#379 Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys)

0:00 The year before Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys, the team lost nine million dollars. And just a few years later, the Cowboys were making over thirty million in profit per year. In fact, in the middle of this turnaround. The book describes Jerry Jones as a Ruthless

0:16 Cost cutter. A few weeks ago I was telling you about Ingbor Camproad, who's the founder of IKEA, starts IKEA when he's seventeen. Uh, works on it until he dies at ninety one years old. And Ingvar wrote a document, which they call the IKEA Company Bible. It's actually called uh the name of the document. It's the Testament of a Furniture Dealer. I loved

0:34 It's so much actually had it printed and bound. and uh put it on my desk. But in that document Ingvar repeated something that was very fascinating. He said for six decades That cost awareness was IKEA's anthem. And he said that his dedication to that idea

0:50 was total. The way that Ingvar. Spoke about that sounds a lot like the way Sam Walton talked about his cost control and his manic frenzy for cost control in his autobiography. This is what Sam Walton wrote. Yeah. I'm asked today when Walmart has been so successful, when we're a fifty billion dollar plus company.

1:08 Why should we say so cheap? That's simple. Because we believe in the value of a dollar. We exist to provide value to our customers. Which means that in addition to quality and service, we have to save them money. Every time Walmart spends one dollar foolishly, it comes right out of the pockets of our customers. Every time we save them a dollar.

1:27 That puts us one more step ahead of the competition. Which is where we always plan to be, he continues. control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find A competitive advantage for twenty five years running.

1:42 Long before Walmart was known as the nation's largest retailer, we ranked number one. in our industry for the lowest ratio. of expenses to sales. Anyone. who is committed to being great at building their businesses obsessed with watching their costs.

1:56 Ingwar says in his book that we push cost awareness at all levels. With almost manic Frenzy. The reason that Ramp is the presenting sponsor of this podcast. Is because Ramp gives you everything you need. to make cost control an obsession, just like it was for Jerry Jones.

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4:26 The link will also be down. In the show notes. I hope you enjoy this episode. Jerry Jones lived a wild life. And his book is full of unbelievable stories.

4:36 Of deals. And risk. that Jerry took during his career. My daughter went to Stanford. I couldn't stand it.

4:44 She was so far from Arkansas. So I think of reasons to make trips out there. to try to come up with a little business or something. I'd go out there with her. And I got an old office downtown Palo Alto.

4:54 And I said. You know, I need to get some things going out here. If I'm gonna spend this kind of time. So I went over to Brentwood. About twenty or thirty miles from San Francisco.

5:04 And I bought twenty five lots. Like I was gonna build. twenty five houses. Except I drilled.

5:11 Four Gas wells. And those four gas wells. In eighteen months. Pay me enough money.

5:18 For me to buy the Dallas Cowboys. Paying attention to my kids. Actually led me. to getting involved into the passion. Of my life.

5:27 And all along what I was trying to do was hang out near my daughter. A lot of things happen. That you didn't have plan. Or you don't have the strategy for. Now I'm not saying I've done anything right.

5:39 But I made up my mind a long time ago. That I was gonna work with my kid. They're involved in everything. They're involved in my leasing. Oil and gas.

5:49 Real estate. And so when I got the cowboys I got it. So that we could all work together. I thought I was doing it for them.

5:58 But the one That got the most out of it. was me. You're gonna be sitting here in a hospital sometime in the future. Lang here.

6:07 Sometime In the future. In this room. Is going to be full. Of your business associates.

6:13 And the people you worked with all your life. And more than likely Your children and your family Are going to be there. Because they're your children.

6:21 And your family. But you could have them there. Because of the people that you spent your life with. The ones you worked with. The ones you fell down with.

6:30 The ones you got up with. Not just seeing them. On Thanksgiving. And Christmas. That's who you want to be with.

6:38 So when that time comes, It's a celebration of your life. And you're not wishing You spent a little more time Seeing a few more suns come up.

6:48 That's The trip. That's The trip. Because that's gonna be your glory.

6:54 I'm pretty proud of them cowboys. I'm pretty proud of the stuff. that we've done in oil and gas. It pales in comparison. How proud I am.

7:05 To have lived my life. Working with my kids. You've got a chance to do something about that. I hope you will. That was not an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today. That was actually Jerry Jones on the show called Landman. Landman is about the Texas oil and gas industry.

7:22 And I thought that clip Was so moving. It piqued my interest to learn more about the life of Jerry Jones. He's obviously a well known figure. And I assume that there was gonna be, you know, a bunch of biographies or maybe even an autobiography written by him.

7:35 Turns out there's not many books on them at all. that was published all the way back in ninety five. So that's the book I'm gonna talk to you about today. Which is King of the Cowboys, the life and times of Jerry Jones. And it was written by Jim Dent.

7:48 Uh, before I jump into the book, I did some other research. And I pulled out a a few quotes and stories from his life that aren't in the book that I want to start with. It gives you kind of an overview of some of the things I think are important. To learn about him.

8:02 Uh one, I just absolutely love this. It says Jerry Jones doesn't like to waste time. On the rare occasion he hits the golf course, he's been known to close a business deal by the first hole. Shake hands, and then walk off saying Why would I play another four hours when the deal was done? Tales abound.

8:19 Of four phone calls from Jones. Leaving those on the other end unsure if he's just waking up. Or he hasn't slept yet. That is a recurring theme throughout the entire book, but the fact that he pushes himself, he's one of the most driven people ever meet. And he has the ability to survive and thrive on very, very limited sleep. So in this case

8:40 He's not waking up at four AM. He hasn't gone to bed yet. Uh such restless energy and single minded drive had defined has defined Jerry Jones for decades. You talk about the fact that he's this collection, his persona is part high stakes entrepreneur.

8:54 Which is really th the the amount of risk this guy takes is just absolutely incredible. We'll talk a lot about that today. Uh part high stakes entrepreneur. part football evangelist and part showman. He's definitely got like a PT Barnum. uh shown showmanship. uh very gifted storyteller recentored uh to him.

9:10 Something I want to talk to you a lot about. Is the fact that family, his parents involved him in the family business. at from a very young age, even when that family business uh started, you know, from a very humble beginning.

9:22 He says my parents were entrepreneurs. If you just worked hard enough, then you had real opportunity. That was instilled in me at a very early age. The His father is going to be the most influential person in his life. His Mom describes Jerry and his father later on in the book as twins.

9:38 And so he says he credits his father with teaching him. To not only embrace brace work. But to never resent it. One formative anecdote stands out in Jones's memory. After a bruising high school football loss, he came home demoralized and went straight to bed.

