kind of historical equivalent,
there's somebody, there's somebody that was very similar to that person that lived before them,
maybe they were influenced and used their ideas. I don't, I can't think of a historical equivalent
to Cornelius of Vanderbilt. To me, he's less of an entrepreneur because the way he dominated, so I
mean, he was obviously one of the best entrepreneurs ever to ever live, but he was so powerful,
influential, and wealthy. It's almost like he was like a sovereign. Like the, I would consider like,
when I think of Cornelius Vanderbilt, like, who would you compare people living today? I wouldn't
think of other entrepreneurs. I would think of people like at the state level, I would think of like
almost like Vladimir Putin is actually the, the, the person that comes to mind. And this sentence
gives you an insight into why that would be the case. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the descendants of poor
Dutch immigrants would die in 1877, possessing more money than was held by the US Treasury.
I read another biography many years ago on Cornelius Vanderbilt, and it's called the first,
the first tycoon, the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. And in that book, there's this incredible
stat that I haven't forgotten. And it was talking about, well, if, when he died, if you could,
on the day of his death, right, if you could convert all of his assets into dollars, he would have
had five percent of the money supply. He would have had one out of every $20 in circulation.
So in this book, the story starts, he's in his early 50s. Even by this time, he is already far
and away America's richest man, even though his neck, the next 20 years is where his fortune
grows exponentially. And it grows exponentially because he invests heavily in the new technology
of their day, something you and I have talked about over and over again, that the railroads,
the transcontent of the railroad in American history is very equivalent. I really think about it,
like the, the internet today. So it says, far and away, America's richest man, he built his massive
fortune on steam first. His first fortune was built on fleets of steamboats and ocean ships,
steam-powered ocean ships. Then later, after the American Civil War, he invests heavily in steam
trains on his ever-expanding network of North American railroads at one time Vanderbilt owned
and controlled 13 separate railways. That is going to happen a few years into future where this
story starts, where this story starts is the gold, the discovery of gold in January 1848 in California.
A few podcasts ago, on episode 329, spent a lot of time, if you read Portrait of the New
Version of Portrait of the Zomunac, Charlie spends a lot of time talking about this idea of like,
you can analyze, I love his surfing model, because he'll go and analyze like, why was Sam Walton
so successful? Why was Les Schwab so successful? Why was the founder of National Cash Register
so successful? And he's like, in every case, there was some kind of wave that they were surfing.
And so this new business that Vanderbilt about to start building right now is he's going to start
surfing the gold rush wave. And he's perfectly positioned to do so because by the time the gold rush
starts, right, he's already paying multi-multimillionaire, but the gold rush combined with the railroads
is, it says, the immense wealth that he would have massed by the time he died was still then only
the stuff of dreams. And so Vanderbilt figures out, hey, I know how I'm going to make another
fortune from the gold rush. He goes and pays, he goes and pays a visit to the Secretary of
State at times, guy named John Clayton. And this conversation, this meaning he's going to have
with Secretary of State, to me really describes the way his brain works and the way he approached his
business, right? This is a, I'll get there in a minute when I'm going to compare in contrast,
because you really think about like Vanderbilt, you know, didn't go to any, had no formal schooling
after age of 11, right? His enemy in this book is William Walker. He's the opposite. We're going to
get to him in a minute. This guy has, he graduates like college at, I go to college, I think at 12 or
14, he graduates medical school, graduates law school, much more of an academic. By the time they
meet and they actually start going to war against each other, Vanderbilt has 45 years of experience
building businesses, 45 years of studying human nature, 45 years of dealing people with in commerce.
He has this great quote, there's a bunch of these quotes that have lived on forever and they're in
almost every book or every documentary I've watched a bunch of documentaries on Vanderbilt too,
that he says, if I had learned education, I would have not had the time to learn anything else.
And so it's obvious when you look at how he built his businesses in the way he dealt with
everybody around him. This is a very intelligent person, even if he wasn't formally schooled.
I mean, the crazy thing is that he never wrote anything down. He would keep every detail of his
business dealings in his head. There's stories later on the book where people come to meet him
and like he's sitting at his desk in his office, there's nothing, he has two things on his desk,
a checkbook and a box of cigars. So with that in mind, let's go to this conversation with the
Secretary of State, right? And he knows this is a flood of immigrants that are coming from the
eat, they're coming from the East Coast. In many cases, previously they come from Europe to the
East Coast of the United States and then they want to get to where the goal is delivered, right?
And so he is sitting here having his conversation. And the way I think about is he's
he's identifying and analyzing the existing products in the market and then how he can improve on them.
So there's three different ways that all these people that are in the East want to get west.
And the first one is I was sitting here thinking it was like which one would I choose if I was them?
I know I'm not choosing this one. So thousands of people coming from the East Coast to the West Coast,
they're doing that. You're trying to get to California and they're doing that overland
and covered wagons. So what is it? Three thousand miles through, it says they're route cut through
dangerous Native American homelands and clawed over treacherous, treacherous mountain passes and took
as long as six months. Hundreds of travelers died each year as a result of accidents, exposure,
starvation, or Indian attacks. Okay, so route one, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing six months.
I leave with my family and then my family is completely different by the time I get there because
you know, half of them have died or whatever the case is. The alternative route people were doing
well, I remember this is before the Panama Canal. Okay. So the alternative route is like, okay,
I'm going to leave from New York. I'm going to sail across underneath South America,
pass over Cape Horn and then sail up the Pacific to California. That's a lot safer than going by
wagon and it is a lot quicker because it takes about let's say 90 days, right? Three months instead of
six months, but it is very expensive. It's $600 ahead. $600 was the equivalent of several years
salaries for a laborer at this point in history. The third one is there was an existing company that
would take you by steamship down to Panama. So you go to East Coast of Panama because there's no
Panama Canal at this point. They put you on a mule and then you have to track a week long on a mule
through the mud to get to the Pacific side of Panama. Then they put you aboard another steamer
and then they bring you up to San Francisco. That route only took a month. That was also $600.
And Vanderbilt immediately realized as well. There's essentially unlimited demand for this because
if $600 is the equivalent of several years salary, yet you have thousands of passengers that are
lining up to take both the Panama route and the route around Cape Horn. And so Vanderbilt's
approach to this is very similar to the approach that he would take earlier in his career where it's
like, oh, it's $600. I'll do it for $300, right? And he's going to be able to do this profitably.
