Steven Spielberg

0:00 I just re listened to this entire episode and it's remarkable. Not only like the the filmmaking genius. that Spielberg is, but the way that he built a business and the way he thought about building the business. around his life's work. And the reason I went back and re-listened to this and the reason I originally did this episode almost three years ago, the reason I'm republishing it now.

0:19 In case you miss it the first time or even if you listen to the first time, I'd highly encourage you to re listen to it. You'd be surprised how much you're gonna forget. But because I was working on the Tarantino episode last week and he kept talking about multiple times in in Tarantino's book. He's talking about the fact that he thought that Spielberg's a natural born filmmaker genius. that he's made some of the gr greatest movies that

0:39 In in film history. Tarantino would talk about Spielberg's gift of taking an idea they had in his mind. And then making it real. And the other reason that I wanted to go back and study Spielberg is because in this episode I talk about one of my favorite biographies of all time, which I covered, you know, seven years ago on episode thirty five. And it was George Lucas A Life by Brian Jane Jones. I have spent the whole week. I'm still in the process of this of rereading and really d diving deep into George Lucas's

1:05 Life and work again. And so while I'm working on that, I think Spielberg is the perfect bridge from Tarantino to Lucas. Because if you study Spielberg, Lucas is gonna play a role in his life. And if you study Lucas, Spielberg plays a role in his life. And what is fascinating is when you study all three, they have w an idea that they have in common, right? And it's the fact that it talks about in this this episode, it's talked about in the Tarantino episode and we talked about the Lucas episode. Fieldberg in particular. He would watch and re watch movies he loved, and then decades later, entire scenes. from those movies would appear in Spielberg's own movies. That's just exact same thing.

1:36 as Edwin Land's ideas showing up in Steve Jobs companies and products. It's the same thing as Sam Walton's Ideas. showing up in Jeff Bezos' companies and products. And a main theme that reappears for anybody gets to the top of their profession, anybody becomes great at what they do is they are seeped in the industry, the history of their industry.

1:53 They talk about over and over again. They don't just read a book one time. They don't just watch a movie one time. They don't just have one conversation. They do it over and over and over again. That is why if you have not done so already, I'm going to highly recommend that you subscribe to Founders Notes. That's foundersnotes.com. You go to foundersnotes.com. That's founders with an S. For six years I have been cataloging all my notes. My highlights

2:16 transcripts for every single episode, notes and highlights in every single book that I've done for the podcast. And now by signing up for subscription to founders notes, you get access to all my notes and highlights. You can search by keyword, by person, by subject. It's just giant database on the collective. Knowledge of history's grace entrepreneurs. You can also read all my highlights and notes by book.

2:36 You can have all my notes and highlights presented to you in random order on the highlights feed feature. I've been searching by keyword, I've been re reading by highlights, and I've been re reading In random order on the highlights feed for years. I literally could not make the podcast. without this tool. Now I've added a new feature that I'm super excited about. I can't stop talking about. It's actually called Sage. It is

2:57 Founders Notes AI. And the name actually came from a Founders Notes subscriber because He hard he had he heard all these names that I was trying to figure out what the name of this feature is like, No, that doesn't describe what this feature actually does. He's like you should call it Sage because Sage is a profoundly wise person. That is often looked to for guidance and advice.

3:15 And so it sage does it's like search on steroids. you can ask it a question. It'll search every single note, every single highlight, every single transcript, and it'll start making connections. It's been making connections that I've even missed. And so as I was re-listening to this episode, I went to Founders Notes. And I asked it, I was like, What are the mo I asked Sage, what are the most important ideas to learn from Steven Spielberg? And then it gives an outline of the top nine, what it feels the the top nine ideas are most important to learn from Steven Spielberg. And the interesting part is if you press on expand.

3:42 It actually tells you what it searched. to come up with the answer. And it obviously it's gonna search. You know, the episode he did on Steven Spielberg. But then it it stretched.

3:52 When I mentioned Spielberg in a Steve Jobs episode, when I mentioned Spielberg in a Christopher Nolan and James Cameron episode. When I mentioned Spielberg And Uh an episode on the creation of Pixar. And so I really believe a subscription to founders' notes is the perfect companion if you're going to invest

4:08 you know, tens, dozens of hours, hundreds of hours of listening to founders podcasts. It is the tool that will help you condense and clarify the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders. So then you can use their ideas in your work. Highly recommend getting a subscription, going to foundersnotes.com. That's founders with an S, foundersnotes.com. I appreciate the support and I hope you enjoy this episode on Steven Spielberg. One of his boyhood friends recalls Spielberg saying He could envision himself going to the Academy Awards

4:36 And accepting an Oscar. and thinking the Academy. He was twelve. I've been really serious about filmmaking as a career since I was twelve years old, Spielberg said. I don't excuse those early years as a hobby.

4:49 Do you know what I'm saying? I really did start then. That was an excerpt from the book that we talked about today, which is Steven Spielberg A Biography. And it was written by Joseph McBride. And that is one of the reasons I wanted to read uh Biography of Spielberg.

5:04 Because I think it's so there's a few reasons, but one of them is the fact that From twelve from the year from the age of twelve to seventy four, which is how old he is today. He's had the same goal. Um he has been making movies for sixty two years. It's very rare for somebody to do something for that long, for sixty two years. So I think that's somebody that we should uh obviously be studying and learning from.

5:25 Another reason Uh that that he came to my attention is because He appears in one of my favorite books that I've ever read for the podcast. That's uh back on Founders Number Thirty Five, and that's the biography of George Lucas. It's called George Lucas A Life. And George and Steven met.

5:40 when they were in their early twenties and they became best friends and collaborators throughout their entire career. And I actually just re-listened to that episode. And then I re read. I want to make sure I'm rereading my highlights from that book, from that George Lucas book every year, because I think what he did, his approach to filmmaking that made him a multi billionaire. Um there's a lot of ideas that he used. He just l uh in his work that we can use in ours. Where he just approached the industry, he's like, Well, why is he just kept asking why? Like, why are movies made this way? Why are they financed this way? Why are they owned this way? Why are they distributed this way?

6:09 And he com constantly questioned every aspect and realized, hey, I could come up with a better way to do things. And my favorite sentence in the entire book. And that's another gigantic book. It's like five hundred pages. It's George Lucas unapologetic unapologetically invested in what he believed in most. Himself. And we'll see today that Steven Spielberg did the exact same thing. So

6:29 For today's podcast, it took a really, really long time. This is a gigantic book. It's almost five hundred pages. The author interview three hundred and tw over three hundred and twenty five people. The new Steven Spielberg. It goes into amazing detail of all the movies he made. Up until the end of the book.

6:43 Uh the book ends. He had just finished Schindler's List and Jurassic Park. He's just over fifty years old. And in addition to reading the book, I also watched and took notes on this documentary that's on HBO Max right now, which is a bio uh serves as another biography of Steven Spielberg. As well, it's two and a half hours long. So between the book um and watching the documentary and taking notes, it took me about thirty hours of prep work before I'm sitting down to talk to you about it. So I'm gonna be working off my notes from the book and

7:10 the notes from the documentary as well. Before I jump into the book, I wanna t tie something that's remarkable that Maybe you knew this. It it blew my mind when I found found this out because I'll tell you how Steven Spielberg reminds me of Coco Chanel. So a few weeks ago, a few months ago, I read uh the second biography of Coco Chanel that I've read. And she became she she started off as an orphan and then wind up before she died, she was the richest woman in the world. And part of the re way she she got that way.

7:34 was because she signed one of the most lucrative deals in history. Um, she previously made a mistake when she f started her perfume company, she wound up giving away ninety percent of it. Didn't realise that. Chanel number five was gonna be one of the most successfully commercial commercial products ever made. And so like twenty, maybe fifteen, twenty years later

7:51 She winds up redoing the deal. And she gets two percent. of all sales globally. Uh for Chanel number five. That made her the in today's dollars, so that means she made three hundred million dollars a year.

8:04 And she had a clause in that deal. Where the company had to pay for every single one of her living expenses. So Spielberg has a very similar deal. I just found out'cause I'm gonna be reading a biography of Michael Jordan soon as well, that he has a deal like this. He gets Michael Jordan gets five percent. of all sales for m from his Jordan

8:21 Uh shoe brand. And the uh he uh he's estimated to make about a hundred and fifty million dollars a year in present day. Um,'cause they're doing around three billion dollars a year in sales. So Spielberg winds up and this deal's done after the book ends. But he wind up signing a deal.

8:37 Where he gets two percent. Of all the ticket revenue. At Universal Studios, the theme parks. And so that's rumored to pay him out. Again, this is just from this one deal. It's rumor to pay'em about fifty to seventy five million dollars a a year.

8:52 Um, they keep trying Universal keeps trying to buy'em out. They say, Hey, we'll give you a couple of billion just to buy you out of this contract and he keeps saying no And one of the reasons I think that he keeps saying no is because in that contract, it's not only the universal theme park that's in Orlando. But it's any future theme park that they built. And I think they're making a new one in China and somewhere else. I can't remember the other uh destination or the the other place rather.

9:15 But he's gonna get two percent of all ticket sales on that. And the last time I looked It was something like ten. Ten to twelve million people a year. Buy tickets. to just their universal team park in Orlando.

9:26 And for some reason when I was reading about that, uh an idea or quote from the founder of Shopify, Toby Luquet, popped into my mind. And he says you have to remember that the world is nonlinear. Spielberg, you know, had this passion for movies that started when he was twelve years old. He had no idea what opportunities him pursuing that passion over multiple decades. could unlock in the future. certainly couldn't have predicted that hey, I can get two percent of all

9:47 uh two percent of all tickets at Universal s uh Universal Studios. uh, you know, multiple decades in the future. So let's go to right when he's sixteen years old. He had just made this movie. Uh it's called Firelight. Um, he winds up remaking this movie when he becomes a professional filmmaker.

10:02 Uh that's the movie, um it's a r the remake of this movie is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But we see his personality at sixteen years old and a lot of this sticks with him for his whole life. Steve's Steve and he he was go he went by Steve Spielberg at this point. in his career. Um, Steve Spielberg had been shooting film obsessively for more than seven years. With a mono

10:22 Maniacal dedication. That made him virtually oblivious to school work, dating, sports. and other normal adolescent pursuits. So this idea of monomaniacal dedication is something that's gonna appear over and over again in the book. It appears over and over again in the

10:38 the documentary as well, he repeats it over and over again. He's like, I had one focus. I was obsessed with movies. I knew right away. that this is what I was gonna do for the rest of my life. And so he says I I know they're quoting him when he was uh He's reflecting back on this time.

10:51 I was being a young uh young man, a young filmmaker, I was more or less a boy with a passion for a hobby that grew out of control and somewhat and that grew out of control. And somewhat consume me. I discovered something I could do. And people would be interested in it and me. I knew that after my third or fourth little film

11:09 That this was going to be a career. Not just a hobby. And that's another thing that just makes Spielberg extremely interesting. Like how many people realize from such a young age Two people come to mind that that were similar to Spielberg, where it's like, Okay, I knew by the time I was a teenager what I was gonna do for my life.

11:23 Ingvar Camproad. Which is the founder of Ikea I Covered him back on I think on founders number one oh two. Like fourteen years old, worked on it till he died when he was in his eighties.

11:32 Um, and then Kobe Bryant knew from the time he was a teenager, he's like, Okay, I wanna be the w uh my goal is to be the greatest basketball player of all time. So I think it's rare for anybody to find what they really want to do in life, but even more rare that you know from such a young age. It's just remarkable. Tell us a little bit about The family life.

