# What David Senra Learned Studying 400+ Founders **Channel:** Sequoia Capital **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXsleu4-kd8 **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/xXsleu4-kd8 ## Chapters - 0:00 — Introduction and Founder Focus Insights - 5:09 — Roots of Founder Obsession and Archetypes - 8:43 — Founder Personalities and VC Biases - 14:00 — Investing Criteria and Historical Partnerships - 21:00 — Founder Mindset and Platform Transformations - 28:48 — AI Era Challenges and Founder Authenticity - 35:24 — Public Persona, Biographies, and Timeless Traits - 40:18 — Founder Life Balance and Family Insights - 47:17 — Final Advice, Takeaways, and Conclusion ## Transcript **[0:00] Speaker A:** The best founders, kind of, they don't really rest on their laurels. They don't, like, sleep on wins. They essentially do something great. They'll celebrate for like, a day and then back to it. So, like, I just did Tony Zhu of Doordash, who I think you guys were investors in, he's like, we got so much more to do. He's like, okay, we had something good happen, like, let's go out to dinner. And by the time the dinner. Before dinner's over, I'm thinking the 17 things that are not going right. That's why he's great. **[0:39] Speaker B:** Okay, today we have David Senra on the show. I've been a huge fan of his pod for a long time. He basically goes way down the rabbit hole on great founders. From Jesus of Nazareth all the way up to Jensen Huang. Very, very, very deep down those rabbit holes. So what I wanted to know is what do all the great founders have in common? And how do we apply that? Today's founders, how do we apply that to picking the best founders, and how do we apply that to coaching my best CEOs? I hope you like the episode. You have gone very deep on a lot of founders, a lot of CEOs, a lot of successful people, from Jesus of Nazareth to Jensen Huang. **[1:20] Speaker B:** What's the one thing they have in common? **[1:22] Speaker A:** If I had to distill every single thing down to one word, it'd just be like, focus. They're just unbelievably focused compared to not only the average person. It's almost like they're a different species. But I would even say to today's founders, they are just much more focused and less distracted and not really looking around at what other people are doing. They kind of don't really care how other people are doing, what they're doing. The way I put this is there's a maximum for this is mute the world and then build your own. And so let me give you an example of this. This isn't out on my new show yet, but I just spent several hours at Dana White. I call him the founder of the ufc, even though it's like, oh, they bought the company. **[1:57] Speaker A:** And Dana, first of all, is one of my favorite conversations I ever had. We had so much fun. But when he tells the story of the UFC, where it's like, he's 19 years old, he's a bellman in a hotel in Boston, and he's self described loser, he's just like, I'm just a loser. I have nothing going on, but I'm obsessed with fighting, and at that time, it's boxing. He's a huge boxing fan, and he has this idea. He's like, I should just move to Vegas to fight capital of the world and try to just work in the industry. Now he's trying to build the world's biggest combat organization, but he's just like, I just need to work in this industry. And he was going back and forth. He said, this is stupid. He goes, I'm a bellman. **[2:31] Speaker A:** I could be a bellman at 35 if this doesn't work out. I could be a bellman at 35. I could be a bellman when I'm 50. So I have nothing. I have no wife, no kids. And he just goes, Starts working in the industry, taking any job he can get, starts promoting. Excuse me, managing fighters, then starts managing this weird thing called mma and these fighters for this thing called ufc, which is nothing. They're in front of tiny crowds. There's no money. And so he's on the phone because he's a rep in two fighters, and one of the fighters is owed money by the ufc, and he's like, dude, you need to pay him. **[3:02] Speaker A:** And the guy screams at him, the owner. He's like, there's no money. There's no money. So Dana hangs up, calls the Fertitta brothers. Their father built a casino. He's like, I think we could buy this whole thing. And what you realize is he's a missionary founder. I think the best founders are missionary. Like, if you go back and look at Jensen or Steve Jobs or Bezos or any of these people. Elon missionary. **[3:23] Speaker A:** And he's like, I think we could buy this thing. They buy it for 2 million. Takes him six years. He's making no money. They're losing money. They have to dump another 40 million into it until it's profitable. And he tells his whole story. So I'll get to the end, because he's still been running it for 26 years, and now they just did almost an $8 billion deal for their TV rights. At a time where he's making no money for the first six years. The first time he makes money, they write on the board the compensation for the partners. And he can't believe. He's like, oh, my God, I'm going to make a million dollars. He thought he was rich. I can't even tell you what he told me he makes now. He told me off camera, it's just. It would blow your mind. And the reason I bring this up is because I talked to him, he's like, I've never read a single book about business. **[4:00] Speaker A:** I've never listened to a single podcast about business. All I did