9:51 Pat Jones found his son And delivered found a son in bed. And delivered a stern bit of advice. Son, if you lie in this bed, you're going to be a loser for the rest of your life. Now get up.

10:02 And if the team asks you to be the water boy Then drown them with the damn water. Jerry Jones Got out of bed. And never forgot.

10:12 That lesson. And then just one more quote that I want to read to you before we jump into the book. uh again I think is really important and he he does think this is in his blood. Direct quote from Jerry Jones here. He says By instinct, we Joneses were risk takers to win big

10:27 You have to play. The big hand. So I wanna start Talking about his intense drive. Uh throughout the book. Jerry Jerry has phenomenal relationships and he winds up building relationships and friendships and partnerships.

10:40 with some of the most successful entrepreneurs of his day. And one of them is his longtime friend. Named Don Tyson. So Don Tyson had the nickname. of as the chicken king, which I thought was humorous. It says Tyson is one of America's wealthiest men, having built his chicken empire from scratch more than forty years ago in Springdale, Arkansas.

10:59 Actually he scales his uh He passed away few years ago. But he winds up scaling the chicken business to over ten billion a year in revenue. Uh And this is what he said about his friend Jerry Jones. Tyson talks about Jones. He says, This is one of the most driven men you will ever meet.

11:15 Here is a guy who by God made it by himself. He planted his own crop And he harvested the damn thing. And so in addition to his drive, which is repeated over and over again through all these stories and anecdotes by the people that worked with him and knew Jerry for a long time, it's peppered throughout the entire book. is the fact that he's something that's repeated over and over again is the fact that Jerry has this wild cowter mentality.

11:36 He is Full risk on. In fact, there's another great quote. That I found when I was researching him, that he says the only way to break out is to gamble. And I think this is a great description of him. It says Jones still operates on the oil patch mentality that he picked up during his early business years. Roll the dice until your knuckles bleed.

11:53 Never ever do what traditionalists would do. Wait till he buys the cowboys. There's like so much low hanging fruit. And it was actually shocking. One of the most surprising things I learned from reading this book is just how unsure the investment, Jerry Jones investment in the Cowboys was at the time he made it. Now it's, you know, worth probably

12:09 Somewhere between eight to ten billion dollars is the rumor. If you try to sell the uh cowboys how much it'd go for. So just roll the dice until your knuckles bleed. Never ever do with the traditional subdue. Jones is determined to succeed on his own terms in his own way. And one of the most important or maybe the mo not not even one of

12:26 The most influential person that taught Jones to take risks to be bold. um and to m you blaze his own path and basically do What he wants to do in life is his father Uh Pat Jones. Obviously, this is a great example of this Maxim that you and I talk about over and over again. It's almost every single book that the story of the father is embedded in the son.

12:45 And I'm gonna go to the childhood of Pat Jones and Jerry Jones. But I wanna talk about towards the end of the when it was Interesting. There's a there's a story in the book. Where Jerry is worried.

12:57 His father's in poor health. They were worried that he was about to die. And there's this story where this is what Jerry's like devastated. So it says as Pat Jones clung to life Jerry Jones leaned over to his father. And whispered in his ear, Fight.

13:12 Try hard. Don't give up. We all love you so much, tears in his eyes. He hugged the man. that he calls the most influential man in his life.

13:24 And so as a way for you and I to try to understand the son, we obviously want to study the story of his father. So he is raised in this tiny town, Arkansas. actually ha enjoyed the distinction of having one tavern for every six citizens. So there's a saloon on nearly every street corner. Most it's a you know, rather poor lower lower class uh neighborhood

13:47 primary railroad and machine shop emplo uh people that work in railroads and machine shop. The description of Jerry's dad is gonna sound a lot like Jerry when he's a young man. says uh Pat Jones had the energy of a locomotive. He was a born promoter. Uh, he was raised in a tiny farming community. The Jones family lived in a leaky

14:06 Poorly painted shack. So His dad grew up During the Great Depression. And one of the things that helped his dad survive the Great Depression is that he was a born salesman. He says what he did best was sale. Cell. So even from a young age

14:19 He's like walking down the streets with buckets of peas. And he's like selling them, you know, hand to hand'em out, essentially. Jerry's dad gets married, has kids. Okay. raises his family. So they live in this like tiny

14:32 second floor apartment above what starts out as A fruit stand that his dad starts. So Pat Jones starts a fruit stand. That eventually is going to evolve into a full fledged Supermarket. But it says the family of four lived in a small apartment for over seven years above

14:47 The fruit stand, which turns into the grocery store. Nurturing the store downstairs and By working day and night. And so This idea that both Jerry and his dad have this like showmanship, this PT Barnum esque.

14:59 Personality. He's like, Okay, well, how do I get as many people into the store as possible? he does all kinds of things. He he at night it turns into a dance hall. And then one of the most successful uh advertising and marketing promotions he did was he actually sets up a radio show inside Of

15:15 his grocery store in you know rural Arkansas. No one was doing this at the point. And the reason I bring this up to you is'cause there's a lot of ideas That Jerry has when he takes over the Dallas Cowboys set. you know, seem obvious to us now because everybody does it, but nobody was doing it back then. One of Pat's ideas was his next promotion was nearly unheard of in nineteen fifty four.

15:34 A live on site radio show. That makes the music with heavy endorsements for the products in the stores. I don't know why I found that funny. Uh the guys running the radio store is this guy named Brother Hal Weber did his hillbilly act. From the back of Pat supermarket.

15:50 And the parking lot was jammed. People would drive from The surrounding fifty It's one of the damnedest things I'd ever seen.

16:00 They came wondering what the heck was going on in the store. This part of his life is so important because how young Jerry is. Pat's Supermarket was young Jerry Jones' first exposure to hard work and showmanship. And he took to his father's example like duck to a w duck to water. I worked everything, Jerry said. I learned how to do everything in the store. I was up at the crack of dawn and I'd be working until midnight. My dad was a driver.

16:22 But he was also a teacher. He just somehow knew Where he was going more than sixty years. After the Great Depression, Jerry Jones still feels It's influence.

16:33 It was that mentality from that era that drove him. My dad when I was a kid It was all my dad could talk about the depression. It scared the hell. out of the people who grew up there. Especially the ones on the farms. My dad passed that fear along to me.

16:48 That is why I always worked when I was a kid. My dad said, I'm gonna teach you to work. So that you don't mind working and it will become part of your personality when you grow up. God dog it. If I wasn't down there working at the store every day, I knew my butt was going to be in trouble.