11:49 He he was really uncontrollable. Um he was a born director and we're gonna see this. So his mom is talking, she said, Our house was run like a studio. We really worked hard for him. Your life was not worth a dime if you didn't. Because he nagged you like crazy.

12:02 Steven had this way of directing everything. Remember, he's sixteen years old this time. Not just his movies, his life. He directed our household. He was a terrible student in school. But I never thought

12:13 What was going to become of him? His mama was so tolerant of her son's lack of interest in school. That she often let him stay home. feigning illness so he could edit his movies. So there's a lot about like the the uncertainty of his his fa early family life that pops up in his movies.

12:29 talked about it at length in the documentary. It's covered over and over again in the book as well. His mom, he didn't really consider mom his m a mom. She was more like a friend. She they basically had no rules. She wasn't interested in growing up. His parents wind up getting divorced and I'll get into the bizarre, just crazy story what his mom does. Um but then

12:47 You have so on one end you have his his mom who's kinda like a friend, right? And then his dad is this really gifted engineer. That is highly recruited. by the major technology companies of his day. So they move around

13:00 You know, from the east coast to Phoenix to then he went up in Silicon Valley. And his dad was a workaholic, so Steve Steven uh winds up emulating his dad, but In Steven's movies, a lot of them has to do with like an absentee dad. Um, so they wind up reconciling later on in life.

13:16 Um but Steven had a really hard time with that and Steven's dad also took a bad approach. In my opinion, a bad approach. We kinda try to direct what his son was gonna do with his life. force him into hey, study math and study engineering, be an engineer like me. And Steven didn't he just wasn't interested in that. He wasn't interested in school. He knew okay, I'm gonna be a director.

13:34 Not only not just I'm gonna work in the film industry. I'm going to be a director. So he starts talking to his dad. About wanting to be a director and his dad's Tries to Uh what's the way to put this? He he tries to

13:47 Make him think smaller. So this you'll see what I mean right here. She says Um, he said, I wanna be a director and I said, Well if you wanna be a director, you gotta start at the bottom. You gotta be a gopher and work your way up. And he said, No, Dad.

14:01 The first picture I do. I'm going to be a director. And he was. That blew my mind. That takes gut.

14:11 And here's another quote from a young Steven Spielberg. Making movies grows on you. You can't shake it. I like directing movies above all. All I know for sure is Is I've gone too far. to back out now. And so this idea there's no turning back. This obviously conflicts with a lot of conventional life advice, but I uh that it appears over and over again in these biographies.

14:31 People are just like I have no plan B, that I'm all in on this idea. This is something he talks about in the book. Uh quote from the documentary. says it there too, and now you know The book ends. This book ends, he's just over fifty years old.

14:43 The documentary takes place he's in his early seventies and he says, I realize there was no going back. This was going to be what I was going to do. Or I was going to die trying. This was going to be the rest of my life.

14:57 So a few pages later there's two sentences, uh, each on separate pages that I think are very interesting. Very quick lessons here. And one is that it's uh it's obvious like Spielberg was one capable of independent thought, and part of that came out of the fact that he just felt like a misfit. He felt different than everybody else. He felt he wasn't understood. He was not interested in in the other things that were expected of a uh uh a kid

15:19 A young person his age. And he says I never felt comfortable with myself. Because I was never part of the majority. I felt like an alien. Then he talks about his approach to filmmaking which

15:29 is very common for uh I think how you make a good product. The fact that you put your place in You put yourself in the place of the customer. Like you make what you want to see. And so he says Spielberg wants to find his approach to filmmaking by declaring. I am the audience. Uh recently it's the ten year anniversary of Steve Jobs' death and I was re reading

15:50 Uh d some notes from this book about how they created the iPod. And Steve Jobs and and the his team at Apple. said they knew that the iPod was going to be a success because they loved using it. And Spielberg has a similar approach. He's like, I make movies that I want to see.

16:06 A trait that we see in his earlier life that he keeps up for his entire l the rest of his career. Uh the book ends. with Jurassic Park, with them discovering oh my God, like they he he winds up trying to hire He didn't know that CGI had advanced so much, right? That they could actually have th the the Velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus Rex look like they did in that movie.

16:25 And so originally they were trying to physically make like these costumes they were gonna have Whether they were machines or they had people dressed up as them, trying to run and trying to emulate Well wind up being reproduces it by the computer in the movie. Um but

16:39 From the very beginning, he was obsessed with with finding the latest cutting edge technology that he could apply to his craft. This is something that's very important. And really the way you think about technology is not just computers. It's technology is just a better way to do something, right? And you should invest in it because the savings compound. The money he saved instead of having thirty or fifty different people running around.

17:01 I think about all the people that had to make the actual the steel, the plastic, the materials that the dinosaurs had to be made out of. Could all be replaced. By software. And Jurassic Park wants it being one of the most profitable movies. I think he made like two hundred and fifty million dollars. He's probably made more since then.

17:18 You know, in the twenty years since then. uh just off that movie. It's just remarkable. And part of that was investing in technology. Vest in Technology, Savings Compound, Steven's fascination with all kinds of cutting edge technology and his mastery of the tools of filmmaking. have been evident from the earliest days of his professional career.

17:35 And there's an actual scene where I'm getting ahead of myself, but there's a scene in that documentary. Where Steven goes up to Industrial Light and Magic, which is Luca George Lucas's special effects company. And they created the CGI for the dr uh for I think it was the Transorce Wreck's running, if I remember the scene correctly. And they just could not believe what they were seeing on the computer screen. They compared that moment.

17:57 Right. Uh that was taking place at uh Industrial Light Magic. To when sound was first introduced. To movies. Um that the fact that they said it opened up a whole new way.

18:07 If you could imagine it, you could do it. You weren't limited to plastic or steel. Another thing from his early childhood and then I want to get into how he breaks into the industry'cause there's real there's a lot of interesting lessons in there. One of my favorite quotes. Um that I've read in all the books that I've covered for this podcast comes from Yvonne Chinard and his book Let My People Go Surfing.

18:27 And he says one of his favorite sayings about entrepreneurship is if you want to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent. The delinquent is saying with his actions, This sucks. I'm going to do my own thing. And Ivan's like that's how I approached my work. Steven was very much the same way, but he was like a bad little devil. Since he was a little kid.

18:45 And this is his aunt talking about dice. Like we have a word for for him in Yiddish. We call him Amazing. It's said lovingly, you know. But it means a mischievous little devil.

18:56 And he was that. Okay, so this is a little bit at the very beginning. How did you know the y the youngest director ever signed? Um, he's very much like a prodigy, like a wonder kid. So main theme in Spielberg's work. Singular focus.

19:10 Which I'll repeat over and over again today. And in enthusiasm attracts mentors and it is extremely important, especially when he was at twenty one Twenty year old kid, twenty one year old kid, twenty two year old kid. Even w in his early thirties, he's constantly

19:23 When he's already successful. Constantly seeking out older, wiser people. They can help. Um and one thing that they're attracted in return to him is because he's he gives a damn.

19:33 He clearly has soul in the game. Hіз entuзіasm We are w you and I talk about this on the podcast over and over again. Passion is infectious. We just respond to it. Um, and so you see the mentors

19:46 found his passion and his enthusiasm for film and like wow okay, I wanna help I wanna help this kid as much as I can. So it says he cares about one thing. Making films. Spielberg was a genuine You know what before I read the sentence to you, another note left myself on the page. You can change an existing industry.

20:02 Lucas and Spielberg did. And so this is a description, when they come in, you know, the golden age of Hollywood's over. And now In large part to Lucas, Spielberg. Uh

20:12 Francis for Coppola. Martin Scorcity, Brian De Palma, all of which are friends, which is one of the most amazing things about this book and about the documentary as well. 'Cause you have all these young filmmakers com they came in an existing industry, an already successful mature industry, and started questioning everything. You know, at the time we're about to reach you, it's like young people were just actors. You were not put in position to make movies to be in charge at all.

20:36 And through their talent, their enthusiasm, their hard work, they're like No we're gonna do it differently. You don't have a monopoly. on the medium of filmmaking. Which I find personally very, very inspiring.

20:46 February was a genuine novelty when he arrived in Hollywood. The movie industry at the time was still middle aged man's profession. The young people on the universal lot were actors. One of the first contacts he made in Hollywood was Charles Chuck Silvers. This guy is extremely important. older generation, he's the Universal Pictures film librarian.

21:06 And he became the earliest mentor. Uh, Steve's earliest mentor in the film industry. And so his relationship with Silvers 'Cause he starts as an intern there. develops a relationship with him, he Silvers helps him get signed to this other the other um

21:22 The other most important or I guess now he has more another m important mentor, this guy named Schinberg. Um I'll get there in a minute, but Before I get there, th the the what I'm gonna read to is also important. It's like it's yeah, you're passionate, yeah, you're enthusiastic. But you also have to have a piece of work that you can point to. You need a calling card.

21:40 You can't just say, Hey, I'm excited about making films. Okay, well have you made a film? And that's also advice, Steve. I was watching him on YouTube. advice he gives to young filmmakers, I want to make films. Like you can do this with your phone now. Like you have to make films. You need a piece of work. that you can point to as a to acts at a calling card.

21:57 And so Spielberg goes out and he makes a short film. It's called Amblin. Which is also the name later on becomes the name of his company. But says Spielberg did manage to direct an independent short film called Amblin in the summer of nineteen sixty eight, several months after his twenty first birthday. Amblin was what brought Spielberg to the attention Of Sid

22:15 Sheenberg. Uh, then vice president of production for Universal TV. who offered Spielberg a directing contract. So these two mentors lay the foundation for his career.

22:27 his relationship with Universal, think about how crazy it is. He's gonna start out as an intern and eventually get two percent of all their ticket revenue later on, many decades later. Uh, so that's Chuck Silvers and Sid Sheenberg, the important uh characters. Uh, Spielberg twenty one is believed to be the youngest filmmaker ever uh ever contracted by a major studio. So I go back to what his parents say about him as a young person too,'cause this is important'cause one of the

22:52 The main takeaways I took from from his life story is the fact that If you don't like your life, you don't like your own the world that you're living in, like you can create your own. Um, and he definitely had a very unhappy like time growing up.

23:05 the dissolution of his parents' marriage, they're fighting all the time. But also like they lived they kept moving around. They they went from like an you know a Jewish community To living d to being the only Jewish people around so there's a lot of anti Semitism we had to deal with. But it says when he was growing up, I didn't know he was a genius, his own mother later admitted. Frankly, I didn't know what the hell he was. You see, Steven wasn't exactly cuddly. He was scary.

23:26 When Steven woke from a nap, I shook. My mother used to say the world is gonna hear of this boy. She continues, no one ever said no to him. He always gets what he wants. Asked how she influenced her son's development, she replied, I gave him freedom. Stephen inquired what he called his father's workaholic personality. He was like this even in in um

23:46 In high school. Uh and he'd definitely like that for I mean it's funny'cause later in the book it's like, Yeah, I had his first son's born. I think he's around forty years old. So he's like, you know, I'm gonna just not work weekends, I'm gonna be home. he does that for a very short amount of time, but he's definitely uh

24:01 Up an obsessive. Steve inquired what he called his father's workaholic personality along with such trait as his love of storytelling and his fascination with high technology. That his father introduced him to. Stephen's tendency to withdraw into his own world was Is also a legacy from his father.

24:16 Uh, like Stephen, his father was an introverted person. Then talks about more of his mom's influence on Steven just realizing, hey, I don't really want to be an adult. I wanna create these I wanna live like this fantasy world. Uh, the rule of home was just don't be an adult. Who needs to be anything but ten. We never grew up at home because she never grew up. Stephen commented.