was like, I'm the fan. So like, when we bought the company, I never sold tickets, didn't know anything about production. He's just like, I just made what I wanted to see. And so that's mute the world and build your own. His entire world is his business. And then anything doing outside he doesn't care about. He's just unbelievably focused. **[4:19] Speaker B:** I thought you were going to say the word obsession. Is it the same thing? **[4:23] Speaker A:** I think they're, they're like closely related. I think if you are intensely focused on something. I don't know anybody that's intensely focused on something that's not that you wouldn't call obsessed. **[4:31] Speaker B:** Yep. And. **[4:33] Speaker A:** But I think focus, the difference between focus and obsession is your focus is what does Steve Jobs say? Focus is saying no. Like, Jony, I've has this great interview that he did with Vanity Fair a few years ago. **[4:42] Speaker A:** And you know, he's just like one of the things, he's like, Steve was the most markly focused person I've ever come across. And one time, you know, we were talking about this and he's like, well, how many things have you said no to? And he's like, well, and Johnny, he's like, I said no to this and I said no to that. He's like, Steve's like, no, no, you didn't want to do that. Focus is saying no to a good idea that you really want to do because it distracts you from a great idea. **[5:05] Speaker B:** Where does this come from? Like, you've looked at their childhoods. **[5:09] Speaker B:** Is there something that happened early to them? Do they have very normal upbringings? Are they normal kids or are they weird? **[5:17] Speaker B:** Like, where does this obsession focused thing originate? **[5:22] Speaker A:** So there's a great line. The answer is that one thing. I came across it in this book I read back in 2022. It was actually the biography of Francis Ford Coppola. Because I'm also obsessed with. When I think of entrepreneurship, I'm pretty sure the word originated from French. And I think it's like has ideas and does them. **[5:36] Speaker B:** Okay. **[5:36] Speaker A:** And so like, you built HubSpot, I built a podcast. **[5:40] Speaker A:** He's a filmmaker. I think it's all the same thing. Yeah, it's legitimately the same thing. I had a 2 1/2 hour conversation with Ed Catmull, founder of Pixar yesterday. **[5:46] Speaker B:** Yep. **[5:47] Speaker A:** He's like the same kind of Artists that these animators and storytellers and directors. The same kind of spirit that, like Steve Jobs had. And Ed worked with Steve Jobs longer, I think 26 consecutive years. Long. Longer consecutively with Steve Jobs than anybody else. But I would say, because most of them are men, especially when you're going back in history, if you're building a company 150 years ago, most likely the dude. The line I read in Francis Ford Coppola's biography, that put into words of a reoccurring pattern that I'd noticed over and over again. It says, you can always understand the son by the story of his father. The story of the father is embedded in the son. And so that's why when Charlie Munger says, hey, I'm a biography nut. I had met Charlie before he died. He'd read hundreds of biographies by the time I met him. **[6:26] Speaker A:** And his whole thing is, if to truly understand the ideas, you have to tie it to the personality that developed them, which I thought was fascinating. And so what is happening in Francis Ford Coppola's life? His dad was a brilliant but failed musician. **[6:38] Speaker A:** And what happens when you have aspirations and you think you're talented and there's no evidence of that. He starts to resent this. And he's one of the most cowardly people I've ever come across. Because he tells his young son, there can only be one genius in the family. It's me. **[6:50] Speaker A:** And he would just put down his son. So the world is not giving him what he wants. And so he's taking on his son like a fucking coward, Right? It's the opposite. I know you have a son. I do too. It's like, tell him you can do whatever you want in the world. It's the exact opposite. But this guy's a coward and a terrible father. And so Francis Ford Coppola internalizes that. And he has this crazy work ethic. At the time when Francis Ford Coppola becomes a director, a feature film director in Hollywood, there was no such thing as young directors at the time. And so he's a few years older than George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. And they see this guy doing it, and they're like, oh, I can do it fast forward. The guy would work 24, 7, fall asleep editing the movie. **[7:26] Speaker A:** Like, unbelievable work ethic. A few years later, decade later, he wins an Academy Award, and he let his dad do the soundtrack or the score of the movie. And his dad wins an Oscar for the score of the movie that his son made. It's almost like full Circle. It's like, who's the genius now? You wouldn't even had this opportunity if it wasn't for me. **[7:47] Speaker B:** Are most of these people normal, well adjusted people? Or are they kind of broken from an early age? And that brokenness causes this obsession. **[7:58] Speaker A:** Do you consider yourself a normal, well adjusted person? **[8:01] Speaker B:** I wouldn't congest consider myself normal at all. **[8:04] Speaker A:** Exactly. I don't either. **[8:05] Speaker B:** I'm relatively well adjusted. **[8:08] Speaker A:** What does well adjusted