17:04 And this is what his dad says is about Jerry as his kid. I knew that Jerry had the right instincts, even when he was a kid. He could talk to people just like he was an adult. It was a gift. Jerry heard nothing but business talk during breakfast. Lunch and dinner. He understood that he wanted to make money and get ahead.

17:21 Keep in mind, Jerry is seven years old. They're talking about Jerry when he was seven years old, what he's going to. In fact, um I had dinner. with one of the wealthiest people in the world uh a few nights ago. And there's two interesting things, especially if you if you've been analyzing the the books that I've been reading the last few weeks, just how

17:38 recurring this theme was. And the the guy I was having dinner with, he's in his seventies. And he was telling me his father was the one that originally started the business and it's just drastically expanded. under the second and third generation. And he was telling he's like my dad

17:53 started me and my brother working in the business when we were six. Every holiday from school was spent. working in the family business. And so there's two striking things the conversation was incredible.

18:06 The dinner was incredible, but I learned a lot. But two of the most striking things was Just how common again. Like if you look at the Jerry Jones this week.

18:14 Leon Hess last week, the Wallenburg's heady green. go back to older episodes like Estee Lauder. Uh, the Waltons. I even think about like Steve Jobs' dad when he was five years old teaching Steve how to take apart Um, and the fact that he you could you could make a TV. These aren't magical things. Like some you you love TV and radio and electronics. Well, guess what? Humans figured out how to make that. And essentially teaching his Young son that from a from a

18:38 Early age. Yeah, but just It's it's remarkable to me, and I need to point this out to you, because it may be obvious to you, but in case w it's not obvious to you, it wasn't obvious to me before I started reading all these books. was just how common this is. for these, you know

18:53 Did the the the the Amount of valuable education you're able to instill in your child about business and producing goods and services and working your ass off and you know, trying to help other people and build wealth th through doing that is so valuable and Regardless of industry.

19:08 All the people I've read about, the person I was talking to, they all work in different industries. And yet their family did the exact same thing. And then the other thing That was interesting about the dinner. Yeah. This encyclopedic another thing they do is this encyclopedic knowledge.

19:23 of business history. that was in this guy's head. And you know, w we talked about a bunch of the the the books I'd cover in the past. In some cases he knew. you know, the the entrepreneur or the family, whatever the case is, and he filled in a lot of he just knew everything. I again I think it just speaks to the idea it's like

19:39 What what can we do if we're trying to build the most powerful families possible? One, we get our kids involved and we do we teach them the value of business and entrepreneurship and investing and working really hard from a young age. And then obviously get them reading and studying as much of business history as possible because that's just this recurring thing. So There is another thing that his that Jerry picks up from his dad. And his dad was uh extremely hard worker.

20:02 Just like Jerry's going to be. His dad party a lot, and so I'm not gonna cover it, but there's entire chapters in this book about how much Jerry parties. So I'm just gonna give you an anecdote from his childhood. That he sees his dad doing. Early one morning after failing to make it home the previous night, Pat Jones looked up.

20:18 To find his wife staring coldly into his bloodshot eyes. He happened to be in the company of two young ladies. By his mother's side was young Jerry. Jerry, I want you to take a good look at your father. Jerry, if you're wondering where your father was last night, he was right here with these you know what's.

20:36 Sun. I don't want you to grow up this way. So his father was known as A known philanderer. He in fact Later on his dad's going to run and then sell

20:47 uh a very successful insurance company. And there's a anecdote in the book. Where it says that his father would hire insurance salespeople based on how well they could seduce. Women. Uh, so again, there's a a lot of these stories in this book about just the the hard the again, this drive to work excessively hard, they also applied it to their nightlife too.

21:09 Uh Jerry Jones. describes his father as the most influential man in his life. At the dinner table, Pat Jones would lecture Jerry almost every night on his business philosophy. He also instilled his taste for flamboyant risk taking. and a fearless compulsion to do things his own way. There's just twenty years age difference between them, his mother points out.

21:29 There is much brothers. As they are father and son. They're both this is still his mom. Describing both her husband and her son. They're both workaholics. They also happen to love their work.

21:40 They make it their life. They're they are just alike. They are almost like twins. So Jerry's Main love in life besides work.

21:50 is football. He starts playing football when he's in high school, winds up playing in college. I'm gonna skip over most of that. 'cause I wanna talk about his early oil and gas career and then him buying the cowboys. But I do wanna pull out a interesting lines that I think can tell you an entire story in like a sentence or two.

22:05 It's the fact that he played football. If you analyze the way he played football, the way he approached football it's like oh that's how he works too. And so there's just these quotes from his co uh from Like people on his team and also his coaches.

22:16 says he played with reckless intensity. Had coach remembers. that Jerry didn't have a whole lot of anything as an athlete. But when he started something, he didn't quit. The kid

22:27 Just worked his ass off. Night and day another coach to the next page. He was the fiercest competitor we had. So he is wheeling and dealing and selling as mu anything he can while he's in school. When he gets out of school he's gonna start working on oil and gas, which I'll get to how he how he gets there.

22:43 This was very interesting though, because I'm reading this section, this entire It's it's about his personality, his salesmanship. His he's just intense energy. The fact that this guy just goes and goes and goes with almost no sleep. And for some reason I get to this sentence after reading, you know, this entire chapter.

22:58 And it made me think of Ted Turner. It says Jerry has always been a total extrovert. A salesman. A promoter. He always had That tremendous

23:07 energy level. So Back on episode three twenty seven. I did the autobiography. Of Ted Turner. It's one of the most fascinating uh autobiograp autobiographies.

23:17 That I've ever read. But what I did is like, man, why am I having Why does this remind me of Ted Turner so much? So what it is, I went and I asked Sage, like, can you describe the personality and traits of Ted Turner? And it actually create the this outline for me.

23:30 And I'm like This sounds just like Jerry Jones. This is why this was in my head. So Here's some key characteristics. I'm gonna read the parts, almost th this entire outline is Jerry Jones. So I'm describing Ted Turner, but really it is

23:43 gives you an overview of who Jerry Jones is, especially when he's young in in his career where we were at In the story right now. Key characteristics number one, boundless energy and intensity. Okay. Known for nonstop talking and nervous energy.

23:56 He cannot sit still. Needs constant movement and activity. This sounds like Jerry Johnston. Worked incredibly long hours, often sleeping in his office. Okay, number two, extraordinary vision and belief. Had absolute conviction in his ideas.

24:09 This is again still about Ted Turner. Wait till we get to the the the massive bets, these rich huge, risky bets. That Jerry Jones place in his life had absolute and why would you do that? Because you have absolute conviction in ideas. Uh, in in Ted Turner's case, it's particularly about the future of cable TV. Was willing to be early and made bold predictions.