24:34 And so one of his favorite stories when he was younger was Peter Pan. And so something he took away from that story, he says he was mightily impressed by Peter's defiant declaration. I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things. No one is gonna catch me, lady. I always wanted to be a little boy and have fun, Spielberg admitted.

24:50 I've always felt like Peter Pan. I still I still feel like Peter Pan. It has been h very hard for me to grow up. And that theme continue continues throughout the book. There's a quote in here that's describing Citizen Kane, the movie Citiz that comes from Uh the the main character of Citizens Kane, which is Charles Foster Kane, which is uh which is actually

25:09 built upon the real life of William Randolph Hearst. And I think This quote from William Randolph Hearst It also applies to Steven Spielberg, which he says the same thing later on. And the quote about William Randolph Hearst is he was disappointed in the world. So he built one of his own.

25:24 It's a way to think about Steven's approach to his work and his career. And so Steven said, I never felt life was good enough, so I had to embellish it. That was also something that caught me. So semi by surprises. How how much Steven lies?

25:40 uh constantly just making up stories. He would lie about his age over and over again, constantly wanted to make it seem like he was younger. uh than he actually was, so it's more impressive if, you know, he starts directing Uh T V when he's twenty or twenty one when he's actually maybe twenty two or twenty three. There's just a ton of stories about that.

25:58 Uh a ton of s stories he made up about like his origination story about how he Broken to Universal Studios. Commander in office. And then went to just went to work and nobody noticed for two years. That wind up being not true. Uh, but just this whole theme of like I'm just gonna you know, I don't like my life.

26:13 I'm gonna create it. even if I have to lie and bend the truth, it's definitely uh something that that appears in in the life story of Steven Spielberg. This is about also something like I was surprised at how many of things that happened to his childhood in his childhood.

26:28 that he re would reference in movies many, many decades into the future, over and over again. And so this is one of'em. I think this is actually the scene that is in his movie Catch Me If You Can. Which he made, I think, in two thousand two. And this is something that happened to him back in his sixties. And this is the fact that

26:46 s this is very traumatic for him, but Steve's mom marry's his dad's best friend. that the family considered like an uncle They didn't tell their kids His

27:00 Steven's dad, even though it's his mom fell in love with his best friend and Mary and left him and married him. Steven's dad told his kids that he was responsible for the divorce. And so for Twenty, thirty years he was largely alienated from his father based on another lie. This is bizarre. And they talk about in the book, which I'm going to have to read to now. And then his sisters are interviewed in the documentary. There's like

27:21 This was bananas. Like d w this was our uncle Bernie. And our mom runs off and marries our uncle Bernie. So says uh Bernie Adler was an engineer who followed Arnold out from New Jersey. And worked as his assistant at GE at the General Electric.

27:35 Burning was almost like a member of the Spielberg family. The kids called him Uncle Bernie. He was always there. He did everything with them. Uh C Spielberg's mom would enter into an enduring enduring marriage with Bernie Adler.

27:48 Uh, she said uh she found Bernie so funny, so bright, so moral that I fell madly in love with him. And so this was rather embarrassing for the kids because there even then it there's quotes from the neighbors in Phoenix are like we weren't actually sure who Who that the father was. And so there's a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio in in Catch Me If You Can is sitting down with his dad. Saying, hey, you know, let's call your mom. Let's call mom, whatever the case is. And the dad says, No, he he she ran off and married my best friend. That actually happened.

28:15 in Spielberg's life. And then in another plot twist, Bernie winds up dying many years later. And now Steven and his mom were Are Steven's dad and his mom who are like in their

28:27 eighties or nineties? They're extremely n they gotta be in their nineties. Or back together. Okay, so let's go I wanna move ahead a little bit.'Cause Steve Steven has this like encyclopedic knowledge. of the history of films. And he's constantly going back.

28:43 doing the same thing you and I are doing right now. We go back through the history of entrepreneurship. Find ideas that are useful and apply'em to our work. He did that in film. over and over again it's like oh I like that idea. In fact I will take that exact same shot. And so this was very similar to um

28:56 David Geffen when I write biography. For the podcast. Steven that's Steven's obviously future partner. He would he was obsessed with show business, he would just hang out hang out at the movies all day. Or in Steven's case it's the movies. I think in David Geffen's case it's Broadway shows. So you pay like a quarter and you could sit hang out there all day. So says Stephen's movie. Fanaticism was nurtured at the Kiva Theater on Main Street in Scottsdale, Arizona.

29:20 Parents would drop off their kids on Saturdays and leave them all day with fifty cents admission to a program That would include uh Westerns and Tarzan movies, sci fi and monster movies. Uh it was a great sat it was it was Saturdays were great, to be what I recalled. I was in the movies all day long every Saturday. I've seen absolute duplicates in Spielberg movies of scenes that we used to see back in the nineteen fifties at the Kiva Theater. You give an example of this, when Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark rides his horse down the hill and jumps onto the truck carrying the arc.

29:48 Spielberg got that shot from the nineteen thirty seven serial. Zoro rides again. Even the camera angle. uh one of Spielberg's heroes. And he he has a bunch of filmmakers that that he will look look up to and and idolize and In many cases emulate.

30:04 would be Alfred Hitchcock. So says Arnold uh his dad uh Arnold Spielberg took Steven to see Alfred Hitchcock's movie Psycho. Now what's crazy is This idea Does it even say in the book?

30:15 No. I think I okay. Let me read this to you and then he talks about this in the documentary. Stephen later told a neighbor how impressed he had been with Hitchcock's employment of the power of suggestion. Steve talked about the shower scene in Psycho.

30:27 How Hitchcock never showed any real violence. He showed you the knife. And this and that, but most of it was in the viewer's mind. So he uses that idea, the shower scene from Psycho. Steve uses that the the power of suggestion.

30:42 With Jaws in the movie Jaws. the shark runs up breaking down, right? They didn't didn't expect it to break down. So now you have the star of the movie can't even use. And he comes up with this idea, if you've seen the movie, of the barrels, those yellow barrels that are tied to the shark. And he uses the power of suggestion so showing the movement of the barrows, never at barrels, rather. Never actually showing the shark.

31:03 And that's an idea that he learned when he was a young person watching Alfred Hitchcock. This is another example of how important studying the the the filmmakers that came before him were for his career. Uh, so the movies that impressed Steven the most uh when he was a boy were two epics directed by David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Lawrence of Arabia.

31:22 Spielberg later called Lean the greatest influence I ever had. He emulated leans. sense of visual storytelling throughout his career. He says the scope and audacity of those films filled my dreams with unlimited possibilities. You know what's crazy? In the documentary says

31:37 He watches great films over and over and over again, right? Just like we should be reading books or any kind of experiences that we have. Like books is the the the most obvious example here is you know y you may read a book once and you read it five years later and just like oh the book changed. I was like, No, the book's the same, you change, right? He still sees Lawrence of Arabia every year.

31:58 He talks about that in the documentary. The movie came out in nineteen sixty two. Okay, so now he's college age. This is where he meets uh Th to go we're gonna go d we're going to go into more detail by where he meets a mentor, Chuck Silvers He gets a meeting and a tour with the Universal's head librarian.

32:15 And this was Silver's impression of Spielberg at that age, okay? He explained how he wrote, photographed, and directed his own pictures, casting them with neighborhood and school friends, devising the special effects. And even making the costumes. Steven was such a delight, he said.

32:30 That energy. Not only that impressed me, but with Stephen nothing was impossible. That attitude came through. It was so clear. He was so excited by everything. When we walked onto a dubbing stage.

32:42 How impressed he was. At some point in time it dawned on me. That I was talking to somebody who had a burning ambition. And not only that. He was going to accomplish his mission.

32:53 He was very young for his age in all other respects, but But when it came to motion pictures God damn. I knew he was gonna do something. I didn't know what the hell he was gonna do.

33:03 But he was gonna do something. You can't walk away from a kid like that. Just out of curiosity, you want to sit and watch. And so this is a a quote from he's a senior in high school. From the school newspaper.

33:17 This is right after he met met Silver's So he says Steve Swobber worked with Hollywood directors to summer Universal Pictures. He spent uh Spielberg spent the whole vacation working in his as an unpaid clerical assistant in the Universal Editorial Department. The job enables Spielberg to roam the lot watching films and television shows being shot. And to hang w out with film editors.

33:36 and other post production people. Learning the craft. of professional filmmaking. He would continue hanging out. On the lot all through his college years until with Silver's help,

33:46 He was hired as a director. This is more on the beginning, this this this beginning opportunity universal. And the noise myself is this is amazing. He starts out as an intern at Universal now gets two percent of all Universal tickets. Reminded me of uh remember that book, The Gambler? on Kirk Kerkorian.

34:04 Think it was like founders number sixty seven somewhere back there. But Kirk Accorin starts out as a day laborer. on the lot of MGM studios. I think he's like moving around heavy rocks for production, right? He's getting Two dollars and sixty cents a day.

34:17 Thirty years later he owns MGM and his r his the return on investment. Makes him two hundred and sixty. thousand dollars a day. From two dollars and sixty cents as a day labor a day. To owning.

34:31 MGM and making two hundred and sixty thousand dollars a day. A lot can happen in one lifetime, but the the reason I'm bringing this up to you. Is because something s Spielberg does something here that you know you and I have talked about over and over again. The importance of developing your own curriculum. We call this personal curriculum. I think a better um

34:49 term for it comes from uh Bill Gurley, that talk uh it's called How to Run Down a Dream. And he talks about what he learned by studying Danny Meyer. Uh.

35:01 Not Phil Knight. Bobby Knight. And uh Bob Dylan, I think is the the musician. But the fact that they would all the work that they're doing that's not work, so all the stuff that they're trying to learn that they apply to work, he called it professional research. And he goes into detail in that talk, how they all did that and and how it enhanced their work. It's a fascinating talk. But anyways.

35:19 Just his uh Spielberg began his apprenticeship at Hollywood. at universal in the summer of nineteen sixty four. Uh his mentor Chuck Sovers recalls that the ambitious teenager gradually worked out his own curriculum. They say it specifically here. He's working on his own curriculum on the lot.

35:34 Visiting sets. Talking with editors and sound mixers. He was kind of a guest. A self appointed observer. Who made his own arrangements with the people who responded to him. many chapters later it picks up this theme about th this theme.

35:48 about the importance of developing your own personal curriculum, your own professional research. So says Spielberg remained essentially an autodidac. Spielberg followed his own eccentric path to a professional directing career. Universal Studios in effect was Spielberg's film school. He couldn't get into film school. They reject every single film school rejected him. Uh the giving him an education that was both more personal and more conventional

36:08 Than he would have received in an academic environment. Spielberg devised what amounted to his own private tutorial program at Universal. Immersing himself in the aspects of filmmaking he found most crucial to his development. And so it's this point where he finds other like minds and and this is just Again, I repeat myself, but this just blew my mind.

36:26 Like the day Jaws comes out, Spielberg's driving around with Martin Scorsese. Like before Martin Scorsese was Martin Scorsese. The idea that you have George Lucas, Brian De Palma, Spiel Steven Spielberg, Mars Corsesi. Francis Four Coppola.

36:39 You have a group of crazy people. Who were all obsessed with movies. All struggling to make it at this point. Right. Now you fast forward fifty years and they're all hugely successful.