But early in his career, he would compete head to head, keep cutting his rates, usually to a larger
more established player. And then eventually the more established player would buy him out to make
him go away. And so when he sees these are the three options, he's like, okay, I have an
advantage here. He's an existing steamboat entrepreneur. He's got a ton of ships he can put in. He can
buy them really buy them or build them quicker than most other people. So it's like, listen, I'm going
to do this. I'm not going to use the Panama route. And then it says he scoffed at the $600 being
charged by the operators who did use Panama. I can improve on that Vanderbilt set. I can make money
at $300, crossing my passengers by Lake Nicaragua, a route 600 miles shorter. Okay, so he identified
another route in. So why is he talking to the secretary of state about this? It's not just the
passengers. He wants to make money in the passengers, but this he does this with everything. It's never
the obvious thing. I've been using the chat feature in Founders Notes, which isn't public,
only me and the team. I realize have access to it right now, but I've been using it to make all
these episodes and having it assist me with the research for this episode. And it was searching all
my past transcripts every single time I mentioned on the podcast before every single note or highlight
I had it. And it really summarized what I'm trying to tell you. It says Vanderbilt's approach to
business was often marked by a sly consummate of his intentions, keeping information close while
simultaneously gathering intelligence on competitors. This strategic off-fuscation allowed him to make
moves that others often couldn't predict or comprehend until it was too late. That's exactly
what is happening in the story because he's like, listen, I'm going to I have a shorter route.
I have more assets than no one else has, right? He can combine assets in a very unique way that
very few, maybe no other competitors can at this point. I can make a profit at half the price
that my competitors and, but that's not why I'm here. I want two things from you,
secretary of state. He wants the US mail contracts. There's a ton of people that want to send information
right from east to west. I will take that over for you. I want the contracts, which would be the
equivalent of a couple hundred million dollars a year in guaranteed income from the US government
today. Then the second thing I want is I want you to negotiate with the Nicaraguan government. This
is before William Walker overthrows that government. I want the exclusive rights from the Nicaraguan
government to build canals across Nicaragua at beginning. Now we live in a world where they did
this across Panama. At the time, before the Panama Canal, the idea was to and he actually gets this
contract, right? So he's actually successful in this meeting with secretary of state. At the time,
they thought they were going to build the canal across Nicaragua. If you look at a map of Nicaragua,
you'll see this giant lake in the middle, it's called Lake Nicaragua. So the idea was cut a canal
through there on one side. So that would be the east side and then a smaller canal on the west side.
And I would dump you into the Pacific Ocean. So that plan, this new business that Cornelius
is building sets up the entire story, which is what this book is about, which is this war that he
has with William Walker. So I need to give you a little background on William Walker and why I said
he's essentially the exact opposite upbringing. So his mom is excessively sick when he's young
and they can't figure out the the local physicians are unable to diagnose her condition. So he had
this intense devotion to his mother. And so he's like, I'm going to become a doctor and cure my mother's
mystery illness. So he starts reading every single book he can possibly find. And the next thing I'm
going to say is kind of weird because of the decisions he makes later kind of speaks to almost
that it's a contradiction. He's some sort of like young prodigy genius. Even though later in his
life, he does a lot of dumb things. The story ends with a 36 year old William Walker being handed
over to the Honduran government, blindfolded, brought out to the beach and shot to death. And so
it's interesting to think about how this young prodigy wind up having an outcome that obviously he
did not desire. Right. So why he's 12 years old. He's already mastered Greek and Latin. His father
takes them to the university in Nashville and is like, Hey, my son's a genius. Can you let him in?
He starts college at 12. He graduates at 14. At 14, he then goes to medical school. Two years later,
he or should be four years later, at 18, he graduates medical school. By the time he's 18, he's
graduated college medical school. He has also added a bunch of languages. He can speak French, German,
Spanish. Despite all his medical training, he can't save his mom. His mom passes away. So then he
said he loses his faith in medicine and he's decides, Hey, I'm going to be a lawyer. Two years later,
he has a law degree around this time he meets and falls in love with this woman named Ellen. She is
deaf. So what do you think? Walker did Walker makes himself fluent in sign language. Even after
getting all these degrees, he decides, Hey, it's just a great line. Here's Walker was convinced that
the pen could potentially be mightier than either the scaffold or the gavill. So he became a newspaper
editor. He is the editor of a newspaper. One of his staff members is a young Walt Whitman.
And so for the next 10 to 15 years of William Walker's life until he dies, he is what's known as a
filibuster. So a filibuster is someone who engages in unauthorized military expeditions into a foreign
country or territory to foster or support a political revolution or succession. That was
incredibly popular at this time because it's driven behind the doctrine of manifest destiny.
And so not only do people believe, Hey, it manifests destiny for Americans to keep expanding westward,
but they also would invade like Mexico and Central America. So William Walker does that. He invades
Mexico unsuccessfully and then eventually invades Nicaragua successfully. So his habit of filibustering,
is what it was called, is what's going to cause him to cross paths with Vanderbilt. I'm going to
get there in a minute. This is something that's very fascinating. So one of my favorite books that
I've ever done was episode of that twice. It's episode 292. It's this book called The Invisible
Billionaire. The book is almost impossible to find. I think I paid over $100 for my copy if I'm
mistaken. But it's about this guy named Daniel Ludwig who in the 1980s was the richest American
the richest American and no one knew who he was. And so Daniel builds this massive conglomerate. I
think it's in like, you know, 100 companies, 100 countries, I don't know, 30 something companies
if I remember correctly. You know, it's in shipping and mining and transportation in real state and
hauling oil for standard oil. But there's an idea in that book that I'd never forgot. And it's
the importance of doing certain things yourself. And so I'm just going to read my notes from that book.
He says, twice he had trusted the word of specialists and twice he had been burnt. He had
believed them when they told him that he could bring his fully loaded 60,000 ton oil carriers
down this river in South America without running the ground. They were wrong. And then his geologists
had failed to discover until after considerable work was done that the coral rock underlying the
Grand Bahama Island was too fragile to support his giant super tinkers. These mistakes had cost
a Daniel considerable time and expense. So before building a refinery in Panama, he decided to
check out the site himself. And so the maximum here is do it yourself. He's already a billionaire
when he does this with this story. I'm going to tell you he catches a flight from New York to Panama.
He goes to a little village store next to the bay. He buys a string and a heavy bolt. And then he
measures that string out in six foot lengths, ties in not at each interval. He then goes to the dock
and rents a boat. He spends the entire day going around the bay checking the accurate. This is the
punchline. He spends the entire day going around the bay checking the accuracy of every depth mark
on the nardical chart. Extras are saying, no, we've already mapped this out. You can do it. Here's
the chart. He goes and says, I'm going to check for myself. Only when he had satisfied himself that
the water was as deep as the chart said to deflie back to New York and give this signal to begin construction.
