#353 How To Be Rich by J. Paul Getty

0:00 If you listen to last week's episode on J. Paul Getty's autobiography, you know that Getty placed a lot of time and energy and money into building relationships. with other entrepreneurs, investors, and executives. He knew that relationships between these types of people often produce nonlinear returns. He knew Their relationships run the world so much so

0:20 That he bought a seventy two room estate. That served as what he called a liaison center. Essentially a place Specifically created to build relationships. I have not bought an estate to help you build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives.

0:35 But I do rent out entire venues and I host founders events so you can build relationships with other founders, investors, and executives that listen to this podcast. These events last for two days and they are all inclusive. That means all you have to do is get there and I take care of the rest. That means your ticket covers lodging, meals, and access to every single event. If you want to come and hang out with me. and other high value listeners of this podcast.

0:59 For two days. Make sure you come to a founders event. There is one happening. July twenty ninth. Through the thirty first, in Scots Valley, California.

1:08 And you can sign up to attend. by going to founders podcast dot com for slash events. That is Founders Podcast. Dot com Ford slash events. I hope to see you there and I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:20 On how to be rich. By J. Paul Getty. The book that I want to talk to you about today is How to Be Rich, and is written by J. Paul Getty. It did not start out as a book, as a matter of fact. Uh, the book that I'm holding my hand was first published. Over sixty years ago.

1:35 But it started out because The founder of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, approached J Paul Getty. In the nineteen sixties. And he asked him to write a series of columns. So he wind up writing J Paul Getty wind up writing Over five years.

1:50 nineteen different essays. With the goal of transferring and educating Basically transferring his experience and the knowledge that J. Paul Getty had about building businesses.

2:00 to the next generation, to what he considered what he called the younger businessmen of his day. Now keep in mind when he's writing these essays, he is seventy three years old. So almost everybody else. Is Younger than him.

2:13 And as such, this book is very different from the autobiography of J Paul Getty, which I covered last week. Really, the way I would think about reading this book and what this podcast is gonna be is we just have one of, if not the richest person on the planet at the time he's writing this. And he is just telling us the lessons that he derived from sixty years, nearly sixty years of building businesses. And so I wanna jump right into why this is a good use of our time, and then then J Paul Getty tells us why he's doing this. So the first is why this is a good use of our time. My entire adult life has been devoted to building and operating business enterprises. So he knows a thing or two.

2:47 This is why he's doing this. I and so many other successful businessmen have so frequently noted that many young people today enter upon their business careers without sufficient grounding and preparation. They fail to grasp The long range picture.

3:02 They do not understand and appreciate the universally Applicable fundamentals. The basic philosophies, the endless implications and ramifications And the numberless responsibilities. Which are the absolute essentials.

3:15 Of business. And he just says right at the very beginning, and something he'll repeat throughout the essays in the book. I would like to convince young businessmen that there are no surefire Quick and easy formulas for success in business. And so that is the first time that he mentions that, the fact that there's no sure, fire, quick and easy formula for success of business. But you'll see he repeats, he's got a handful of principles.

3:35 And he's just gonna repeat them. in different contexts throughout the book. So he does give us some background into his life. I'm gonna try not to overlap too much. But I do wanna start out because he starts the book with this essay called How I Made My First Billion. And the first part of that essay is

3:51 This Adulation, disrespect, this love. For His father. His father was his hero, his father was the best man he ever knew.

3:59 As we saw last week. He credits a lot of his success. He says over and over again his autobiography my seat at the table was set for me, and that seat was set by my father. Do not compare me to John D Rockefeller. Rockefeller is a Eagle and I am but a sparrow is the line that he uses in the autobiography. He just has this

4:15 Deep respect for these self made men. So he talks about this. As the son of a successful oilman, I had been exposed to the virus of oil fever ever since childhood. As you and I talked about in the last episode, one of the best things that George Getty, his father ever did. was expose his son to business at a very young age. He's like a ten, eleven years old when he's visiting Oldfields. He has all these questions

4:37 There's no possible way that a ten or eleven year old can possibly understand everything that's going on on building an oil business and any business, really. But it constantly stretches his understanding of the world. And then a sudden is just able to pick up these ideas little by little as he's exposed to more and more. I think it's such a good idea. So says my father was a self made man who had known extreme poverty in his youth, just like Rockefeller

5:01 uh John D Rockefeller who Obviously was one of Getty's heroes as well. My father had a practically limitless capacity for hard work. And he had an almost uncanny talent for finding oil. And it was interesting what popped to mind when I got to that paragraph. I I jotted down on the note to myself.

5:18 This is just like William Randolph Hearst's father. I have a book. I did William Randall Hearst's biography, you know, I think Two hundred episodes ago, something like that. I have a book on the Hearst family dynasty. that it will eventually turn into the podcast. But

5:32 There's a lot of similarities now that I think about it between J. Paul Getty and William Randall Hearst. They were all they were both sons. of very successful men. Both of their fathers an innate interest in developing the talent of their son. Getty's father made his money in oil.

5:46 And the fact that a lot of people that ran into and met George F. Getty said that he had this, you know, he could essentially smell oil. Well, you can go back and read about Geor George Hurst, which is William R Randolph. Uh Hearse's father. George Hurst wounds up founding this thing called the Homestake Mine. He actually listed it on the stock exchange in eighteen seventy nine.

6:05 That mine Produced gold from eighteen seventy nine all the way up until two thousand one. I bring that up because Getty's about to mention the similarities between the gold rush, the California gold rush, and what was happening In Oklahoma.

6:18 About sixty years later. But the similarities between the fathers is Anyway they met George Uff Getty thought, you know, he could smell oil. He just had this innate capacity to find oil.

6:28 The same thing was said about George Hurst for gold. In fact, the Native Americans in the area where he was mining for gold. Gave George Hurst. A nickname. And they called him the boy that the earth talks to. And so J Paul Getty tells us what the oil industry was like when he was introduced to it.

6:45 says the atmosphere was identical to that which historians describe As prevailing in the California goldfields. During the eighteen forty nine gold rush. In Oklahoma. The fever

6:56 was to find oil. Not gold. And it was an epidemic. And so after college, Getty starts up his own oil company. He tells about how this came to be. My father rejected any ideas that a successful man's son should be given money as a gift after he was old enough to earn his own living.

7:13 My father did finance some of my early operations. But it was solely on a seventy thirty percent basis. So what that means is his dad put up the money To buy the leases and the equipment. He says if you Find any oil.

7:25 I get seventy percent of the profits since I'm financing the entire thing and you get thirty percent. And the difference between the beginning of his father's oil career and his own is his father was immediately successful. I think it's something like The first forty out of the first forty three wells that he drilled, forty two of them came back producers. Getty had like a a year when nothing was happening. And he's like, Well, I can't quit now and he b believed he couldn't quit because he says wildcating was in my blood and he talks about this little small business that he starts

7:51 It is going to eventually make him one of the richest people in the world. He says at this point I acted as my own geologist, legal advisor, drilling superintendent, explosives expert And as Roughneck and Rouse about. I operated in much the same manner. as most other wildcatters at this time.