36:49 But not this point. And the whole group winds up becoming successful and dominates the movie business. All the t all the time though they're giving each other feedback. Try they're they're friendly, but they're trying to compete with each other. They go back and forth between producing like the most success financially successful movies

37:04 At a time, first it's Godfather. Then I think Spielberg passes him and then I think Lucas packet passes Spielberg. Uh it's just absolutely remarkable. Um and I've already read biographies on Sc uh Lucas. And Spielberg.

37:17 I I'm looking for b biographies on the rest of these people as well. But let me just tell you a little bit more about this time in history'cause I found this fascinating. And I I find it fascinating because again They're doing this to an already Like mature industry.

37:30 There's always room for more opportunity. It just starts with questioning why th things are done the way they are, right? Uh so they're called the movie brats, just this whole crew. And sometimes referred to as a USC mafia, and there's a bunch of us. Not just these five people, there's screenwriters, there's there's entertainment attorneys. They're all helping each other. It's very fascinating. At the time uh they came to Hollywood, generations of nepotism had made the studios terminally inbred. and unwelcoming to newcomers.

37:53 The studio system long under siege from television Falling box office receipts and skyrocketing costs. was in a state of impending collapse. So how fascinating is that from the outside it's like Why are you wasting your time? Making movies. What is wrong with you? Television is the future.

38:08 This look at this. They're making less money, you can't get in. Uh, you have to g go y people are going to film school and the professors are saying, Don't go to film school'cause you'll never get hired Uh, it's just very fascinating. That's when they're like, Okay, at the very bottom of the market, so to speak. They're like, Okay, well this is where the opportunity I can't go anywhere up from I can't go anywhere else from here but up, right? The future seemed daunting for the tur d for the determined young movie fanatics who came of age in the sixties and for whom film historians coined the phrase.

38:36 The movie brand. Spielberg vividly remembers how he and such other self starters That's how he's describing himself. Lucas and Scorsese had to chisel and dynamite. their way into a profession

38:50 that never really looked to young people except as There were no willing producers at that time. I was trying to break into the business. My first three Uh first thrusts.

39:01 were met with a great deal of animosity. But all these people, the movie brats, U S C mafia, this is a description of them, were unwilling To settle for such limited dreams. They ate, breathed, and slept movies with a passion earlier generations had brought to writing or painting. And so what they needed is they needed somebody like Francis Four Copel, who was the first young director to break through. And then once they saw, wait a minute, that guy can do it?

39:26 And he's great talented. They're not they're they weren't saying he wasn't talented, but it's like okay. He's not he's like a couple years older than me. I can do it too. It's extremely important. It took Copa to start breaking down the doors of Hollywood for other film school graduates in the late sixties. He became as Spielberg put it

39:42 All of our godfathers. And so now we fast forward uh to when Spielberg and Lucas start becoming friends. They wanted being pals, inspirers, collaborators, but they're pushing each other because of how talented they were. So Spielberg, you know, is like I'm a young hotshot. I'm good too.

40:00 Oh wait, there's another meat. Right, there's always another you. Like you gotta know that. And so Uh

40:06 What What Spielberg realizes is like he watches Lucas's film, he's like, Oh my god, I'm sick to my stomach at how good this guy is. So he says when he saw the short film, Spielberg was jealous to the very marrow of my bones. I was twenty years old and had directed fifteen short films by that time.

40:22 And this little movie was better than all of my little movies combined. So he says now I you know, before he analyzed people like Frank Cap or Walt Disney Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, all these people. But he's like now I can have a role model.

40:35 and a collaborator and somebody that inspires me, that's my own agent's doing the same stuff I'm trying to do. Uh, so it says now I instead of having those role models, rather it was someone nearer to my own age, someone I could actually get to know. compete with and draw inspiration from and that was remarkable. How? You know, they're v obviously very driven, uh

40:52 Big egos, but they w didn't have big egos with each other. Right. They're like listen, we're competing. But I'm also being inspired from you. And they they they were able to maintain like a friendship, right? And not they had the maturity to realise, hey It's we're gonna get a lot farther if we can help each other than if we just like, oh, I hate that guy because he's doing you know the same thing I'm doing. Well, this is not a zero sum game.

41:12 Like people can like your movies, George, and they can make they can might they can like my movies as well. The fact that they we're able to do that at such a young age. It's very, very Admirable. So here's another fantastic little story from the book, and hell yes, for Chuck Silver Silvers.

41:30 Is what I wrote here. If we ever have the opportunity to stick up for a young talented person, like we should do it. And this is an example of that because Steven's dad, who is now divorced and living in a uh Steven's living with his dad, but Basically gone all the time'cause he's obsessed with uh

41:48 With movies. Steven's dad realizes hey he's spending a lot of time Universal spending a lot of time with this this guy named Chuck. I'm gonna call this guy Chuck and tell him Hey, m my son needs to be focused on college. Steven didn't want to go to college, he winds up placating his his I think it mainly his dad.

42:03 Uh it goes like Long Beach College or Long Beach University, something like that, but he doesn't give a shit about that. Like he's spending all his time at universal ends up dropping out. And The reason I say hell yes for Chuck Silvers is because look at the conversation. that he has. He's like, your dad doesn't understand the opportunity.

42:21 And how gifted you are. And this is not an opportunity that waits around, right? For you to finish school. Shortly before Stephen started college, Arnold made a phone call to Chuck Silvers. Steven's mentor Universal, who described their conversation, the only substantial one he and Arnold ever had. As spirited.

42:37 He's going to Long Beach State. I'd appreciate it if you would do what you can to make sure that he goes to school. Silver said He couldn't do that. Look.

42:46 There's something you've got to understand about the motion picture business, he told Steven's father. For Steven to realize his ambitions, he's gonna need a hell of a big break. somebody's going to have to put a lot of faith and a lot of money up so the rest of us can see if Steven is who he appears to be. I'm his friend.

43:02 If it comes to a choice of Steven having the opportunity to direct something That he could use as a showcase. I will advise Steven to do it. School be damned. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place in this industry.

43:14 So you'd better be ready for it. They don't care. Whether you've got a degree or not. What they are interested in. Is what he can put up on the screen.

43:23 And so his dad's like, Well, okay, that's fine. I still want to go to school His re Silver's reaction is with talent like Steven Spielberg, you don't get you don't set that kind of goal. What the hell good is a degree? That wasn't Steven. And this is such an important part of this whole thing about this. Like I'm not trying to direct him what to do.

43:41 I'm trying to be there for him. So Silver says my guy my idea of encouragement was to be there. Basically, that's the only function I really served. Somehow I always became a listening board every time he got a story idea. Every time he shot some film.

43:56 Asked why he went so far out of his way to help Steven. Silver's replied simply. I liked him. I admired this lump of raw material. Just think about oh

44:08 Just pause and think about what is happening in the story. How important. There there is an alternate Future where Steven does not have the help of Chuck Silvers. Somebody that d that is a film historian, somebody that's been with Universal

44:22 Somebody can help guide him. Somebody that's a few decades older than him. And there we don't know the name of Steven Spielberg because that wasn't that opportunity didn't present itself. He didn't actually stand up for this person. He's like, Hey This guy is talented.

44:36 the work he's putting onto the world is important. I'm going to be there to encourage that. That is just so, so important if we're giving the opportunity to do that for people. And Steven winds up w playing that that same role in the future for young filmmakers. And young writers and young producers. It's so, so important. And it's another idea that he got from Chuck, which I'll talk to you about later.

44:57 But I just want to pull out this thing, th what his what his father's tell him to do, right? He's going to school, he's gonna drop out, but This is just a reflection of how disjointed school can be from real life. And this is something that Phil Knight Founder of Nike.

45:09 And Fred Smith. founder of FedEx dealt with too. They both wrote papers about exactly what they were going to do. The idea for Nike, the idea for FedEx, and I think they both got a C. S same thing happens to Spielberg. This is so silly. Nothing sums up the frustrations of Spielberg's academic experience at Long Beach State.

45:26 Better than his record in the TV productions course. He received a C. Moving on, reminder. Shoot your shot. Shoot your shot.

45:35 Goes up. This is a young kid. And he just goes up and he again, he's not like an arrogant kid. goes up with asking for help. And s and saying why he wants help. He often would walk up to stars and directors and producers on the studio streets and invited them to lunch.

45:51 Carrie Grant and Rock Hudson. were among those who accepted this is the same thing that a young Steve Jobs did. He called up Bill Hewlett, if I remember correctly. I think I think it was Bill, not David. Either one, the partners calls them up, ask for parts.

46:04 Says I'm a fourteen, twelve year old kid. Once we're getting a summer job. While later on when he's like eighteen, nineteen, he pull he calls up all the people. Bob Noyce, founder of Intel. The the guy that did uh microsystems, I can't remember his name. The guy that did AMD, can't remember his name at the moment, sorry. Um, all these people. He's just like, Listen, I didn't know how to build a company.

46:22 I greatly admired the people that that knew, so I called them up, I asked If I could if I could talk to If I can go have lunch, coffee with them. Yeah, some people are gonna ignore you. Some people are going to uh not be able to do it whatever the case is, but some people will say yes. Just shoot your shot.

46:38 Few pages later, look at this. This is repeated over and over again. It's so important. Professional research. P personal curriculum. We've got to develop that. Spielberg asked a million questions to the editors. It was a process of absolute technical application. He worked out his own curriculum. I am not making up these words. This is the author using the sentence th this statement.

46:59 That you and I have talked about over and over again. multiple times in in in this biography. He worked out his own curriculum. It was the real world. There's no school. You can really go to learn to be a filmmaker.

47:10 That's not what they teach. And then later on we have Silver's talking about this. It's like listen, I helped him, but the like My impact. I try to open as many doors as I could. Give him advice from an older, wiser perspective.

47:23 But you can't tea like who's gonna teach Da Vinci? Right, this is a very, very interesting Just a quick paragraph for you. I don't wanna cast myself in any way as his teacher. I wish to hell I had been.

47:33 How the hell Do you teach Maria Callus How to Sing. Who taught Da Vinci? You can expose people to things.

47:42 But they have to have it in themselves. As far as I'm concerned. He's the most gifted person. In motion pictures. And so

47:52 With the fact that Spielberg obviously was extremely s he calls himself a self starter. He had a piece of work which I have to repeat is very important. You have to have something you can point to. It's not just like oh I'm uh come you know, I'm just somebody you don't even know. You know, come help me. Like they see that this kid's out here hustling, he's out here working, he's actually doing this. He's really interested in this industry that I'm in, right? And he's got something to point to.

48:13 So Because he had like a calling card, he was able to get signed and then he's just so grateful because he feels Chuck Silver's is the one that like opened all the doors for him at Universal, she's like, Be my manager. And listen that Chuck is so wise here. And he just has one request. He's like, Listen, I'm just doing this because I want to help you.

48:31 But You have to pay this forward. After you are successful his one request to Chuck's one request of Steven Spielberg. Is the same thing.

48:40 It's why Ingvar Kamprad said over and over again, founder of IKEA. Why am I reading this book? People told me I didn't want to write a b autobiography. I resisted the idea, he says explicitly. The the the the argument that convinced me

48:52 From his co writer. was that you know stuff that'll help future entrepreneurs and you love entrepreneurs. And so that's why he wrote Uh the the IKES story.

49:02 Because I'm gonna now he's passed on. It's good thing he did because we wouldn't have had access to his ideas. Sam Walton, same thing. I'm writing this book because I wanted to help you. Phil Knight. The the there's some kind of instinct. You know, these people are older, they I think that in that case, in those three examples I just gave you I think they were all in their seventies by the time they they wrote it.

49:19 And in Sam Walton's case, he knows he's dying. He's super, super sick. He talks about in the book. He's got cancer everywhere, right? Um, but they it was very important for them. Bob Noyce, same thing in Intel. Like but they're like, What the hell, Bob? You're wealthy, you could be doing anything in the world. Why are you spending time?