Vanderbilt does something very similar here. He sends his team down. He's like, okay, this is the route
we're going to do. This is where we go and how we get people from the east coast of Nicaragua to
the west coast. And so his advanced team is going down there and they're telling no, we're running
around. We can't figure out how to do this. And so there's this great story in the book where this
is just giant boat called the Prometheus, right? In lands in Nicaragua. And there's only one person
on the boat and that's Vanderbilt. And it says the purpose of the voyage was so secret that not even
Vanderbilt's wife knew that her husband had left town, let alone where he was going. Goes back to
that secretive op-sucation. I definitely didn't say that word, right? That's secretive nature that he
had. And it says Vanderbilt was on a mission. The news from Nicaragua had not been good. His
steamers had been wrecked on the rapids and his team is saying the rapids were impossible. They declared
that his dream of conveying passengers up the river to the lake was unrealizable. Cornelius
Vanderbilt would see about that. He would not let a few rocks stand in the way of making a fortune in
Nicaragua. And so he goes and meets his team, essentially knocks them out of the captain's chair,
right? He starts piloting these boats down himself. Remember, at this time he started, he was a
steamboat entrepreneur at 11. He's like 52, 53, something like that where we are in the story.
And so it says with Vanderbilt at the controls, he literally walked over the rocks using the
paddle wheels of his steamer for feet. With the engineers shaking their heads in wonderment,
the ship made it over the rapids. That's the first time. There's like three times he has to do this.
So he gets the next one. He showed his companions one of the tricks that he had learned from
during his 50 years in the river navigation business. Remember, they had saying this is impossible. He
goes down there. He's literally proving that it can be done. Tells him to break all the ropes. He says
the ropes were breaking out. One end was attached to trees upstream and the other was attached to
the boat. He then lighten the entire boat of all but essential that people that need to be on
board. They sent people on board. Everyone else in the surging water putting their shoulders to
the hole. And with the engines at full capacity, he got it up and over the quote unquote impassable
impassable rapids. He reloads the boat and they continue on their way northwest up to San
Juan River. A few days later, it says it was New Year's Day 1851 and Koni, the savanderable, had just
piloted the first steam powered vessel to have negotiated the entire 119 mile length of the San
Juan River and reached Lake Nicaragua from the Caribbean Sea. Not for the first time in his life or
the last Vanderbilt had said that something could be done and then gone out and proven it. In the
process, he opened up the way to California, a path that would soon be followed by tens of thousands
of his countrymen. So Daniel Ludwig, like Koni, this Vanderbilt before he improves,
is sometimes you have to do it yourself. So he starts his business is phenomenally successful.
This Nicaraguan transit business, it's the company is going to be called the accessory transit
company. And the first 12 months of operation to carry 2000 passengers. Oh, and I forgot to mention
that another way he makes money in addition to the mail contracts, they're running gold, right? If
you're discovering gold in the west coast, you got to get a east coast, which is the finance
center. So he's carrying 2000 passengers first year and billions of dollars worth of gold as paying
freight. In the first 12 months, it delivered Vanderbilt personal profit of tens of millions of dollars
in today's equivalent tens of millions of dollars. So he has a deal we pays like a flat upfront
payment to the Nicaraguan government. And this is hey, you can make 10% out of profit. Now here's
the problem. And this is what when William Walker is a president, he's going to cancel this contract
because it says the Nicaraguan government had not seen a single penny from the profit.
There's supposed to get 10% and why? Because Vanderbilt claimed there was no profit.
This is like Hollywood accounting. He's slightly built everything possible to the accessory
transit company. This speaks to one of his most pronounced traits, maybe the most pronounced
trait that you can imagine. He was unbelievably ruthless. Let me give you another story of this. So
he's from Staten Island, right? That's where he starts. Eventually, he wants to move from Staten
Island to Manhattan because that is like the heartbeat that's where the center of commerce is
taking place. And his wife was like really pushing back. She wanted to stay on Staten Island. She
did not want to move like 13 kids or something like that. Not want to move the family in. So she gets
hysterical about the plan move from Staten Island to Manhattan. And so Vanderbilt puts her in a
private mental asylum for three months until she changes her mind. And so remember the beginning
says, hey, you know, most of what Vanderbilt's adversaries were scared of Vanderbilt. William
Walker wasn't and he should have been. So when William Walker is going to confiscate his property,
it's not like, oh, I'm going to sue you or I'm going to get back in court. He literally sends
people to try to kill him. Hires multiple multiple merciless areas. That is not hyperbolic.
Like that's exactly what he did. He's unbelievably ruthless. And so some of the stories that William
Walker read when he was younger that had an influence on him. He was reading Julius Caesar's
memoirs about his conquest of goal. And then he read about Sam Houston. So Sam Houston was William
Walker's hero and William Walker sees a lot of similarities between him and Houston says like
Walker, Houston had been born and raised in Nashville. Then he became a lawyer. He had go. Houston
had gone on to serve as a US Congressman representing Tennessee and had also been the governor of Tennessee.
Houston had settled in the Mexican state of Texas. And two years later, he became general of the
army of Texas settlers that defeated Mexico's president. Then they created the new Republic of Texas.
In 1836, Houston became the first president of the Republic of Texas. If this is William
Walker's belief of general, Sam Houston could carve a new nation out of Mexican territory. So William
Walker believed could he. And so Walker is going to evade Mexico. I think he last like 60 days,
something like that. But then he gets kicked out and sent back to United States. That failure
in turn leads him to turn his gaze to Nicaragua. Now there is something that's also interesting is
Cornelius Van der Behl had never taken a vacation in his life. And so he builds this. I think it's
the largest ship in the world of time. There's a large personal ship. And he's going to take off
with his entire family to Europe. Because it's like, you know, everything's going so good with all
my businesses. You know, I made tens of millions of dollars in profit in the first year. From the
accessory transit company, he's got partners on the accessory transit company. And so why he's on
vacation? They actually screw him over. And so this betrayal leads to his most famous quote. And
there is so much back and forth between. So it's going to be Morgan and Garrison. This is not
JP Morgan, by the way. It's another Morgan. So it's going to be Vanderbilt versus Morgan and
Garrison. Okay. I'm going to give you an overview of this. And then there's all kinds of they just
go to war this throughout this entire book. And obviously Vanderbilt's going to win. So it says during
during Vanderbilt's European absence. This is when he's on vacation for the first time in his life.
Right. I remember when I was reading about the early history of PayPal, I think Elon goes on
vacation for the first time. I think he gets malaria and then he gets there's a coup. And so it's
taken away his never go on vacation. Uh, Vanderbilt never goes on vacation again after this too.
