#346 How Walt Disney Built Himself

0:00 Walt Disney was the first to bundle television programs, feature animation. Live action films. Documentaries. Theme parks. Music.

0:08 Books Comics. Character merchandise. and educational films under one corporate umbrella. He created

0:15 The first modern multimedia corporation. In the year of his death, two hundred and forty million people. Saw a Disney movie. A hundred million people. Watched a Disney television show.

0:27 Eighty million people read a Disney book. Fift million people. Listen to Disney Records. Eighty million people brought Disney merchandise.

0:36 A hundred and fifty million people read a Disney comic strip. And nearly seven million people visited Disneyland. Walt Disney had changed the world. He had created a new art form and then produced several indisputable classics within it. He hit advanced colour films and then colour television.

0:54 He had reimagined the amusement park. He had encouraged and popularized Conservation. Space exploration. Atomic energy.

1:03 Urban planning. А не деперко аварий. He had built one of the most powerful empires in the entertainment world. One that would long survive him. Yet all these accumulated contributions paled before a larger one.

1:16 He demonstrated How one could assert one's will on the world. Walt Disney had been not so much a master of fun. Or a reverence. Or innocence.

1:26 He had been a master of order. That was an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is this giant comprehensive 800 page. Biography of Walt Disney. It is called Walt Disney The Triumph of the American Imagination. And is written by Neil Gabler.

1:41 I read this book for the first time nearly eight years ago. In fact, it was episode two of Founders, but the second reading after especially after reading In almost three hundred and fifty of these biographies of History's case such parents. Completely changes. what I get out of the book, the context, the additional meaning. And I think particularly doing it right now after doing Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. Tarantino, Spielberg and Lucas all idolized Walt Disney.

2:05 They studied him intently. He had a huge influence on their work. And so over the last week I've spent well over fifty hours reading Highlighting, re reading. The last few days just really trying to figure out What is the most important lesson that I'm trying to take away from

2:21 This book and in eight hundred pages it's absurd to think that you can distill it down to just one sentence, but Later in the book, there's this there's this line that has really stuck with me as I go and read and reread all these highlights and notes. And then it said that Walt Disney's key traits Where raw ingenuity and a sadistic determination.

2:43 And I sat and thought about that, raw ingenuity and a sadistic determination. I think that is a very accurate description of him. Why was he like that? And what you realize is like he had to be he had to have this d sadistic determination In large part because his dad The relationship they had with his father.

3:00 His father, Elias Disney, was excessively controlling. And Simultaneously. Unsuccessful. A man that was beaten down by life that failed at nearly every single thing that he tried.

3:13 There is another filmmaker that I did a podcast on, Francis for Copos. This is all the way back on episode two forty two. I'm gonna put this book down. And I'm gonna pick up that biography because there's such a parallel before I get into This first story. About

3:26 This experience that Walt Disney's gonna have with his father, that he's having nightmares. Nightmares of Forty years later. Again, raw ingenuity and sadistic Determination. What Francis Ford Copulas said about

3:39 He had this You know, this drive as well. And so he says, This is Francis Ford Cobler describing his childhood and his relationship with his father. I had spent a lifetime with a frustrated and often unemployed man who hated anybody who was successful. And that kind of person usually tries to belittle the aspirations of the dreams of the people around them, even if it's their kids, which is crazy.

3:59 And then and he's so Francis Four Copa's telling us what his dad said, and he said There can only be one genius in the family, and since I'm already that, what chance do you have? And so wanna pick up the story of Walt Disney, he's nine years old. His father's already failed multiple times. Trying to provide a living for his family. They are now his father has a newspaper route delivering newspapers.

4:18 and he insists that all of his sons help him. And this is how Walt Disney remembered this. The route was not just a means of earning a living. It became a way of life for Disney's everything had to be subordinated to the delivery of newspapers. He was only nine years old. And yet

4:33 Walt was already tethered to the route. I was working all the time, he said. I never had any playtime. The route and its demands, the unyielding routine, the snow, the fatigue, the lost papers. It traumatized and haunted him forty years later.

4:48 He was still awakening in a sweat with nightmares about the route. That he had missed some customers. And he remembered how much of his life he surrendered to this route and how hard he had to work. For so little reward. And so that line there about he had to work so hard for so little reward.

5:03 Elias Disney had a very bad habit of taking the money. That his sons made and just keeping it. Walt had three older brothers, two of them ran away because Elias kept taking their money. Walt was terrified of his father. He said his father was unapproachable, that he barely talked to him. His father had an explosive temper.

5:21 And he would take the frustrations that he had with his own life And the external world. out on his sons. So there's many stories. In the book.

5:29 Where he goes to the backyard. Cuts a branch. off a tree. They call it switching. They they did this to me when I was a kid too. and they would lay into the boys. You had to take your pants down. And get a switching.

5:41 The beatings were so bad that his sons are talking about this many decades later. So this My parents beat the living crap out of me when I was a kid. They hit me with belts, switches, shoes, fists, and feet. It's not very different than the descriptions that are in this book, but What is fascinating is the decision that I made.

5:58 It it it just proves like whatever happened to you in the past, like you don't have to keep that trend going. So Walt Disney, the the main He's he's gonna be criticized by a lot of people, right? He had this sadistic determination He was by far a workaholic. If his eyes were open, he was working, but he was also simultaneously A great dad.

6:16 His daughter wrote a biography of him, which I just found in the bibliography of this book and I ordered, but both of his daughters are in this book talking about how special he made them feel. How much time he made. Uh for them. How he made them a priority. And one of the greatest things about Walt Disney is that

6:31 He there's this other line in this book I read about him uh in the past that says that he put that Disney put excellence before any other consideration. I think that's a great one sentence summary of his approach to his work. But he also was a great dad. And even though he was abused by his parents, his dad hits him with a hammer. Which we'll get to in a minute. He never did that to his kids.

6:50 And I remember growing up and just thinking this is very odd. That the people are supposed to care for me and love me are beating the shit out of me. And I knew the day my daughter was born. There's no way. I would ever do that to my kids.

7:03 She's twelve, my son is four. I've never laid a finger on them. And this is a theme that has reoccurred in these biographies. Like you can it doesn't matter what happen what past generations did. It only takes one person to change the entire trajectory. Of a family.

7:17 And you see that with Walt Disney, the way he was a fantastic Father. And an undeniable success in the way that his dad wasn't. His dad was not a good father. His dad was a failed human being, not only as a father, but also as a he's a multiple failed entrepreneur.

7:32 And so I think that's important to sit and talk about right at the very beginning, because again, raw ingenuity, sadistic determination in this line. I think ties in what I'm trying to tell you. Walt Disney was so different from his father, it was almost like he was the antithesis of Elias Disney almost. As if he had willed himself To be so as a form of rebellion.

7:54 And so this continues until Disney himself, Walt Disney himself makes it stop. They're building him and his father are building an addition onto their house, right? And every time Walt would make a mistake. Elias would try to hit him.

8:06 With either the side of a saw or the handle of a hammer. And so the next time he made a mistake Well it's fourteen when this is happening, okay? Elias says, Hey, go down to the basement. It's time for a beating.

8:17 Now this is nuts. It says Elias falls him down to the basement. Grabs a hammer. To try to strike him. But this time

8:25 Walt grabbed his father's hand and removed the hammer. Listen to what Well Disney said about this. He raised his other arm and I held both of his hands. Now again, this is a You're a young man going through puberty.

8:38 You may not win a fight, a one on one fight with your father, but you can damn sure inflict some kind of damage back to him. In a way when you're seven or eight or nine, you can't. And so Walt says he raised the other arm and I held both of his hands and I just held them there. I was stronger than he was. I just held them.

8:54 And he broke down and cried. His father never touched him after that. Elias was broken by work and now defeated in the family too. And that leads directly into another main theme of this book, into how Walt Disney created himself He retreated into his own world and then built his own.

9:13 Maybe more than any other entrepreneur you and I've studied, this is the most obvious,'cause he literally built Disney World, or Disneyland, I guess. was the was the one that was completed when he was alive. That is a fantastic metaphor for what he was trying to do his entire career. He wanted to escape and then control his environment. And this tendency was so pronounced. He only has like a seventh or eighth grade education. Okay. When he's in school though

9:33 The teacher thought he was the second dumbest person in the class. That is literally a quote, the second dumbest. But if you would talk to him away from school, you're like, No, this guy's clearly quick witted. He's clearly smart, he's clearly driven. So why is the teacher saying you're the second dumbest person in the class? Because all he wanted to do all day in class was not classwork. He wanted to draw.

9:53 He would sit silently in a corner And draw. He was secluded in his own world. There's a line in the book that says he had never stopped. Drawing. He spent hours decorating the margins of his textbooks.

10:04 with pictures and then entertaining his classrooms. our classmates by riffing through them to make them move. He drew constantly. He drew even though it was not always a socially it was not always socially acceptable to draw. People would make fun of'em. They said it was sissy. It was sissy for a man or a young boy to draw.

10:22 But that did not deter Walt Disney. It became the primary source of his identification, even in our seventh grade. Classroom. We all knew you'd be a really great artist one day. Some kind of artist genius of some kind. Because even in the seventh grade that all that's all you did.

10:38 And so it's remarkable. that it mentions that hey, he's sitting in class. Instead of paying attention to class. He's decorating the margins of his textbook. Years ago.

10:46 I read a biography of Doctor Seuss. Whose real name is Theodore Geisel, I think is is how you pronounce it. And one of the things that's in that's in that um it's episode one sixty one. One of the things that's in the book is very fascinating, is talks about how he met his his wife. And I think they're in college at this time.

11:03 And she's sitting next to him in class. I don't even think they're dating yet. And He's not paying attention to anything that's going on in class. He's drawing. And so there's three highlights I want to pull from that book real quick. That is Almost exactly what's ha taking place in

11:16 in Walt Disney's life at this point. She says, You're not very interested in the lecture. Then she leaned in, pointed at one of his drawings, and said, I think that's a very good flying cow. And in this book it says maybe the most important thing that anyone ever said to him. comes from her. You're crazy to be a professor, she told Ted.

11:33 What you really want to do is draw. Ted's notebooks were always filled with With these fabulous animals. So I set to work diverting him. Here was a man who could draw such pictures.

11:43 He should be earning a living doing that. And just like George Lucas, he's going to fight against what his father wants to do to do for George Lucas's dad wanted him to work at the stationary store. And George is like, No. I'm going to make a living doing what I love. I'm going to be a filmmaker. You see the exact same thing here. His dad wants him to work in like this jelly factory. He's like, No, I'm gonna be a cartoonist. Now before he does that, though, before Walt D'isney

12:09 has this idea, he's like, No, I'm going to be a cartoonist. He has to design his own curriculum. And this is so important. So he's spending all his time practicing, drawing, living in his own world, right? But It even says there's a great line in the book. It's like when he wasn't drawing, he was thinking about it.

12:23 But we would also seek out additional help. So there's these cartoonists in His original uh Uh idea for his life. was not to build, you know, the world's first multimedia corporation. His idea was like, Oh, well, there's cartoonists that people get paid to write to like draw pictures. Who does that? Oh, newspaper cartoonists. Okay, so that's what I'm gonna do. And so he would find

12:43 Uh cartoonists that worked in newspapers that he admired. And in many cases, these cartoonists were also teachers. So he starts attending classes at night. Taught by some of his favorite uh newspapists.

12:57 And there's a line here. This is the first time it says this, right? But this is something he does over and over again. It says he was Walt Disney was so entranced that he would not even take a bathroom break. I'm not even kidding. This was shocking to me, how many times. He gets so engrossed in his work. that he's he won't go even go he won't even stop to go to the bathroom. And when I got to this paragraph, it made me think of Steve Jobs, because Steve Jobs talked about his heroes over and over again.

13:22 Two of his heroes. were Edwin Lan and Walt Disney. And so this idea, this total engrossment in his work. That is very evident. when Disney's like he was first starting his career all the way till

13:33 He's in the hospital dying. He knows he's dying and he's going over drawings for Epcot. And so a trait that both of Steve Jobs heroes. Walt Disney and Edmund Land. Shared.