8:07 With one important exception. Now this is fascinating. In those days. The science of petroleum Geology. Had not yet gained very wide acceptance.

8:17 In the oil fields. Many oilmen sneered openly at the idea that some damn bookworm could help them find oil. I was among the few Who believed in geology. I studied the subject avidly at every opportunity and applied what I learned to my operations.

8:35 And so then he's gonna describe the difference between like the wildcatter. So think of the wildcatters as the startups. And then these Entrenched. bureaucratic oil company. So something he's gonna repeat over and over again in in different it giving different sets of advice. Is the danger to become standardized.

8:49 to become bureaucratic. And so even though he's writing about the very his very early days in business fifty years after it happened. There's these initial principles that he still adheres to, even when his business is much larger or much more complex. you know, worth billions compared to a million dollars, which which is what he's gonna make right now. And he says we all faced heavy competition and opposition from major oil firms. He's gonna tell uh several stories throughout the book. about how they they do not play fairly, to to say the least, and how he solves some of these problems.

9:18 Some of these huge companies did not always abide by the rules when they engage in legal or financial infighting to smother an independent wildcatter. This wind up being a good thing for Getty because it made him it made him develop skills That he needed to survive. I'm reading about these techniques that he's div that he needs to develop to survive this opposition from these giant oil companies. And I'm thinking about

9:39 Michael Jordan, then multiple episodes I've done on Michael Jordan. When if you listen to episode 212, which is like the 700 page biography of Michael Jordan that I read. In that book it talks about the fact that He could not get past for several years could not get past the Detroit Pistons. They were in his way to win a championship. He could not get past them in the playoffs. And he constantly had to adapt and change his game. his body, his training methods, his practice habits to overcome that obstacle, but on the other side of that obstacle now he has a skill set that he would not have had if he didn't have that obstacle or that problem to begin with.

10:13 The exact same thing is happening here. Wildcatters develop traits and techniques. Which enabled them to stay in business. We became flexible, adaptable, and versatile. Adept at improvisation and innovation. If for no other reason than because we had to. We had to in order to survive the big companies employed vast numbers of specialists.

10:31 And consultants they house them in large and expensive offices. The wildcatters Found our experts among the hard bitten veteran oil field workers. We did our own administrative and paperwork. Keeping both to a minimum.

10:44 As for offices These more often than not traveled with us. In our mud covered automobiles we drove. From one drilling site to another. So we are still in his essay, the first essay called How I Made My First Billion, and he's gonna talk about how

10:59 A major oil company or a collection of major oil companies Are trying to squeeze him. And how one other major oil company winds up helping him. And so here's a collection of wells that he's drilling. And each well right now is bringing in thousands of barrels of oil a day.

11:14 And all of a sudden he cannot find a buyer for his crude production. He goes to all the firms And they refuse to deal with him. And this is when he realizes, Oh, this is a giant oil company that's trying to squeeze me. 'Cause they want to buy my wells at for discounted price. The motives behind this boycott became clear.

11:30 When I received several calls offering to buy the lease at a very low price, the brokers refused to name the principals they represented. By then. I was an old hand in the petroleum industry. I recognize all the classic signs indicating a well organized squeeze play. certain interests wanted my lease. Either I sold out at a ridiculously low price

11:49 Or I'd be left without any market for the oil produced by the wells on the property. Unable to sell my oil. I had To find some way to store it. And so that is the first counter move he makes. He's like, Okay, no one will buy this oil.

12:02 I'm not gonna shut down the wells. I will lease storage tanks. And I will store the oil until I can solve the problem and find a buyer. But he knows the clock is ticking. And he says, When the tanks are topped off, I would have no choice but to shut down my operation entirely.

12:16 And the next thing he does is really smart. go straight to the top. He goes to the ultimate decision maker. Now keep in mind, he still doesn't know who's trying to squeeze him. And so at this point, the largest oil company is Shell Oil. And so he goes and makes an appointment with the Shell's company president, Sir George Lay Jones. He says in desperation I aimed high.

12:35 Meaning he went straight to the top. He and asked for an interview with him personally and was informed that he would be happy to see me. And so Getty describes this meeting that he's having with Sir George. He says Sir George listened attentively to what I had to say. The deepening scow that etched across his face as he heard me was all the proof I needed that his firm was not a party to the boycott.

12:55 And that he heartedly disapproved of such tactics. When I finish talking He smiled. Relax, he grinned. We'll help you. As a starter, the company would buy the next one point seven

13:06 million barrels of crude oil that I produced. In addition, Sir George told me A pipeline would be constructed to link my wells. with the Shell Oil Company's pipeline network. And construction was to commence

13:20 The very next day. And so I just love that simple little story because I think there's two very valuable lessons. This is one, you have to stop the bleeding. the worst thing that Getty could have done is panicked and then, you know, sold out a very valuable leash just because he was getting squeezed and His reserves his his cash reserves are dwindling. He's like, Okay I can't sell it, that's fine. I'm gonna store it.

13:41 That at least stops the bleeding for now. And then he knows you have to aim straight from the top. You have to go to the ultimate decision maker because the president of Shell can move look how fast he can move. He's like, Okay. You have a commitment right now, my word, in this one meeting I will buy the next one point seven million barrels and then tomorrow tomorrow morning at your site I'm I'm Sending a construction crew. So your oil goes straight to our pipelines.

14:02 Before I move on, there is another note that I left myself in this section. And I wrote, No wonder he wanted complete control. It is a very obvious if you read. J. Paul Geddes. Autobiography.

14:13 What did he do during and after the depression? He's like, I'm not just gonna be just gonna be drilling wells. I'm going to build a vertically integrated oil company, I'm going to be in complete control of my entire business. And there's many examples in this book, there's many examples in the autobiography by J Paul Getty where he is constantly disappointed by relying on what's going on in the other guy's shop. And so at this point in his life he doesn't have pipelines, he doesn't have his re own refineries, he doesn't have his super tankers, but he's gonna get them. And I can't help but think experiences like this heavily influenced him in that direction. And so that is the next part that I wanna skip to because he talks about the fact that his father dies

14:50 And it's the Great Depression is happening. And every all of his advisors he's still a young man. E all of his advisors are saying, Hey We need to liquidate everything now. says many advise me liquidate everything to sell out not only My father's holdings, but my own firms and interests as well as well.

15:05 The business situation can only get worse, they predicted. The economy is going to disintegrate completely, they said. I didn't see things that way at all. He this is so miraculous that he goes in the exact opposite. So you have the consensus is, you know, this is the end of the world, sell now. At least you can convert some of your assets, even if they're, you know, uh pennies on the dollar, into actual cash.