I don't know why I'm laughing. All right. And because he's just so crazy. He's nuts. Vanderbilt's
absolutely nuts. During Vanderbilt's European absence, Morgan and Garrison collaborated to manipulate
transit company stock in their favor. They held a secret board meeting in which Morgan was elected
to the vacant company presidency and appointed the company's new York agent. They replaced Vanderbilt
in that role. The board had also voted to cease Vanderbilt's 20% skim of company revenue. I
should say that over and over again. This guy is he's just double dealing everybody like I wouldn't
cross him, but I sure as hell wouldn't be his partner either. So he will do this this thing where
it's like, you know, it's supposed to have shareholders. This is a he has shareholders and then he will
if he has a deal that puts more money in his pocket at the detriment to shareholders, he will still
do that. I don't think he believed in fiduciary. The only fiduciary he believed in was himself.
Uh, as it gets to his saying. So he was also skimming 20% of the company revenue for himself. Okay.
Then Vanderbilt's attorney and business partner is getting Joseph L. White. So he's on Vanderbilt's
side. White's an insane story too, which I'm not even gonna touch on. I'll give you like a brief
overview. He's in the book. He's Vanderbilt's attorney and imagine your attorney and your
business partner doing this to you, right? So he's an attorney and business partner. Then he betrays
Vanderbilt. Then he goes back to Vanderbilt. I think he betrays him again and goes back. It's so
amazing how this happens over and over again in Vanderbilt's life. So his attorney business partners
see sells his stock resigns from the board. They set up another company. Then he buys his
attorney buys that new company stock on the cheap. And so just like William Walker will do in the
future, such he takes company assets transfers them to either they're under their own control,
right? And then cuts off that this is the main end result. Vanderbilt's cash flow. Remember,
I just told you for the first 12 months, he's making tens of millions of dollars in today's money,
right? And there's in the future, it looks like it's going to just keep printing money.
Vanderbilt's cash flow from the transit company had been choked off. Vanderbilt comes back to New
York months later, finds out. This is his favorite most famous quote. He immediately dictated a short
letter to both Morgan and Garrison gentlemen, you have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you
for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly Cornelius Vanderbilt. So then his first response,
I just wrote same M.O. Same modest operandi, right? Like Cornelius is Vanderbilt's assault on Morgan
Garrison and the other rogue directors of the accessory transit company had gathered pace. What do
you think he's going to do? He does what he did his whole life. A new steamship operator named
independent opposition line was advertised in New York newspapers for $150. This new line would take
you to California via Panama. He he starts out and like go back to that meeting with the secretary's
state. Listen to this, man. So he starts out, right? He's like you guys are charging 600 all make
money at 300 cut in half in price. Then he's wildly successful 300. Then he gets his company
taken away from him. And so what do you do? He's like I won't cut the price again. I will now take
you for $150. He's not making money at $150. By the way. And the story gets even funnier. What is what
ship is the independent line using? It is using the North Star. The North Star was this insanely
luxurious yacht that he built just to go on his first vacation. It comes back as like I'm never
going to vacation again. Screw that yacht. He stripped it of all the beautiful interior and then
fitted it out to carry 600 passengers. It says he would never again trifle with such a fabulous toy
and would never again take an extended vacation. This first maneuver is so successful and it sets
up his second maneuver. Listen to this. So he's got exactly what happens. I was talking about
earlier what he does in his career. And he's like okay I'm going to go compete head to head to you.
I'm going to cut my rates. You're going to have to cut your rates to match me. It's going to
bleed you dry. You're going to realize hey I just need to settle with this guy so he goes away and
then I can go and jack my rates back up and actually make money. So they go and do this too.
So the accept that so now his former partners who try to who try to screw him over right they go
to him and say hey you know this is unsustainable. Sell us your ships. We will pay you to go away.
Maybe they thought he did this in the past. He'll do it now right but this is different in the past.
This war had dropped the stock price of the transit company shares all the way down to 21 dollars.
So like we got to get out of this. We're going to pay him off. So they go to Vanderbilt and
they give him a proposal. He accepts it. So then Morgan or Garrison like this is great. It says
the deal signaled so Morgan and Garrison believed that Vanderbilt had given up his plan to ruin them.
Wrong. Wrong. But Vanderbilt had done no such thing. Listen to what he does. So he's going to take
their own money. Anybody he's just got a bunch of money from them. He's going to find ways to use
that money to their own demise. So having wrong his outstanding commissions from his enemies.
Money few observers start here at any hope of recovering. Vanderbilt would embark on a fresh
campaign to ruin the pair cashed up with their own money. For two months nothing was heard from him.
Meanwhile, the accessory transit company failed to deliver a dividend. Why did they fail to deliver
a dividend? Because they had this huge settlement they had to pay Vanderbilt. So that money that was
going to go to the shoulders as a dividend had to go to Vanderbilt. So when they fail to pay the
January dividend, you have Vanderbilt's son-in-law, this guy named Daniel Allen, who was a former transit
company vice president and a shareholder launched a legal action against the current directors,
which is Morgan and Garrison, right? Accusing them of incompetent management, misappropriation of funds,
and the legal issuing of 40,000 new shares in the company, which they had to issue to finance
the purchase of Vanderbilt's seven ships. The judge agrees he issues an injunction against Morgan
and Garrison, prevents them from issuing more stock or entering into new contracts with any other
company. That uncertainty causes shareholders to dump transit company stock and obviously value
can continue to decline. Now you have a falling stock price. You have a temporarily troubled
company. You have a guy that's sitting on a bunch of cash that the company just gave him for his
seven ships. What do you think is going to do next? With the share price down Vanderbilt began to
acquire accessory transit company stock. A parcel here, a parcel there frequently using friends
as the buyers goes back to this obzucation. This thing that he's always concealing his motions.
He does it his motion then, motor, it's actually he does this entire career month by month Vanderbilt
discreetly. He secretly rebuilt his stock holding in the company, working towards the day when he
get again boost a controlling interest and kick Morgan and Garrison out. So I'm going to fast
forward a little bit in the story Walker has already taken control. There's a civil war going on
in Nicaragua at the time. Walker intervenes once winning taking control and is heavily reliant
on these steamships that are bringing supplies, reinforcements or bringing him weapons or bringing
him gold or bringing everything he needs to fight a war, this ongoing war and run a country.
That war and uncertainties also going to play into Vanderbilt's hands. Now he was not expecting to
have Walker confiscate his property but he doesn't have control over the transit company yet.