13:45 This is from one of the biographies of Edwin Land. uh that I read. I wanna read you this paragraph. It's a six hundred page biography I read on this uh patent lawsuit between Polaroid and Kodak. And it says Edwin Lan had learned early on that total engrossment was the best kind Was the best way for him to work.

14:02 He strongly believed that this kind of concentrated focus was Could also produce extraordinary results for others. Late in his career, Lan recalled That this that his whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration

14:16 for hour after hour can bring out in people resources. They didn't know they had. And so there's one event outside of Walt Disney's control. That is going to delay his getting a job as a cartoonist, and that is World War One. I mentioned earlier that he had three older brothers.

14:32 They all go off to fight in World War One. Well, Disney's not old enough. He's trying to get his parents to to sign a waiver. They refuse to do so. He wants to join the army and fight just like his older brothers do, right? 'Cause he says he he thought of the war the he thought of it not as a war But as an adventure, which actually a very common

14:49 uh theme of uh young s young American men in both World War One and World War Two. So he they would refuse to do that, but they did let him join the Red Cross where he would be an ambulance driver. And so just after he turned seventeen, he he's stationed in France to be an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. Now there's a line here I need to share with you because again, everything is about escaping this world that he did not like. This

15:13 You know, this childhood. That he did not like. So he regarded his time With the red cross. as another escape.

15:21 Now I have a hilarious anecdote that I came across in another book that I read. It is Ray Crocks' autobiography. I've read it twice. The last time I did an episode on it, it's episode two ninety three. And what's hilarious is Ray Croc is around the same age. Right, too young to fight in the war, but Uh he signs up to be an ambulance driver for the Red Cross, okay?

15:39 And I'm reading the book one time. And this is the the the paragraph I come across in Ray Crocks' autobiography. He says in my company was another fellow who had lied about his age to get in. He was regarded as a strange duck. Because whenever we had time off

15:54 We would go out on the town to chase girls, and he would stay in camp. Drawing pictures. His name. was Walt Disney. About a year later he gets back home, and this is where

16:05 He's just rebelling against his father's offer to work at a jelly factory. This is just like George Lucas, what I just said. And again, th this main theme of escaping. I'm escaping from this world I do not like. And I will create myself and build a new world. That's exactly what Walt Disney did. And him and his father go back to fighting verbally this time.

16:23 And Wall says he never understood me. He thought I was a black sheep. He said it was nonsense that I wanted to draw pictures, that I should secure a c stable job. He didn't understand why I would sacrifice his c the certainty of the jelly factory. For the uncertainty of art.

16:39 And listen to this description. So seventeen year old Walt Disney, newly armed with confidence and determined To avoid his father's Fate, determined to avoid his father's fate. The joylessness

16:51 And the constant disappointment. While Disney would pursue his opportunity He would escape. And so now we have a very young Walt Disney. He's eighteen, nineteen years old. He goes to Kansas City.

17:03 And he's determined to be successful. So this is where I I mention this is line in the George Lucas uh biography that I thought was interesting, where he would like shoot so much footage as many as much as he can in like, you know, handful of days. And then you sp spend like ten weeks. editing and and really figuring out where this all goes together. I did something similar th this week, just several days just rereading over and over again.

17:23 about like what is the main thing I'm trying to take away from this book. And this is when I realized I might title this episode Walt Disney. how Walt Disney created himself or something like that. Cause it's very obvious, like he made himself. And in doing so, that was a foundation which he can lay on top of the the company that he built, the empire that he built. But first he had to make himself And so even when he's eighteen and nineteen, he's meeting all these new friends in Kansas City.

17:46 Almost all of them remark on the same ex they say the same thing, the same description over and over again. They say that he was determined to be successful. That's sadistic. Determination. We're all ingenuity to this determination, right? He had absolute faith in himself. And this is why I always say that what's one thing that's obvious when you read a bunch of biographies that belief comes before ability.

18:06 This is The Walt Disney version of belief comes before ability. He brimmed with a self confidence That was neither entirely justified nor particularly well directed. Since he had arrived without a plan. He was a go getter.

18:19 Who did not know where he was getting to. Only that he would get somewhere. So there's all these companies in Kansas City that are r are dr doing advertisements. They're like drawing ads for companies. They're called commercial art shops, is what they were called at the time. And he sees an ad where they're looking for an apprentice. And so he shows up.

18:36 Here's the thing, th you when you show up, he gets a one first of all, they hire by The way that this company hires. is that just by trial. It's like you're gonna work here for a week. We have no idea what you're gonna get paid. We have to see if like you're good or not. And so he's so anxious during this first week. What does he do again?

18:51 He never leaves the drawing board. Not even taking a break to relieve himself until lunch. He doesn't this is Guy wants to pee his pants. He never peeps his pants. But he holds it until the the meal breaks. And I know I keep hounding on that, but it it comes up over and over again. I just think it's such a inch an interesting uh like total engrossment.

19:09 Into his work. And so this trial ends. The founder of the company approaches him. Looks at over all of his work.

19:16 And immediately offers them a salary of fifth doll a month. And I love this part. I love this part. Walt later admitted that he would have worked for much less. And he was so grateful he said that I could have kissed him. They're paying me to draw pictures. They're paying me to draw pictures, he told his aunt.

19:32 That's exactly what Steven Spielberg, if you listen to the Steven Spielberg episode. Right. This is much later in his life. Uh, I think he's probably fifty years old at the time. A f old friend of his comes and visits his movie set. I think it's the movie nineteen forty one, if I recall correctly. And he just looks around and he goes Do you know they pay me to do this?

19:48 And so this part is just incredible. Gets his first job and he's like I should start my own company. One of my favorite. the facts about Walt Disney's by the time he was twenty. His first company by the time he was

19:57 twenty's already gone bankrupt with his first company and then you just immediately Starts over again. And just does it better the next time. So it says for z someone virtually without training or experience, for someone who had just lost his job, he was cocky. I felt well qualified, he would say. And he was already thinking of opening his own art shop. So he lost his job because that work was uh seasonal. It was just around the the holidays, the Christmas holidays.

20:19 Walt had met another Animator. This guy named O Earworks, I think is how you pronounce his name. It's very weird. And he he's like oh this guy's talented. And then impulsively he's like, Hey, why don't we just go into business together?

20:31 And so even though they were both high school dropouts. It says Walt Disney had grandiose big dreams. He had outsized aspirations. And one thing that his early partner said about him that Walt was completely self absorbed, but listen to this.

20:47 So he says, uh he once remarked that while he and other artists played poker during breaks Walt would sit at his board drawing board Practicing various renditions of his signature. He knew. He knew one day he was gonna do everything he could.

21:01 He's gonna make that signature. World famous. This is not very different. This is very similar. to a young Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg when he was a kid. He would practice

21:12 accepting his ac his w he he would visualize Himself winning an Oscar. And then he would practice His acceptance speech. In front of the academy.

21:21 Steven Spielberg when he was doing this was like twelve years old. And so then this is the first time that we're gonna see something that while Disney does his entire career. This is something that Disney has In common with other great filmmakers, he is always always jumping on the new technology of his day. Think about the description

21:39 of George Lucas. In that biography. They said he was the Thomas Edison of a modern film industry. So he also did swell there's a m many examples of Spielberg doing this. And so he's like, Okay, I can be a cartoonist, but there's a lot of other cartoonists. But there's this new field called animation. And it really gripped

21:56 Disney because he's like oh What gets what got him thinking is like Wait, I cart animation is just making cartoons move. It it brings life. to my cartoons.

22:06 And then this part describes why that was so important. It's five sentences, two paragraphs. This is Walt Disney, but it might as well be Edwin Land because I read this. And then one, two, three times I'm like, Oh, this is just like Edwin Land. So Why is he gonna do this? What number one.

22:20 It was a way to make his marks since unlike newspaper cartooning, animation was something that Walt thought he might do better. Than any one else in the world. Because so few people at the time were doing it. And so few people had any expertise in it. The idea of being the best

22:37 The most noted clearly appealed to him. That's number one. That reminds me of Edwin Land. His personal motto he said his personal motto was don't do anything. That someone else can do. And we'll see in animation, there was nobody in the world.

22:51 That could do animation in the way Walt Dizzy's going to wind up doing it. And he knew it too. There's a line that George Lucas says that uh that somebody was describing a young George Lucas says that He knew how to do it and he was gonna make sure everyone knew that he knew. Walt Disney, he would hold his entire team to what mo many people would consider like an unreasonably

23:10 high expectation of excellence. And one of the lines he has about this, he's like, listen. If we were not excellent. We go to business, right?'Cause he thought quality was the only moat. That's not the word he uses, but that's the way I would describe his his interpretation of that. that the only thing like he's betting his entire company on excellence and quality of the product. And if we let that go, then our entire company goes out of business. And if our company goes out of business

23:31 The quality of the entire animation industry would fall. That is a wild, wild statement. Wild that he said it and wild because it's probably true. And so again, don't do anything that someone else can do, right? I wanna

23:46 I wanna jump into a new industry because I have a chance of being bet the best in the world at that industry. Number two. Walt Disney s this is probably my favorite quote in the entire Pock. Walt Disney seldom dabbled. Everyone who knew him remarked on his intensity. When something intrigued him, he focused himself entirely on it. As if we were the only thing

24:03 That mattered. Now animation mattered. That is when he began an immersive self education in the medium, how many times is he going to use the same playbook over and over again? He jumps into something and he builds his own curriculum. So that is number two.

24:18 Edwin Land. There's a rule that they don't teach you at Harvard Business School. It is, if anything is worth doing, It's worth doing to excess. And Edwin Lane should know because he dropped out of Harvard twice. Number three, that idea that hey, there we're not dabbling here.

24:32 We're not dilly dally, we're not dabbling. You know, uh everyone who knew him remarked on his intensity when something intrigued him, he focused himself entirely. It was a the only thing That mattered. That is another Edwin Land is um Edwin Land said, My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration

24:49 For hour after hour. can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had. Just like Edwin Lane was only focused on Polaroid. We see now that Waltis is doing the same thing.

25:00 Yeah, Walt Disney was now focused on animation virtually to the exclusion of everything else. He would go to the garage after work each day. Walt Disney's first studio. Do you want you wanna Well Disney first studio. It was a garage. in the yard that was fifteen square feet.

25:15 And this is his schedule. So he'd go to the garage after a full day of work, then he'd work right after work. He'd come out for dinner, then go back to the studio. He'd come back inside long after everybody else in was in bed. Wall was out there, puttering away, working away, experimenting, trying this and trying that, drawing and so on. What his family did not seem to notice was that Walt Disney, who for years had been determined to become a newspaper cartoonist.

25:38 was now suddenly just as determined to become something that to most outsiders was even more impractical. Something for which he had no real training and something for which a job did not even seem to exist. He wanted to become an animator. When he began puttering in his garage. Animation was scarcely two decades old.

25:58 What is going on here? Why is he obsessed with this? Remember the animator. creates his own world. A world which he has completely Under his control. What did it say?

26:09 I don't think you know this, but the intro to this podcast came from the introduction and the epilogue. And it ends with saying that he was a master of order. A master of control. Why? Why was that so important to him?

26:21 Walt Disney had a psychological connection to animation. A connection forged. by his childhood experiences. The process of animation was a process of giving life. Of literally.

26:31 Taking the inanimate and making it animate. І у забристик прос. Th everybody that meets Walt Disney talks about the he had a giant, giant ego. І у забристи процес. in which the animator assumed and exercised godlike control over his material.

26:48 In the case of Walt Disney, the sur this surge of empowerment was so great. One might even have concluded that animation took the place of religion for him. For a young man who had chafed under the stern moralistic world of his father. Animation provided escape.

27:05 It provided Absolute control. In animation, well Disney Could be the power. And again he does the exact same thing here.

27:13 Determined to master ambition. He immersed himself in completely He had take there's only uh the this is how no you know you're early to a field. So he's reading everything he can get. He's taking classes. He's practicing.

27:24 And it says uh he took out the one book from the Kansas City library that there was on animation. And so before his company's doing like these this these freelance jobs, these advertisements, but his first product Is going to be selling one minute. animated shorts and he sells them to movie theaters, right? These are Little one minute.