15:27 And when I get to this section and when he starts talking, I was like, you know what, actually I began to envision a completely integrated and self contained oil business, just like John D Rockefeller. And just as it was remarkable the fact that Johnny Rockefeller did that in the very beginning Of The oil industry, right? He got in right at the very beginning. When they first discovered oil in Pennsylvania, everybody thought, Oh, this is the only place it's gonna be

15:47 This is gonna be a quick buck and this this entire industry is going to disintegrate, right? And Rockefeller did not believe that. He believed that it was enduring. And we see that Getty has faith in this idea. And I wanna really pause here because Now that that I've read his autobiography, I've read this book, this is one of the most important turning points in his entire life.

16:05 Think about this. This decision that he's making as a young man in nineteen thirty, okay. What path? Before you Getty, what do you want to do?

16:13 On the left hand side we got, Hey, we're gonna sell everything. You know, the world is ending, but at least we'll have a little bit of money. The right is I'm going to double down. I'm going to make this less of my life's work. I'm not only not gonna sell my oil wells, I'm going to invest more money in this. This is no different. Then when Steve Jobs said in that commencement address that You can't connect the dots.

16:32 Looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking backwards. So you have to trust in something. Y'all got. Destiny. Life. Karma, whatever. But what Rockefeller knew, what Getty knew, what Steve Jobs knew.

16:43 You have to put your faith in something. The future is always unknown. And so he says in business, it is never easy to go against the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority. This is exactly what he's doing at this point in his life. The businessman who moves counter to the tide of prevailing opinion Must expect to be obstructed. Derided and damned.

17:01 And it's one thing to say for his competitors or people in the media or people he doesn't know to doubt him. It's his friends and family are doing it as well. My friends and acquaintances Felt my buying spree would prove a fatal mistake. And so this idea to listen to your own inner voice to make decisions based on what you want your life to be, not with the consensus or the prevailing opinion at the time or your friends or acquaintances is so important because he didn't make his first billion in nineteen thirty.

17:27 If he didn't think about this, he needed to to do what he's going through now, where he's vertically integrating He's taking over this this giant oil company. He's getting capacities and skills that he did that his company did not possess because twenty years later. He winds up getting the biggest deal of his life. He gets the concession of the neutral zone, the Saudi Arabia's portion of the neutral zone. Getty talks about the fact that you know, twenty years after he booked this consensus, decided, No, I'm not selling out. I'm doubling down. I'm investing more of my assets.

17:56 He gets this concession from the king of Saudi Arabia. And what's crazy is in the neutral zone, they're gonna wind up producing Getty's gonna wind up producing. thirteen billion barrels of oil. I just love thinking about that story. There's the the idea behind it. You know, there's a handful of decisions that we make that will change the trajectory of our entire lives. And when we make those decisions, usually we don't have the data. We don't know. We have to put our faith in something. So I'm gonna move on to the next essay.

18:22 And really the next essay to me it's it talks about The fact that optimism is a moral duty. And he's writing to the young businessmen of that day and so many of them are saying like there's no more opportunity. This is nineteen sixty five. So he says there will always be room for the man with energy and imagination.

18:39 The man who can successfully implement new ideas into new products and services. Anyone who has achieved success is frequently asked the same question by the people he meets. How can I Do this too. And then he runs into all these pessimistic Young people.

18:55 That you don't have to worry about as competitors because they won't they're so pessimistic they won't even start. But you were lucky. You started in business at a time when it was still possible to make millions. You couldn't do it nowadays. No one could. I never cease to be astounded by the prevalence of this negative And totally erroneous attitude. among supposedly intelligent people. So something that I picked up over and over again. I think the the single best

19:17 description of what a business is I've ever heard. I read several years ago. It actually came from Richard Branson. And he says That a business is just an idea that makes someone else's life better. And I think that's such an important thing to remember because not just for the statement, I do think that's a statement of fact. But the reason that there will always be unlimited opportunity Is because there's unlimited ways to make other people's lives better.

19:39 So the reason that there's always unlimited opportunity is because a business is just an idea that makes somebody else's life better. And there's always ways to make other people's lives better. So imagine being this negative, pessimistic young person in nineteen sixty five. The name of this essay is You Can Make a Million Today. And their response is no, you can't. And one of the most remarkable things about reading books, you know, they're sixty, seven years old, four hundred years old, is you just see people say the same things over and over again.

20:02 And so he's gonna talk about some of the the reasons that these people say No, you can't do this today. You got in right at the right time, but that time has passed. She says I consider myself neither a prophet nor an economist nor a political scientist. I speak simply as a practical working businessman. I believe the outlook for business is good.

20:20 And that it will become even better as time goes on. We can see from our vantage point that that prediction was accurate, right? I feel that American businessmen have ample reasons to be optimistic about their prospects and profits for years and even decades to come. He's also true about that. He was also right about that, rather. I say this fully aware that in some American business circles, it has long been fashionable to bemoan a lack of opportunity.

20:42 And so what he means by that is all this list of excuses about what's happening now. And these are impossible problems for the the businessmen of today to overcome. So talks about high taxation, excessive labor costs. Unfair foreign competition. Creeping socialism. And his response to this is also another benefit of reading this book and his autobiography.

21:02 J. Paul Getty is going to hold the reader, hold you and I to a high standard. He does not like excuses. I said last week his favorite saying was The sign that was on Harry Truman's desk, the buck stops here. You it's clear that Getty

21:17 believes in extreme ownership. So this is what he says. To my way of thinking, all of this is sheer nonsense. The complaints are merely convenient alibis. For the unimaginative. The incompetent

21:27 The near sighted and narrow minded and the lazy. I can't see any validity to the arguments advanced by the pessimist and the defeatist. But then Calamity Howlers. Have always been with us.

21:40 Chanting one dismal and discouraging chorus or another. Again, something he repeats over and over again. He is a voracious Reader of history. And just like in Getty's Day, just be like before Getty's Day, just like in the day that you and I occupy. You're always gonna have the pessimists, the defeatists, they're always p chanting one dismal and discouraging excuse or another. And so the way I think about what Getty's teaching us right now is that optimism is a moral duty

22:04 And that pessimism aborts opportunities. That's what he says. There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit if they will only recognize and seize them. The last things that American business needs are complaints, alibis, and defeatist philosophies. What American business does need.

22:21 And in an ever increasing numbers, and I believe this with my whole heart, by the way. What Amer not just American business, but business all over the world. does need and in an ever increasing numbers are young businessmen who are willing and able to assume the responsibilities of progressive Vigorous industrial and commercial leadership.

22:38 The rewards awaiting such men are practically limitless. Many Young qualified Highly qualified young applicants give up before they start. And so then Getty has advice for young entrepreneurs that don't give in to pessimism, don't don't give in to defeatism.

22:54 And actually try to seize opportunities. And so he actually starts out by quoting Harry Truman. He says that Harry Truman said, I study the lives of great men and famous women. And I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand.

23:09 With everything they had. With energy and enthusiasm and hard work. And so when I got to that line that says those who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand with everything they had. It made me think of something that Charlie Munger would repeat.