And so here are some events that are going on in Nicaragua at the time and how it affects
Vanderbilt's plan to ruin. Remember since Vanderbilt was close to bouncing on the men he'd promise to
ruin Morgan and Garrison the war in Nicaragua had been good news to Vanderbilt because it had
depressed the price of accessory transit company stock again. So as the bad news puts the price
down he keeps buying more and more. Then because there's a lot of Americans traveling through Nicaragua
to try to get to the the west coast for the gold rush rate. They're in the middle of the civil war
going on and so a few American transit passengers are actually murdered. And so as you can imagine the
stock is getting killed and this is the important point. It says Vanderbilt did not share their
pessimistic outlook for Nicaragua meaning the market's pessimistic outlook. Why? The route to
California is too important. He knew that the US government would intervene. The US government
is not going to at this point especially is not going to allow American citizens to be murdered in
Nicaragua. And at the same time as you can imagine people are hearing stories of you know American
citizens getting citizens getting murdered on their way to California so they choose a different route.
And so for the first time in the company history they have to borrow money because they're not
making money anymore. And so if you think about the two different views right you have the stock
you have to ask yourself like well if you are if you own the company and now your stock is getting
hammered right but you are optimistic about its future like Cornelius Vanderbilt is you'd buy more.
But Morgan and Garrison aren't doing that and it goes back to this idea that I mentioned earlier.
Vanderbilt's approach to business was often marked by a slight concealment of his intentions.
Keeping information close while simultaneously gathering intelligence on competitors.
This strategic obfuscation allowed him to make moves that others often couldn't predict or
comprehend until it was too late. He they don't know he's buying up the stock right he's certainly
not telling him and then publicly he's like oh I don't care about this route anymore. I'm focused
on launching a transatlantic ocean steamer service to France. So as a result it says Morgan and
Garrison did not see him coming. They did not have sufficient faith in the future of the trans
business to buy up the cheap shares themselves. Vanderbilt was only weeks away from winning the
larger game by completing his overthrow of Morgan and Garrison and resuming control of the accessory
transit company. And that's exactly what happens less than a year later. Vanderbilt and his friends
had acquired a controlling shareholding in the company and at the company's January board meeting
Vanderbilt would be elected as director once more the director of ships of Morgan and Garrison
would be terminated. Morgan and Garrison were out of the door. Vanderbilt was back in control of
the company that he founded. And so shortly after this happened this is when William Walker decides
to seize. He uses the his power as the the president of Nicaragua right to seize all transit company
assets in Nicaragua as part of the payment for what he considered hundreds of thousands of dollars
that he contended were owed to them by the transit company and unpaid commissions because they
were supposed to be getting 10% of all the profits. So he's going to seize Vanderbilt's
lake and river boats their depots their buildings the employee houses all the equipment their stage
coaches their horses their mules everything. And so in Vanderbilt's estimation those assets were
close to close to a million dollars in you know 18 50 dollars so billions day. And so Vanderbilt's
going to approach this problem just like he does every other problem. You see that he doesn't just
have one vector of attack. He always uses multiple attack vectors. And one thing he knows this was
very fascinating. Remember it says that he's going to die with more money than US treasury. He is
richer. He's got more this is not even a joke. He's got more money than all I think every single
central American government combined right which is a wild statement. So he says Vanderbilt knew that
after 18 months of civil war the Nicaraguan government was as good as bankrupt and could not
afford to buy as much as a robo. And so his first method of attack he goes to the secretary of state
and he says he just runs into his office. This is right after he finds that the Nicaraguan government
had canceled charters took all of his his assets. And he says he exploded with rage and indignation
and demanded redress by the US government. He wants the US government to use their military
to get his assets back. The very next day he does the same thing to the British ambassador in
Washington DC because at this time in history the British empire is down there Americans are down
there Mexicans are down there there's an ongoing like war between you know five other central
American countries like there's all kinds of different parties that stay here. And so the British
agreed to help Vanderbilt because Vanderbilt was already aware that Walker was a thorn in the
side of the British government because he had been trying to occupy gray town which was under British
control or rule at this time. And so the British ambassador agrees to permanently station a
warship at gray town and tells Vanderbilt that he could ask for the assistance of the commander of
that ship. So starts with the secretary of state of America then goes to the ambassador of Britain
then he goes and meets immediately with the ambassadors of the central American states of Costa
Rico El Salvador Guatemala and Honduras and the ambassador of Colombia. And so Vanderbilt tells
them a story that hey you guys have to be really careful here that William Walker's
actual ambition is not just complete control and presidency of Nicaragua he actually plans to conquer
all five nations and make himself their emperor. That might have actually been true because the
the star like the the flag that Walker uses for his I guess like at miniature empire at this point
is a five pointed red star. And so the very end of the book it kind of speculates on Walker's
motives. This is after the epilogue and I don't even know if how many people even get to this page
but it says that there was other people around Walker that he that said he was indeed bent on
the creation of a central American empire with himself at the head. Now how realistic that would
have been at this point and Walker doesn't really have assets doesn't have a lot of weapons.