24:27 Had an obsessive work ethic, live by the motto, early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise. Uh, he would consistently be the first to arrive and the last to leave. He pushed himself and his organizations relentlessly again. Still about Ted Turner. I'm it's the it's the same person. We're describing the same exact personality type. Complex personal background deeply impacted by childhood experiences.

24:49 And the relationship with his father. developed a fear of abandonment and the need for constant companionship, struggled with personal relationships despite business success. Also at the same time. They they were both charismatic leaders. They had incredibly enthusiastic and infectious personalities.

25:05 They could be incredibly persuasive one on one. Jerry Jones is one of the best salespeople you could ever read about. They were both known for thinking unconventionally and making themselves unforgettable. Strategic risk taker. Willing to bet big on their convictions. often competed against much larger companies.

25:21 and had more commitment and desire than their competitors. And then finally this extreme level. of self confidence to act on their beliefs extremely self assured. Not afraid to challenge industry giants. and believe strongly in their ability

25:37 to succeed. It is remarkable. How much of Just like what I remember reading about Ted Turner. Like really

25:46 just jumped out of me as I was going through this biography of Jerry Jones. Now when we move into his early life and his early career You see this like relentless drive also produces this like frentid energy. He was he had this deep burning desire to get rich. And he wanted to get rich and and go into football. And he talks about this like a decade and a half before he had the money to buy the cowboys. But it was so overwhelming.

26:09 All the different businesses that he tried in in in many cases Fail that before he went up Making a ton of money. in oil and gas. So it says for more than fifteen years Jones had moved like a human meteor. Since leaving the University of Arkansas.

26:22 He had helped his father turn his new business, which was a moderate sized insurance company, into a booming success. He had also invested in real estate pizza and chicken. He winds up getting married and also having three children at the exact same time. He borrowed fifty thousand dollars. This guy's gonna be up to his eyeballs in debt. He borrowed fifty thousand dollars from John Ed Chambers, which was his father in law, who owned a small bank in Arkansas.

26:45 What did you do with the money? Jones had the chance to invest in both McDonald's And Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises instead He decides to buy the Missouri rights to a peach chain. Called Shakespeare.

26:59 Problem is This pizza chain goes out of business. Now he's got a bunch of misses, but he also has a few solid early investments, one of those being in his friend Don Tyson's Checking company.

27:11 But for most of the nineteen sixties, Jerry, a young Jerry Jones is trying all these things and he's failing it a bunch. says there's so many times where I was down on one knee. One of the hardest things I would learn would be keeping my head together during those tough times. You just have to buck up

27:26 and go on to the next decision. If you don't move with enthusiasm, To the next deal. You lose. So he is in his mid twenties. He is Vastly overextended. He was

27:36 Boring as much money as you could. And he's also buying in and trying to invest in real estate. And he's almost Broke,'cause they're almost calling in the loans. So says by the late nineteen sixties, Jones financial problems had become so complex and so intense

27:48 That his hands would shake and he would cry. The strain of all the debt he's under is overwhelming. His biggest financial burden was a five hundred thousand dollar investment. He had made on some land. He planned to eventually Build a Walmart on the property. So sell to Sam Walton, it sounds like this, okay?

28:06 Friends advis Jones to sell off the land. So he pays five hundred thousand dollars for this plot of land. Jones stubbornly. Stuck. to this investment.

28:15 Thanks to an array of failed investments, banks started calling in his loans. One of the hardest things you'll ever have to do is sit across the desk from a banker. Who's calling it a fifty thousand dollar loan. Then turn around and ask him for another fifty thousand dollars, Jones says. One afternoon.

28:29 So he owns a bunch of land. He also owns a bunch of rental properties. So says one afternoon he went to visit an elderly lady. She was more than three months behind on payments when she told Jones that That she didn't have the money to make a payment, he turned

28:44 And walked away. As he drove off he began to cry. The banker We had made The half a million dollar real estate loan.

28:53 learned of Jones' generosity to the old lady and persuaded the bank to give Jones an extension on his payments. No. Here's the crazy part. There is like a There's like a benefit. I I don't know how to describe this. So like being a little nutty or being a little crazy.

29:09 Uh, I guess the way to think about this. was put best by Charlie Munger where he says, Never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. I'm gonna read the full quote from Charlie Munger,'cause I think they he picked on s up on something very unusual. So Charlie says. Well an excess of self regard

29:24 Is often counterproductive. And its effect on cognition. It can cause some weird successes. From overconfidence. That happened to cause success. Never underestimate the man who overestimates himself.

29:36 And so Jones is in his twenties. You know, doesn't have a track record, a lot of track record of success. And yet he's just so damn stubborn. It's like I'm not selling anything. I'm gonna go down fighting. Okay.

29:48 So they're like sell this piece of land, you nutjob. Right, it's five hundred thousand dollars. What are you doing? And he's just saying no. 'Cause he has this relentless drive and self belief in himself. And he w winds up being right. This th this is like the whole story. I almost accidentally even

30:03 stumbled upon that idea from Munger uh when I was rereading the highlights for this book. It's like never underestimating the man who overestimates himself. Why? Thirty years later. Jones still owns that piece of property. Which now has long been paid off.

30:17 There's a Walmart. That is On it. On that piece of property. And then after that they develop this new interstate highway. So this piece of land.

30:26 He buys. They build a Walmart on it, makes a piece of land more valuable. Then here comes the highway. That land is now valued at twenty million dollars. He refused to sell the five hundred thousand dollar piece of land. You know, what is this, twenty years later, did I say, or thirty years later?

30:40 Thirty years later. It's now twenty million dollars. And there's so many examples and really w that is the theme of of this conversation, this podcast. Is All these things that Jones did shouldn't have worked out, but they did work out.

30:53 Like even when you get to the Cowboys, when you see the financial uh performance of the Cowboys before he bought him, it's just like Unbelievable. That he turned this around and turned out to what it did. Uh so and he he c he catches a break here. So remember, nineteen sixties have just been absolute hell for this guy.

31:07 Uh you know, he's crying, he he's out to his eyeballs in debt. He's like having meetings with banks are like give us your money is like not only I'm not gonna give you your money your money, I want you to give me more money. It's just It's a completely crazy story. So in nineteen seventy His father

31:22 Sells. the insurance company, the modern security life that I was telling you about. that Jerry helped his dad build. As a result, from what I've read, Jerry nets about five hundred thousand dollars. From that sale.