27:43 Cartoons. That are shown before movies. you know, you start out, okay, well what's the first thing you could do? The most rudimentary, almost like simple Thing you could do. I can make uh you know a one minute

27:54 Animated cartoon. It's gonna be black and white. Uh it's not gonna have sound. And then eventually I'm gonna add sound And then I'm gonna add color. And then instead of being one minute, it's gonna be, you know, six or seven minutes. And then he has this idea which changes the traje the the entire trajectory of his company.

28:07 And he's like, I'm gonna build The world's first Full feature length. Animated cartoon. But it's fascinating. I think that's the power of biography. One of the powers of biography is like you just see it's like, oh, it starts here. Okay, now you see him learning. Oh, wait, he's figuring out.

28:19 And then he keeps doing that unimpeded and he lets he compounds. For four decades. And then by that time he's got movies. Theme parks. Television shows, radio, books, merchandise, everything.

28:31 And so he calls his first product. Laphograms. And his dad is like you're crazy, you shouldn't do this. says his father who had suffered so many economic setbacks of his own advised him not to do this, warning that he could go broke.

28:43 But remember he's the antithesis. Of his father. While Disney was too independent minded, even at the age of twenty. To think of himself. As someone else's employee.

28:54 And that confidence, that unusual self belief is actually gonna power him through because It's not like there's a giant market. He's in a brand new industry. There's not like a a strong demand for these cartoons. It's not why people are going to the movies. You know, so if a movie if you're a movie theater

29:09 And you want to cut back on some expenses. It's not people are coming to see the main feature. They're not coming to see these like one minute cartoons. So he's launching into a market with rather weak demand. And I think there's two things that serve him really well. It's just like Intense. Drive and self belief.

29:24 It says th this is such a great line. He's one of the most unusual people you could possibly study in a with a podcast full of unusual people. It says he had the drive and ambition of ten million men. And he had the self confidence to match. He says, listen.

29:39 He the he's he's struggling. He's about to go bankrupt, he's gonna starve, he's gonna have to live in his Office. That is It's insane that he he he persevered through all this, but he says, I'm going to sit tight. I have the greatest opportunity I've ever had, and I'm in it for everything. And he's relentlessly resourceful. If he can't sell cartoons, he starts doing uh more freelance work. He'll go to companies and say, Hey, I can build cartoons for you.

30:03 He winds up doing For to to m to meet payroll and to feed himself. He winds up even doing educational films on dental hygiene for a dentist. This is the state of affairs before he has a big hit. He's gonna do this live action cartoon called Alice's Wonderland. Not Alice in Wonderland, it's called Alice's Wonderland.

30:20 And so There he can't pay rent, so he's sleeping in his office. He has to get his meals on credit when that credit runs out. uh Wall remembers I was Wall remembered I was so damn hungry. That he would subsist on cold beans.

30:36 That he ate from a can. Since he's living in the office, he doesn't have any money, he only takes a bath or a shower once. a week and he goes down to like the you know the local Y M C A. And I think pays like a nickel or a dime so he can shower there. And he's losing so much weight and he looks so bad that everybody around him, the older like people in the community, think he has tuberculosis.

30:56 And eventually he can't stave this off any longer. So this is when he declares Bankruptcy. And it is during this time. probably the darkest time in his young adult life. that w his one of his greatest traits is revealed. He's got this bulletproof optimism.

31:12 Listen to this. Throughout the failures, throughout the days without meals and nights with restless sleep. Throughout the constant begging for funds. Throughout it all, Walt Disney seemed never to lose his faith. I never once heard Walt say anything. That would sound like defeat.

31:25 He was always optimistic. About his ability and hi and the value of his ideas and about the possibilities of cartoons in the entertainment field. Never once. Did I hear him express anything? Except determination to go ahead.

31:37 He seemed confident beyond any logical reason for him to be so. It appeared that nothing could discourage him. And he has a great quote about this. He says you have to take the hard knocks. with the good breaks in life. Life is going to be composed of both. No one's going to get through it without hard knocks and good breaks. And so what he realizes is like, listen.

31:58 Especially this time in the early nineteen twenties. I if you want to be in the entertainment field, you need to get your ass to Hollywood. He's in Kansas City. He's like, listen. There's nothing wrong with my aim. I gotta change my target.

32:08 is the way I I I think about what his decision making here. He's like, Okay, Kansas City's clearly not the right place. I'm gonna scrounge every last dollar. He wants to doing a bunch of freelance work again. Then winds up selling his camera just so he can make enough money. uh and buy a train ticket.

32:23 and get from Kansas City to Hollywood. This was one of the most important decisions he ever makes. Think about how crazy this is. Cause we, you and I know from our vantage point the run that he's about to go on, right? He's gonna have tons of ups and downs. But he gets to Hollywood in nineteen twenty three. He's gonna die in nineteen sixty six. And if you think about what he builds in Hollywood over the next four decades, he arrives in Hollywood with nothing but a borrowed suit.

32:46 And it says a peculiar self. Confidence. A borrowed suit. And peculiar Self Confidence.

32:55 And so he takes the same idea. He had this idea called Alice's Wonderland, which is You combine live action with some You shoot like a live action like little girl, right? And then you draw uh in in post production you draw like animated characters around her and it looks like she's she's interacting with them, right? This is very rudimentary technology at the time. We're in nineteen twenties, for God's sake.

33:15 But he had that idea. He's like, Okay, I had this idea in Kansas City. I just ran out of money, I still think it's a good idea. He takes it to Hollywood, starts developing it there. And he winds up immediately selling it to a to a distributor Named Margaret Winkler. Margaret Winkler.

33:28 Interesting enough. was the first and only female distributor film distributor in the entire country. So what Walt has sold is this series of very short films. Called Alice's in Wonderland. And she's making, you know, fifteen hundred dollars each for the first six.

33:43 and eighteen hundred dollars each for the second six. So he's got a good break. And then as is in the case of his entire career. Walt Disney's gonna be world famous by the time he's in his thirties, right? But yet you look at him when he's in his mid forties and he's just going throughout after struggle. His his entire career success is not a straight line.

34:00 Success is not a straight line. It is up and down, valleys and peaks over and over again, up until he gets to Disneyland and then So she doesn't have to worry about money. uh for the rest of his life, but he's struggling you know, even with a lot of successes, he has a a ton of setbacks in his career. That's why I find

34:14 Uh, this book t takes an unbelievable amount of time to read and to digest, but I do think the end result is you feel incredibly inspired. um, you know, throughout a any normal week you're gonna feel h you're you're gonna have this entrepreneurial emotional roller coaster. You have high highs and low lows. And every time I feel like a low, low, I'm like, Oh, I'm supposed to feel this way. And the only response to the way I feel right now is to to to be determined to push through. That's exactly what Walt Disney would do.

34:37 And so even though he has a success. His distributor is gonna marry this guy named Charles Mintz. Charles Mintz starts running uh the business because Margaret gets pregnant and Charles Mintz is the reason that Mickey Mouse exists because

34:51 Charles Mintz steals Disney's company from him. This is so important. And to understand why this happened. You understand what was important to Walt Disney. He was not he's like a reluctant entrepreneur. And I think these two sentences give you an idea of that. Walt was never interested in building an operation or running a business. He was interested in improving product.

35:09 As a matter of personal pride and psychological need. What does that mean? He sincerely wanted to make good animations and sincerely wanted to be counted among the best at his craft. the the the the one difference between Walt Disney and um Steve Jobs though s Steve Jobs had that those exact same desires and need. It's like I have to make literally you never chase the market share.

35:30 Think about the decades people move'em'cause Microsoft had all this market all this market share. Steve's like I have to be the best. I have to make the best products. And that means I don't have the the the most market share. I don't give a shit. I'm going to make the best products. Walt Disney was the exact same way. The difference was Steve understood that he had to build a great product or a great company. because a great company was a foundation on which would allow him to continue to make great products.

35:55 Disney. Struggle with that. For his entire career, nearly his entire career, maybe the last like ten percent. He f I had finally figured that out. And so one of the mistakes Disney makes here, and I don't think he had a choice, so he I think he had to make this mistake. I think this is inevitable. And I think this wound up being one of the best

36:09 Undoubtedly it w had to be one of the best things that ever happened. uh to Disney because without there this it's not at all clear that he would have invented Mickey Mouse. And later in his life, Walt Disney said I only hope

36:21 that we never lose sight of one thing, that this was all started by a mouse. And it's this This theft by Charles Mintz. Of his characters. of not only Alice and Wonderland or Alice's Wonderland, but also this rabbit Oswald the Rabbit.

36:34 That Disney events. And then Mintz is also gonna lead a coup and ha and overthrow Disney out of his own company. And so Disney has to start over again, but again. This h this terrible thing had to happen.

36:45 For Disney to create his greatest invention. And one of the mistakes is, and again, I don't think he had uh much of a choice at the time he did this, but You're going to a middleman. So Disney signs a contract with a middleman. The middleman has a relationship with the ultimate distributor, which is, you know, the the main movie studios. Later on, Dizzy's just gonna go cut out, you know, the middle man and go direct. And that's important because the middleman has the contract with the distributor. Distributor controls all the v the money. And so the middleman can just say, Hey

37:10 Essentially reselling Disney's product. And over time realizes, hey, I'm just gonna cut Disney out. Instead of him making anything, I'm just gonna take his animators and do this myself. And that's exactly what happens. Disney's overthrown by a coup. You know, I've talked about this many times. Opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss. This had to happen. It made him a better and smart, it made him a better businessman. Smarter person and helped develop skills that he needed.

37:32 to continue to build his company because he's just gonna start over again after this. And so Charles Mintz starts Doing these back channels. to a bunch of the key employees. that are working for Disney. Disney's also like a taskmaster.

37:44 you know, very difficult time person to deal with, very difficult person to work under. He has like these unrelenting you know, standards for excellence that he's gonna hold you accountable to. And he also is rather naive. By his own admission, he says he was never a good judge of people. And so he didn't believe that his staff would ever double cross him.

38:03 And in the process, Disney realized he had signed a bad deal. Because in the agreement Disney had no rights to the character that he created. Remember James Dyson, episode three hundred? This happened to him. Well before and again, this had to happen to him because he took it as a lesson. He's like, Oh, okay, this is information. I will improve next time. He had this invention called the ball barrow, which is a wheelbarrow with a ball that doesn't get stuck.

38:25 in like dirt, right? He's like, I can't understand why For hundreds of years people are using wheel, it gets stuck. I can improve this. He wind up s Dice's mistake, which he never made again.

38:35 Was he signed over the patent? That was In his name. to the company. Then he gets kicked out of the company. So then he loses the rights to his invention because he doesn't have access to the company. The company owns the patent.

38:45 Well very similar situation here. He had signed a deal where the company that he no longer controls All the ownership of the

38:55 Rely resided rather. with Charles Mintz's company, not his own. And so it says Walt had no rights to the character that Walt had created, thus leaving Walt no recourse. This is so important. Why? Walt had nothing. No character, no contract, no staff.

39:12 Save for the very few who remain loyal. No plan. He would talk often of this episode as a betrayal, saying that you had to control what you had or it could be taken from you. And now he had seen how duplicitous the business world could be. And so now he's on the train back home to Los Angeles. His wife is terrified. They have no money. He's got no characters. Looks like he's he doesn't have a business.

39:34 She is crying. And What happens? There's a line in uh one of the interviews uh I heard I was watching on Kobe Bryant one day. And he talked about this, you know, went through a ton of adversity.

39:45 And he says, Well, when you're going through something, what other choice do you have but to go through it? And Kobe's perspective, in other words, was that the solution That you seek is found in the work. The only thing you can do is get back to work. That is the only proper response. So on the way home on the train, he's got nothing. His entire business has been taken from him.

40:05 And what is he doing? He's spending the entire time on the train. drawing and sketching and trying to create New characters. And then using those characters as a basis. to make more animated cartoons so he can sell the cartoons and get

40:18 Back on track. And so it is on this train ride across the country. That he starts drawing a mouse. And thankfully his wife was with him because he draws the mouse. She thinks the character looks great.