49:33 having you know nineteen year old, twenty year old Steve Jobs at your house. Why are you going to give these talks? Why are you doing all these investments? He's like, I need to restock the stream I fished from. It's that natural human instinct to be like okay, I benefit greatly from this knowledge. From this industry. from this mentorship, I'm gonna go and turn it around and do it for the next generation too. It's amazing. So

49:55 So Spielberg then asked me if I'd be as a manager. Uh Silver said. I said, Steven, you need someone who knows a hell of a lot more than About the business and I do. I'm not the right person.

50:05 He asked me what I wanted for helping. I said, Well Steven, by the time you really make it big I'll probably be too goddamn old for you to do me any good. In effect what I told him was When you can

50:17 Pass it on. When you make it big You could be nice to young people. I learned from people I had no way of thinking. Oh excuse me. I learned

50:26 From people I had no way of thinking. You can pass that on. Steve made me a promise, and he kept it. You look at the fur at the list of first time directors. and new writers and first time producers he has made an opportunity for.

50:41 He puts his money And he puts his business personality on the line. Okay, so he's already signed as a director. Again, I've repeated the sermon over again. I'm gonna repeat it one more time because it's a note I left for myself on this page. There's two notes for myself. Number one, have a piece of work that you can point to, right? He set up a screaming of Amblin.

50:58 It was an incredible piece of work. This is how he gets signed by this guy named Sid Scheinberg, so think of this as As mentor number two in Steven's life. And they're still friends to this day, which again, like This is something I always look for, like if I w if like when you meet new people, it's like it's very important that they have

51:14 they've been able to develop relationships for a long time because like you can fool Like you can fake being a good person for, you know, a couple of months. Maybe a year. Maybe even a few years. But

51:25 You know, if somebody's known you for twenty years. Like you can't fake being a scumbag for that long, right? And Steven something that he talks about. I I actually I wasn't gonna talk about this now, but I might as well because it Something that that that I think is an idea that we can take from Spielberg. He talks about the the reason he's able to work so quickly now.

51:43 It's because he's work with the same People for decades. Right. His editors, his visual effects people, the people that like when he's on a new project, he winds up hiring a lot of the same people over again because he says like We just have a way, like all the knowledge we have working with each other

51:58 It compounds and that that compounding makes it easier for us to communicate and work faster. He's like, if I had to hire brand new people every few years to do a project, he's like, I couldn't do this. This is very similar if you I I did a three port series on Larry Ellison. He said the same thing. He's like the reason he's like the core programming team at Oracle for the first I forget it was, like ten years, whatever the time period it was, like it didn't change. It was like the same thirty people, whatever the number was, right? I I can't

52:22 These numbers might be wrong, but the the the the the main point I'm telling you is is definitely I remember correctly. But the idea is like you don't want all this turnover where you see these people jumping from project to project, working with constantly new people. Yeah, y you might want to do that May wanna get some fresh idea and new blood in there, but the idea is like Well, just like money compounds, time compounds, knowledge compounds too, and now you've been working together, you have a way of a fundamental understanding. That has taken years to develop.

52:45 And then if you keep switching like you you're interrupting the compounding. And so Steven applies that to not only the people he works with, but his professional relationships up and down. Like not only the people he hires, but the people that hired him. Very fascinating. So

52:59 He has this piece of work. Sid winds up hiring him, gives him a contract, he makes him do T V first. Stephen does not want to do TV. Right. So the second thing is you may not like your first opportunity, but you gotta do your level best. So the script was terrible, Spielberg said later, I really didn't want to do the show.

53:13 I told Sid, Jesus, can I do something else? He said. I'd take this opportunity if I were you. And of course I took it. I would have done anything.

53:23 And so he talks about the very beginning. Something also that might surprise you. To this day, from the from the first time he makes a movie till now. He's constantly Throwing up

53:33 Nervous. Uh every time I start a new seam I'm nervous. Talks about vomiting over and over again. He's a sixty five year old man when he's talking about this. Right? And the same thing he that was happening to him when he was younger.

53:46 Like we just don't and I'm glad he shares this because now says, Oh, this guy obviously knows everything. He's got I don't even know what four of the I don't know what the number is now, but it th I I I think when this book ends, he has four of the top ten gr highest grossing movies of all time. Like just Outside's remarkable success. This guy clearly knows what he's doing and yet you don't see before he the camera turns on, he's in the corner throwing. I was so frightened that even the whole period is a bit of a blank blank for me. I was walking on eggs. I didn't know if you

54:11 If everyone I don't know if you've never been to bit bed for four days in a row. It's like taking drugs. I don't take drugs. I never ha Or I would have used every drug under and over the counter at the time.

54:21 The show put me through dire straits. It was a good discipline. But a very bad experience. So you have he goes from the euphoria, right, of being signed youngest director ever. to the terror of not liking the work and being very bad at it, he has a breakdown He winds up having to take

54:38 A g really the high from being getting signed and then the fall of being despawned and he has to take a break. Not only had he failed to interest Universal and letting him bring to life all the stories I had in my head, but no one was even offering him T V episodes to direct. I was in a despondent comatose state. And I told Sid I wanted a leave of absence and I got it.

54:59 And there's one more sentence about this point in his life because I think it's extremely important to remember success is not a straight line. He didn't just go from night gallery. The show he didn't like, to Jaws. His career stalled at a number of occasions. Okay, so there's an idea that popped up in the book and in my notes multiple times for the documentary, and it's this idea that

55:19 He thinks visually. Um and really the way I think about this is like you gotta find the perfect medium or the perfect format for your skill set. And It there's another way to put it. Uh somebody else later on in the documentary. says that that Spielberg speaks cinema.

55:35 As his native language. And Spielberg in the documentary also gives advice. He's just like You got you you have this idea of what you want to do and it's only in your head. And he says, No one can help you holding the entire idea in your head. That that is your job. That's something that you have to figure out how to do. And I think that's his approach to

55:53 to movie making. So Let's go back to the book. He thinks visually. He's in the perfect format for his skill set. Um, and it says he seemed to be able to see more than other people saw. He didn't seem to waste any time. He didn't seem to get caught up in what directors often do. eating up camera time, eating up miles and miles of film. This is back before there's digital

56:13 Film there's literally Yeah. With a physical film. There was they they produced m m literally, that's true, miles of film on a movie. He seemed to cut on the floor. We knew that this boy knew about the camera.

56:27 And it's he combined this this the way he thought visually, which is perfect for obviously being a filmmaker. With the fact that it's just it try not to be a dick. Just Try to be you're gonna get farther if you can avoid that. And d a lot of people would interact with Steven be like, Okay

56:41 Like he's not He's got he says he has a nice manner. this gets you a long way. When a director has the attitude, I don't know everything about this. But would you like to try something, which is how Steven interacts with hi the the people his co workers. You're willing to knock yourself out for that director.

56:58 And so I think at this point in his career where he's really struggling, it was very helpful to have all these other filmmakers around him, these young filmmakers. Because He's suffering internally, but the th this is the note out of myself. Positive forward motion regardless of internal suffering, which is just a really smart idea. They're all not really getting what they like they they're Their talent and their drive is s is currently

57:20 not being like there's no evidence of actual accomplishments. Like they're not getting as far as I think. as they think they they could uh based on the talent they already have and the drive they have. So it says We were all ambitious and wanting to work and none of us were getting the kind of work that we wanted to do. Steven knew w Stephen knew he wanted to do features, meaning movies.

57:38 When Steven was very discouraged trying to sell a script and break in He always had a positive forward motion. Whatever he may have been suffering inside. So positive. Forward motion regardless of external circumstances.

57:53 So eventually he does get the opportunity to direct a movie. It's called Sugar Lan. It flops. And It's very dangerous. As much as like the the the film industry talks about oh yeah, it's an art and everything else. Yeah.

58:06 Yeah, you have a couple flops and you're out of the industry real quick, right? And so he was in a very precarious position. Because He was being pushed into do a shark movie. And he's like, What the hell? I don't want to do this shark movie. And the real the lesson here is that his biggest win Jaws is by far.

58:22 The most important thing to ever happen to the career. of Spielberg and he says it, right? His biggest win. Right after what he thought at the time.

58:32 It was his biggest failure. When he received the bad news about Sugarland in April nineteen seventy four, Spielberg did not have much time to sit around engaging in second guessing or nursing his wounds. He was on Uh the Massachusetts Island of Martha's Vineyard immersed in preparations to make another film. It was a modestly budgeted thriller.

58:50 Called called Jaws. So we're gonna get into Jaws. I wanna take a slight tangent first. I do have to tell you, I'll just tell you up front, Jaws is Was his sh people call Jaws his free pass into his future. Then that's completely due to his its financial success at the time it

59:08 It was released. It was the most profitable movie. ever made. And he's like, once I had that. I got final cut on every single project I ever did. Moving forward in my career, I got to choose which projects I do. I got to choose what they look like. It bought me my freedom. And again, finances buy you freedom.

59:23 Uh I wanna at before Jaws they're they're shopping this this idea of a of of a um of a science fiction film that it's going to eventually become uh close encounters of a third kind, which is also successful, but I wanna pull something out here'cause I think it's important. Something we talked about

59:38 on this the autobiography of Sid Meyer. Sid Meyer is the computer programmer, the game designer that made civilization. The main idea in that book was so important. is the fact that like you you discover that if you question that questioning conventional wisdom can be very profitable. Sid wanted to make a strategy game.

59:57 Everybody said nope, strategy games, you can't make any money doing that. He does it anyways, releases civilization, it sells fifty-one. million copies. Right. And so we see the exact same thing here. Lucas and Spielberg.

1:00:09 They're trying to shop this this this project. It says in two decades since Star Wars and the Close Encounters were released. Science fiction films Have accounted for haunted. of the top twenty box office hits. But before George Lucas and Spielberg revive the genre.

1:00:24 There was no real appetite at the studios for science fiction. The conventional wisdom was Science fiction films never make money. So questioning conventional wisdom can be profitable. Let's get to the making of Jaws,'cause it was a Just

1:00:40 Constantly in flux. They're rewriting the script the night before. Not sure if they'll have it done before the d the next day if they can actually shoot anything. It went over budget and over schedule. I think like three times. Like it was supposed to take like fifty seven days. I think it took like a hundred and fifty days, something like that.

1:00:56 But it says um and then they wind up the the shark winds up like the main character winds up disappearing. So it's just amazing. Like how resourceful he had to be. Uh, so he says, I hired a man named Carl Gottlieb, who was an old friend of mine, and he came with me to Martha's Vineyard, essentially polish the script as the actor sat with me every night. often only twenty four hours before the shot and improvise.

1:01:15 To facilitate their work on the script, Gottlieb and Spielberg shared a house on location. Wh and Gottley would continue to work on the revisions after Spielberg went to sleep. Each morning Gotley would give new pages to the company typist and by eight thirty in the morning. They would be approved and ready for filming. It was incredibly tense.

1:01:32 And so halfway through, Spielberg wants to quit. And this is just a reminder, your mind will play tricks on you. Lucas thought Star Wars was gonna flop. If you remember that. Spielberg says the same thing. It's like this I I'm I'm going to be out of the movie business. This movie's not going to do well. I had two failures in a row and I'm done.

1:01:49 Uh Sid had words with Spielberg over jaws. It was one of the few disagreements that Steven and I had. I literally forced him to do it. I think he was upset for a while. And he turned to me and said, Why are you making me do this B movie? He was scared. He felt overwhelmed. He wasn't sure he was the right guy for it. The picture was important to him, vitally important.