There's a lot of people that's one thing but Vanderbilt was really smart saying hey this is where
he's at now he's going to expand we should work together to get rid of this guy. And the reason I
think it's so smart is because if you think about all of the conversations he had with Secretary of
State of America the ambassador of Britain all these ambassadors and central America Central American
states he's turning everyone against Walker by appealing to their interest. He's not saying hey let
me get my ships back because I'm super rich and I want to be even richer. He's saying look Walker's
meddling in all he's trying to overthrow Greytown that's under British control he's meddling in all
the ideas are meddling in the politics and going against the interests of the US government you're
the Secretary of State you can't let that happen. Hey look he has his flag he's going to eventually
invade your country just like he did for Nicaragua but turning everyone against Walker by
appealing to their interest is the really smart move here. And then another prong on this attack
he goes directly to the United States people he'd announced in the press the Nicaragua line is
withdrawn for the present in consequence of the difficulties in that country growing out of the
extraordinary conduct of General Walker this is Vanderbilt talking growing out of the extraordinary
conduct of General Walker in seizing or taking by force the property of American citizens
I deem it a duty I owed the public to the country and to the transit company to remain quiet
by letting the ships of the company that's hilarious is not not being quite at all to remain
quiet by letting the ships of the company lay at their wars until our government has sufficient time
to examine and look into the outrage committed upon their property it's not a US company this is
crazy that he's even doing this because it's a Nicaraguan company but Vanderbilt has this
extremely advanced understanding of human nature where it's like okay well hey look at this this
guy he comes down there and he steals US property what is the US government going to do about this
they have to get that US property back it's personal property it's his property and the company
isn't even registered in this country and we're not done he again multiple multiple tax he starts
hiring secret agents mercenaries he pays them to travel gives them guns gives them people gives
them money and says go to Central America and disrupt in any way possible the activities of William
Walker this is guiding bird's all that's the first one that goes down there he's one of many their
job is to to actually steal back for a from Walker Vanderbilt's property and ships then he directly
finances soldiers and mercenaries and other Central American companies this is a country's
other is another war by proxies essentially what he's doing here it was the first time in two
decades that the countries of Central America had stopped fighting each other and come together in a
joint cause thanks to Cornelius Vanderbilt for it had been his money that helped arm the troops of
Guatemala and El Salvador Vanderbilt had more money than all Central American governments combined
Vanderbilt had now gone to war with Walker for Vanderbilt this was not business this was personal
Vanderbilt was determined to destroy William Walker he called him that tin sold the tin soldier
Nicaragua he called him Walker had taken his property and then went inclined into bed with
Vanderbilt's competitors this was why Vanderbilt had marked Walker for destruction that line
this is why Vanderbilt had marked Walker for destruction when I read that what came to mind is when I
did the episode on Rockefeller's letters to his son on episode 324 Rockefeller says something
that was very similar in that in those letters he says this is Rockefeller writing as far as my
nature is concerned I do not meet competition I destroy competitors Vanderbilt had marked Walker for
destruction so even though Vanderbilt was rich right he could still run his steamers in another
location so why isn't he doing that this goes back to the thing that you know bad boys moons islands
he always has different ways to make money he's never going to tell you all the ways that he is
making money so he has all these boats right that are not under conscription by William Walker and
he's just letting him sit there what he was also doing was there's all these different routes you
can do the Panama route right remember they were still landing this is still pre Panama Canal you can
land on the east coast through Caribbean Sea into Panama take that short trip across and then
run them up the west coast through the Pacific Ocean and so he goes to the company that has a
monopoly on this Panama route and says hey I will leave all these steamers that are just sitting
here costing me a ton of money I can run them against you but you wouldn't want that why don't
you pay me to not compete with you and that's exactly what he does check this out so it says Vanderbilt
himself had been secretly making a vast profit from his idol steam ships previously Vanderbilt had
paid a visit to his competitor his name Aspenwall and he made a deal with him for two months Aspenwall
had paid him $40,000 a month of the condition that Vanderbilt not put his steamers on the Panama
run in competition with Aspenwall's own vessels that money went to Vanderbilt personally not to the
transit company even though this is that those are transit companies assets over the next two years
this deal would net Vanderbilt personally close to a million dollars and again that is a million
dollars in you know 18 55 dollars that's a staggering sum of money and so this is why I said earlier
like I don't think I can think of another like equivalent to somebody else that I've read about
like Vanderbilt so go back to this like persistent desire to destroy this they call they said what
an unquenchable thirst for conquest Vanderbilt's tactics were aimed at killing off the the new
Nicaraguan government so it's Walker quietly and covertly he had been pouring money into the
capital of small countries adjoining Nicaragua it was Vanderbilt who armed the soldiers it was
Vanderbilt who sent those governments money it was Vanderbilt who had purchased weapons and ammunition
and shipped it all to Central America the invasion of Nicaragua by the allied armies these are
that's what they called the other armies the other Central American armies right the invasion
of Nicaraguan by the other Central American government armies had been motivated financed and
equipped by Vanderbilt's as far as Vanderbilt was concerned there had to be a way to beat William
Walker and by hook or by crook he would find it and so I want to go back to something I mentioned
earlier that you have this child prodigy he speaks like six languages by time he's you know 20 or
whatever age he's got a law degree a medical degree graduated college at 14 clearly you know
from an academic perspective like a great student tests really high gets all these credentials
but with dealing with people I don't have another way to put this but unbelievably naive and stupid
this is a intelligent dumb person because from William Walker's perspective first of all he didn't
know any of the stuff was going on he didn't expect Vanderbilt which is really weird to because
William Walker is an American he knows everybody in America at the time knows Vanderbilt's a rich
person he's powerful he's ruthless he but his whole point was like this is legal I am the president
of Nicaragua you Vanderbilt had signed this legal contract with us you did not live up to your end
of the bargain it was legal for me to confiscate your property and what William Walker failed to
understand is that for people like Vanderbilt laws are just words written down on paper he does not
give a shit one of his most famous quotes says what do I care about the law and I got the power
this is like basic history 101 throughout human history if you take something of value for another
human they tend to react in very violent ways Walker thought he was protected by the law Walker
thought he was protected by words on paper you got Vanderbilt saying Secretary of State go kill
this guy British government go kill this guy mercenary one two three four five go kill this guy
government of El Salvador Honduras Colombia go kill this guy this is why you and I have talked
about over and over and over again this is not a podcast which is list all the business ideas
that's not you have to understand why they are like this is why we spend so much time on the struggle
their early life if you understand their early life you will understand why they are the way
they are and therefore you have a fundamental understanding of how to deal with them William Walker
should have been smart enough to look at somebody like Vanderbilt and note that's not somebody
want to cross whether the law says you can or not and so at this point in the book where the author
actually compares in contrast their vastly different childhood Walker's mistake was messing with
Vanderbilt's property how different these two men were when Walker was 12 years old he was a child
prodigy just beginning college when Vanderbilt was 12 he was salvaging cargo on a vessel that ran
a ground next to his house his dad gave young Cornelius three wagons and told him to get the job done
at 15 Vanderbilt wanted to buy his own first vessel it was a hundred dollar flat bottom
sailing bar she did not have a hundred dollars so he does a deal with his mom if I plow this
eight acre a lot on our family farm will you give me a hundred dollars she says yes but you have
to do it before your 16th birthday which was in 20 something days so what is he do Vanderbilt brought
in all the boys of the neighborhood on the promise of free rides on his new boat the new boat he doesn't
have yet and sure enough they helped him plow the lot Vanderbilt starts his first company at 16
years old he is going against competing grown men stories to Vanderbilt they are not solving things