23:24 He said that Him and Buffett. believed in Carlyle's prescription. And Munger said that ninety eight percent of our attention was devoted to the task at hand. We are believers in Carlisle's prescription, and then he defines it.

23:40 That the job a man is to do is the job at hand. And not see what lies dimly in the distance. back to Getty. There are absolutely no safe or surefire formulas for achieving success in business. I believe that there are some fundamental rules to the game. Which if followed

23:56 Will tip the odds for success in your favor. These are rules which I've applied. And which every millionaire businessman with whom I am acquainted has also followed. And so he actually makes a list. So there's ten different things. Number one.

24:10 Choose a field. Which he knows and understands. So figure out where your circle of competence is. Number two. You should never lose sight of the central aim for all businesses. Which is to produce more and better goods to more people.

24:23 Number three, a sense of thrift is essential for success in business. The businessman must discipline himself. To practice economy wherever possible. Number four. Be always be on guard. Against the temptation to over expand or launch expansion programs blindly.

24:39 Forced growth. can be fatal to any business new or old. I gotta repeat that. Forced growth. Can be fatal. to any new business. To any business new or old.

24:50 There's a great line from David Packer, the founder of HP, where he says that more companies die from indigestion. than starvation. And I think that's exactly what Getty's getting to there for number four. Number five. Businessman must run his own business. He cannot expect his employees to think or do as well as he can.

25:07 He must maintain close and constant supervision. Over the entire business. Number six. The businessman must be constantly alert for new ways to improve his products and services. And increase his production and sales. So

25:20 Really what he's saying is you should invest in technology. That is something that the great entrepreneurs before Getty, during Getty, and after Getty all believed. In fact, if you read Andrew Carnegie's Autobiography was probably published eighty years before This book came out.

25:33 Or maybe sixty years, something like that. But one of the main lessons when you study the early days and uh as Carnegie uh built his steel empire. uh there's a there's a theme in that book, which is invest in technology, the savings compound, it gives you an advantage over slowing moving competitors and can be the difference between a profit and a loss. Number seven, borrowed money must always be promptly repaid. Nothing will destroy a career faster than a bad credit rating.

25:58 Number eight. A businessman must constantly seek Untapped or under exploited markets. Number nine. Guarantees should always be honored in the customer's favor.

26:09 The business that is known to be completely reliable will have little difficulty filling its order books and keeping them filled. And number ten, no matter how many millions in individual masses If he is in business he must always consider his wealth. as a means for improving living conditions everywhere. And number ten is just a lesson that his father taught him. The fact that, you know, don't just sit on a bunch of gold coins like your Scrooge McDuck.

26:32 you have more money than you'll ever need, reinvest that into making more products and services that make other people's lives better. So then I want to skip ahead. He has an essay called The Millionaire Mentality. There's a lot of these ideas in here that I've picked up on reading these books. uh reading these biographies and I call this founder mentality. But I just want to tell you a quick story that comes from this essay. It's about the importance of incentives and then making sure that you have people

26:55 'Cause you don't have to be a founder to have founder mentality. But your top talent should all have founder mentality or what or what J. Paul Getty describes as millionaire mentality. And so he goes and he realizes that he's got, you know, over two hundred different businesses by the time he writes this book. And he talks about this site visit and his he his top guy running the site, he's like, You know, the guy's got a brain, what's going on here?

27:15 he's here every day, and yet as soon as I get here within an hour, I see a list of things that could be improved. And so he's having this conversation with them. And he says, Hey, I only need to spend an hour on one of the sites and I spot several things that we could do better or cheaper and increase production and profits, I told him. Frankly, I can't understand why you don't see them too. And this is the response.

27:34 But you own the properties, the superintendent declared. You have a direct personal interest in everything that happens. That's enough to sharpen any man's eyes to ways of saving and thereby making more money. And Getty's response, he he's really good with people actually. He's not he doesn't get angry, he's like, Well, I pay you to do a job, doesn't sort of yelling at him, doesn't fire him. What does he do? He's he he's just

27:56 What did Michael Jordan say? Successful people listen. Those that don't listen don't last long. So Getty hears this response, he goes oh truth to Truth be told, I never thought of it quite in that way before.

28:06 So he mole over what this guy George said. For a couple of days and he's like, Okay, how can I realign our incentives? So George starts thinking like an owner and so he he proposes an idea. He goes back and he says, Hey George, I got an idea. Instead of paying you a salary. I'll give you a percent of the profits. And we can just consider this a test. It's not permanent, but if it works out, you'll make more money.

28:24 And so what happens is he comes back. He says I inspected my properties again some sixty days after George Miller. took over under this new incentive relationship. I checked the operations of my newly But could find nothing wrong. And the reason Getty is telling that story because he believes that most of the people in your organization fit into a handful of categories. And so he's gonna describe some of the categories. The first category is the entrepreneur.

28:47 He says in this first group are those individuals who work best when they work entirely for themselves. When they own and operate their own businesses, such men do not want to be employed by anyone. Their desire is to be completely independent. They care nothing. For the security That a salary job offers. They want to create their own security. What a great line. They want to create their own security.

29:06 and build their own futures entirely on their own. But every business is gonna have one or maybe j you know, there's only gonna be a handful of co founders. But his whole point is the next segment, the second group of people May never want to build their own business or found their own business, but they're excessively talented if you give them the right incentive structure. So he says. Next are the men who do not want to go into business for themselves, but who achieve the best and sometimes spectacular results. When they are employed by others and share in the profits of the business.

29:33 They want to earn in proportion to what they produce. With neither floilings on their incomes. George Miller was one who fit into this category. And so Getty's advice to entrepreneurs is really spend a lot of time cultivating and maximizing the talent and that's in the second group.

29:51 Then he's got a f the third or fourth group. The fourth one is really funny. He calls it like the postal clerks. really what he's telling us is like don't waste waste your time with these type of people. And one thing he says is that There's some people that just do not have the ability or the desire to learn.

30:05 And you run into these people in business all the time where they're like, I have ten years of experience. And what Getty realized, this is hilarious. I chuckled when he said this, he says, Many a man who is supposed to have ten years' experience. Really has only one year's experience repeated ten times over. And then that kind of person is related to the fourth category. Which is really the opposite of this idea that Getty repeats over and over again that the buck stops here.

30:28 that the truly talented person wants to take ownership. of the outcome. He wants to take responsibility for the mistakes, he wants to take responsibility s for the successes. But then you have a lot of people which he calls the postal clerks. which essentially don't care at all about how the business performs. They just want their paycheck.

30:44 They're not really paying attention. And he says, These are the ones who do the least and demand the most. They view the company for which they work as a cornucopia from which good things should flow to them. Rather than as something to which they owe loyalty in which they should strive to build. So again, those are don't waste your time with that kind of person.

31:01 But then he goes back to the most important category, which is that in category number two. You have that executive, you have that talented person, you have somebody in your company. They have this millionaire mentality, even if they're not the founder of the company. They may not be the CEO of the company, but they have that founder mentality. And one way they reveal themselves. is by thinking small, which is really fascinating. This will make more sense in a minute.

