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David Senra

Learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and find ideas you can use in your work. This quote explains why: "There are thousands of years of history in which lots and lots of very smart people worked very hard and ran all types of experiments on how to create new businesses, invent new technology, new ways to manage etc. They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put these lessons down in a book. For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone’s accumulated experience. There is so much more to learn from the past than we often realize. You could productively spend your time reading experiences of great people who have come before and you learn every time." —Marc Andreessen

Founders

I started a new show so I can have long-form conversations with the greatest living founders. You can watch on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, X, or the web. 

The new show is on a separate feed so don't forget to follow David Senra so you don't miss future episodes. Nothing is changing with Founders. I will never stop making that podcast. 

Thanks for the support!

My conversation with Daniel Ek: Founder of Spotify

This episode is about Bill Gates' obsessive drive and hardcore work ethic. Bill Gates had the rarest entrepreneurial talent—the ability to see the leverage point in a new industry, seize it with relentless intensity, and *will* Microsoft into one of the most successful companies in human history. 

To make this episode I read Bill's new autobiography, Source Code: My Beginnings, and pulled ideas and notes from 4 more books about his singular career:

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire 

Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace 

Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft 

In the Company of Giants: Candid Conversations With the Visionaries of the Digital World 

Episode sponsors: 

Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠ 

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. ⁠⁠⁠Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 
⁠⁠https://www.vanta.com/founders⁠⁠ 

⁠Collateral⁠ transforms your complex ideas into compelling narratives. Collateral crafts institutional grade marketing collateral for private equity, private credit, real estate, venture capital, family offices, hedge funds, oil & gas companies, and all kinds of corporations. Storytelling is one of the highest forms of leverage and you should invest heavily in it. You can do that by going to ⁠https://collateral.com

#401 How Bill Gates Works

This episode covers the extreme perseverance and the stubborn genius of James Dyson. 

Dyson has a business philosophy which is very different from anything you might have encountered before. A philosophy which demands difference from what exists and retention of total control. For almost four decades, James Dyson has been building one of the most valuable privately-held companies in the world. A company he owns without shareholders — and one that is centered around an obsession with the quality of the product above all. 

I spent well over 70 hours reading (and rereading) both Against the Odds and Invention: A Life of Learning Through Failure. These books tell the story of the vision of a single man, pursued with dogged determination, that was nothing less than obsession. 

Episode sponsors: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠ 

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. ⁠⁠⁠Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 
⁠⁠https://www.vanta.com/founders⁠⁠ 

Collateral⁠ transforms your complex ideas into compelling narratives. Collateral crafts institutional grade marketing collateral for private equity, private credit, real estate, venture capital, family offices, hedge funds, oil & gas companies, and all kinds of corporations. Storytelling is one of the highest forms of leverage and you should invest heavily in it. You can do that by going to ⁠https://collateral.com

#400 The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson

This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of Elon Musk—and nothing else.

I spent well over 60 hours reading (and rereading) the biography of Elon Musk written by Walter Isaacson. I then spent several days editing down 40 pages of notes from the book. I deleted everything that was not about How Elon Works. 

This episode focuses exclusively on the ideas Elon used to build his companies and his truly singular career. There is no one else like him — living or dead. 

 

Episode sponsors: 

⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ 

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. ⁠⁠Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 
⁠https://www.vanta.com/founders⁠ 

Collateral transforms your complex ideas into compelling narratives. Collateral crafts institutional grade marketing collateral for private equity, private credit, real estate, venture capital, family offices, hedge funds, oil & gas companies, and all kinds of corporations. Storytelling is one of the highest forms of leverage and you should invest heavily in it. You can do that by going to https://collateral.com

#399 How Elon Works

A curated collection of Steve’s speeches, interviews, and correspondence, Make Something Wonderful offers a window into how one of the world’s most creative entrepreneurs approached his life and work. In these pages, Steve shares his perspective on his childhood, on launching and being pushed out of Apple, on his time with Pixar and NeXT, and on his return to the company that started it all. Read the book for free courtesy of The Steve Jobs Archive. 

This episode was originally published April 17, 2023. 

Episode sponsors: 

⁠⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://ramp.com⁠ 

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. ⁠Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort⁠. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 
https://www.vanta.com/founders 

Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here.