40:31 But she's like, That is a great character and a terrible name. Why? Because Walt Disney wanted to call Mickey Mouse Mortimer Mouse. And his wife said

40:40 That was a horrible name and I made quite a scene about it. So they go back and forth after a while and Walt asked her, What do you think about the name Mickey? And I said it sounded better than Mortimer. And that is how Mickey was born.

40:54 So let's go back to this opportunity is a strange beast. It frequently appears after a loss. This causes him to invent the sound cartoon. Okay, so he starts drawing Mickey Mouse. I think So everybody well, maybe everybody doesn't know this, but one of the probably his biggest hit that he needed when he was younger.

41:10 Uh he's around twenty seven, twenty eight years old at at this point in his life. He makes the world's first sound cartoon. It is Steamboat Willy. It is actually the third Mickey Mouse cartoon. But the first two didn't get distributed because it was missing something. And Disney believed that it was perfectly logical that

41:30 you know, you're watching other things. They're like w if sound is coming out of live action, sound's how we communicate with one another, why isn't sound coming out of cartoons? At the time people were would would criticize this. It said drawings are not vocal. Why should a voice come out of a cartoon character?

41:44 That criticism is coming from within his field. That is other animators talking to Disney. They said it was Unnatural. Peculiar and off putting. You know what he did?

41:55 You and Dizzy did? He previewed it. Customers in front of an audience and well, how are they gonna react to it? I like this, why wouldn't they like it? And this was the result. I never saw such a reaction in an audience in my life.

42:07 The sound itself gave the illusion of something emanated directly from the screen. Walt was ecstatic. He kept saying, This is it. This is it. We've got it. And so this is gonna allow him to sign a distribution deal. The distribution deal is gonna bring money into the studio, but how did he finance Mickey? He borrowed Every single thing he had bought a house earlier.

42:26 Him and his brother, who's his business partner, Roy They put mortgages and second mortgages on their house. In addition to them taking out second mortgages on their house. Well Disney sold his car. To finance his company.

42:40 Steve Jobs did this in the early day of Apple. He was driving like a Volkswagen bus, if I remember correctly, and he had to sell it so they could get parts to build their first product. And so the distributor is able to put Steamboat Willie in theaters all over the country. The reaction from the audience is it's Unbelievable. And so much so that they try to They try to acqua hire.

42:58 Uh Walt Disney. This is very fascinating and there th this one paragraph tells you a lot about Disney. One that he's gonna refuse to sell his company. He's not doing it for the money. He's doing it for like he wants to make great products. So why would he sell his company? And then he just believes that quality is his only advantage. The problem was that the distributors, all of them, wanted to buy Walt's studio, not just his cartoons.

43:17 But Walt was adamant about not selling, about not surrendering surrendering control, no matter how badly he needed revenue. Why? Because he didn't want to just be another animation producer. He wanted to be the king of animation. Walt believed That quality. was his only real advantage.

43:36 And so this commitment to excellence. Is something that Walt will repeat. Decade after decade after decade. Walt had passionately expressed His longstanding conviction was

43:46 That his salvation was in making a product. That so excelled. That the public would recognize it and enjoy it. As the best entertainment

43:56 And then they would demand to see Disney pictures. That is A direct quote from Walt Disney. That's The salvation, our salvation is in making a product that so excelled. That the public would recognize it and enjoy it as the best entertainment.

44:08 And that they would demand to see Disney pictures. Now What Disney? Is expressing an idea. That Warren Buffett picked up on And analyzed.

44:17 And turns out Warren Buffett thought Walt Disney was obviously successful in What he was trying to do. Because he talked about later on, Warren Buffett would talk about the importance of building a brand. that is special in the mind of your customers. And he uses Disney as an example to illustrate the point that he was trying to make. Warren Buffett said.

44:34 Everyone has something in their mind about Disney. When I say universal pictures or twentieth century fox, you don't have anything special in your mind. If I say Disney, you have something special in your mind. So is a mother going to walk in and pick out a universal pictures video? In preference to Disney

44:51 That's going to happen. That is what you want to have in a business. That is the moat. You want that moat to widen. And then the way that Disney did this. It's very similar to the Steve Jobs quote. Steve Jobs said, Be a yardstick for quality. Some people aren't used to an environment. Where excellence is expected. Disney built an environment

45:13 Where excellence wasn't expected. At Disney the atmosphere may have been casual, but when it came to work, everything was carefully planned. Every cartoon had an exposure sheet precisely outlining each scene, each movement. in each individual drawing. The biggest difference between the Disney studio and every other animation studio was not in preparation.

45:34 or specialization. It was an expectation. Listen to that. The difference was an expectation. Walt Disney had to be the best. He insisted upon excellence. And he would give you the advice.

45:49 Training. Your own train and educate your own team. He was so sick of these people coming from second class. I if you hire from experience, the problem is Their experience may be several levels below your expectation. He says this. It could be a struggle convincing men.

46:04 who had spent their careers Thinking of animation as a throwaway. That they could and must accomplish something better. I have encountered plenty of trouble. Getting my new man adjusted to our method of working, Walt complained. Part of Walt's secret.

46:19 was that in insisting on quality from individuals of whom it had never been required. He inspired commitment. This is one of his employees describing the environment. We hated to go home at night. And we couldn't wait to get to the office in the morning. We had lots of vitality and we had to work it off. And so how did he train and educate his own team? He talks about he he uses this for animation, he uses this for phone link movies, he uses this at Disneyland. He would hire

46:45 For enthusiasm and and and uh youth enthusiasm over experience And he's just like, I'm gonna make my own people. And so he winds up starting His own school.

46:55 And so they'd work all day and then at night he would preside over animation classes. I did an episode on Walt Disney and compared and contrast him with Pablo Picasso in episode three ten. There's a line in that book. Says Disney himself. Trained over a thousand artists. And just like he held his staff to high standards,

47:14 He held himself. to high standards too. You have to understand. Unbelievably talented, unbelievably obsessed, unbelievably dedicated. He was also ruthlessly Ruthlessly competitive. Walt Disney wanted domination.

47:28 Domination that would make his position unassailable. His larger quest was to become the animation overlord. So at the time the most popular animated figure. Right, Mickey Mouse is about to wax this guy.

47:40 Uh was Felix the Cat. He was determined. That Mickey Mouse would supplant Felix the cat. And this was inevitable because it says Felix's creator. This guy named Pat Sullivan

47:52 Had none. Of Walt Disney's drive or foresight. And so this is when we get into Disney building his cult. That is exactly how it is described in the book. And one way he did this

48:05 I think this is a really good idea. It's like He made you believe that That by working with him And at Walt Disney Studios. You were part of an elite team.

48:15 That you were Not just an animator, you were part of the best animation team In the world. There's a line in the book where one of his employees said we felt like we were the elite class like you would be at West Point. And this is where he tells them that the quality

48:29 Of not just what we're making. Rest on us, right? The quality of the entire animation industry. Rest on us. That self belief that everybody noticed from the time he's a young man, you know, now he's i around his ster in his thirties.

48:43 It's still it's like ever present and it it that belief that he had about himself and what he could do. was transferable. To his employees. Валт струк ми абсолютно шов імсел, і вас позитив. About what he was going to do.

48:56 He was positive about what we could do. And so Walt's modus operandi is Let's make a bunch of money and then we're gonna reinvest every single dollar and more. So then they lose a bunch of money too. Into the quality of the product.

49:11 And there's many times and he does this in in animation, he does this in movies, he does this in Disneyland, where people are like, Oh, we're gonna You know, there's a great way to do it and there's a cheap way to do it. And he flips out His animations could not be compromised. They had to be better than anyone else's, or he would not survive in this business. Again. Excellent.

49:28 was Walt Disney's business strategy. His animations could not be compromised. They had to be better than anyone else's. Or he would not survive in this business. Excellence was Walt's business strategy. If you want to know the real secret of Walt's success, longtime animator Ward Kimball would say It's that he never tried to make money.

49:46 He was always trying to make something. That he could be proud of. His hobby is his work. Every moment of his time is given over to it. There wasn't a night we didn't end up at the studio, his wife recalled. She would curl up on the couch in his office and sleep while Walt worked.

50:04 She would wake up at different intervals to ask how late it was, to which regardless of the time, Wall would answer, Oh, it's not that late, honey. Wall admitted years later. Listen to this. This is insane. Walt admitted years later that he would turn back his office clock. While Lillian slept

50:20 So that she never knew how late he had worked. And if you know that improvement is his mantra, that excellence is his business strategy. Of course he's gonna dedicate all this time to it. I did this book. It's episode three forty three. It is uh the eternal pursuit of unhappiness. People love that episode. If you haven't listened to it, you should listen to it after this.

50:41 Episode three forty three, Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness being very good is no good. You have to be very, very, very, very, very good. It's by David Ogie and the team at Ogvie and Mather. And it is based It's a very short book. It's very hard to find. I think uh it sold out really fast after that episode came out. But It's based on Ogy's idea of divine discontentment.

51:02 And Ogre V describes this. He says we have a habit of divine discontent with our performance is an anecdote to smugness. Ogy had that and Walt Disney had it too. Never content with the quality of what the studio produced. No matter how good a picture we turn out, he said. I can always see ways to improve it when I see the finished product.

51:22 His entire life He wanted something that was living, that was ongoing, a product he could always improve. He didn't find that until he was Fifty five, I think. Fifty five or fifty six when he made Disneyland. So much so that he could make the world you know, some of his uh many of his animated cartoons, his animated feature films, they won every single award, they made a ton of money, and he Disney says, I can't even watch them.

51:47 A decade later because all I see is the mistakes, all I see is what I could do better today. And yes, this habit practiced over a long period of time by supremely talented individual like Walt Disney. is gonna build a great product, but it can also Break you down. Because just like he drove his staff mercilessly.

52:05 He drove himself like this. He has multiple nervous breakdowns and health problems throughout his entire life because of this. He's around 29 years old when this is happening. When he talked on the phone, he would suddenly and unaccountably find himself weeping. At night he couldn't sleep. At the studio he became physic ill looking at his lace cartoon and unable to see anything but its flaws. The years of fighting and losing and then having to fight back, the years of having to maintain a brave front.

52:29 In the face of loss and betrayal and the years of feeling compelled to produce cartoons so good. that Disney would be unassailable in the industry while stuck struggling against oppressive Unrelenting financial constraints that barely allowed them to survive. And that even now had not loosened. And then the setback in starting his own family is talking about

52:47 He's got all his pressures at work. He wanted to he desperately wanted to be a dad. But unfortunately had a few miscarriages. who you was usually so self confident cracked. And he suffered a breakdown.

53:02 This is such an important point. It's why I said out of every single book that I've ever read, my number one recommendation is still James Dyson's First autobiography Against the Odds by James Dyson. It's episode 25. It's episode two hundred. It's episode three hundred. It'll be episode four hundred and five hundred as well. I'm gonna read that book. Every hundred episodes. It's so important. Because we can celebrate Disney and his accomplishment

53:21 after the fact, but going through this, it's so difficult. That any logical person would quit. I'm gonna read one paragraph from James Lyson's autobiography. While it's easy, of course, for me to celebrate my dogness now. And to say that's all you need to succeed. The truth is is that it demoralized me terribly. I would crawl into the house every night covered in dust after a long day.

53:41 A long day of failure, by the way. Exhausted and depressed. Because that day's work had not worked. There were times when I thought it would never work that would just keep on. Making s he's trying to make a cyclone vacuum. Making cyclone after cyclone, never going forward, never going backwards until I died.

53:59 The source of his excellence is also the source of this divine discontent, this dissatisfaction, this relentless pressure. That he puts on himself over and over again. And he's gonna have many, many times where he breaks and gets completely disengaged. This is important to note because it is repeated over and over and over again in every chapter, in every decade of his work. Wall would not repeat, would not okay any animation that did not meet with his very high standards of acceptance. This meant that everything one did had to be analyzed, endlessly analyzed. To make sure it worked, to make sure that was up to standards, to make sure that it could not be improved upon.