31:21 It's more important for the man with the millionaire mentality to be able to think small in the sense that he gives meticulous attention to even the smallest details. And misses no opportunity to reduce costs. In his business. This is such an important point. What might seem to be penny pinching at one level is

31:37 might be large scale economy at another. I have an excellent story from Rockefeller's biography Titan, which I'll which I'll illustrate what he means there. I'll get there in one second. The giant that he talks about This example of a giant US corporation. that actually made a study of the contents of the trash baskets, so the waste baskets in its administrative offices.

31:56 So each night for a week they actually had a team of workers. come in empty the waste and then they'd sort out The usable items. and the company property which had actually been tossed into them. So like paper clips Rubber bands, erasers, stuff like that. Stuff that could be reused.

32:12 They took an inventory that's everything in the trash, then they multiplied that total by fifty two. to estimate what this was costing them for a year. And they figured out that more than thirty thousand dollars was being wasted. Each year. And so then Getty has an example that happened inside of one of his own companies.

32:28 He says a bright junior executive. This guy had the millionaire mental mentality, the founder mentality. He devised a shortcut in a production operation Which saved half a cent per unit. But added up to a total yearly savings. over twenty five thousand dollars which is remarkable

32:45 is again, this is how they reveal themselves to you, right? This talent is in your organization and there's clever ways in which they reveal that they are possessed of more talent and drive than the position that they currently have. Because this guy winds up saving the company twenty five thousand dollars a year. That was ч морвен твій.

33:03 Of its annual salary. This young man quite definitely has what I term the millionaire mentality. He is the ownership mentality, the founder mentality, right? He is incidentally no longer a junior executive. And so this idea about teaching everybody inside your organization to think small. And so there's a great example in the biography of Rockefeller called Titan.

33:22 Yeah where Rockefeller is thinking small and I think demonstrates the principle that Getty's trying to teach you and I And I'm just gonna read from Titan. says after watching machine solder caps to the cans, he asked the the expert How many drops of solder do you use on each can? Forty, the man replied.

33:38 Have you ever tried thirty eight, Rockefeller asked. No, I have not. Would you mind having some sealed with thirty eight and then let me know. When thirty eight drops were applied, a small percentage of the cans leaked. But none leaked when they applenty nine drops.

33:53 Hence, thirty nine drops of solder became the new standard instituted at all standard oil. Refineries. That one drop of solder, said Rockefeller, still smiling in retirement. saved twenty five hundred dollars the first year. But that export business kept on increasing after that and doubled.

34:10 and quadrupled. and became immensely greater than it was then. And the savings has gone steadily along. One drop on each can has amounted since to s to a savings of many hundreds of thousands of dollars

34:25 And so the new essays Getty keeps going back to What are the kind of people, like what makes a great executive, what makes a poor executive, what makes a person that you want on your team, what is a makes a person that you want to fire? And he warns about this type of organization man that you're gonna see. There's just a bunch of them out there, they reappear in every organization. And they have Essentially the the worst traits an an executive can have.

34:46 And any time the Getty finds people like these in his organization, he removes them from his organization. And so the the two terrible traits that they have. Is the way they speak to subordinates. And the way they kiss ass. To the bosses.

34:59 And so he describes this reoccurring management personality that he sees over and over again. He personifies the two worst qualities anyone holding down a managerial job could possibly possess. His attitude is Is clearly that of a slave driver. His attitude towards his superior.

35:16 Is that Bootlicker. Utterly devoid of imagination or common sense. And so immediately after describing the kind of executive you don't want, he talks about the kind that you want.

35:28 the very first thing you should look for in your the executives that you hire in the team that you're building is the ability to think and act for themselves. Without constantly running to the superiors For advice. He make he loves making lists, which I love as well. So this is Getty's five lessons on leadership. And these leadership traits are not only for your executive team, but also for you yourself. Number one, example is the best means to instruct or inspire others.

35:50 Number two. A good executive accepts full responsibility for the actions of the people under him. How many times? He repeated that over and over again in his autobiography. He's repeating in every single essay, you must have extreme ownership. You must take responsibility for your actions. He talks about people that make excuses

36:07 He uses different words, but essentially he's like the people who make excuses are just losers. They're never gonna do anything. Number three. The best leader never asked anyone under him to do anything. that he is unwilling to do himself. One of the things that Getty prides himself is that on an

36:22 In an oil business, he can do every single job. He knew he knows his business from A to Z, therefore there's no problem he can't solve. Number four. The man in charge must be fair but firm With his subordinates. He does not pamper them, but

36:35 And he always bears in mind That familiarity breeds contempt. He believes that you should treat them fairly. that you hold them to high standards, that you don't pamper them, but you don't become friends with them. He does not believe that leads to a good outcome. Number five.

36:48 Praise should always be given in public and criticism should always be delivered in private. And what I love is he makes this list as like a summary for his experiences and then he summarizes the summary. So he says I learned my own lessons in leadership many years ago in the tough, no nonsense school provided by the oil fields. And so he talks about from a from an employee's perspective, the best kind of boss and leader you can possibly be.

37:10 So this is an old time rigger once told him this, okay? So he says, The best boss is one who knows the business better than I do, but trust me. That's the kind of man I'll work my tail off for. Knows the business better than me, but trusts me. And so then Getty gets into the fact that executives must have the skill. They have to communicate clearly and quickly. This is something Napoleon was gifted at. In fact I pulled a

37:32 A quote when I got to this section about Napoleon that I think of all the time. I'll get to in one second. So it says time is money and business. Misunderstandings in the interpretation of requests. Usually that's overcomplicated, right? Misunderstandings in the interpretation of requests, reports or instructions are very costly. The good executive is one who can explain things and tell people what needs to be done quickly and clearly. Need to repeat that. The good executive is one who can explain things and tell people

37:57 What needs to be done quickly and clearly I don't think Anybody else was better at this than Napoleon. I'm gonna read something from one of Napoleon's biographies. Long orders which require much time to prepare, to read, and to understand. Are the enemies of speed.

38:11 Napoleon could issue orders of a few sentences, which clearly expressed his intentions and required little time To issue and to understand time is money and business. Right? That's exactly what Getty just said. Napoleon was able to get his point across. In little time to make it to issue.

38:29 And to understand. So what I think about when I got to That quote in the Napoleon biography. is clear thinking. Plus clear writing equals more speed. And so another talent and skill that you want your top team and executives in your company to have.

38:43 Is this idea of Frugality. In fact, Getty says that he's looking for her the habitually thrifty person. Listen to this. An individual who is naturally thrifty. Will have an infinitely greater chance for success.

38:56 than another of equal ability who does not possess this quality. The habitually thrifty person. will be able to immediately recognize opportunities for lowering overhead. How many times? We're not even halfway through the book. He's just repeating this over and over again. You've got to watch your costs. You've got to be efficient.