#398 Steve Jobs In His Own Words (Make Something Wonderful)

Jiro Ono is the greatest living sushi chef. He was kicked out his house when he was 9. He started working in a restaurant so he wouldn't have to sleep under a bridge. He never stopped. Over his 75 year career he rose to the very top of his profession. People travel from all over the world to eat at his restaurant. The meal costs $400 per person and lasts 15 minutes. This episode is what I learned from reading the transcript of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi and is full of ideas you can use in your work. 

Episode sponsors:

⁠⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ https://ramp.com 

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 
https://www.vanta.com 

Join my free email newsletter to⁠⁠⁠ get my top 10 highlights from every book⁠⁠⁠ https://davidsenra.com

#397 Jiro Ono: Simplicity Is The Ultimate Advantage

I've read hundreds of thousands of words about Enzo Ferrari. For this episode I distilled down his most important ideas into 1 hour. Ferrari was truly one of history's greatest obsessives.

Episode sponsors: 

⁠⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ https://ramp.com
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Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. https://www.vanta.com
-----
Join my free email newsletter to⁠⁠⁠ get my top 10 highlights from every book⁠⁠⁠ https://davidsenra.com

Sources: 

The Terrible Joys of Enzo Ferrari by Winthrop Sargeant. Published in The New Yorker January 7th 1966. 

The Story of Ferrari by Stuart Codling 

Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics and the Making of an Automobile Empire by Luca Dal Monte 

Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine by Brock Yates

Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans by A.J. Baime

Selected highlights: 

1. He who travels fast, carries little.

2. All masterpieces bespeaks the character of its creator

3. "When the driver steps on the gas I want him to shit his pants."

4. It is obvious that a Ferrari is the product of a sort of automotive watch-maker.

5. Ferrari has never taken a vacation in his life.

6. Racing is a profession for men who do not wish to die in bed. 

7. If there was one essential quality about the man it was his ironbound tenacity, his fierce devotion to the single cause of winning automobile races with cars bearing his name. From 1930 onward, for nearly sixty years, hardly a day passed when this thought was not foremost in his mind. Win or lose, he unfailingly answered the bell. In that sense his devotion to his own self-described mission was without precedent. For that alone he towered over his peers.

8. “I was back where I had started. No money, no experience, limited education. All I had was a passion to get somewhere.”

9. Ferrari had two fundamental talents. He was an agitator of men and he was an absolute marketing genius. 

10. "A Ferrari must be desired. It cannot and must not be perceived as something that is immediately available; otherwise, the dream is gone."

11. "I have never considered myself a designer or an inventor, but only one who gets things moving and keeps them running. My innate talent was for stirring up men."

12. Enzo Ferrari was the consummate manager of men— not docile, soft men, but proud, fiercely competitive, egocentric men. 

13. He was a pathological competitor. A man with a diamond-hard will to win at all costs.

14. When asked how he wanted to be remembered, he replied: "As someone who dreamt of becoming Ferrari."

15. Ferrari was animated by an extraordinary passion that led him to build a product with no equal.

16. "I had the stubborn determination to capture the trust of those who work with me." 

17. “I should not have married because a man dominated by a passion such as mine, can hardly divide himself in half and be a good husband. If I had listened to my wife, I would have been a clerk in a bus company.”

18. He understood that showmanship is salesmanship. 

19. They were cars built by Italian artisans, every detail down to the steering wheel handcrafted using some of the same methods used to make Roman suits of armor and the royal carriages of the ancient kingdoms.

20. When asked about the root of his mania, his obsession with victory, Ferrari said, "Everything that I've done, I did because I couldn't do anything less. One day I want to build a car that's faster than all of them, and then I want to die."

#396 The Obsession of Enzo Ferrari

Those on the margins often come to control the center. That maxim ties together the three remarkable people profiled in this episode:

Colin Chapman, known as “the mad scientist of F1”, did more to influence F1 design than any other person in history. 

Bernie Ecclestone, known as “Supremo”, Bernie transformed Formula One from a disorganized, rag-tag, chaotic collection of racing teams, into the world’s premier motor racing series. He built the business of F1— and made billions for himself along the way. 

Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of Red Bull, bought two Formula One teams and insisted on becoming the sport’s foremost disruptor. Determined to question every standard way of operating, Mateschitz’s unlimited ambition transformed his team of outsiders and mavericks into a dominant force, all while building one of the world’s most valuable private companies. 

All three were outsiders. All three thrived on taking risks. All three insisted on doing things their way. 

This episode is what I learned from reading The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport by Joshua Robinson and and Johnathan Clegg.