54:35 Everything was drawn and redrawn until we could say this is the best that we can do. And so there's obviously both negative and positive externalities to this. Positive externality is if you have to keep pushing the pace of your entire industry. You're going to wind up inventing new technology. A bunch of the tools. Right. Other animators are in this book saying every almost every tool that we use was originated at the Disney studio.

54:58 That emphasis on analysis would lead to the development of new techniques that would facilitate higher standards in animation and then soon become the standard operating procedure for the entire industry. He did not just innovate in technology. He innovated in company organization too. Before him, animators Animation was looked at as like some some silly thing not to be taken seriously. It's all about gag. It's about like one offs. He's like, No, no, we're telling a story here. And actions express priority.

55:25 Walt demonstrated that story was king. And he did so through his actions because he had appointed For the very first time in the industry. A head Of a new department.

55:36 Called the story department. There was no such thing as the story department in any other It was something unheard of in any other animation studio at the time. And this is not all upside. Like This relentless pressure, it's changing him. It's uh just like his work's changing.

55:51 It's changing him too. When he was young, he was like outgoing It says uh he was gregarious and out growing. Now All of his enthusiasm, all of his time.

56:00 But at this point All of it is going into the studio. And now he's changed his personality's change. He is withdrawn outside of the studio. He essentially has

56:12 two modes of his entire life, work and family. Family and work. Work and family. Remember the episode I did on the the founder of Red Bull? If you haven't listened to it, listen to it. I think it's one of the best episodes ever did. It's episode number three thirty three, Red Bull's billionaire maniac founder. I'm gonna read from that book because it sounds a lot like what I'm about to tell you in Walt Disney.

56:32 This is the billionaire founder of Red Bull, who just passed away. He doesn't place a premium on collecting friends or socializing. I don't believe in fifty friends. I believe in a smaller number. Nor do I care about society events, it's the most senseless use of time. When I go out from time to time, it's just to convince myself again that I'm not missing a lot. So Dietrich Mashitz. I'm probably still mispronouncing his name, even though it's spent Dozens of hours studying that guy.

56:57 this idea, it's like I don't I can't have fifty friends. I have a handful of friends. Walt Disney probably had less than that. It says he socialized even less than before. Claiming. That it took too much of one's energy. And saying that he preferred to get a good night's sleep.

57:11 as it leaves me in a better condition in the morning to carry on the work. He seldom traveled and admitted that he would rather spend vacation at home. That changes later in life. Him and Lillian would travel a bunch, especially after their kids are out of the house. And then let's get into another innovation. This is a business model innovation. that Disney came up with. And this has just blew my mind. I

57:31 This is the importance again. Everybody gets to the top of the profession. They understand that learning what did Charlie Munger say? Learning from history is a form of leverage. When I'm about to read to you.

57:42 And this entire thing. This is a huge theme. One of the largest parts of J Disney's business is going to be merchandise. For the life of me. This is happening decades.

57:53 Before George Lucas Is negotiating with twentieth century Fox about maintaining the merchandise George Lucas wanted to make sure he maintained The right to do sequels. And

58:02 the right to own the merchandise for Star Wars. And they just gave it up. Like Just completely collapsed here. Take me. It's like a billion dollar, multiple billion dollar mistake. How can you do that? The only answer is you didn't even bother to study Walt Disney.

58:18 The value of merchandise for movies and television Was a known Mm. When that was happening. Because as soon as Disney finds the right person to run

58:28 His merchandise's vision, it is an immediate and sustain sustained success. Disney does not have a track record. Of you know, successful he's a dictator for sure. He does not have a track rec record of s you know long time successful partnerships, except

58:43 with this guy named Herman Kamen. Herman Kamen is going to die in a plane crash. Seventeen years into the future. His relationship, he ran M Disney's merchandise. At the very beginning, Disney made him like a partner. It's like you get fifty percent of everything you bring in. over time that that split would change and it would go like, you know, seventy, thirty, eighty, twenty. In Disney's favor.

59:01 But this merchandise business was immediately successful and grew like weeds for decades. There's something Napoleon said one time when I was reading about him that I thought was fascinating. He says in war. Men are nothing. One man is everything.

59:16 In war, men are nothing. One man is everything. Herman Cayman Was that one man. When it came to Disney merchandise. And listen to his pitch. He goes in, he's like, Listen, he sees what they're doing for merchandise. He's like, This is dog shit.

59:30 Okay. He walks in, he goes, I don't know how much business you're doing, but I guarantee you that much business to match what you're doing, and I'll give you 50% of everything I do over. And so Kamen's pitch is like I'm gonna innovate in merchandise just like you guys are innovating in animation. This is a great pitch. Came and set out to do for Walt Disney Enterprises, which is the new merchandise armor of the studio, what Walt Disney had been doing for Walt Disney Productions, the filmmaking arm. He was going to reinvent it.

59:53 Transform it into a sleek, quality controlled, revenue producing operation. that would in time have the added effect of making Mickey Mickey Mouse Even more popular as a brand. than he was as a movie star. came in was a whirlwind. Within a year, there were forty licenses.

1:00:08 uh licensees for Mickey Mouse products. Within the first year, Cayman brought in thirty five million dollars of sales in Disney merchandise in the United States alone. And an equal amount overseas at seventy million dollars in nineteen thirty four dollars. And just like George Lucas is inexcusable. to not study history, to not use learning from history as a form of leverage. This is just like George Lucas. This was a known thing.

1:00:36 Walt made more money from the rights to Mickey merchandise than from the cartoons. There's a line in George Lucas's a biography, it says something like he made three times as much on Star Wars toys. As he did the movies and Star Wars printed money, if I remember correctly, had an$11 million budget and made$775 million at the box office. That's just Star Wars won. And yet he's tripling that on toys and merchandise. Disney became the first studio to recognize

1:01:03 That one could harvest enormous profits. From film related toys, games, clothing, and other products. So I wanna go in this few ways that Disney built his cult. Remember, like there's a These chapters in this book are huge. Some of them are like a hundred pages long. And one of them you I could do

1:01:20 individual episodes just on each chapter. It's how dense and and um detailed this book is. But in the chapter on the cult, it really talks about like his approach and there's several pages that just remind me. It's like wow, this is just there's a lot of similarities between Steve Jobs, number one. Walt Disney operated almost entirely by instinct. He trusted his intuition. Steve Jobs is famous for saying that

1:01:43 He believed intuition was more powerful than intellect, and that intuition following his intuition had a large impact on his career. But unlike Steve Jobs. Trying to figure out what Walt Disney actually wanted you to do. They said uh there's a h hilarious line in the book. Where one of his um employees I think said something like Figuring sussing out what

1:02:02 Walt Disney wanted was a matter of osmosis. That in many ways is the anti Steve Jobs. I I always say Steve Jobs is the clearest thinker that I've ever come across. There's this book called Creative Selection that I talk about over and over again'cause I've read it a bunch of times. It's episode two eighty one, if you haven't listened to it. But listen to this description of Steve, which is kind of like the opposite of Walt. I in in this case I'd want to be more like Steve and less like Walt. It says Steve was the center of all the circles. He made all the important product decisions.

1:02:27 From my standpoint as an individual programmer, Demoing to Steve was like visiting the Oracle of Delphi. The demo was my question, and Steve's response was the answer. While the pronouncements from the Greek oracle often came in the form of confusing riddles, This was not true with Steve.

1:02:42 He was always easy to understand. He would either approve a demo Or he would request to see something different next time. Whenever Steve reviewed a demo, he would say, often with highly detailed specificity. What he wanted to happen next.

1:02:57 He was always trying to ensure that the products were as intuitive. and straightforward as possible. And he was willing to invest his own time, effort, and influence. To see that they were. Through looking at demos.

1:03:07 Asking for specific changes, then reviewing the changed work again later. And giving a final approval before we could ship, Steve could make a product turn out like he wanted. Much like the Greek oracle. Steve foretold the future.

1:03:23 The opposite of that would be your employees needing to decipher what you want through osmosis, something you don't want to happen. And then one area where Steve and Walt Disney were of like minds and saw completely eye to eye is Steve Jobs once said that the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world. Walt used this in his own products and in a run his own company. He was a superb storyteller. Wall himself seemed to think it was his primary attribute. Of all the things I've ever done, I'd like to be remembered as a storyteller.

1:03:50 Walt was a super salesman who believed so devoutly in his studio and its cartoons. That he could convince anyone. Even the stodgest banker who he'd fight with all the time. Of their value. Don Valentine

1:04:03 uh founder of Sequoia Capital has one of my favorite quotes of all time. He says, Learning to tell a story is critically important because that's how the money works. The money flows as a function of the story. He also went on to say that most entrepreneurs are incapable, they're really bad storytellers, you should work on that skill. Another way that Disney built his cult. He was a micromanager. He was a micromanager. He stuck his nose

1:04:26 into everything. And he actually has a really beautiful metaphor. About the role of a founder. uh his way to do this is by, you know, t putting his hands on every single part of the product. He compared it to a symphony with him as a conductor who took all the employees, the storymen, the animators, the composers, the musicians, the voice artists.

1:04:43 The ink and paint people and got them. To produce one whole thing which is beautiful. And when he was excited and enthusiastic, he put he had a reality distortion field. It said he had an overwhelming power of people. And the voice of a prophet. That is how

1:04:59 One of his employees described him a voice of the prophet. Another employee was at home talking about Walt and how amazing he is. And his wife gets snippy with him. It's like you talk about him as if he were a god.

1:05:11 To which he replied, He is. And then to summarize this entire section, the Disney studio. Did not operate like a commercial institution at all. The Disney studio operated like a cult. with a messianic figure inspiring a group of devoted

1:05:26 Frenzied Acolytes. They were disciples on a mission. And so at this time they're doing a bunch of short animated films. They're making a decent amount of money, but it they all they can make they can have a good year and then a couple of things don't perform well. They're never too far ahead where their success is assured.

1:05:41 And so he has this idea, and he's always He called it plusing, which is all basically improvement is my mantra. And he's like, Okay, like there's a lot of energy in the shorts like What if we just did one feature length? animated movie. And people were like, this just like Pixar?

1:05:55 And people you can't make a computer, the world's first computer animated feature film. They want to do it. it changes the course of their entire company. This is Disney's version of that is With snow with snow white. He's just like

1:06:06 How much would a full length If we're making a little bit of money on these sh animated shorts, like how much would a full length Feature Film. Cartoon make.

1:06:16 And everybody's like, You can't do it, it's never been done again. And again, this goes back to storytelling, this goes back to cult of personality, this goes back to enthusiasm. Walt told us this idea of developing the story Snow White and honestly. The way that boy can tell a story is nobody's business. I was practically in tears during some of it. And I've read that story many times as a child without being particularly moved by it.

1:06:35 If it should turn out one tenth as good as the way he tells it, It would be incredible. He was a spell binder. He was a spell. Binder. We were just carried away. And so he sells his entire company on hey, let's marshal our resources, let's be focused. No one's ever done this before, but if we can do it, we can make it a massive success.

1:06:53 Here's the problem. To make a feature length cartoon. DC is going to le need a lot of animators. I love weird ways people hire, weird ways people recruit. So

1:07:04 What he does, he's like, Okay, let's send letters. To all the art schools across the country. We're gonna list the kinds of skills that we need and encourage people that have those skills to apply. They do this for a long time, not just for Snow White. In the next decade, they're gonna get thirty thousand new applicants.

1:07:20 from just sending letters to our school saying, Hey, these are the skills we have. Are you interested in being the best of the best? Apply here. His demand for animators for our strip supply. And so he has to to to bridge the gap, he's gotta hire These like veteran animators, and he's so pissed off about doing this.

1:07:36 So he says he graped. that when he hired veteran animators, he had to put up with their goddamn poor working habits from doing cheap pictures. It was easier, he believed. To start from scratch with young art students. And indoctrinate them.

1:07:49 In the Disney system. And so their education doesn't stop when they're graduate art school and come to Disney. Again, he has this. He has Disney University or whatever they call it. This m these mandatory classes for the entire studio. What is he doing? He's brainwashing them.