31:34 Then he's like, All right, I'm gonna move now my little young family to Little Rock, Arkansas. And I'm gonna get into the oil business. So J Jones puts out the word that he was ready to enter the oil business. A relative introduces him to This Oklahoma oil man named Bill Sparks. Again Let's go back to never underestimate

31:51 The man who overestimates himself within it while in excess of self regard is often counterproductive in its effects on cognition. It can cause some weird successes. From overconfidence. That happens to cause

32:03 success. So he's introduced hey I want I'm moving my family. I'm gonna get into the oil business. And he's introduced this guy Where this guy is shopping an oil deal. That everybody is like You You're crazy. He says no. Everybody is tell Sparks.

32:19 No. The one person that doesn't tell him no. is going to be Jerry Jones. This is insane. So Sparks wants to come out on his own. He's working for a company and he's like, listen. I think I found this essentially meandering.

32:32 Underground. River of oil. And I'm almost positive if we drill here And if we can sketch this out, we're going to find a river of oil. Seven thousand feet below the ground. The pe and it's called the red fork sand.

32:47 No one believed him. The company that he was working for thought he was so crazy that they fire him. They're like, This is the stupidest idea we've ever heard. You're fired. So Bill Sparks is shopping the deal. Again, the funny thing about this is that this is a deal that everybody said no to. Wait till you see the financial performance of this deal.

33:05 And so one of Jerry's partners in oil and gas is describing Jerry for us. Probably one of Jerry's worst traits is his inability to say no to risky ventures. He does love high risk, high return ventures. So he loved this Bill Sparks idea. Bill managed to sell the idea to Jerry when he couldn't sell it to anybody else. Remember that.

33:25 The same exact thing is gonna happen when he buys the cowboys. I think The owner of the Cowboys, if I remember correctly. He shopped the cowboys to like seventy five other people. before he did to Jones. It's crazy.

33:38 And then you talk about this like frenti. That And it's d like this he he just he's involved in so many things. So when Jerry gets pitched this idea from Bill Sparks What is Jerry doing?

33:49 And this is why I love that it was actually kind of humorous and funny to to read the book. 'Cause you're reading about all these like investing in pizza and chicken and real estate. And so now he's getting pitched the deal. And what was Jerry doing when he gets pitched deal? He was selling mobile homes. Like what is going on here?

34:05 So it says Jones and his partner Jim Dooley were selling mobile homes when they got word of Sparks' scheme. So Jones decides Jones and Dooley team up with Sparks and this other guy named Ran Rix. They have the the funniest names in this the book, by the way. Ran Rick's. Wait till we get to the owner of the the Cowboys theme that that Jerry buys it from. So you got

34:24 Jim Doole, Jerry Jones. Bill Sparks and Ran Ricks, okay? And so I was trying to figure out like where the hell do you get the money from? This is why it was so important for the sale of his father's insurance company. Okay. So Jones' faith

34:38 Yeah. It's like okay, I'm gonna buy into your idea. Jones' faith in Bill Sparks paid off. The group hit their first well. The first well.

34:46 So keep in mind. This deal that Bill Sparkson shop to everybody. Everybody said, This is not gonna work. Uh, his previous company said this is so stupid, we're gonna fire you.

34:54 The first Well. The first time they drill. That well's worth more than four. million dollars.

35:01 So what does that mean? Hitting that first m well meant. That we could go to the bank and borrow money and keep drilling. It meant everything in the world. to us. The group hit their next well.

35:12 And the next one. And the next in all They hit oil in their first Fifty. eighteen wells that they drilled.

35:21 This is what Bill Sparks said about this. Right off the bat, Jerry believed in me. Why? I don't completely know. Other than the fact that he was hungry to get rich. He wanted to strike it rich. But there was another thing. All he could talk about was was that he wanted to make enough money to buy a football team.

35:37 After the first successful well came in, The partying began. Like these guys work excessively hard. And party hard. So what I mean about partying hard? You know, they're they're starting to get rich.

35:50 The first successful wall comes in, how do they celebrate? They rent out an entire hotel. So they ran every single they're in Oklahoma City at the time. They ran out every single room. In this hotel. Uh they invite over five hundred people.

36:02 And says they would rent out every room in the hotel. And the party would go all night. Just about everybody got drunk, naked, and jumped in the pool. And so then Jones doesn't stop there. His successive drive, his successive self confidence is like hey I drilled oil successfully. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna drill for natural gas. So he winds up partnering with this guy named Mike McCoy. He walks into Mike McCoy's office in nineteen eighty.

36:23 He was coming off one of the greatest financial and emotional highs of his life. Jones had sold one. of his oil production companies in nineteen seventy six and walked away from the red fork sand. That deal with Bill Sparks. With a profit of more than fifty milyen dollars. This is another one of his partners.

36:38 You see how everybody that runs into Jerry Jones, he's remarkably consistent. The way his partners and his co-workers all describe him, the essentially they're just He doesn't change. Jerry has never met a high risk deal that he didn't like. He's a risk taker, and the riskier the better. You have to be a gambler to play in this business.

36:55 If you get disappointed over failure You shouldn't be in this business. At the same time, if you get too high over success, you will bust yourself. The excitement In the oil and gas business.

37:07 Is unmatched. by any other business. There's a great line. when you watch Landman, I think the best single line in that entire Serious? Says.

37:17 Mm. The the billionaire. uh oil founder. the one of the main characters in the show. Says our business is a constant state of crisis. Interrupted by periods of immense success.

37:29 So Jones goes to Mike McCoy. He's like, Okay, let's get into the the the gas drilling business. Let's let's drill for natural gas. This is what Jones was referencing earlier at the very beginning. Where he's like, I'm gonna drill for gas out in San Francisco when my daughter was at Stanford. So then okay.

37:44 We're gonna take a shot at two wells. We're gonna drill for natural gas near San Francisco. And then in south eastern Oklahoma at the same time. Okay. Almost immediately the project met with disaster. This is the the first one they do is Oklahoma.

37:57 Almost immediately the project met with uh disaster when an employee made a half a million dollar mistake after drilling the customary eight inch diameter hole. He tried to pour cement into the casing to add support to the well. Instead He mistakenly dumped cement into the well itself. Ruining it.

38:12 Jones. took the bad news in stride. Remember what their description of the oil and gas business. If you get disappointed over failure, you should not be in this business. Yeah. You made a mistake, that's fine. You get up and you drill again. This is exactly what they did.

38:26 The partners invested another five hundred thousand dollars. They move the drill bit one hundred feet. The next day they learned they had hit a natural gas well. Worth over forty. million. Dollars.