39:15 The person who has formed thrifty habits will always have a fluid reserve to meet contingencies. And carry him through Slack. Periods. In fact, when I got to this section, there's two things that popped to my mind that I never forgot. It's f it's fascinating how you can read a book Yeah, spend

39:30 twenty five hours reading a book, maybe read four or five hundred pages, whatever the case is. And you know, just just maybe a sentence in there that that you can read one sentence that you never forget, one paragraph that you never forget. And so immediately what came to mind when I got to this part is There's this book called A Few Lessons. From Warren Buffett. It was episode two hundred and two.

39:49 And something Buffett and Munger notice is that there is th this h being Cost consciousness being thrifty. It is Habitual. It is a habit. Listen to what he says. Our experience this is Buffett writing now.

40:02 Our experience has been that the manager of an already high cost operation Frequently. is uncommonly resourceful in finding new ways to add overhead. To add overhead. It is a he's habituated in adding expenses. While the manager of a tightly run operation

40:20 Usually continues to find additional methods to curtail costs. Even When his costs are already well below those of his competitors. Buffett's not the only person that noticed that throughout history.

40:33 It's not the only sentence where I haven't read the book in years and I still remember Sam Walton in his autobiography. Says it as plainly as you can possibly say it. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient. I love that idea that your brilliance can actually be negated because you're too inefficient. Another

40:58 thing that can negate brilliance is the fact that you just don't have the right temperament. You get when something bad happens, you panic, you get scared. So something that Getty preaches over and over again and Buffett says this as well. is that you have to stay calm, you cannot panic. And he was actually getting this advice as a young man from an older businessman. And this is what the older businessman had told him.

41:17 Because problems are obviously inevitable, trouble, stress, all that is inevitable. So he says, always think of yourself as a man who has just fallen overboard in the middle of a lake. If you keep your wits about you, you can always swim to shore. Or at least float until someone fishes you out. But if you lose your head in panic.

41:34 You're finished. You'll drowned. That's very similar to when Buffett says that you know w Ordinary intelligence, not being an absolute moron, like that's table stakes. But once if you have at least ordinary intelligence, what then you need to build a successful career in business is you need temperament to control the urges. It actually get other people into trouble.

41:52 And so other people let stress defeat them, other people start to panic. other people are incapable of staying calm and making the the right decision. And we already saw that Getty develop that talent earlier in life when he was talking about the fact that Imagine being a young man with not a lot of resources. You think you hit pay dirt, you have all these wells producing thousands of barrels of oil today, and then suddenly one of your

42:11 Unknown and unnamed. big competitors completely squeezes you. And cuts off all your ability to sell. Your oil. What they wanted Getty to do was the opposite of what he did.

42:23 They didn't expect him to stay calm. They wanted him to panic and then buy or sell his a his very valuable assets to them. And he didn't. He had the right temperament to control the urges. that get other people into trouble. And so I've skipped ahead to another essay that's called Business Blunders and Booby Traps. And you just Recounting a bunch of these reoccurring mistakes.

42:42 And problems that you're likely to run into. And so not only is this section great writing. But it reinforces two of his principles. That one, you need to be where the work is happening, and two Get rid of the bureaucracy, get rid of the paper shuffling, j no work about work. Just work.

42:58 No work about work, just work. And he's noticing Because you have these rise and all these business school graduates. They're just building paper empires and he hates it. The writing is hilarious. Young men generally start out in the business world. Today as strictly disciplined.

43:12 And passively obedient. To some pagan cult. By the time they leave college Where they receive over specialized education. They are virtually sacrificed to the organization. Organization is

43:26 capitalize and put in quotations, right? So there's a the head of this pagan cult. And they are dedicated to serving the complex rituals. Of writing memos and buck passing. They are and remain forever.

43:37 Cloystered. From the unannoyed lady of the rank and file production workers. Procedural rules are their most honored fetishes. They are conditioned to meet periodically in a solemn conclave. And pour over the esoterica.

43:53 of statistical tables and committee reports They are far removed from the harsh, mundane realities of commerce. I made my first million dollars. In the front seat. Of a battered second hand

44:07 Model T Ford. This model T served as my executive office and field headquarters. And sometimes even as my bedroom. Almost every other wildcatter operated in much the same manner. He had no fixed hours, no five day work week.

44:23 He had to be his own promoter, his own geologist, legal advisor. Explosives expert, drilling superintendent, and jack of all trades. Most of his time was spent in the field. Working alongside his men. We wildcatters eliminated all unnecessary administrative overhead expenses in our operations.

44:42 We familiarized ourselves. So he's comparing and contrasting with The business education that these young guys had. Which he finds relatively useless to the business education that he got actually working. We familiarized ourselves thoroughly with all aspects of our business and kept all of our costs down by exercising unceasing.

44:59 And vigilant supervision. Over every фейзер бізнес. Years ago, businessmen automatically kept administrative overhead to an absolute minimum. The present day trend is in exactly the opposite direction. The modern business mania is to build greater and ever greater

45:16 Paper shuffling empires. А й стил болів. That the less overhead there is in a business, the better. And he's not done. He does not hold any punches here. This a reminds me a lot of Les Schwab.

45:29 highly recommend reading Les Schwab's autobiography if you can get your hands on one. Charlie Munger recommended multiple times reading that book. And at the very minimum just listen to the episode I did in La Schwab, which is episode three thirty. He's gonna He's gonna sound Getty sounds a lot like Schwab and Schwab sounds a lot like Getty. And so Getty's going going for it here. He says any executive

45:47 can do much better job if he peels off his business suit once in a while. climbs into a set of overalls, and gets his hands dirty down in the plant. The vice president in charge of purchasing Who has fed the raw materials he buys into a processing vat. Or a molding oven.

46:03 can do a much better job of purchasing. He can often learn more by listening to the conversation of a few production workers for an hour. than he can by reading ten thousand specification seeds. Advertising and sales managers who have operated a lafe Or punch press.

46:18 And have actually made a component of the product. about which they advertise will be much more convincing and successful in their sales campaigns. The employee relations expert Will have a much clearer and better understanding of employee problems in psychology. If he spends more time among the employees and less in his paneled office

46:39 Dreaming up new morale building gimmicks. If you have a business Make sure you're the one who's running it. If you don't want to accept the headaches of being the boss then either close the business down

46:51 Or sell it to someone who will Ецепт респонітіс. And then of course he ends the essay with a list of History's greatest entrepreneurs that he studied that did exactly that. They accepted the responsibilities, they paid attention, they were where the work happens. Talks about Andrew Mellon, he talks about Andrew Carnegie, talks about Henry Ford.

47:10 Talks about George Hartford, he talks about Samuel Cress. He talks about John D Rockefeller. In Getty's mind is all the information that he learned from reading and studying the great entrepreneurs of the past. So then he could use it in building his own company. Getty's a perfect illustration of that line that's in Poor Charlie's Almanac, the fact that there's Ideas worth billions.