1:08:05 The intention was not just education, it was infatuation. As always Walt wanted the studio employees to be beside. As he was With the notion of excellence. He wanted obsession.

1:08:19 And so just like George Lucas went all in, he bet every single thing he had. On a sequel. to Star Wars. Walt Disney so believed in Snow White, he's gonna be proven right here, by the way. That he was willing to bet every single thing.

1:08:32 So He's like oh I could probably do this for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. His estimates on money are never right, by the way. And so He's gotta take uh he's like, Oh, we can do it for two fifty. Nope.

1:08:43 Go they run through the two hundred fifty thousand dollar budget, then he got he gets another his main bank of Bank of America. He gets another one for six hundred and thirty thousand. Less than a year later, he goes back to them for another six hundred and fifty thousand. And this is what Walt said to a reporter at the time. I had to mortgage everything I owned, including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and everything else to make Snow White. And so there's this constant theme throughout the book where he's fighting with financiers over and over again. This is why George Lucas said that he was intent. He was hell bent.

1:09:09 On controlling the money. I think he learned that in part by s not his own personal experience, but studying the struggles that Walt Disney had with all the bankers. But one thing that was so fascinating, it did really did speak to the excellence of the product that he was making. Is his main banker.

1:09:22 comes and sees like a rough cut. Like it's not fully finished. But it's still unlike anything he's ever seen. So he's very quiet during it, he's like got no reaction. Yeah, kinda making them nervous because he needs like another loan of like three hundred fifty thousand or the whole thing's gonna go up in smoke. And so the the banker's name is Rosenberg. They walk out into the parking lot, he's real quiet, there's no read on him at all.

1:09:44 And he gets in the car. rolls down the window, says goodbye, and then just slowly says, Hey, uh that thing is gonna make you a handful of money. And he was right. Snow White made a ton of money. This is what, we're nineteen thirty nine, the end of the great depression. There's a there's a line here that may be May be true. The nine months after Snow White debut may have been the best months of Walt Disney's adult life. Remember, he's been struggling for two decades.

1:10:07 he's unbelievably successful building great products, he's never making a lot of money. Walt Disney was not a very wealthy man. Snow White would go on to become the highest grossing American film up until that point. It had been seen by more people in America than any other motion picture. Theaters We're it was so popular.

1:10:25 You had to make a reservation three weeks in advance to see it at a movie theater. And it was a merchandise cash. Cow. There were two thousand. One hundred and eighty three different snow white products.

1:10:38 They Let me just give you one example. Drinking cups. Drinking glasses, snow white themed drinking glasses, they sold sixteen point five million units just of that. They had never experienced an influx of money like this. So this is fascinating. So

1:10:53 This is something that I love, this idea. Um, it I don't it's in the George Lucas book and I'm thinking put it in the George Lucas podcast, but he kept making like hundreds of millions of dollars because you just hold on long enough and then eventually there'll be a technology invented that can benefit your business that you need to have to develop. So VH uh VHS tapes. DVDs and then Blu ray every time there's a new better format.

1:11:13 He would just resell, like, Oh, now you can get storeware on VHS, now you can get it on HD DVD, and now you can get on Blu-ray. It would literally drop hundreds of millions of dollars down to his bottom line. Steve Jobs realized that'cause when he was doing Pixar, he said this what I'm about to read to you. Comes Steve Jobs said this in nineteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight. He says Pixar is putting something into culture that will renew itself with each generation of children.

1:11:35 Snow White. Was released on video two years ago. And sold over twenty million copies. It's sixty years old. I think people will be watching Toy Story in sixty years just the way they're watching Snow White now. He made the point in another book I read on him too.

1:11:49 That that he's talking about putting it on I think VHS or DVD at that point. That the that twenty million copies dropped a quarter of a billion dollars directly to Disney's bottom line, sixty years after Snow White was invented. And so it's this influx of money why It said this might have been you know, these nine months is might be the best in his life,'cause it's also gonna be tragedy. So he makes so much money. Their parents never, you know, they struggled their whole lives.

1:12:14 So now the brothers, Roy and Walt, were able to chip in and buy their parents a house. and relocate them closer to them in Los Angeles. So he had a problem. Obviously the You know, you can kinda read between the lines about his relationship with his dad even when he was an adult, because his dad dies. Walt doesn't even go to his funeral. But he thought his mother was a saint. And I think the way his mother parented had a huge influence on the way Disney chose to parent his two daughters.

1:12:39 So it says as preoccupied as he was when it came to Diane and Sharon He was a doting father. This is one of When you have kids you read this and like you I get like choked up when he talks about this. So he says he was a doting father who sheltered them from his own fame. He enjoyed telling how six year old Diane asked him if he was Walt Disney. You know I am, he answered.

1:12:59 The Walt Disney she questioned? When he said that he was She asked for his autograph. He would chase the girls around the house caca cackling like the witch from Snow White.

1:13:09 Or he would troll them endlessly by their heels. For hours and hours and hours. Diane would say he would stand in the swimming pool and let them climb on his shoulders. I thought my father was the strongest man in the world and the most fun, she recalled. At night he read to them. And on weekends he would take them to either Griffin Park to ride the Merry Go round,

1:13:28 Or to the studio. Where they would follow him. As he snooped about. and pedal their bikes around the empty grounds while he worked. This is the part that really choked you up if you have kids. 'Cause he's saying this, you know, uh they're not little kids anymore.

1:13:41 And I've already gone through this. Like the difference between a four year old and a twelve year old, you know, like you're not The first five You My daughter, her friends are so important to to her. more important than I am, you know, and that that's kinda heartbreaking, but when you're small, you are the most important person.

1:13:57 in their life and walt Really Just hits on this beautiful. He said they used to love to go with me in those days, he would reminisce. And that was some of the happiest days of my life.

1:14:08 They were in love with their dad. Ooh, that gets you right in the heart. Okay. He did say something that's fascinating. And again, he he's not he never rests on his laurels. If he's gonna go out and do something great. He's gonna try to top it with something else. He's not gonna just sit here. He's a saying that he actually keeps in in his hat, they reminds him.

1:14:26 Uh but I'll get there in one minute. So he talks about, you know Snow White's successful, Donald Duck is a a fantastic cartoon. At this time Donald Duck is is like become more popular with Mickey, but his belief in Mickey uh Mickey Mouse never subsided.

1:14:41 He said, Of course you know Donald is the big thing now. But it won't last. Mickey is forever. He'll ha Mickey will have his moments in the shade. But he'll always come out in the bright lights again. So almost a hundred years. After he said that.

1:14:55 Mickey Mouse is still going. Strong. And so even after this success He's got this persistent need to challenge himself. He was never gonna stay in one field or build only one product. That was very obvious if you if you read about him.

1:15:07 He has this ongoing need for challenge. And I think it comes from this inner turmoil. And he was afraid to get into a rut. He said if we quit growing mentally and artistically, we begin to die. I do not want to be relegated to the cartoon medium. It should not be limited to cartoons. We have worlds to conquer here.

1:15:25 That is his line we have worlds to conquer here. And so at this point, he is right now at the apex of his career. He has never known success as he has at this point in moment in time. And the one of the worst tragedies that happens for his in his entire life happens.

1:15:41 He buys his Mom and Dad a house. There's this gas furnace. And it powers a central gas heater and it keeps getting backed up. And his mom is going to die in the house.

1:15:53 That he gave her. A year after Snow White, which is his greatest success. Walt is thirty seven years old when this happens. We better get this furnace or else. Some morning we'll wake up and find ourselves dead, Flora told her housekeeper Alma Smith. Flora's his his mom, obviously.

1:16:09 On the morning of november twenty sixth, nineteen thirty eight, Flora went into the bathroom. When she didn't return, Elias got up to investigate and found her collapsed on the bathroom floor. Feeling overcome himself, he staggered out into the hallway and fainted. Luckily downstairs the uh housekeeper was there. She and a neighbor dragged Flora and Elias down the stairs and outside. Elias revived. Flora did not. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

1:16:31 From the defective heater. This was the most shattering moment of Walt Disney's life. His beloved mother had died. in the new home that he had given her. Wall never Spoke of her death.

1:16:43 To anyone thereafter, when years later Sharon asked him. Where her grandparents were buried. Walt snapped, I don't want to talk about it. And so after the success of Snow White, he has a couple flops. And he needs to figure out a way to get

1:17:00 his business on more solid footing. And so this is the first time Where they they're considering selling s shares to outside Shareholders. And what was fascinating

1:17:10 Is One of Walt Disney's heroes. Was For Henry Ford. And Walt Disney shortly before Henry Four dies.

1:17:19 Goes to Michigan. to visit him. And he's talking about he talks with Henry Ford about this idea for this s issuing of stock to outside shareholders. And this was Ford's response. Ford was blunt.

1:17:31 If you sell any of it, you should sell all of it. Ford had famously bought out his investors, you know, probably twenty five years before this conversation and owned a hundred percent of his company. So saying if you sell any of your company, you should sell all of it. Disney said uh later on this left me thinking and wondering for a while, wondering if I had crossed a bridge and could never go back, wondering If he had surrendered ultimate control. And so even with taking outside funding

1:17:55 He's gonna have three battles, and this is where he gets in one of the most depressed states of his life. So some of these are outside of his control. Uh, he's gonna have battles battles with the bankers, he's gonna have battles with unions, and then the United States government during World War Two. Essentially just takes over his studio. So during World War Two, something between like seventy five and ninety-four percent. Of all the production that came out of Walt Disney Studios. was films and media for the government.

1:18:23 And something Walt Disney is quoted as saying is after one of these battles that he has with the bankers. made me think of a line that I read in Will Durant's The Lessons of History. And so he's fighting with Bank of America because now he owes them millions and millions of dollars. And one when he gets back to the studio, they asked him was like, Hey, did you win the battle with the bankers? And Walt Disney snapped, You never win with the bankers. And that just speaks to this recurring theme that's really important to control

1:18:48 uh the money as much as possible not to rely on on people for outside financing because if they they can control you. There's a line in Uh the lessons of history from Will and Arrow Durant, which I covered a few weeks ago. says history reports. That the men who can manage men

1:19:02 Manage the men who can manage only things. And the men who can manage money manage all. And so in addition to money troubles, and he's having to cut back on salaries, he's having to lay people off. They they wind up a bunch of his animators and a bunch of people inside the company, which Walt Disney later on calls communists

1:19:20 uh winds up organizing and they form into unions and they eventually go on strike and Walt Disney animation never never recovers from sh from the strike. The strike broke. Disney spirit and it never recovered. What happens after this.

1:19:34 Is it causes him? to you know have a half a decade of depression and to be in this constant search for something else that he could direct his obsession and his talent to and pour his entire love and soul into like he did in animation in the earlier in his career. And so Walt is forty years old, just a few years removed from his greatest commercial and artistic triumph.

1:19:56 Now he has a studio that he dislikes because of strike. the World War Two's full in full flames and now his dude is essentially You know, commandeered by the US government. Again, success is rarely a straight line. He's twenty years into his career.

1:20:10 He is Forty years old and he's in a terrible position. Disney Stud was no longer the Disney studio. It was now an educational and industrial film facility. And an arm of the government. With Walt virtually commuting from Los Angeles to Washington. He was always frustrated.

1:20:27 That minor bureaucrats would review his storyboards and issue warnings and orders. Where previously He had been. The ultimate power. That's exactly what he wanted. He wanted ultimate power, ultimate control.

1:20:40 He wanted to micromanage anything that got in his way, his ability to micromanage it, he hated. He disliked Disney like a lot of the entrepreneurs in UN I study, he hated committees. And the level of his micromanagement. Uh it can't be overstated. This is crazy. So

1:20:56 He would micromanage every detail. down to the point where he even knew the entire inventory. He had memorized, he knew the entire inventory. of studio equipment including the number of light bulbs they had in stock. That is when he's making films.

1:21:12 He is like that later too. When he he wal he walks over every single inch of Disneyland, he memorized the exact heights of every single bit building in Disneyland. This is the only way he knew how to work, and it was also the biggest complaint for the people that work for him. The most prevalent complaint I recorded about Wall. But his producers, writers, directors, and management.