38:38 The same time. They're drilling in San Francisco. The first reports from the well near San Francisco were not good. The guy running the the job for them out there. Called and said.

38:48 We had turned up nothing. And he called back Eight hours later and said we're going to be rich. The well. outside of San Francisco would produce

38:58 Форті мільон долар. worth of gas over a two year period. Jones and McCoy. had made eighty million dollars. On their first

39:09 Two natural gas. Wells. The crazy stories in this book continue. This is one of the biggest I think this might be the biggest deal he does. This next story.

39:19 Is the biggest deal. uh he does before he buys the Dallas Cowboys. It is also the hardest to explain and the one that he has the most controversy over. So Jerry has a friend, this guy named Sheffield Nelson. Sheffield was CEO of Arkansas Louisiana gas company.

39:36 Which is a state regulated utility company. Before Nelson was CO of the utility company. Him and Jones had been friends for almost a decade. They own a bunch of Businesses together.

39:48 So they owned A television station, a racehorse, a farm. And a condominium. And so in January nineteen eighty one Jones forms a new gas drilling company. He's gonna call it Arcoma Production.

40:01 Jones is then going to do a deal, again, with a state regulated utility. Which people call one of the greatest sweetheart deals of all time. The agreement that he signs with the company that his friends is CO of It allows Jones To sell gas.

40:16 to Arkansas, Louisiana. gas company which is also known as Arklaw. at a price that was far higher than what the utility was paying others in the field. So he managed to sign an agreement with them where they would pay him four dollars and fifty cents.

40:31 Per thousand cubic feet. More than nine times. What the previous producers had been receiving. From the same company. And in a few years this deal gets even wilder because

40:42 In nineteen eighty five, the natural gas industry Was deregulated. And so the price of gas drops dramatically. Unfortunately. Under the terms of their agreement.

40:52 The utility company. Was committed. They had to buy as much gas as Jones could produce at the maximum. legal price. So what does he do? At this point.

41:02 He goes And him and his partner, this is same guy, Mike McGoy. They go and they make deals with other gas producers to turn their leases over to Arcoma production. Because our coma production has a guaranteed contract where they can sell it for a higher price than if you were drilling the gas yourself.

41:19 McCoy and Jones pointed out to landowners and potential Liezers. that they could receive a much higher return on their gas by working out deals with our coma instead of continuing They're low paying contracts with Arkansas Louisiana themselves.

41:33 And this is the end result. Arkansas Louisiana gas company was paying our coma production Forty million a year for gas that it didn't need. And so if you sign a bad deal, one way to get out of that deal is to actually buy the company, to buy out the company. So then

41:50 Arkansas Louisiana gas company. announces that it's actually buying our coma Production. So our coma production was started from scratch in nineteen eighty one. In nineteen eighty seven.

42:02 Jones and his partner sell it for a hundred and seventy five million dollars. Which means if you calculate how much money they took out of the business Plus the sales price, our coma production had walked away with more than three hundred million dollars. Now this again Goes back to never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. Is another wildcatter.

42:20 I think it was I can't remember if it was Mati McCree Mani McCrief or um maybe Sid Richardson. He said I'd rather be Uh, I'd rather be lucky than smart. Well, here's an example here.

42:31 So they walk away with three hundred million dollars. Jones and McCoy had drilled more than two hundred wells. And they had come up empty. On exactly what So Jones is gonna get to the end of the eighties. He's around forty seven years old when he's gonna buy the Dallas Cowboys. winds up after all of all of his adventures in oil and gas, he winds up having about ninety million dollars in cash.

42:53 Now he has enough money and the opportunity. to do what he's been wanting to do. So if you go back throughout the book For over twenty years. As early as the uh nineteen sixties. All throughout the time he was in the oil fields in the nineteen seventies, Jones would tell anybody who would listen.

43:07 That someday he'd buy a football team. As early as nineteen eighty two, he started sharing his blueprint with his old college roommate. His college roommate is Jimmy Johnson. This is the guy that When he buys the when uh Jones buyers the Dallas Cowboys.

43:22 He fires their long term coach, Tom Landry. And immediately hires Jimmy Johnson. And what he told him in nineteen eighty two is like hey You keep doing what you do best, which is coaching, and I'll keep doing what I do best, which is making money. And one of these days we'll do this together in the NFL. So

43:37 The owner of the Cowboys at this time was this guy named Bum bright. H R Bumbrite, I love these these names. And he is going to be forced to sell the team. There's actually a history of the owners of the Dallas Cowboys. being forced to sell the team.

43:52 Because They had a severe cash crisis. So bum bright and made a bunch of money in trucking, oil, real estate and banking. Make a ton of money in the early eighties. By nineteen eighty nine his financial empire is crumbling. His bank is in utter disarray because it's suffering these catastrophic

44:08 real estate losses. In fact, at the time he's selling the Dallas Cowboys. His bank is being run by feg federal regulators. Now Bright. is motivated to sell for the same reason that forced the original cowboy owner

44:20 This guy named Clit Murchison Junior. uh who sold Wright the team in nineteen eighty four. He was in a financial free for all. Free fall and the ground was coming up fast.

44:31 Now here's the really interesting thing. Essentially Mur Murchison or Murchsen, I don't know how to pronounce his last name. It's just a h such a handpicked brite to sell the team to. And Bright did not he he didn't love football. In fact, before he owned the team, he'd only ever gone to ever two cowboy games in his life. And the reason he was persuaded to buy the team was he's like, Oh, there's enough depreciation in the team.

44:52 that it can use the team as a tax write off. for at the time his booming oil business. So I need to go back to this idea that there's o over and over again we see Jerry making an investment that other people Bats at the time.

45:06 And in many cases, people were offered the same deal and a ton of people said no. So Buying the Cowboys was not a sure bet. The difference was that unlike Bombright, Jerry's like obsessed with football. He's actually obsessed. And I wanna read this quote. uh from Graham Duncan about the importance of being obsessed in second. So

45:24 Jerry's gonna buy the team. For a hundred and forty million dollars. What is he buying? He's buying a football team that in nineteen eighty eight, the last year before he was a principal owner. Lost nine million dollars.

45:35 A team in an organization that was incapable of selling m the majority of the luxury suits sweet. I think like ninety percent over ninety percent of luxury suites were unsold. We're sitting empty. Attendance had dropped by

45:47 Омост твої фай процент. And only one home game the entire year had sold out. Bum Bright starts shopping the team'cause he's in Dire financial distress, right? He tried to sell for hundred and eighty million dollars. He pitched seventy five people before he got to Jerry Jones that said no.