1:02:06 There were such huge professional stakes. Nothing was ready. It was at that stage completely out of control. And it was dur as it was during most of the shooting. Jaws ran into so many production problems that exasperated crew members began referring to the movie as Flaws. Spielberg later admitted, I thought it would be a turkey.

1:02:24 This is more about the terror part of Euphorion Terror, right? Imagine having to shoot a shark movie. Without the shark. He thought he was doomed. And this one's being his greatest achievement. It's just wild. For weeks after shooting starting started, Bruce simply refused to work. That's the name of the shark.

1:02:39 Uh that night Richard Dreyfus declared if any of us had any sense we'd all bail out now. Spielberg anxious anxiously shot around the star of the movie. Out of desperation he began shooting barrels instead of the shark. In the movie the barrels are affixed to a shark by the harpoon. And they cruise the ocean surface as a standard for the submerged creature. We were very scared. I didn't know when any whether any of us could do it.

1:02:59 We thought we're making a picture called Jaws and we don't have the fucking shark. Today with computers, you could just put the shark in. In those days it was a strictly mechanical thing. The pressure on the twenty seven year old director was enormous. I thought my career as a filmmaker. I heard rumors from back in Hollywood that I would never work again because no one would ever take a

1:03:18 H no one had ever taken a film a hundred days over schedule, let alone a director whose first picture had failed at the box office. There were moments of solitude sitting on the boat thinking this can't be done. It was stupid to begin with. We'll never finish it. No one is ever gonna see this picture and I'm never gonna work in this town again.

1:03:36 Think about the mind games that he had to deal with. We're making the movie. The movie's finished, the movie's released. This is what happens. Jaws surpassed Francis Ford Copel as the godfather to become the most successful film in motion picture history to that date. Jones held that distinction until november seventy seven.

1:03:51 when it was dethroned by George Lucas's Star Wars. Spielberg took out an ad. Uh in the Hollywood trade pr papers showing a little robot from Star Wars R R two D two catching Bruce the shark in his jaws with a fishing hook. Congratulating Lucas for capturing the box off box office title. Spielberg wrote Where It Well.

1:04:09 Your pal Steven. And again, just remarkable that all these guys were friends. So after Jaws, he has a h Jaws is a hit. uh close encounters of third kind is a hit. He's like Oh I can do anything. We're all high on his own supply. So he tries to do this comedy called Nineteen Forty One.

1:04:24 Um and w this really the point of the reason I bring this to your attention is'cause sometimes you learn more from failure. And nineteen forty one winds up. being a a failure. He has a reputation that, you know, yeah, Jaws is successful, close to the counters a third time is successful. But he's always over budget. He's always like he's not disciplined.

1:04:41 And so he learns from George Lucas that you have to watch your costs. You have to be disciplined about this. And so again. To where Lucas plays a huge influence in his life. But first it says Spielberg used to say that he was born again after nineteen forty one. That's the the big gigantic failure, the mistake. Uh, working as a hired hand for Lucas, a conservative and highly disciplined producer. Spielberg used Raiders of the Lost Ark as a form of professional rehab. So after 1941.

1:05:07 Lucas is like, Hey, I have this idea I'm gonna be a producer for This is you know, Raiders of Lost are one of the most successful film franchises in in film history. They don't know it at that time, obviously. He's like, Will you direct this for me? And so Spielberg Lucas and Spielberg are now on set. It's

1:05:21 Spielberg the director, Lucas lets him be as a director, but he's the one, you know, putting up the money. making sure everything runs on time. And so that's where he's just learning and from here on in. he becomes you know, he had a bad reputation. Lucas goes around selling, trying to sell the movie. And they're like, Who's gonna direct? Like Spielberg, like now we're out. Like, how could you be out? He just did jaws and close encounters of third kind.

1:05:42 And like talked about, you know, the guy They're not lying about the budget, but saying, Yeah, we can do it for twenty million, it comes in at sixty million. Like that that's gonna piss these people off, right? So says the Lucas Spielberg proposal was presented to the studios, the proposal d dare to assault. Oh, I'm bringing I'm bringing this to your attention because there's a quote from George Lucas' biography that's fantastic. And he says some of the bravest and most reckless acts That we did.

1:06:06 We're not aesthetic. But financial. Again, highly recommended. All founders, I think. should read George Lucas's biography. How many people do you know that founded multiple billion dollar businesses and did it Yeah.

1:06:18 He just has this like a Not aggression, but just like this Mm. damn it, I'll do it myself attitude that you just can't you just love. You absolutely love. Um so says d they're going around shopping this and now they're saying, Okay

1:06:29 This is after Star Wars. This is after Jaws. This is w we're playing a different w game here. So it says the proposal dared to assault the standard Hollywood financial practices on several especially sensitive points. Chief among them was that while the distributor would be expected to put up the movie's budget of twenty million dollars. Uh it would receive no distribution fee and take no ever overhead charge. So that's like these Hollywood accounting. It's a term for like the shenanigans, this financial shenanigans that was known in the industry at the time.

1:06:55 Uh, those items usually accounted for more than fifty percent of the gross film rentals. Besides demanding large sums of money up front, Lucas and Spielberg also wanted enormous shares of the gross. A demand that was especially unusual for a director in that era. And while the distributor would be allowed to recover their entire cost of Raiders from gross film rentals.

1:07:15 before Lucas and Spooberg started to receive their shares of the gross. Lucas would eventually all have full ownership of the movie. Studios were taken aback by such hootsbok. And so with Lucas' help.

1:07:29 He becomes this dis Disciplined. Watch your cost director. Um so it says Uh, we knew we had to con they're talking about shooting the movie, we knew how to compromise. There were some moments where it would go to take two or three and take

1:07:43 And take four. And something wasn't working. So you know, multiple takes. Steven would say, That's it, let's move on. We'll figure out another way to do it. He was very, very good in that respect. Raiders was the first picture he brought in on budget. I heard Steven say that his friends were doing smaller pictures than him. Less expensive pictures than him.

1:08:01 coming in on budget and they were able to see money on the back end. Steven rarely had that opportunity. So he was bound and determined To bring a picture in on budget. So he could see the back end.

1:08:14 So really what Lucas taught him is like you gotta watch that's nice that you're you're you make a lot of money at the bo box office, but you'll make a lot of more money personally if you watch your costs. And so he takes what he learned from Lucas and uh on the the Raider the The r uh the Indiana Jones movies, right? And he applies it to E T.

1:08:31 And check this out. This is now we're in the euphoria. Part of his career. E T prints money. So he winds up, he's like, All right, I'm doing this movie for ten million dollars. E T was so tough because Steven had made a bet with Universal that he could do this thing for ten million dollars.

1:08:45 Completing ET within that budget enabled him to satisfy his obligation for the final remaining film. from his nineteen seventy five contract with Universal. In the first weeks and he he winds up coming in on budget and on time, right? In the first weeks, check this out. This is gonna blow your mind. In the first weeks after the film's release on june eleventh, nineteen eighty two, we're talking nineteen eighty two dollars, which is even crazier what I'm about to tell you.

1:09:06 Spielberg personally. Was earning as much as half a miljan dollar per day. as his share of the profits. And so as his movies become more financially successful, he's able to demand

1:09:19 Better and better deals. He also is learning from his third Mentor. Uh, Steven Ross. So it says uh Steve and and then off myself.

1:09:29 is you don't make three or four billion dollars by accident. Referring to Spielberg. Spielberg's as good as a businessman as he is a director. Uh, Spielberg is renowned and sometimes deployed in Hollywood for driving hard bargains. With everyone from technicians to actors to studio chiefs. In recent years his standard deal

1:09:45 has been a remarkable fifty percent of the distributors gross on his pictures. And they said you compare that with five or fifteen percent of gr five or fifteen percent of gross. than even major stars command. So he's making a lot more money, right? The studios also fulfance his uh Spielberg's films. Even though that he that he owns it.

1:10:04 Um That he owned. The movies owned or shared by Amblin, his his company. Steven gets the studios to carry the risk and he takes in the money. And so he winds up becoming real good friends with uh

1:10:17 The head of time w uh the head of W is this Warner Brothers or Time Warner at the time? I'm not sure. Time water.

1:10:25 Through his close friendship with Steve Ross, the chairman of the board of Time Warner. Ross was the most colorful and controversial of the film industry mentors to whom Spielberg had attached himself. Assuming the roles of Spielberg's best friend. An idealized father figure. as well as business mentor.

1:10:41 Ross began educating Spielberg in the finer aspects of life as a Hollywood mogul. In the documentary, Tom Hanks talks about working uh with him with Spielberg is remarkable because how resourceful he is. You could plan something out as as best you can, circumstances dictate it, it's not gonna work out, and he comes up with just He just makes the most of whatever is there. And we see an example of this when he he's on location filming his first

1:11:05 Uh his first movie in China. So while while preparing for the first day of shooting in Shanghai, Uh Assistant Director David Tomlin plotted out all the crowd movements and everything, and I plan to keep the road clear so there could be traffic so there could be traffic movement. I drew it all out and told everyone to do what to do. Then

1:11:20 Five thousand people suddenly flooded the road. It went I went crazy. I said to Stephen, Oh Jesus, it's all gone wrong. He said Looks great. Roll the cameras. Action.

1:11:29 He was happy with how it looked and I wasn't gonna argue with the five thousand people. He's very good like that. He's not pedantic. Whatever is there, he makes it work. That's the most important sentence of that entire paragraph. Whatever's there, he makes it work.

1:11:44 That's the assistant director talking about the sh something they made in the eighties. Tom Hanks said the exact same thing when they were making Save it Private Ryan. Another thing that Steven talks about in this book talked about in the documentary over and over again is how important family is to him. The fact that he's got like a

1:11:57 Seven kids, something like that. Um you got divorced for the first time, you felt like a failure, then got remarried, they've been married for a long time. So it's extremely important because of The traumatic childhood he had. And he's got this scene and hook that he took to heart, and I think it's fantastic. And so they're going back and forth. It's the it's the character Peter and his wife.

1:12:15 And it says your children love you. They want to play with you. How long do you think that lasts? We have a few special years with our children. when they're the one where they're the ones who want us around.

1:12:26 So fast, Peter. It's a few years, then it's over. You are not being careful. And you are mi and you are missing it. That is the lesson Peter learns in Hook.

1:12:37 And it is one Spielberg took to heart. in his own life. And I would say that is the major Life regret. I've seen in a lot of these biographies and autobiographies, and when they're writing in these books, it's too late. It's the fact that they over optimized for their work life.

1:12:53 At expense of their children. Um, they all tell you not to do it. That it's a regret they can't do anything about. the best term I've ever heard about this came from Ingvar Camperat's autobiography,'cause he did that. His three boys, if I'm not mistaken, he's like, I I I missed their childhood because I was building IKEA and I I messed up. I shouldn't have done that.

1:13:12 And it says childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered. There's also a line in the the hook movie. uh with Peter Pan that I think Spielberg took this idea and ran with it as well. And that's the idea to to make life the adventure. It's supposed to be. So, Granny, Wendy tells Peter, your adventures are over.

1:13:32 Oh no, he replies. To live. To live. Will be an awful big adventure. So when the book ends, he had just finished list.

1:13:43 And Jurassic Park. Fin finally gets his academy award that he's been dreaming of since he was twelve, that he would been snub for multiple decades before then. has two of the most successful successful and well known movies. And it says as he approached his fiftieth birthday, Spielberg showed no signs of being crushed under the enormous weight Of his success.