1:21:31 Is that he would not delegate creative authority. In Walt's own words. A studio cannot be run by a committee. somebody, one person has to make The final decision.

1:21:43 And so he is looking for a new way to micromanage a new thing to pour everything all of his outlets into because Here's the thing, the war lasts. There's like a five year break. between doing all this war work and getting trying to go back to, you know, feature length Animation Try to capture

1:21:57 Disney's former glory and it's It's over. Is you can't do that after a five year break break and you just see that he's completely checked out. He began to lose his footing and his confidence. His brother Roy was pressuring him to slash budgets and begin another round of layoffs. He had come

1:22:11 Almost crippling realization. Remember this is a terrible crippling realization because Disney put excellence above excellence of the product above everything else. Even if you were to move ahead with a few of his feature film ideas. They would never be as good as the films he had made before the war.

1:22:27 Never as beautifully animated. Never is deliberately plotted. Never as painstakingly fussed over, never as fully the product of a near religious commitment to greatness. The studio simply did not have the financial resources, the time, or the talents. The cult was over.

1:22:45 And if the films could never be as good as they had been What was the point in making them? He began to talk about selling the studio or leaving it forever. He was no longer the king of animation, only one among a group of pretenders to the throne. For years everyone else was in a pack of greyhounds chasing a mechanical rabbit. Everyone had imitated Disney.

1:23:06 One might imitate Disney, but one couldn't have matched him. Disney is the tiffany of this business. And we were all the Woolworths. Animation was a sacred obligation to Walt Disney, a way to reimagine the world. For the rest of us, it had just been a product. So knowing Disney like we know up until this point, you know what his next move is. He neats. He has ne this

1:23:31 It's not that he wants, not that he desires. He needs to do something new, something different. something unusual. He has this maxim that he would remind himself that you can't top pigs with pigs. And he talks a little about this. He says the thing I resent most Is people try to keep me in well worn grooves. We have to keep blazing new trails.

1:23:50 He kept a slogan pasted inside of his hat. From the time he had been urged to make a sequel to the three little pigs, he made the three little pigs movie. He was wildly commercially successful. So they're like, make up three little pigs number two and three little pigs number three. And he Didn't because he had this mantra.

1:24:07 And you repeat it and then he put it inside of his hat to remind him. He says you can't top pigs with pigs. And so this is where he gets his new obsession. This is Disneyland. This is the remarkable thing. So when b shortly before he died, he said the two things he was most proud of.

1:24:23 was keeping starting and keeping control of a second company and then Disneyland. Disneyland is his greatest creation. And if you look at the the the arc and the career of most entrepreneurs, like world class, history's grace entrepreneurs. They do m in almost every case, they do the best work many, many decades into their career. Steve Jobs was what, twenty five, thirty years into his career when he did the iPhone.

1:24:46 Walt Disney is thirty five years into his career when he does Disneyland. Surprisingly, there is only one chapter in this book on Disney and it is far too important just to dedicate one chapter to it. What I'm gonna do is a day after maybe a day or two after I release this episode. I'm gonna re release this episode I did on that's dedicated there's an entire book I read called Disney's Land, which is about how he built Disneyland.

1:25:07 And so almost as a way to preview that, I'm gonna pull out a couple of interesting ideas from this chapter. And one is like w what is he doing? As we've seen for his entire life, he's like building these internal worlds and then Now he's like, Okay, it doesn't have to just be internal. I will build it his company was an external world, but now he's gonna be in it's gonna be he's gonna build an external world that other people that don't work at his company can actually partake

1:25:28 and actually experience. And it's all about control. It has always been about control. About crafting a better reality than the one outside the studio. And about demonstrating. That one had the capacity to do so. Walt Disney hid an iron will.

1:25:42 Behind a facade of affability. And so now he's gonna use that iron will to literally craft and build a world, an entire land where there was nothing. Think it was an orange grove before he developed it. And he has no inclination on doing this inside this old 'Cause now his his studio's essentially been taken over. It's like this big old unyielding bureaucracy. He's like, I don't want to do that.

1:26:04 So he actually sets up a bungalow. He starts doing the initial work. He has this old bungalow at the uh edge of the studio lot. It's a different company entirely. And that excitement of working in a small company with talented people chasing an unlimited opportunity is what he's captured again. And he talks about this. He's happier than he had been in years. He's running it through this company called W E D, which is his his initials. He says uh so he's in the bungalow all the time in the very n initial planning stages working hand

1:26:32 hand in hand with the people developing the idea from Disneyland. He had this idea that Disneyland should be an outdoor movie set, by the way. And he says, Damn it, I love it here. This is just like the Hyperion studio. This is way before Disney was successful. It's like the very early days. Uh, this is just like the Hyperion Studio used to be in the years when we were always working on something new.

1:26:49 It was a small, joyous community. At WED you no longer had any big departments to deal with. It was just fun to get back into that small scale again, he said. And so he has this idea for the park, but he's got no money again. So he's like, What am I gonna do? What do you think he does? He goes to build the prototype and to get the idea, basic idea going. He goes and borrows.

1:27:08 Another mortgage and he borrows against his life insurance policy. He also talked to a bunch of true believers inside the company and employees. started loaning money to them to bridge the gap before he can get financing. And then he does something that's absolutely genius. So I didn't even cover this part in the book, but one of the most fascinating things is

1:27:27 Charlie Chaplin was one of Walt Disney's heroes, and Charlie Chaplin starts this company with a bunch of other artists called United Artists. And eventually they start distributing some of Disney's films. They wind up having a falling out. Disney and United Artists has falling out. Because they wanted Him to relinquish rights.

1:27:45 For his intellectual property. Uh for this new medium called television. And he's willing to disrupt and break up with his distributor. at a time he he said no. He's like, There's no way in hell I'm retaining these rights. And you're like, Okay, well that makes sense. Like why would you retain the rights television today?

1:28:00 No. That's not when he did that, when he said no, there was only about four thousand TVs in existence. And so many years later, now the TV's much more established. He understood that

1:28:13 Th this is a new technology. It is not a threat, but a tool. And that is where he's going to get the money. to to do Disneyland. I go into way more detail on the episode uh that I'm gonna release in conjunction with this episode. Okay. But what he realized is like television is going to save him. And all these other motion picture moguls, which you could describe. Walt Disney S at this point. Are telling him that television is a threat. He's like bullshit.

1:28:36 It is a it's the next coming thing. It's a phenomenon. We can't stop it. You're not stopping the wave. It's not the enemy of the motion picture, it's its ally. And he realizes like this is just gonna help us advertise movies. It gets so crazy. I'm gonna there's a much more detail, but like the movie example. Uh this is this movie, uh I think Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. That he releases.

1:28:57 Before he releases that, he releases'cause he's gonna do this deal with ABC. This is how he gets his funding from Disney. But they start producing a bunch of content together. And so what he does is like, Oh, let's make a documentary, interesting documentary, standalone interesting documentary about how we made the movie. He wind up just drastically increasing. Cause if you sit to an hour long

1:29:15 Documentary. on how this movie was made and you found it interesting? What do you think you're gonna do? You're gonna go buy a ticket. He's like, no, this isn't a threat. It's gonna actually help advertise everything else that we're doing. It's gonna help advertising his movies. It's going to help advertise Disneyland.

1:29:29 He does he he did this a bunch of times. He would re release Mm. David Ogie gave you and I advise that you're not advertising to a standing army, you're advertising to a moving parade. And so he'd run the same ad and the same magazine for like twenty years. Disney would do that. He's like, Well if you like Snow White fifteen years ago

1:29:44 You'll like it now. five years ago, or you know, five years later and ten years later, and fifteen years later. So he starts taking all the movies that were successful and replaying them on television, reselling them. Remember, the the movie's done. There's no other outline. He's not spending any more money. So then all that money, just like Steve Jobs realized when they resold Snow White on DVD, it's like oh shit, they just dropped a quarter billion to their bottom line. He's now selling Snow White, which he doesn't have to pay for anything else.

1:30:09 Two T V uh to the television s stations to ABC. And then they rebroadcast it. The point of these making to the movie mogul is like it's making your existing assets more valuable and you're looking and you're afraid of this. And so I just want to read you one sentence about this.

1:30:23 But what D Special really did was prove Walt's thesis about the value of television to the film industry. That he was correct a Gallup poll indicated. That the program created new awareness of Alice. This is Alice in Wonderland now. And prompted Walt to talk about using TV as a point of sale. So he goes to ABC and he's like, I'm gonna develop a television show about me building Disneyland.

1:30:44 I will host it. It'll be every week. It's like one of the most popular T I think it's the It becomes a The second most popular show on TV behind I Love Lucy, if I remember correctly. And in return for producing content on your show. A when he does this do ABC. There's NBC and CBS, right? They're so far A ABC's like an afterthought.

1:31:03 And the content that Walt Disney makes for ABC Makes them we can makes them one of the big three. And this was hilarious. A B C would have its Disney program. Walt Disney would have his money for Disneyland. Or as Walt would later joke, ABC needed the television so damn bad they bought an amusement park. And so this love and obsession that Disney had for his entire career that had been absent for maybe half of a decade, maybe longer.

1:31:25 is now restored. And the larger theme here, if you're just reading between the lines, is like what do you think about all the time? Like what do you think about all the time? Whatever that is, do that. That's something Disney did e his entire career and when he didn't have that, he was depressed. It was Disneyland that Walt Disney cared about. The park was his dream now. Television was just a means to that end.

1:31:44 Everyone knew that he was only tangentially involved with the other projects. Studios are still doing animated movies. He he's completely checked out. Uh the difference was that on weekends and evenings and sitting on the toilet and all that stuff, he wasn't thinking about He was thinking about Disneyland.

1:32:00 He was always Thinking about Disneyland. And he uses the same idea for Disneyland as he did for the studio. He goes out. And he visits, he's planning Disneyland and at the time amusement parks

1:32:12 You know, they were looked at as like places for suckers. They were dirty. They were g it was they were terrible. And Disney we was telling Disney's Disney's like Why would you do that? Like there are horrible places, like that's the point. Ours won't. While we were playing Disneyland, every amusement park operator

1:32:28 We talked to said it would fail. And Wall would come out of these meetings even happier than if they'd been optimistic. He loved to fight. He loved the idea that he had to prove himself right again. Waging the same old battles that he once had to wage when making the animated features. He didn't want anyone on the staff who had amusement park experience because he told them Disneyland wouldn't be an amusement park. And because we want young talented people Or that are willing to learn and make mistakes.

1:32:51 And of course he's micromanaging. Another line here. He walked over every inch of Disneyland. Another great line. Walt did not want to cut corners. Did not want to compromise his vision. When an employee suggested that he use cut glass instead of stained glass in an attraction, Wall objected. Listen to this line. Look.

1:33:08 The thing that's going to make Disneyland unique and different Is the detail. If we lose the detail, we lose it all. It is the detail. If we lose the detail, we lose it all. He wanted to change everything about amusement parks, including the language that you use to describe it. Th I did an episode. It's it sounds funny, but one of the most impressive entrepreneurs I've ever studied is is Balenciaga, which is episode three fifteen. Balenciaga now, you know, the brand

1:33:35 Not good. Right. Yeah the the founder for sure. based on what I read about him, would be rolling over in his grave. At the time, he was considered the best of the best. Coco Chanel said Balenciaga was the best.

1:33:45 Christian Dior said he was the the the best fashion designer. You know, everybody in Paris thought he was literally the best, which is surprising given like the position of the brand is now. But What I one of the things I I took away from setting Balenciaga is that you should create your own language. And so he would say, like you don't wear a Balenciaga dress, you present it.

1:34:03 You're not a customer, you're a patron. He would tell staff we want to make the highest quality dresses in the world. One where you don't give it away, you bequeath it. You bequeath your dress to your daughter. And you see an echo of that idea in the way Disney talked about

1:34:16 Disneyland. It's an outdoor movie set. We don't hire, we cast. This is not a park, it is a set. You can't go on stage unless you're ready to give A pleasant, happy performance. That's how he would train the early employees at Disneyland.