46:04 And so we see this immense appetite for taking risk again from Jerry Jones because what does he do? He has ninety million in cash, he empties his entire bank account. Then he borrows the remaining balance at steep interest rates. Financial advisors at the time warned that buying the cowboys was quote. Ridiculously overpriced.

46:21 And financial suicide. Jerry Jones risk tolerance in the nineteen eighty and eight nineteen ninety kind of reminds me of of what Elon did after he sold PayPal when he we cleared I think a hundred and eighty million after taxes. when they sold PayPal. And he put a hundred into SpaceX.

46:36 seventy into Tesla and ten into Solar City. And I think one of the advantages that Jerry has here and why he's gonna do this phenomenal turnaround, one of the reasons is because he's completely obsessed. He's completely obsessed with football and doing deals and selling And just win. So this is uh

46:51 great excerpt from uh the Tim Ferriss podcast where he interviews this guy named Graham Duncan. That I always keep on my phone I I and I listen to and and read over and over again. And he this is a direct quote from Graham talking to Tim. He says, one question I like to ask people is if you're hiring an analyst, what criteria are you looking for in the analyst? So he's talking about money managers. And people have been managing money and managing people before begin to look for things in their analysts that make those analysts most valuable to them. And this guy said.

47:16 What I'm looking for is a trace of fear in myself. Okay, I'm trying to hire somebody that it makes me almost scared. Why? What I'm looking for is a fear of Uh a trace of fear in myself. That this guy is coming for me.

47:27 That he will replace me. And I think what he's capturing Is that the level of intensity That obsessiveness That you see in a minority in any field.

47:38 Because they found the game they want to play. And they bring an intensity And an obsessiveness to it. That over time They're just working so much harder.

47:48 It's like Wayne Gretzky. Finding hockey at age five. He's obsessed. And he's just going over and over and over again. And there are people in the finance industry who are like that.

47:59 They're just obsessed with investing. in this really distinctive way. Warren Buffett from a young age. Obsessed. It is obvious.

48:07 People say oh There's like all this these people criticizing Jerry Jones. In the book. They're just doing this for money. Hey, he wants to make a lot of money. But he's you can clearly tell he's not doing this for money because thirty years after this book was published, he still owns the Dallas Cowboys. He's obsessed.

48:21 With owning a football team and and and running a football team and you could just clearly see this. And as a result of this obsession, he's gonna work so much harder at this. Than the previous owner did who Wasn't really interested in football I was like, Oh, this is great. This is a d way I can, you know, offset some taxes for my own business.

48:38 Where Jerry's like, No, I'm gonna build the best football c like not only football organization, he's trying to win on the field, but also football company and he just he he really invents a lot of ideas that are used, you know, throughout sports that to you and I, looking back thirty years later is like why They weren't doing this back then, it just seemed so obvious. So again, just one of his superpowers. Jerry can sell, sell, sell.

48:58 He was selling since he was a nine year old greeting customers at his family's supermarket. In college, he sold shoes from the trunk of his car. He would make up to seven hundred dollars selling student tickets before his college football games. So he buys a team and he immediately just like we said that he has in common with Ted Turner. It's like I'm going to blaze my own path. I'm going to run the business, not how it used to be run, how you think I should run it, how I want to run it.

49:21 immediately takes over the team and then turns the entire staff over. There there's a bunch of detail in the book, but I think this one sentence gives you an idea of what he does. It says he took a wrecking ball to the past. And so we see immediately these reoccurring like personality traits, these the way he wants to run his business. He's gonna be obsessed with speed, he likes to take risks in bunches. He's really just intense and and rather a little crazy. He's obsessed with speed, with making decisions and acting on them as quickly as possible. He learned to take his risk in bunches in the Oklahoma oil fields.

49:48 This is he describes his reasoning why he takes risks in bunches. Some of your risks are bound to be busts. The more risks you take, the better the chance of one of them hitting. Don Tyson, who built the Tyson Poultry Empire, who've already referenced a few times here. talked about his friend again during this time. I know a lot of intense people. But nobody there is nobody as intense as Jerry Jones.

50:08 Jerry is a little crazy. He can change moods without blinking. He's got two personalities. He's got the P T Barnum, the Rack and Turer, the storyteller. And then on the other side is the tough businessman from Arkansas.

50:20 He can immediately switch from very charming to a very tough man. Very few people know how to read him. His complexities as an individual can be disarming. He runs into any project.

50:33 Believing that he can beat any man at anything. goes back to the Charlie Munger never under uh underestimate the per the man that overestimates himself. This is somebody's done several interviews. Uh with Jerry describes him. Life is not about smelling the roses with Jerry. Life is hard work.

50:50 He just doesn't have any time for things like philosophy or poetry. You get the feeling that he will break your balls. If you cross him. You have to be on guard with him all at all times. And so when you actually analyze like what he actually did.

51:04 When he took over the team. It's just just a reminder. I th I think it's important. It's like most businesses are actually poorly run. Even businesses you would think like an NFL team in nineteen eighty nine. Yeah, this isn't like it was the sixties, this is like

51:15 It feels not nearly as big as it is today, but it was still like a you know, a big Business. A business that's sold for a hundred and forty million dollars. In nineteen eighty nine dollars. And yet it was just

51:26 Do one. Very shittily. There's no other way to put this. It's crazy. that that that somebody would run that business and allow it to lose, you know, nine million A year

51:37 Before he takes it over. So What does he do? He just asked himself like Well, he goes around and he's like, What is the potential for generating revenue? And Jones just has a very simple way of operating. He's like What did the previous owner do wrong?

51:50 And why do they lose so much money? And then you ask yourself like what's the highest impact thing I can do if I need to generate money? I do I just bought this Business. I emptied my bank account. I'm you know, sixty million in debt just on uh the high interest rates.

52:02 This thing has to make money right away. What are you gonna do? And the idea was it's like, Well, you have all these luxury suites. The luxury suites sell between four hundred thousand and one point five million apiece. Okay.

52:13 And he also re read the rule book for the NFL League. And he realized that selling a suite off all also offers an additional bonus. uh according to the NFL rules. uh revenues from the boxes are not shared with other NFO owners the way ticket revenues Or.

52:28 So he's like okay. How what did the previous owner do? They had a hundred and eighty eight luxury suites. You know how many The previous owner is sold. Six.

52:38 Six. So he spends all his time, he's just like I'll just make up the huge difference here if I just able to sell the sweets. Okay. So now Within a few years, so he buys a team in nineteen eighty nine, the book is written in nineteen ninety five.

52:49 Six years later. Uh the suites are all ninety five to ninety eight percent occupied. Profits from those suites alone. over the last few years since Jones has bought the team. fifty million dollars just from that one product.