1:14:00 Many a lesser career has collapsed from the burden of escalating expectations. And Spielberg, who still bites his fingernails And throws up. Before coming to a set in the morning.

1:14:10 Feeling the horrendous pressure. Of having to top himself. Of simply having to be Steven Spooper. But throughout his twenty eight years as a professional filmmaker He has maintained a sense of inner balance.

1:14:23 That so far has enabled him. To avoid losing his nerve. He seems comfortable. Even if others are not. with his own complexities and contradictions.

1:14:33 When his high school friend Chuck Case visited him at the Long Beach Airport during the filming of nineteen forty one. Spielberg surveyed his army of uniformed actors. And World War Two airplanes And said with a childlike smile. You know.

1:14:47 They pay me. to do this. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Read the book and I highly recommend watching the documentary as well. It was fantastic. Uh if you want to buy the book using uh if you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That it's two hundred and nine books down one thousand ago.

1:15:06 And I'll talk to you again soon. Okay, so what you're about to hear is this question I was asked a few months ago. I actually recorded this a few months ago. They asked how did history's greatest entrepreneurs think about hiring all the answers. People think I have A better memory than I Then actually do.

1:15:20 You know, if people say, Oh, you David, you have a great memory, my wife would laugh at that'cause I forget things all the time. It's not that I have a good memory, it's I reread things over and over and over again. Every single answer. Every single reference you're about to hear in this twenty minute mini episode. came from me searching.

1:15:37 All of my notes and highlights. That option. is now available to you. If you like what you hear, if you think it's valuable, if you're already running a successful company. And you want an easy way to reference the ideas of history's greatest entrepreneurs in a searchable database.

1:15:51 That you can go through at your convenience anytime you want. You can go to founders notes. dot com and sign up. I wanna start out first with Why this is so important?

1:16:01 There's actually this book that came out in like nineteen ninety seven. It's uh called In the Company Giants. I think it's episode two oh eight of Founders. It's two Stanford NBA students, if I remember correctly. and they're interviewing a bunch of technology company founders. And In there, Steve Jobs is one of'em. This is, you know, right be I think even before he came back to Apple. And

1:16:20 they were talking about, Well, yeah, we know it's important to hire, but in a typical startup, a manager or a founder may not always have time to spend Recruit other people. And St I I first read this this Steve's answer to this, you know, I don't know, two years ago, and I never forgot it. I think it's excellent. I think it sets up Why

1:16:38 uh this question is so important and you should really be spending especially in the the early days like Basically all your time doing this. Uh, in a typical startup manager may not always have the time to spend recruiting other people, then Steve jumps in. I disagree totally. I think it's the most important job. Assume you're by yourself in a startup and you want a partner.

1:16:55 You take a lot of time finding a partner, right? He would be half of your company. I'm gonna pause there. This idea of looking at each new hire as a percentage of the company is genius. Why should you take any less time finding a third or a fourth of your company or a fifth of your company. When you're in a startup.

1:17:14 The first ten people will determine Whether the company succeeds or not. Each is ten percent of the company. So why wouldn't you take as much time as necessary to find all a players? If three

1:17:27 Three of the ten. Uh we're not so great. Why would you start a company where thirty percent of your people are not so great? A small company Depends on great people.

1:17:37 Much more than a big company. Does. Okay, so To answer this question. The advantage that um That

1:17:45 I have making founders and that you have as as a byproduct of listening to founders. is not only that I've read, you know, three hundred something biographies of entrepreneurs now, but I have all of my notes and highlights stored in my ReadWise app. And that means I can search for any topic. I can look at the past highlights of books. Or I could search for keywords. So what I did is First o of all, like what I've started to do with these AMA um questions is I read them.

1:18:07 decide which ones I'm gonna do next and then think about it for a few days. I don't put any I just literally that m that I know that's the next question. Just let my brain work on it in the background for a few days. And then I'll go through And start searching all my notes. And so that's what I did here.

1:18:21 And so there's a bunch of you know, I don't have I may have like ten or fifteen different founders talking about hiring. The first idea is the most obvious, but I think probably works best when you're already established. So Steve Jobs is talking about hey, you know, the great way to f to hire is Just fine great work.

1:18:39 And find the people That did that and then try to hire them. When you're Steve Jobs Yeah. That's a lot easier. Right. Than if you're just somebody that doesn't have reputation, maybe don't have resources.

1:18:50 Maybe your company's rather w uh new or not as well known. David Ogie, I just did confessions of an advertising man. couple episodes ago, I think three oh six or something like that. Three oh seven. And He did the same thing.

1:19:02 But he's David Ogy at that point. So he would find he'd go through magazines, find great advertising, great copyrighting. And he'd write the personal letter. And then Set up a phone call. And he says he wouldn't he was so well known and you know, he's one of the best in his field.

1:19:17 That he wouldn't even have to offer a job. Just the conversation, then the person would the the he'd want to hire the person, never mention it, and the person would apply to him. Um, and so again, I think if you can do that Then of course it's

1:19:31 Straightforward. Who find for somebody who does great work. Usually you can do this. I actually have a friend that I can't say who it is. He's doing this right now, actually. Um, I have a friend that's really good at doing this. He's finding people that do great stuff on the internet and then just cold Yeah. Getting convincing them to work on things.

1:19:48 And That usually works, especially with people like younger people earlier in their career. There's a bunch of different ways to think about this and a bunch of different ways to prioritize. So The first thing that that c that came to mind that I found surprising is you read any biography on Rockefeller. And he had a couple ideas where

1:20:05 He felt The optimization you know, table stakes that you're intelligent and you're driven and you're hard working, right? We don't even have like if you're listening to this, you already know that. But he prioritized hiring people. With social skills.

1:20:18 And so this is what he said, the ability to deal with people is as purchasable as A commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay for I pay more for that ability. than any other under the sun. There's a two the second part to this, though.

1:20:32 And this is also works well if you have access to more resources. You he Rockefeller would hire people as he found. As he found talented people, not as he needed them. It's not like okay, standard oil has Six open spots. Let's go find six candidates, right? He'd come across what he considered a talented person. It didn't even matter if he didn't know what they were gonna do. He's like, I'm just gonna stack his team.

1:20:52 And if you really think about the the his partners of San It Ori. He essentially built a company. An executive team of Founders. Of course.

1:21:01 'Cause he was buying up all their companies. So it's very rare. But Um, there's a line from Titan I want to read to you. Taking for granted the growth of his empire He hired talented people as found. Not as needed. And then I found another idea.

1:21:15 in the hiring, like the actual interview process. So there's this guy named Van Ever Bush. I did two episodes on him, I think it's two seventy and two seventy one. He is uh the most important American ever. uh in history uh in in terms of Connecting the scientific field, private enterprise, and the government.

1:21:32 The most important person to keep alive for the American war effort was FDR. The second one was Van Ever Bush. Van Ever Bush uh is like the force gump of this historical period. He is involved in everything. From the Manhattan Project. to discovering like a young Claude Shannon to building uh a mechanical computer, like this guy literally has done he's just uh he pops up in these books over and over again. If you were reading about American business history during World War II and post World War II, you are going to come across the name Van Ever Bush over and over again.

1:21:59 Uh I read his fantastic autobiography called Pieces of the Action. And I came across this weird highlight. And so this is his brilliant and unusual job interview process. And so he's talking about this organization he's running called Amrad. At Amrad, I hired a young physicist

1:22:15 From Texas named CG Smith. The way I hired him is interesting. An interview of that sort is always likely to be on on an artificial basis and somewhat embarrassing. So I discussed with him a technical point.

1:22:26 on which I was then genuinely puzzled. The next day he came in with a sol uh with a neat solution. And I hired him at once. Here's another idea. This is from Nolan Bushnell. Nolan Bushnell's the founder of Atari, founder of Chucky Cheese. And Steve Jobs mentor. He hired Steve Jobs when Steve Jobs was like nineteen at Atari.

1:22:44 He would ask people their reading habits in interviews. This is why. Uh one of the best ways c his whole thing was he wanted to build a all of his companies w laid on a foundation of creative people. So that's what he's looking for. He's like, I need creative people. One of the best ways to find creative people is to ask a simple question, What books do you like?

1:23:01 I've never met a creative person in my life that didn't respond with enthusiasm to a question about reading habits. Actually which Books people read is not as important as the simple fact that they read it all. I've known many talented engineers who hated science fiction but loved See books on bird watching.

1:23:16 A blatant but often accurate generalization. People who are curious and passionate read People who are apathetic and indifferent don't I remember one that that's such a great line, and I obviously agree with it. I remember one I'm gonna read it again. A blatant but often

1:23:31 Accurate generalization. People who are curious and passionate read people who are apathetic and indifferent don't. I remember one particular woman who during an interview told me that she had read Every book that I had read. So I started mentioning books I hadn't read and she had read those too.

1:23:45 I didn't know. That time. This much time to read so much. But I was impressed I was so impressed that I hired her right there and assigned her

1:23:54 to international marketing. Which was having problems. This is why. This is why I'm reading this whole section to you. A job with a lot of moving parts. benefits from a brain that has a lot of moving parts.

1:24:04 It wouldn't be possible to have read that many books. Without such a brain. So do you see what I mean? Like Yeah. We start with Steve Jobs saying this is the most important thing that you your role as the leader of the company and the founder to do, right?

1:24:18 And you are in It's so important to study and this is why I'm glad this this question exists and why I'm glad that I've I took the time and I had like the foresight to like, hey, I should really Organized my thoughts and notes. I would have remembered all this. without being being able to search my read wise, right? But you have Rockefeller saying this is what's important to me.

1:24:35 You have Bush saying this is how I hire. Now you have Nolan Bush now. Saying well here's another weird thing that I learned. Um, let me go through uh what Warren Buffett says about this. So this is about the quality. One thing that is consistent

1:24:48 Whether it's Jobs, Buffett, Bezos uh Peter Thiel. This just pops up over and over again. they talk about the importance of trying to find people that that are better than you. the the hiring bar constantly has to increase. Now obviously the larger the company gets, that's impossible.

1:25:03 Uh, Steve Jobs has this great quote. Where he's like, you know, Pixar was the first time I see I saw an entire team. entire company of A players. But they had four hundred players. They had four hundred Team members.

1:25:13 He's like at the time Apple had three thousand. It's like it's impossible to have three thousand A players. So there is some Number that your company may grow to, where it's just you're just not. You're not gonna have thousands of A players. in my argument, I don't even know if you get a four hundred. I guess you I mean I'll take Steve's word for it on there and Pixar

1:25:30 definitely produce great products, but it's probably a lot lower than that as well. So Warren Buffett would tell you to use David Ogies. Hiring philosophy. And so Warren said, Charlie and I know

1:25:41 that the right players will make almost any team manager look good. Again, that is why it's the most important function of the founder. maybe directly next to the product. Right above the product actually,'cause those are the people building your product. We subscribe to the philosophy of Ogie and Mather's founding genius, David Ogie.

1:25:56 This is what Ogie said. If each of us hires people who are small smaller than we are We shall become a company of Dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are. We shall become a company of giants. David or Jeff Bezos rather, used a variation of Ogee's idea too.

1:26:11 Jeff used to say in Amazon, every time we hire someone. He or she should raise the bar for the next hire. So that the overall talent pool is always improving. They talk about this idea on Amazon. Where

1:26:25 The the the future hires that we do should be so good. that if you had applied for the job you already have at Amazon, you wouldn't get in. That's a very interesting idea. Take your time with recruiting. Take your time with hiring.

1:26:36 There's this great book on the history of PayPal. It's written actually I've I've recently become friends with the author. His name's Jimmy Sony. Um And this is in his book.