in the early steamboat ferry industry by going to the judge or the lawyers they are literally the
those if you read any book in Cornelius Vanderbilt the its fists they settle disputes with their fists
now you take that poor smart determined obviously very intelligent person just because he's not educated
formerly right and you take that person that had those experience at 11 12 15 16 you fast forward
40 years and he's the richest one of the richest people in the world and that's the guy you decide
to take his property whatever you call that that miscalculation one thing you cannot call it you cannot
call that intelligent if you care about your life you cannot cross people like that and in many cases
you can't predict who it's safe to cross and who it's safe not to cross so you should probably just
my this is why I say rule remember two in the center family house while I teach my kids is
mind your business that is for their safety and so in yet another plan he literally puts
$50,000 actually $100,000 on William Walker's head he has two more mercenaries come to meet him in
New York and says hey you come back and if you can get Walker out of their dead or alive you come
back to this office office and you are each going to receive $50,000 in cold hard cash remember
it's $50,000 each at 100 grand at a time when the average laborer made $600 a year so one of the
guys he offered that $50,000 to is this guy named Silvana Spencer who goes on the Central America
and starts just confiscating and confiscating ships blowing them up as we'll see so it says Silvana
Spencer had captured Hips Point El Castillo and Fort St Lucas these are all things that were previously
under William Walker's control plus four river steamers and a lake steamer so he took five he
captures three ports and five boats this left just three lake steamers remained available to Walker
and Spencer had a plan for seizing them too this is the punchline this is why I'm reading this to you
deprived of vessels Walker would be like a man without legs and Cornelius Vanderbilt would be one
critical step closer to winning his war a short time later you see this is very consistent in
Walker's personality his miscalculations the allied he's now fighting the allied army right the
army that that Vanderbilt funded and set up they have 4,000 people okay Walker's got 900 one of his
captains does something that Walker doesn't like and so he winds up dismissing him you don't
what are you doing you're getting rid of one of your best people because of your principal right this
is life and death you are war there's 4,000 people right around you know on the other side of that
line you got 900 and so he he says there's this meeting between this captain that Walker dismisses
and Walker this is what Walker says if this is the way you're going to do business Nicaragua has
no further use for you we want nothing of this sort done here sir the embarrassed captain departed
without a word and was never heard of again even though he was surrounded by 4,000 people Walker
was prepared to let officers go if they broke his rules Walker fails to realize that he's at war
with someone who has no regard for rules so Walker's doing with sabotage he's losing all of his
steamers he's got 900 men he's got 4,000 people surrounding him he's got all these other mercenaries
put up by Vanderbilt taking his stuff and then what happens here's another Vanderbilt attack that same
day the US Navy's 958 tonn warship called the St. Mary's dropped anchor a little distance from Walker
the guy running the ship is commander Davis commander Davis had come to Nicaragua with express
orders from Washington officially he was to take steps as circumstances required for the protection
of American citizens in Nicaragua and the reality the Navy secretary at the request of the secretary
of state and the urging of Cornelius Vanderbilt had given Davis the job of ending the war by
removing William Walker from Nicaragua one way or the other remember he's got multiple texts
running simultaneously against the enemy one way or another the Commodore which is Cornelius
Vanderbilt's nickname since he was a kid one way or another Vanderbilt was determined to get Walker
so shortly after this one of the few steamers that Walker still has access to that's giving him
you know supplies weapons more recruits like come and fight blows up and 60 men were killed in
the blast Walker wrote this this was just ill luck he doesn't even know what's going on it wasn't
ill luck so several our witnesses believe that was caused by some miscreant who threw a flask of
powder gunpowder into the furnace we know that it must have been powder from the fact from the fact
that the faces of the wounded were a great deal blackened with gunpowder and it was indeed powder
that had caused the explosion previously when this vessel had stopped to refuel it had taken on board
pieces of gun powder filled firewood so it's throwing in firewood that does it obviously doesn't
know has gunpowder in there because that would cause the ship to blow up right that gunpowder
powder filled firewood had been planted at the riverbank deeper weeks before the disaster it
was planted there by a mercenary in the employment of Cornelius Vanderbilt this action finally sealed
the fate of the filibusters with Walker with an improvised explosive device and brought to a close
the last attempt to reclaim the river and send hundreds of desperately needed men to Walker
Walker was now cut off from the Atlantic and Gulf states so no new men no new supplies and no
new food it says Walker's army had been surviving on a small ration of mule meat a little more of
this one of Walker's soldier said and we'll have to start eating the prisoners everybody around Walker
is trying to convince now him to surrender eventually they get through and they said hey if you
surrender you can surrender to the US and they won't kill you they'll bring you back to the United
States so it says on May 1st William Walker boarded the US warship this is commander Davis the guy
that was sent down there right commander Davis insisted that all of Walker's ships that he had left
that he had to left be handed over to the allies so those are the other Central American armies that
Vanderbilt funded along with all of Walker's rifles cannons and ammunition Walker surrendered with
only 407 troops remaining Cornelius Vanderbilt wins and it says he can now enjoy the spoils of his
Nicaraguan victory unbelievably Walker goes back to United States invades tries to reinvade again
fails like a few days later then goes back to United States for the second time then for the third
time tries to invade this time the British capture them they hand him over to the Honduran government
and on September 12 1860 a 36 year old William Walker was led blindfolded onto the beach
they asked him if he had any last words he was still speaking when his executioners fired the
officer in charge then walked up to Walker's fallen body put a pistol to his face and fired at
point blank range so that the corpse could never be recognized Walker's naked body was then buried
in the sand by this time Cornelius Vanderbilt had forgotten all about William Walker because he
wasn't even interested in Nicaraguan anymore because it turns out it wasn't William Walker that
sealed the fate of the Nicaraguan transit company it was the intercontinental railroad that opened up
linking California and the east coast rendering his transit company obsolete and the final trait
that I want to impart to you that Vanderbilt had that was beneficial businesses that he would
surf each new technological wave that he believed in so it said Vanderbilt had seen the future of
railroads well before many others he would accumulate controlling interest in 16 key lines so 16
I think I said 13 earlier so it's even more he would accumulate controlling interest in 16 key
lines during the Civil War he charted a number of his team ships to the US government which converted
them into warships but after the war he consolidated his shipping interest and concentrated on the iron
rail buying up railroad after railroad his crowning glory was a construction of New York cities
first grand central terminal his statue stands outside grand central station to this day
steamships had made Vanderbilt wealthy the railroads made him one of the richest men in history
and that is where I'll leave it for the full story highly recommend reading the book if you buy
the book using a link that's in the show notes in your podcast player are available at FoundersProtkess.com
you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time that is 341 books down one thousand to go and I'll
talk to you again soon there's this theme that comes up over and over again on the podcast and I
think it's obvious the more you listen is that the the people that you and I study on the podcast
even though they didn't know each other many cases they're alive at different times in history
they're working in different industries they live on different parts of the planet they are much
more alike to each other right that's why these themes pop up over and over again they're much
more alike to each other than they are to like the general population and the same is true for
people that listen to Founders there's this like this I have this like metaphor in my mind lately
like I think of I picture like an iceberg right where anytime I get messages you know I get
messages from people that listen they don't know each other they usually ask for similar things
and it took me years to realize to take like the advice that's on the podcast right now I think
of what Michael Jordan said that successful people listen the people that don't listen don't last
long and he was talking about you know obviously not only listening like in terms of learning from
history studying the great people I came before him listening to his coaches his trainers all the
people he has around them trying to help him be better at his profession right but what happens is