53:02 Then he looks and he's like hey We have one of the best locations. In the entire building. Is on the fifty yard line. It's the press box. Why the hell?

53:10 Are we giving them? The we give these seats away for free to writers for the local Dallas and Fort Worth newspapers. And so he's like, What's the difference? They could just move him over there to like the five yard line or something like that. They can still see the game, they can still write about it. And so then he moves.

53:24 Again, this is just very common sense. Most businesses are poorly run. If you just sit there and think about it, and obviously it helps that he's obsessed. It's like Uh yeah, I'm not gonna give you the best seat in the house for free. You know how much the valuable the seats are? You're gonna be moved over to the five yard line. And I'm gonna sell. the press box that we just that's on the fifty yard line. The literally the best seat in the house.

53:42 Then he identifies more opportunity hiding in plain sight. There was no ads inside Texas Stadium, it's time. She's like, Okay. Uh he did something that had never been done before. This is what I mean about really low hanging fruit, like opportunity hiding in plain sight.

53:55 He's like, We're gonna put ads inside the stadium. So when you're watching the game, you also see the ads. And he asked himself, like, who's likely to buy that? Well Probably beer companies. Uh car companies, local car dealers, local banks.

54:06 Local supermarket chain sells a ton of ads. At the time. They're they were not allowed. to sell beer and alcohol. He's like, Well that's a problem. I need to people like to drink beer. uh while they're watching football. So he goes and Irving County City Council, where the the C team is.

54:21 They're the ones that have to grant a stadium license to sell beer and wine. So he realizes okay. high leverage use of my time and activity, I'm going to convince The city council members. to give me the ability to sell beer and wine, which he went to making

54:35 I forgot like one point five million dollars per game, two million dollars per game in alcohol sales and profit. Just by doing this. So he wines and dines them. Give some free seats and luxury suites. Brings him into a locker room after games.

54:47 And very shortly after it says Jones Jones won his vote at the next city council meeting. Millions and millions of dollars were now rolling in from previously untapped resources. He's maximizing his revenue sources at the exact same time. He develops a reputation as a ruthless. Cost cutter. Any positions that are not generating revenue, he winds up cutting. He began hiring sales and promotions people while weeding out non revenue producing jobs.

55:11 You won't find many people around here, with the exceptions of scout coaches and secretaries who are not making money for Jerry Jones. He wanted no fat. He wanted this lean cash flow machine. If you go back I told you this before, but one of my favorite all time biographies I've ever read is like the early days of uh Microsoft. It's called uh hard drive, Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, if I remember correctly. One of the things that jumped out and I've never forgotten since I read that book for the first time a few years ago. was the fact that the first Bill Gates ran Microsoft like this in the early days, the first thirty employees of Microsoft.

55:40 It was twenty eight programmers, Bill Gates and a secretary. And Bill was doing all the sales. And something that jumps out as you read the book is like a lot of the ideas that Jerry Jones applied to to this business just like It's the difference between like do you give a damn what you're doing or not? And if you give a damn, you're just gonna pay attention. You're gonna pay attention to these little obvious mistakes that previous management or maybe other competitors were doing. It's like I don't I can just do a better way and I have trust in my own judgment that I'm able to do that.

56:05 Another thing that he doesn't shy away from is the fact that he is ruthless. He The good thing about being entrepreneurs, like building your business. Like you get to literally like make your own world within the world. And if you know yourself, which I think Jerry Jones definitely knows himself. Is he just understands like he wants to be number one. He wants to be in charge. And so there's a lot of people if you're gonna have long term partnership with Jerry

56:26 They say, whether it's in oil and gas, whether it's in football. you have to be comfortable being a number two. And If you're not and you kinda cross that line. Jerry can be ruthless. Him and Jimmy Jones were Or Jim Johnson, rather.

56:37 were college roommates, they were friends for a long time. He fires. Because Jimmy Johnson had a hard time Sharing the spotlight with Jerry Jones, you know, Jerry's the owner, he's the one that calls the shots.

56:48 He went to firing his friend. And his coach. After Jimmy Johnson won the second Super Bowl and he winds up hiring another one of his friends.

56:58 who lasts a little bit longer, but he was more comfortable playing Like a number two role. Now I in all these f the there's a bunch of uh things in the book where They're describing the people in Jerry Jones' life and they give like a little small biographies of them. I've skipped over most of them'cause I want to focus on Jerry Jones. This just shocked me so much I had to share with you and it's just a reminder that

57:18 One of the benefits of reading biography is like the ability to step outside yourself. And realizing we all have shit to deal with, we all have problems to deal with. But it helps to also be thankful to never have to deal with someone there's always somebody has It worse than you do. So I'm reading about Barry Switzer.

57:34 And his parents. And what he had to live through were not. His dad was A bootlegger. Sold.

57:42 you know, drugs and alcohol. He was the gambler, he loved to chase women. He would like go around with a gun, like a thirty eight revolver and just like shoot it in the air and like shoot it in the house. And Listen to how Barry Switzer's parents died.

57:56 So Barry Switzer's parents, Frank Switzer, suffered a violent death. He was shot by a jealous girlfriend. Who feeling immediately remorseful for shooting him. helped him into the backseat of her car and drove off in a rush.

58:10 Towards the hospital. She was speeding down a gravel road. She drove Uh the car she lost control. drove the car into a bridge and the car exploded.

58:20 And both died in the fire a few years later. Mom, who was also a drug addict. She was addicted to alcohol and prescription medication. She had a very strained relationship with her son. She goes and tries to they're having a fight. She goes and tries to kiss her son on the cheek.

58:37 But he turns away. She then leaves, goes to the closet, Finds a pistol. walks out to the back porch and shoots herself in the head. And so Jerry Jones long term partners, the people who work with him for a long time, talk about like if you want to work with them, it's very easy to interface with them.

58:53 says, what does it take to get along with Jones? This is one of his partners. First of all, you must have a desire to succeed. And you must also have a willingness not to be number one. And then the book ends describing the impact that Jerry Jones had on that organization. The Cowboys Financial Ledger portrays one of the greatest turnaround stories in all of sports. The team lost nine million dollars in nineteen eighty eight, the year before Jones bought the team.

59:16 The cowboys. Have average more than thirty million in profits per year. Over the last three years. And then I read they're doing over a billion dollars in revenue a year. Now.

59:28 And that is where I'll leave it for the full story recommend Reading the book, this book is full of wild stories. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player or available at founderspodcast.com. You'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is three hundred and seventy nine books down. One thousand ago.

59:44 And I'll talk to you again soon.

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