47:27 in Kenny's life and career, that is literally true. And there's ideas worth billions in a thirty dollar history book. And one of the things I love about Getty is that he's got this like, you know, deep historical knowledge. He reads voraciously on a topic, but then he he's just he has common sense that he learned in just dealing with normal workers and being where the work is done. And you just see that he uses a lot of like w what I would call common sense and psychology and in indirection to get his point across.

47:55 without harming his relationship with his employees. He's really, really good at that. In fact, I love his definition of how he thinks about management. He says the primary function of management is to obtain results through people. primary function of management is to obtain results through people and so it gives A great example of how he does this. And again, you just It's like how to win friends and influence people. He understood.

48:17 how to influence and to build relationships with with his subordinates, with people that work for him. And so he talks about in one of his companies that employee morale was sagging and he soon found out why. said several executives had gotten into their heads that they could arrive for work anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour late each morning. Naturally, this did not set very well with the rank and file workers who were required to punch time clocks. And were doc pay if they were tardy.

48:40 I've always felt that bad management psychology is best countered by forcefully positive applied psychology. Listen to what he does here. It's very fascinating. I did not waste time issuing threats of disciplinary action. I simply announced that I would now be holding daily conferences. In which I expected all management personnel to be present.

49:00 And the conference would begin Forty five minutes before the start of the regular working day. I lost a bit of sleep in the next two weeks or so, but I won a major battle. My executives got the idea. There was no more habitual tardiness.

49:14 And worker morale was restored. And so then Getty provides another example of hey We need to meet bad management f uh psychology. With Forcefully positive applied psychology.

49:26 And so he says I learned an executive had taken some company owned lumber and nails With which he constructed a dog kennel in his backyard. I felt that he'd set a dangerous precedent which could lead to all kinds of trouble and cause Losses to soar if employees learn that he'd gotten away with this. Since he was a valuable man, I did not want to fire him.

49:45 And relied on another applied psychology strategy. I sent the man a pleasantly worded memo. Asking for a detailed inventory of the material he'd taken and saying I would have it appraised and the value charged against his salary. The inventory was repaired.

50:00 The total value was found to be about four dollars and this sum was duly charged against his pay. I got the point across. This message spread throughout the company and the workers realizing that not even executives could get away with appropriating company property. Took the lesson to heart themselves.

50:18 And something that reappears throughout this book, it also is mentioned multiple times in his autobiography, that he's really helped out. Not only like building, you know, mentors in historical context by Voraciously reading history. But there's all these like older businessmen that help him out throughout his entire career. And he learns a very valuable lesson on business leadership.

50:36 from an older, more successful at the time, older, more successful businessmen. And it is related to this idea that, you know, you have to stay calm, you don't panic. In that business is problem, so the best companies are just effective problem solving machines. I remember learning as a youth an invaluable lesson from a man who even then had extensive business holdings and who would later become one of America's wealthiest industrialists.

50:57 I ran into him one day in the lobby of a Chicago hotel. How are things going, I asked him. Not good. Terrible, in fact, he replied with a smile. One of my companies has been shoved into a tight corner by the competition.

51:09 Another is operating in the red, and a third doesn't have the cash to meet its short term debts. The fall due this month. So A young Getty's like, What the hell are you smiling about? What's happening? And Getty asked him, like, you don't see you're not acting like you're worried. W what's going on? Hell, Paul.

51:25 I'm not the least bit worried, he answered. To tell you the truth, I needed something like this to get me up on my toes. Everything has been going entirely too smoothly for far too long. An occasional crisis is good for a businessman. There's no better exercise for him. than to have a few messes to clean up every now and then.

51:41 And this is the punchline the perfect business does not exist. The perfect business does not exist. Snag, difficultis and crisis. Crop up in every business. The truly great leader views reverses calmly and coolly.

51:57 He is fully aware That they are bound to occur occasionally And he refuses To be innerved by them. And so as you and I discussed when we went over J. Paul Giddy's autobiography, he never retired. Like he worked until the day he died.

52:12 And one of the reasons I think in addition to him being completely obsessed and a workaholic and just completely Dedicated to what he was doing. I really think that he believed i that you should treat your businesses like this living, breathing, constantly changing thing. And so there's one paragraph that really illustrates

52:28 His management style and the way he ran his business. The concept that any status quo was perfect and permanent. then one must under no circumstances raise questions Voice doubts or seek improvements. can only produce complacency. Then stagnation and finally collapse.

52:43 There is always something wrong everywhere. And all throughout these essays and throughout the entire book, he's constantly giving advice on how he views the accumulation of assets of You wanna be investing and not a speculator. You don't wanna interrupt the compounding. Really th the the entire book he's just teaching us that it's all about the long term. That you should keep a fortress of cash, you should reinvest in your business. Use death sparingly, and doing so will help you survive to reap long term benefits.

53:08 And this becomes increasingly valuable because it goes against human nature. Most people come up to them and they're like, Hey You're rich, how do I get rich but faster? And so Getty's advice is you can use that impulse in human nature to your benefit. And so he gives us one story. Where most of the people in the early days of the oil business they were just trying to sell contracts. They had no desire to build a long term business and they thought, Oh, look

53:29 Look how much money I made in twenty four hours. And so Getty tells this story about a guy who bought an oil lease. For four thousand dollars twenty four hours later. He sells it to Getty for eight thousand. He's like look Look how much money I made. I made four thousand dollars.

53:42 In twenty four hours. And Getty's like, Yeah, but over the next twelve years I made eight hundred grand on that lease. All the money is in the long term. You want to own, not trade. He tells this hilarious story. About there's this huge real estate bubble in Miami in the nineteen twenties.

54:00 In fact, there's a book written about it that my friend Jason Buck gave me called Bubble in the Sun. I'll eventually make an episode about it. But Getty shares an anecdote from this time period where this realtor brings this Client out. And he shows him this piece of useless swamp land.

54:15 And the client says, You're crazy. No one could ever build anything on this land. It's worthless. So what, the realtor replied. Land down here ain't for owning, it's for trading. And Getty's point is you want to own.

54:28 Not trade. And so I believe embedded in these stories about the fact that human nature will lead you astray. It's why most people don't build wealth. You have to resist the pull to conform, you have to resist to the the pull to imitate the people around you. He has an entire essay called The Homogenized Man.

54:45 Which is just this wave after wave of sameness that he sees of these young people coming to business, and it contrasts nicely with one of his last essays, which is The Art of Individuality. But Getty has an incredible ending to this essay that really hammers the point of why it's so dangerous. to become standardized, to become homogenized. He says, resist the temptation to force yourself into the pattern of the structured man. One needs only to remember that a groove may be safe. But that as time wears away at it.

55:13 The groove. First becomes a rut. And then finally a grave. And so if you go back to the title of the book, How to Be Rich, one of the keys is difference. One of the keys is rejecting what Getty calls the cult of conformity.