what I've come to realize is like anytime I get a bunch of these messages because the same holds
true for the people who listen to the podcast just like the same holds true for the people that we
study on the podcast that people who listen to Founders are much more alike to each other than we are
to the general population and what will happen is I'll get these messages and people will be asking
in many cases over a long period of time for very similar things even though they don't know each other
and every time that has happened so far that I actually dig deeper it's that the these messages
I'm getting her it's like the tip of the iceberg the the part that is outside of the water and then
you go deeper and you have this mass underneath that is hidden you just had to actually look and
this happened with the the initial creation of Founders Notes to begin with because for years as
you know I would go and like shout from the mount tops about this app called Readwise that I was
like oh my god this is incredible for you know since 2018 I've been putting every single note highlight
everything that I'm all the prep that I'm doing for the podcast into this database that I can then
search and so I'm constantly revisiting what I'm learning you know I think I'm what eight years
into this and the deeper I go into this I realize how right Napoleon was when he kept saying that
hey experience must be supplemented by study no man's personal experience can be so inclusive as
to warrant his disregarding the experience of others you know you say over and over again you need
to read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander Hannibal Caesar Frederick de Great make them your
models this is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets in the art of war the
same is applied to entrepreneurship which we see over and over again so I see over and over again
the sense that they're constantly studying the great people he came before them so once people
said hey I want access to your your notes and highlights for years people are asking me for this
that is the tip of iceberg then I build this product which is founders notes you can get at
founders notes.com if you don't already have it and turns out there's this huge massive people
underneath that that want access to it that see the value and constantly reading and rereading my
notes and highlights because of course by rereading my notes and highlights it's going to spawn ideas
that you can use in your work that was the first part the second part was then people started asking
hey I know it's an annual subscription is there a way I can just do a one time can I just pay once
and have it forever and then over the last few weeks as you've already heard I start testing it out
because I'm like oh that's interesting so that if we do that like then it becomes a tool and that's
kind of weird like how many times it's it becomes a tool that you can use for your entire career so
you'd get not only every single note and highlight that I've done so far but every single note and
highlight that I will do in the future and I have to do this in the future because I can't make
the podcast without this essentially what I'm building what founders notes is for you is my internal
tool to condense and clarify the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs that is
exactly what I'm trying to do and so once I listen is like okay well let me test this out let me see
what happens the response has been overwhelming most people are opting for the one time option and
there's very few products or services that you can buy that actually get better with time so think
about how crazy this is so if you sign up for the one time option okay you get everything I do in
the future so the product by default every week because I keep adding to it every week improves over
time but then I'm also building all these other new features and then you get all those features
essentially for free so that that that's another way the product keeps improving the future so what
one thing I've just did and I've been telling about this is you before forever you've been able to
search my notes and highlights right in a keyword search so anything you're thinking about hiring
firing recruiting advertising marketing a specific person like olgoo v or buffet or monger or
anybody else that you and I've said in the podcast then we just add in this is live now by the way
and I've had all these tools internally because me and the founders of read wise been testing this
and the engineers of read wise have been testing this because this is who a partner with to build it
and so we always seeing a test it before we make a public so the transcript feature is live right now
so that just makes keyword search and not twice as good may I don't know five ten times as good
because then you have every single word I've ever uttered on the podcast that you can now search
one thing if you already an existing subscriber or if you're going to to to subscribe
and to get founders notes the keyword search make sure you're using founders notes on your computer
there's been several bugs on the search the keyword search with the high with the transcripts
on mobile there already been worked on and hopefully squashed very soon but from my own experience
I think the experience on on your computer on a desktop a laptop is far superior than mobile I'm
going to have to build that you know the founders notes app which I'll eventually get to so that is
live now the other feature I've been talking about that say hey how can we use these new chat like AI
interfaces and be able to search through everything that I have transcripts notes highlights
not just keyword but actually semantically the way that you would search is if you were to ask like
me a question for example and so I told you in the past I need a name for this you know it's like
founders GPT sounds terrible this is another feature that we've been testing internally we have it
we called it founders chat I don't think I'm going to keep it as founders chat because this is what I
think of what I really think it is I think I'm going to call it super search or something like that
because to me it's like searching the entire corpus of the founders podcast everything I
all the material I've ingested to make founders podcast you know for the 350 or 341 episodes
or whatever it is right and as the more I use it now I'm using it I think I'm referenced it in
the episode you just listened to using it literally to build every single I'm using it to research
every single podcast that I'm making I'm using it nearly every day and the more I interact with it
I'm like no this is like a super search this is like search on steroids it has a way more
advanced memory than me I've been searching it and it makes connections that I have even missed
what I want to do is and I've already started doing this with a handful people start testing them
to existing founders notes subscribers so whether you have one already or if you sign up now which
I highly recommend you do I think it's a no brainer especially if you do the one time option
but if you want to test this I need people now keep in mind this is a beta test they're going to run
into issues that is the point of testing it with a small group of people eventually you know I think
in the next few weeks at the very the very latest it'll be live to every single person you just see
it when you log into founders notes but if you're interested in testing this right now when you
were logged into founders notes you will see an email address in the footer send an email and the
subject line say I want to test founders chat and with the goal obviously is if you run in any bugs
or anything where it's not functioning as it should please let me know and so then once super
search whatever I'm going to call it is ready it's live it's functioning just so it has a bit as
it has been internally there's other features that I want to start adding I'm going to be doing
bullet point summaries of the key ideas in every single episode I want to do that by by founder
because think about some some episodes or some founders I have like 10 episodes on right like I
would like a one page and the whole point I guess I need to back up I think you already know this
but just in case I need to make it explosive what I'm trying to do with founders notes because it
starts out with the ability to search notes and highlights then you add transcripts and you
add super search then you add bullet point summaries of the key ideas from each episode but really
everything that I'm doing with this right is over time I do think it's going to be this ever
increasing giant valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's
greatest founders it is by far the best way for you to support the podcast it is the platform and
I think the business that will continue to allow me to make and distribute the podcast for free forever
and so every feature that I'm building I'm building it for myself first as a way to serve that
mission that hey we need this this very advanced curriculum that condenses and clarifies the
collective knowledge of history's greatest founders because if it goes back to what David
Ogreby said he says you can't save souls in an empty church you have to condense and clarify
because that's how you're going to remember the idea to use that idea in your work you might not
use the idea tomorrow it might be 10 years from now and so as I constantly use these features myself
I will refine this long term vision and of course as always with everything I will share with you
as soon as I comprehended myself first so if you're already running a successful company and you
want an easy way to interface with the ideas of history's greatest entrepreneurs in a searchable
database that you can go through at your convenience anytime you want then go to foundersnotes.com
to sign up at us foundersnotes.com thank you very much for listening thank you very much for your
support and I'll talk to you soon