1:34:29 He had an obsession with cleanliness. It was calculated That a discarded cigarette butt. Will lie dormant for no longer than twenty five seconds. Before one of the cast members pick it up. And the opening day of Disneyland caused the largest

1:34:42 traffic jam in Oregon history. you have, you know, fifty million people, whatever the number was, watching the TV show, of course, you know, that that's gonna translate people are gonna They've been watching a show about the creationist thing when the things are ready, they're gonna come. And on the opening day, his daughter said that she had never seen him happier. That it was the one of the best days of his life.

1:35:02 And even On one of the best days of his life, this micromanaging Managing trait. This inherent this it was just part of him. Listen to this.

1:35:11 He had never been a man to indulge His pride or rests on his laurels. At the end of the day, the longest and quite possibly the best day of Walt Disney's life is In spite of the numerous calamities. He had dinner on the patio with another one of his employees.

1:35:24 that he he had an apartment and he like lived at Disneyland. That's how obsessed he was with it, right? So he's having dinner with somebody that one of his employees on the patio of the apartment. And he watched the fireworks display display over the park. His employee noticed That Walt kept taking notes during the show. What was he doing? A stickler for detail even amid the pandemonium.

1:35:44 He was counting the rockets being shot off. To confirm that he was getting the full number. And thirty five years into his career, he finally found what he wanted, a living Breathing. Endless masterpiece.

1:35:59 That Disneyland will never be finished. That it would be a living thing. That will need changes. He called Disneyland my baby. Instead I would prostitute myself for it. He said that working, planning, and developing it gave him endless pleasure.

1:36:14 Walt Disney always needed action. I've got to have a project all the time, he said. Something to work on. Otherwise he had no place to direct his nervous energy. I want this Disney thing to go on long after I'm gone. Disney was run from the top down, but there were no middlemen, wrote one employee at the time.

1:36:31 At the top alone. Like Napoleon. was our leader and captain. L hefe. Numero uno.

1:36:38 The man. The boss. Walter Elias Disney. All things started with Walt. And Walt had the final word.

1:36:47 Always. And that is where I'll leave it. As you can imagine, eight hundred pages. There's a lot more for the full story. Buy the book. If you buy the book using the link in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. Another way to support the podcast is if you want to buy merch. I do not have an advanced Disney level merch yet for the podcast, but I do have. Super comfortable sweaters. Actually sweatshirts. Every time I'm on Zoom or some people see me in person, I'm wearing this thing.

1:37:12 It's super comfortable and they're like, How do I get one? I was like, How do people not know You can buy one. Well they don't know because I do a terrible job of letting you know that it exists. If you want to get yourself some founders merch. There's a link down below in the show notes and you can go to founders podcast dot com.

1:37:26 That is a great way to support the podcast. Also If you're interested in going to a live event, the first live event I did, the first conference I did, founders only, that was like four weeks ago, six weeks ago. Uh it's sold out. It was well regarded. I'm in the middle of planning two to three more that'll take place this year.

1:37:44 If you want to be notified about any future founders conference, including the ones that are taking place this year. Go to foundersonly dot com. Make sure you put in your email. You can also join my personal email list where I email you my top 10 highly story book that I read. I'll leave that down below as well. I would join both of those lists to make sure that you don't miss And as soon as tickets are available, which should happen, I would say in the next week to two weeks at the very latest.

1:38:06 I will announce it on the podcast, but also Send you an email. And that makes three hundred and forty six books down, one thousand to go. And I'll talk to you again soon. I just finished re listening to the entire episode and as I was listening to it.

1:38:19 I was jotting down some notes to myself. And What was remarkable, one of the most remarkable things that jumped out to me. is this idea of like all these other entrepreneurs that are mentioned in the episode in addition to Walt Disney. all share this same trait. So I'm thinking Doctor Seuss, Francis Four Coppola.

1:38:35 Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, James Dyson. The founder of Red Bow Red Bull. uh Dietrich Maschetz. Uh Charlie Munger. And it's this idea I actually got from Charlie Munger about the importance that

1:38:48 of learning from history is a form of leverage. There's a line in Poor Charlie's Dominic they think about all the time. I should actually I don't wear hats normally, but I should start putting messages like Uh there's a uh there's a there's ideas worth billions

1:39:02 In a thirty dollar history book. I love the idea that Disney would put a maximum in his hat. So he would take off his hat. And remind himself that you can't. Top pigs with pics. Maybe I'll put it in the inside of my shirts or something.

1:39:14 But the value of studying both the great and the terrible work that came before you think about the terrible You know, Disney created his own curriculum. Right, he's studying all these amusement parks. Like these are terrible. They're not living up to their expectations at all. I can make a superior product of this and therefore greatly, greatly expand the market, which is exactly what he did.

1:39:31 But it was also obvious listening to that episode how devastating Yeah, I was indu I was kind of induced into a state of rage thinking about The guy at twentieth century Fox not using Not learning from heav from history. That was a multi billion dollar mistake.

1:39:46 And it's a mistake. That if it happened today and if that executive from 20th Century Fox had access to founders' notes, it wouldn't have been made because he could have simply searched every single one of my notes, every single one of my highlights, every single one of my transcripts, and found multiple examples of these phenomenal merchandise businesses that were built in the past by Walt Disney, by George Lucas, by Dr. Seuss. And if that executive didn't want to read or search through the highlights, notes, and transcribes himself, he could have just asked the founders' notes. AI assistant named Sage. And Sage could have done all the work for him.

1:40:15 The higher you go in your career, the value of your judgment, the value of your decisions. Drastically increases. That is why it this just this main thing that reappears over and over and over again has reappear since this project started eight years ago. Anybody who gets to the top of their profession, anybody who becomes great at what they do, when you speak to them, when you read their writing. It is obvious that they study and restudy and study again the great work that came before them in the history of their industry. Spielberg would watch and re-watch.

1:40:44 Movies that he loved. Decades later, entire scenes from those movies would appear in Spielberg's own movies. Чебс. Intently studying Edwin Land. There's a ton of Edwin Land's ideas that show up in Steve Jobs companies and products. There's a ton of Sam Walton's ideas that show up in Jeff Bezos' companies and products.

1:41:01 Henry Singleton's ideas show up in how Warren Buffett built Berkshire. In fact, there's a great quote. Again, I know I love quoting Charlie Munger. In fact, uh Charlie is the icon for Sage. Cause when I think of a Sage, when I think of an infinitely wise older person that I go to for advice. It's exactly the role that Charlie Munger has played in my life through books and then obviously getting to speak to him. But Uh he he said that all Berkshire did was copy the right people. And I do really believe that one of the most important ideas that Charlie Mugger ever distilled from us was this idea that learning from history is a form of leverage. That is why if you have not done so already, I'm going to highly recommend

1:41:34 They subscribe to Founders Notes. I built this product in partnership with ReadWise. Read I've been going on p podcasts for years. I've been talking about on this podcast for years, well before I knew I was gonna work with them. That ReedWise was the best app I paid for because for six years. I found it in two thousand eighteen'cause the the founder, one of the founders of Reedwise, Tristan.

1:41:52 uh emailed me realizing hey you you read a lot. You want a way you want a way to catalog all your notes, all your highlights into this giant searchable database so that you can recall anytime you want. And so since then we've collaborated on this product called Founders Notes. It's available at foundersnotes.com. That's founders with a nuts, just like the podcast. And we've added a bunch of features. Originally it was just a cot like you could see exactly you get a exact mirror. image of my read wise. You can see exactly what I see. You can search just like I do. And then I've started adding a bunch of other features.

1:42:22 That I need to make the podcast so I don't forget all you know, I've read How many hundred thousand pages for this podcast so far? I love reading, but I also want to remember and retain and actually use what I'm reading. And so that is what I'm building. And so Founders Notes now has. Every single note, every single highlight, every single transcript. So that means it has you you can search every single word I've ever uttered on the podcast. Which means now you can do a keyword search by person, by subject. It's just this giant database of the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs.

1:42:49 If you don't have anything to search, you can go and read my highlights and notes by book. If you go to the highlights feed The highlights feed will present All my notes and highlights in a random order. And I've been doing this for years. I've been searching by keyword. I've been rereading highlights uh by book. I've been rereading highlights in random order on the highlights feed, but the last few months, this thing has blown my mind. I have never got more

1:43:11 DMs, emails, text messages about any feature ever. And what's hilarious is I didn't even come up with the name. I'm talking about Sage. I was calling it, you can go back to past episodes. I was like, it's like the founders GPT or had all these names like these names are terrible. And so I actually got an email from an early beta tester. And he said none of those names actually they're not good. And he said you should call it Sage because Sage is a profoundly wise person that is often looked to for guidance and advice. Sage is like search on service because when you ask it a question, it sh searches every single note, every single highlight, every single transcript. And it starts making these connections. So I've been using it to make every single episode. I also use it if I'm uh when I'm doing research like before this.

1:43:48 I uh one of the most f common questions of like, Hey, tell me the most important ideas from X. Meaning Any founder. You know, Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney, any anybody that you're interested in, anybody that I've covered on the podcast, and I did it for the Walt Disney episode. And it gives me this list, this bullet point list and the summary of the fourteen ideas it feels

1:44:04 of of Walt Disney. And so you can either read the summary, you know, in a minute or two, or you can actually click on expand and you can see every single highlight and note that it fetched. That's what it's called. And It shows you what book

1:44:18 That highlight or note is from or what episode that highlight or note is from. And usually within those forty different highlights and notes that it fetches that it uses that it reads for you to make that summary for you. You're usually fine. Half a dozen eight different books.

1:44:33 And it's starting to get really interesting because I get a ton of emails. About prompts, about questions that what I would like to do eventually is like one, I'm gonna make it an uh an app on your phone, right? I I want it on my phone. I'm using it in the browser now. It works excellent. It's on my it stays up in my browser all the time, but I want it on my phone in addition to that. And I wanna be able to ask questions just like I can now, but Everybody's emailing a ton of people are emailing me questions that they love the responses for. So now we can use this entire community of founders listeners.

1:45:01 And this is gonna take me a little while to build. But eventually not only can you ask any question you want, but it's gonna have like a database of say like the top fifty or top hundred or top two hundred questions that other people listen to founders and other people that subscribe to founders notes have asked. That's gonna get real wild. And o obviously any feature that I add. in the future is automatically included.

1:45:20 With your subscription. And that's another important point. It does require a subscription. You can need to do an annual basis, a ton of people. When I it was just annual at one point, a ton of people were asking me, Hey, is there like a one time, lifetime option? And so I tested that. I thought I was gonna do it for a limited time. A lot of people are doing that.

1:45:37 I Almost positive it's not gonna be for a limited time. But I'm not entirely sure because the demand was so high. But I just want to make sure that I'm building something sustainable, something that is the platform that I can use that ensures that I'm able to distribute this podcast for free forever. But the important part is there's no free trial available for founders notes. The free trial is the podcast.

1:45:57 And so it is made for people already running successful companies or people already well established in their career because that's who's gonna get the most value out of it. Because Sage can help enhance the decisions that you're already making in your company. And because I made this tool for myself and because I use it myself every day, I really do believe a subscription to founders notes is the perfect companion. If you're gonna invest, how much time are you investing in listening to this podcast? I had a friend of mine text me the other way, he's like, Hey I need another episode of Founders. When's the next episode coming out? And I was like, Well, this Walt Disney episode's killing me. It's taking me, you know, 10, I don't even know how long it's taken me, 10 days, 11 days, 60 hours, whatever the crazy amount of time I put into more than that. Uh to make this episode.

1:46:32 And I was like There's like three hundred and forty five in the back catalog. He's like, Yeah, I've listened to them already. Uh all to all of them already. And so my idea is like, Well, if you're investing tens of hours, dozens of hours, hundreds of hours listening to this podcast. Why wouldn't you subscribe to a tool that's gonna help you condense and clarify the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders? So then you can actually remember everything on demand of what you've been listening to. So if that sounds like you, if that fits a description of you, highly recommend getting a subscription going to and you can do that by going to founders notes. That's foundersnotes.com, founders with an S, just like the podcast. Founders Notes

1:47:06 dot com. I really appreciate the support. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'll talk to you again soon.

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