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⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠

-----

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort. ⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 

-----

Join my free email newsletter to⁠⁠ get my top 10 highlights from every book⁠⁠

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#395 How Geniuses and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport

Your dad dies before you’re born. Your mom can’t afford to take care of you. You grow up without a family and in an institution. You learn a trade and start working full time at the age of 14. You work all day and go to school at night. You’re precise, meticulous, restless, and work circles around everyone. You’re promoted to run the factory at 18 but the thought of working for anyone else terrifies you. For your entire life you’ll be obsessed with control. You’ll do whatever it takes to escape the harshness of poverty and the pangs of hunger. You organize your life around a simple principle: "I want to be the best at everything I do.” You start your own workshop, create the best product, and your biggest customer wants to become your partner. They underestimate you and abuse you. You destroy them. You take all of their customers. You’re not satisfied with being a subcontractor. You want everything. You make your own glasses, you buy your distributor, you list your company on the New York Stock Exchange, you complete hostile takeovers of much larger companies, you buy entire retail chains, and control everything about your product: from the raw materials to the relationship with the customer. Your competitors call you the hawk because you circle, wait, and then strike. You work 20 hours a day and fuse yourself with the factory. You get married four times, to three different women, and have six kids. You don’t look back, you don’t rest on your laurels, and you don’t go to sleep on wins. You make something great, then you do it again. Your biggest deal comes 60 years into your career. The only thing that could stop you was death. 

You are Leonardo Del Vecchio. 

This episode is what I learned from reading Leonardo Del Vecchio by Thomas Ebhardt and The Spectacle of Big Lens: How One Giant Company Will Dominate How the World Sees by Sam Knight. 

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⁠Ramp⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠

-----

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort. ⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 

-----

Join my free email newsletter to⁠ get my top 10 highlights from every book⁠

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#394 An Orphan Who Built An Empire: Leonardo Del Vecchio and The Founding of Luxottica

Your family asks you to take over a failing factory in a remote part of France. This “family business” comes with a stack of unpaid bills, a small team of workers who haven’t been paid in months, and a banker refusing to extend any more credit. You cut every unprofitable product and go all in on making rubber tires. You have no experience and don’t know a single thing about rubber manufacturing. You have a genius insight that selling tires is a waste of time and instead you should create the conditions for your product’s success. You organize the entire company around this core loop: encourage more driving → which leads to more movement → more movement leads to more wear → more wear leads to more tire sales. A simple and beautiful organizing principle emerges: a tire company will prosper if people travel more, so let’s help them do that. You make promiscuous use of the press. You write columns advertising the joys of the new activity of driving. You draw the maps, create the routes, and build thousands of road signs across France. All for free. Why? Because better signage means longer trips, more driving, and more tires sold. You publish the Michelin Guide — a free travel book with locations of hotels, restaurants, mechanics, and sites to see. You create the Michelin stars which become the global gold standard in fine dining and help people travel far for great food. You stimulate demand through spectacle. You sponsor races, airshows, and contests with cash prizes. You make smart bets early so by the time cars appear in large numbers you already own the roads. You create the most successful company mascot of all time and create a family dynasty that lasts 100 years.

You're not one person, but two. André and Édouard Michelin, two brothers and one of the greatest cofounder teams in history.

This episode is what I learned from reading Michelin: A Century of Secrets by Alain Germain and The Michelin Men: Driving an Empire by Herbert Lottman. 

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Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.

-----

Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort. Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. 

-----

Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book

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#393 The Marketing Genius of the Michelin Brothers

What I learned from reading Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Wayby Richard Branson
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Business is a fluid, changing substance. A mutating, indefinable thing [0:45]
I just pick up the phone and get on with it [7:50]
smart ways to get initial traction [9:51]
to understand the entrepreneur, study the juvenile delinquent [14:19]
Richard Branson's early business philosophy [14:49]
the beginning of Virgin [19:00]
what he learned from going to jail [23:01]
the scope of Richard's ambition at 21 [24:44]
a model of compatible businesses [27:00]
how Richard Branson made his first fortune [29:00]
how Richard Branson gets Necker Island and the idea for Virgin Airways [34:45]
protecting the downside risk [38:40]
Richard Branson's view on public companies [46:12]
taking Virgin private, funding secured [52:00]
questioning the direction of his life at 40 years old [59:54]

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Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. 
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“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth
Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

#47 Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way

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