1:26:47 the the most fascinating thing that I found was that PayPal prioritized speed So from the time they're they're founded to the time they sell to eBay? It's like four years. Jimmy spent more time researching the book than than four he spent six years researching the book. I always tease them'cause like you took longer on a book than they took to start and sell their company.

1:27:06 It just speaks to like the quality he's trying to do. But tha as a byproduct of that, like obviously they move fast, but they prioritize speed over everything else except In one area. Recruiting. Max Ludchin kept the bar for talent exceedingly high, even if that came at the expense of speedy sa staffing.

1:27:21 Max kept repeating. A's higher A's, B's higher Cs. So the first B You hire takes the whole company down. Let's read that again. A players hire A players, B players hire C players, so the first B player you hire takes the whole company down.

1:27:36 Uh additionally, the team the company leaders mandated that all prospects here's another idea for you. All prospects must meet every single member of the team. Now the next one is the most bizarre. It makes sense. If you study I did this three part on Larry Ellison, three part series on Larry Ellison. I should read those books again.

1:27:54 'Cause the the podcast is like fifty bigger than than when I uh publish those episodes. And he's just crazy. So he would hire Based On the confidence the self confidence level of of the candidate. Listen to this.

1:28:10 I have tears in my eyes, I don't know why I'm laughing. Okay. This is just so this is You read about Larry Ellison and he's one of these people it's like really easy to interface with.

1:28:21 Yeah. You just know exactly who he is and what's important to him. That's why I think it's so funny. Ellison insisted that his recruiters hire only the finest and cockiest New college graduates. When they were recruiting from universities, they'd ask people, Are you the smartest person you know?

1:28:36 And if they said yes, they would hire them. If they said no. They would say who is And they would go hire that guy instead. I don't know if you got the smartest people that way, but you definitely got the most arrogant.

1:28:47 Ellison, and this is why. What? The personality of the founder is largely the culture of the company. Apple is Steve Jobs. Apple's just Steve Jobs of ten thousand lives.

1:28:55 Right. I was just t texting a a founder friend of mine. Uh, he listens to the podcast. I actually met him through the podcast. And he's going through this like uh process of self discovery. Like he's already started a bunch of companies that are really successful, but he's like I think I'm more of this type of founder than the other type of founder.

1:29:10 And that's good that he's doing that because he's he's Hopefully his next mission is like his life's mission, you know? And you can't get to your life's mission unless you d you to figure out who you are. Ellison knew who he was. Ellison's swaggering combative style became a part of the company's identity. This arrogant culture had a lot to do with Oracle's success.

1:29:27 Is another odd idea for you. Izzy Sharp, the founder of Four Seasons, actually could figure it out that in his business, which was hotels, right? that hiring could hiring the right p person could actually be a form of distribution for his hotel. He gave me the idea.

1:29:42 Because of what? What do we know? What do you and I know in our bones? That history's greatest founders all read biographies. They all read biographies of people that came before them and took ideas from them. Izzy Sharp is trying to build four seasons. What do you think he did? He picked up a biography of Cesar Ritz. The guy that it Rith Carlton is named after the great arguably the greatest hotelier of all time.

1:30:02 And when he realized like oh shit. Rich. He uh he says, uh, remembering that Cesar Ritz made his hotels world famous by hiring some of the foremost chefs, we decided to do something similar. So what is he talking about? Caesar Ritz. went out and partnered with August Escafier. What Cesar Ritz was ho to hotel to building hotels.

1:30:20 August Scaffee was to French cooking. And so what happened is you partner with world famous chefs. People come into your restaurant. That's in the hotel. Because the world famous chef and now they know about your hotel that leads to more gat that means leads to more activity in your restaurant that you own, but also leads to more brand recognition of your hotel. And then by as a byproduct of that, more people staying at the hotel. So hiring as a form of distribution. This is fascinating.

1:30:42 That is a fascinating idea. Okay, here's the problem. You can Identify great people. Right.

1:30:48 maybe they even want to come work. Like you've identified them You've sold them, hey, uh this is what this is our mission, this is what we're sh we're doing. And yet Humans have have complicated lives. They have spouses, they have kids, they have

1:31:01 A reason maybe they can't move across the country. to work for you, even though they want to. So There's a problem solving element that you see in these books. on you have to solve like you've already identified the person

1:31:15 You've recruited them, they can't go for some other reason. Okay. Well the great founders are not gonna take no for an answer. I read in um in this book called Lift Off, which is about the first six years of SpaceX, this is what Elon Musted. They had anticipated his friend's issue, having convinced Mus they needed to bring this brilliant young engineer from Turkey on board.

1:31:33 It became a matter of solving the problem. His wife had a job in San Francisco. She would need one in Los Angeles, right? Because that's where SpaceX is at the time. They're these were solvable problems and Elon's better at solving problems than almost anyone else. Must therefore came into his job interview prepared. About halfway through Mus told the guy

1:31:50 That he wants to hire. So I heard you don't want to move to LA and one of the reasons is that your wife works for Google. Well, I just talked to Larry and they're gonna transfer your wife down to LA, so what are you gonna do now? To solve this problem. Musk had called his friend Larry Page, the co founder of Google.

1:32:05 The engineer sat in stunned silence for a moment, but then he replied, Given all that He would come to work at SpaceX. That's really smart. There is another idea When you're promoting. Are you gonna promote from within or from without?

1:32:19 You know, that's dependent on you, depending on what what's going on. I do think this is interesting though. There's a guy named Les Schwab. Who built this? this really uh valuable chain of uh t like tire companies in the Pacific Northwest. I actually found out about'em because Charlie Munger's like, hey,

1:32:33 You should read this biography. He said it in a He didn't say it to me, personally. He said it too uh in like one of the Berkshire meetings. That Les Rob had one of the most m uh

1:32:44 one of the smartest uh financial incentive structures of any company that that Charlie Munker had come across. So this is what Les Schwab did. He did not want to hire from other people from other companies'cause they might come with bad habits. He liked to train his own

1:32:59 Executives. And so he says in our thirty four years of business, we have never hired a manager from the outside. Every single one of our more than two hundred and fifty managers and assistant managers started at the bottom changing tires. They have all earned their management job by working up.

1:33:13 And then another thing, if you're gonna hire the best of the best and A players. They're eight players don't like to be micromanaged. Um, and so this came in Larry Miller's autobiography. Driven. He owns like he owned like ninety three companies.

1:33:26 All throughout Utah, car dealerships, movie theaters, all kinds of crazy stuff. But he also owns the the the MBAT in Utah Jazz. And what was fascinating is he's trying to recruit Jerry Sloan as the coach at the pa at at the point, and Jerry Sloan would only take the job on one condition and I really like it. I really like this idea. If you hire me, let me run the team in business, right? That's what you're hiring me for. One of the best things we had ever done was hire Jerry Sloan as coach. At the time he said, I'm only gonna ask you for one thing. If I get fired, let me get fired for my own decisions. If you hire me, let me run the team slash

1:33:57 Business. Here's another idea. From Thomas Elet. uh Edison that I think is fascinating.

1:34:03 Really, th I th the way I think about a founder is like you're developing skills that you can't hire for. you you're gonna hire for everything else. But you shouldn't be hireable. And Edison wasn't. Edison expressing his views on the preeminent role of applied scientists, which that's what he considered himself.

1:34:19 Coin the expression I can hire mathematicians, but they can't hire me. And so when I read that paragraph for the first time, the note I left myself was develop skills that you can't hire for. Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. Uh Estee Lauder would give you advice that you need to hire people aligned with your thinking and values. Hire the best people. This is vital. Hire people who think as you do and treat them well. In our business, they are top uh top priority. So this idea is like

1:34:45 That seems kinda weird. Like hire people Who think like You. There's obviously not one right way to build a business. I think the your business should be an expression of your personality and who you are who are as a person at the core. And so I think there is an

1:34:59 Art. To the building. Of your business. And the reason I use the word art, I don't mean in like a hoity toity, you know, pretentious manner. That's not me at all. I don't even care about I don't art at all, really. I mean that you're making decisions not just based on economics.

1:35:15 Like there are non economic important decisions based on how you're building your business. Like you could probably make more money doing a decision A. But decision A is goes against who you are as a person. Or you just don't like it, or it's just not as elegant or beautiful. And so therefore you don't do it. So that's what I mean about you know, hire people who think it's you do.

1:35:34 And what for whatever reason when I read Essay Lauder say that, I was like, Okay, that there's like this art to what she's doing. one thing that's gonna be helpful in recruiting. Uh, this comes from Peter Teel. I think this is the book, Zero to One. understand that most companies don't even differentiate their pitches to potential recruits into hiring. So therefore like they're just gonna buy as a byproduct of that, you're gonna w wind up with a lower overall talent base.

1:35:57 And so he says, What's wrong with valuable stock smart people are pressing problems? Nothing. But every company makes us these claims. So they won't help you stand out. General and undifferentiated pitches to join your company. Don't say anything. about why a recruit should join your company instead of money uh instead of many others. So that idea of like your pitch Your actual

1:36:17 He would tell you you're you shouldn't be building a undifferentiated commodity business. But even above and beyond that. Like you're the the the mission that you're trying to engage everybody to join you in. that pitch, that sail sale you're trying to make to potential recruit should be differentiated. It should not If that person's applying to five other jobs.

1:36:34 There should not be like it's like They may not like your mission, they may not like your pitch, but they shouldn't be able to compare it to anything else. Uh another quote from Nolan Bushnell. Higher for passion and intensity. That's what he would do. All right, that's what he did when he found Steve Jobs.

1:36:47 If there was a single characteristic that separates Steve Jobs from the massive employees, it was his passionate enthusiasm. Steve had one full uh one speed. Full blast. This was the primary reason we hired him. And one thing all these founders have in common is that he know how important hiring is.

1:37:03 And when something's important. You do it. Yourself. This is again Elon Musk on hiring. He interviewed The first three thousand employees at SpaceX.

1:37:11 That's how important it was. One of Musk's most valuable skills was his ability to determine whether someone would fit his mold. His people had to be brilliant. They had to be hardworking and there could be no nonsense. There are a ton of phonies out there, and not many who are the real deal, must said, of his approach to interviewing engineers. I can usually tell within fifteen minutes and I can sure

1:37:28 I can for sure tell within a few days of working with them. Musk made hiring a priority. He personally met with every single person the company hired. through the first three thousand employees. It required late nights and weekends But he felt it was important to get the right people for his company. And then the close on this we started with Steve Jobs telling us why it was so important and why it should be a large part of how you spend your time.

1:37:49 And now we'll close with what you do after. What do you do after you hire the person? This is what he says. It's not just recruiting. After recruiting, it's building an environment that makes people feel they are surrounded by equally talented people. And their work is bigger than they are. the feeling that their work will have a tremendous influence And it's part of a strong

1:38:08 Clear. Vision. So that is the end to that twenty minute mini episode. I just re listened to the whole thing. And it it really does, I think it's a perfect explanation and illustration of why I think Founders Notes is so valuable,'cause that some of those books I haven't read.

1:38:23 In five, six years. And just the ability to have a searchable database of all this These ideas like this collected knowledge. of some of history's greatest entrepreneurs to reference and then contextually apply to our own businesses.

1:38:37 It's nothing short of Like it's magic. That's really the way I think about it. I think it's a massive superpower. It gives me a massive superpower. I couldn't make the podcast without it. I also think if you have access to it, it'll make your business better. And so if you're already running a successful business, I highly recommend that you invest in a subscription. And you can do that by going to foundersnotes.com.

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