55:29 The successful entrepreneur, the leader, the innovator is the exceptional man. He is not a conformist. Except in his adherence to his own ideals and his own beliefs. You will find the conformist the organization man. in an ever increasing number in the business world today. He believes that conformity is essential for success in his career.

55:50 One of these types was complaining to me that he wasn't getting ahead fast enough and asked me if I could offer any advice. How can I achieve success and wealth in business, he asked. How can I make a million dollars? I can't give you any surefire formulas, I replied. But I'm certain of one thing.

56:04 You'll go much farther if you stop trying to look and act and think like everyone else. The conformist only demonstrates that he is unimaginative. unenterprising and mediocre. In contrast, the successful businessman's nonconformity Is most obvious.

56:21 and evident in the manner and methods of his business operations and activities. These will be unorthodox in the sense That they are radically unlike those of his less imaginative and less successful competitors. Often his innate impatience with the futility of superficial conventions and dogma of all kinds of Will manifest itself.

56:42 In varying degrees of personal eccentricity. And so he lists examples of other great entrepreneurs that he studies that had these traits. He talks about John D. Rockefeller, he talks about Howard Hughes. He talks about Bernard Baruch. He talks about Conrad Hilton. He says the people that fall into conformity they make a massive mistake, they fall prey to a fundamental fallacy.

57:01 The notion that the majority is automatically and invariably right. Such is hardly the case. The majority is by no means omniscient. Just because it is the majority. In fact, this is incredible line. In fact I found that the line which divides majority opinion from mass hysteria.

57:18 is often so fine. has to be virtually invisible. The note I jotted down. This is a note to myself. Think for yourself. Don't look around. Look in. Don't look around, look in. The truly successful businessman is essentially A dissenter.

57:33 A rebel Who is seldom, if ever, satisfied with the status quo. He creates wealth by constantly seeking and often finding new and better ways to do and make things. In business, the mystique of conformity is sapping the dynamic individualism that is the most priceless quality an executive or businessman can possibly possess. There are many pressures that force the young man of today to be a conformist. He is bombarded.

58:01 From all sides by arguments. He does not understand that the arguments are those of the almost weres and the never will be's. Who want him as company to share the misery. of their frustrations and failures. Conforming keeps him a second stream player.

58:19 By conforming, he misses the limitless opportunities which today present themselves to the imaginative. individualist. I want security, he declares. It is a confession of weakness and cowardice. The men who will make their marks in commerce, industry, and finance

58:35 Or the ones with free willing imaginations. And strong highly individualistic personalities. They rely on their own judgment rather than on surveys, studies, and committee meetings. They know that every business situation is different. From the next and then no thousand volumes.

58:51 could ever contain enough rules to cover all contingencies. The successful businessman is no narrow specialist. He knows and understands all aspects of his business. He can spot a production bottleneck as quickly as he can an accounting error. The successful businessman is a leader who solicits opinion and advice from his subordinates, but makes the final decisions, gives the orders, and assumes the responsibility for whatever happens.

59:16 I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's a fantastic demand for such men in business today. The nonconformist. The leader and the originator. has an excellent chance to make his fortune in the business world. To be truly rich a man must live by his own values. It has always been my contention that an individual who can be relied upon to be himself.

59:38 And to not conform and to be honest unto himself. Can be relied upon in every other way. He places value on himself and his principles. And that In the final аналіз

59:50 Is the measure. Of the true worth Of any man. And that is where I'll leave it. Highly recommend picking up this little book. You could read it all the way through, you could pick it up and read it essay by essay.

1:00:02 But I do think he's got a ton of useful advice in here and I think it's well worth reading. If you buy the book, using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player are available at founderspodcast.com. You'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is three hundred and fifty three books down. One thousand ago. And I'll talk to you again soon.

1:00:19 So real quick, I'm gonna tell you about this tool that I built that if J. Paul Getty was alive, I know he would subscribe to. 'Cause not only in this book on how to be rich But also in his autobiography, he's constantly referencing, you heard him say it, Rockefeller, Conrad Hilton, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Andrew Mellon. He is constantly referencing the fact that he studied these people that he downloaded into his brain. The ideas that they use to build.

1:00:43 Their business that he could use to build his business. So after reading the two books that Getty wrote, it's obvious that if he was alive, I believe that he would subscribe to Founders Notes. Because Charlie Munger said that learning from history is a form of leverage and founders know it gives you the superpower to do this on demand. And when I tell you that years and years of my life has gone into making this tool, that is not an exaggeration since two thousand eighteen. I've been inputting all of my notes and highlights. for every book that I've ever read for this podcast into this app called ReadWise. For years I've been posting about ReadWise on social media.

1:01:16 I've mentioned ReadWise on past episodes of this podcast. I would talk about read wise. When I was interviewed on other podcasts. But for years I was the only one that had had access. to this tool.

1:01:27 And so last year I approached Tristan, who is one of the founders of ReadWise. I had built a relationship with Tr Tristan previously. And I said, Hey, can we build a tool together? Because for years people have been asking If they could have access to my ReadWise. And so is there a way we can build a product that allows other people to see what I see? Because I think that would be tremendously valuable. And the result is that you now have access and the ability to this giant searchable database of the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs.

1:01:55 So there are two primary ways in which I use founders' notes. And both of these features I think will be excessively valuable for you. The first is keyword search. So any topic That I'm thinking about Any topic that I need help on, any topic that I want to know more about. I just searched that topic. into the search bar.

1:02:11 The perfect example of this is one time I was asked by a listener, how did history's greatest entrepreneurs think about hiring? I literally just type in hiring into the keyword search and all of a sudden. There's ten or fifteen different examples of history's greatest entrepreneurs. Talking about useful ideas that they discovered on hiring. The second feature, the second way to search this giant searchable database of hist of collective knowledge of history square entrepreneurs is by asking Sage. Sage is the AI assistant. that operates on top of founders' notes.

1:02:38 You ask Sage a question and Sage will read all my notes, all my highlights and a transcripts. for every episode and make a concise summary of the ideas for you. These two features give you a superpower because it allows you to access the collective knowledge of history scales entrepreneurs on demand when you need it. And that is not all. I just added a new feature as well. There is now a private podcast feed with bonus episodes available to every Founders Notes subscriber. There are already fifty short episodes available.

1:03:07 This private podcast feed will be updated with new episodes. So all the episodes will be short and focused on one topic. So episodes could be about a subject like leadership. Or about a person, like the best ideas of James Dyson. In fact, that's the f the next episode I'm working on right now. You can find instructions on how to set up your private podcast feed when you log into Founders Notes, but there's already fifty waiting there for you. And I'm making more right now. So in summary, if you're going to invest and you're gonna spend hours and hours

1:03:33 listening to different founders podcast episodes. I would encourage you heavily To invest in a subscription. for founders' notes, it makes the lessons that you're learning on the podcast even more powerful. And again, it gives you the superpower to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand.

1:03:49 And you can do that easily. by going to founders notes dot com that is founders with an S. Founders notes. dot com and subscribing today. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much for the extra support. And I'll talk to you again soon.

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