mean to you? **[8:10] Speaker B:** I can function in society relatively well. I can have a conversation with you. **[8:15] Speaker A:** Yeah, but we're like the same kind of personality type. **[8:17] Speaker B:** I'm not so focused that I can't like pick my head up and look around. **[8:21] Speaker A:** Can you? **[8:22] Speaker A:** Do you have the patience? Like let's say if your kid, if your son was small and you're put into a random collection of parents? They're not entrepreneurs. They don't have that kind of personality. Can you sustain a conversation with them for a few hours or would you go crazy? **[8:38] Speaker B:** I think I'm better at that than the average entrepreneur. **[8:40] Speaker A:** Okay. **[8:41] Speaker B:** My co founder could not. **[8:42] Speaker A:** Okay, exactly. **[8:43] Speaker A:** So you know this personality type. No, obviously they're not normal. I would not consider them well adjusted. That doesn't mean you have to be a prick. This is a very important. **[8:51] Speaker B:** Okay. I wanted to ask you that because a lot of the best founders of my generation were described as assholes. So you have to be an asshole to be a good CEO. **[9:00] Speaker A:** No, no, definitely not. **[9:01] Speaker B:** Okay. **[9:01] Speaker A:** No, absolutely not. **[9:02] Speaker A:** I'm actually working on something. Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify. And we just hired an author who's going to write this book that may never be published. But we're building this framework because Daniel is very interested in mapping out all the different founder archetypes and for this exact reason, because when he started Spotify 20 years ago, everybody tried to imitate Steve Jobs. The founders today, who are they going to imitate? Elon or Jensen? And he's like, I wasted years of my life trying to imitate a person. I am not. He is much more like a coach. He describes himself as like a, like a team player. He's very different kind of archetype. And he would try to like, almost like wear somebody else's clothes or wear somebody else's personality. He's like, this isn't working. **[9:44] Speaker B:** Yep. **[9:44] Speaker A:** And what he realizes now, you know, he knows himself way better now. He's in his 40s, he has two decades of experience, he knows a ton of other founders. He's like, oh, they're all these different types. We don't have words for them. And so the project that we're working on right now, I love this. Yeah. **[9:58] Speaker A:** And if you want to help, let me know because I think some feedback, some insights into it. Every founder I talk about, they're like, we need this. Because Daniel's point is like, more important than like product market fit or even like founder industry fit. He believes the most important is founder problem fit. **[10:15] Speaker B:** Yep. **[10:16] Speaker A:** Like think about Demis Hasabis from DeepMind, his one great company he had in him. It was DeepMind. He was put on this planet to do what he is doing. That's the perfect example of founder problem fit. Steve Jobs, founder problem fit, what he was doing, perfect example. And so hopefully we're trying to do is like map out these archetypes. There might be six, there might be eight. We'll try to figure this out. And we're doing is going through the back catalog of founders and using that as trying to map all these different out and then have a way for you to identify, oh, this is my archetype. And Then here's maybe 10 examples of historical people that also founders that also have the same archetype. So maybe you should go read about them and how they ran their company and what they did and then what other archetypes, other founders work well together. **[10:56] Speaker A:** This is going to take a long time. But yeah, this idea, I reject it completely. That you have to come from a broken home or you have to be an asshole, or you have to be X, Y and Z. I went up to Canon and record a podcast with Toby Luque, who's very fascinating, and he said the best way. He's like, there's not one right way to do what you're trying to do. There's probably a hundred. You've got to figure out what's right for you. **[11:16] Speaker B:** Let me ask you about a specific archetype and this is a little awkward, but if you think about Autism Spectrum Disorder, it's a very wide spectrum. And for some it's debilitating and some it's a superpower. And like I, I'm not as deep as you, but if I look at the kind of modern trillion dollar company CEOs, from Jensen to Jobs to Gates to Bezos, Zuckerberg, Elon, Larry Ellison, six out of the 10 have publicly said that they're on the spectrum and maybe a couple others are too. I don't know. What is your take on that? **[11:49] Speaker A:** I just found this Peter Thiel quote about this that I think is interesting. And I do think for some People. For Elon in particular, it's definitely a superpower. **[11:59] Speaker B:** Yes. **[11:59] Speaker A:** Because he has this line and he says, I think this is a direct quote from Elon. I think it's a real weakness to want to be liked. A real weakness. And I do not have that. This is what Peter said about this. Let me read four sentences to you. Many of the more successful entrepreneurs seem to be suffering from a mild form of Asperger's, where it's like you're missing the imitation socialization gene. Now this is. I think Peter's take on this is really good. **[12:18] Speaker A:** We need to ask what it is about our society where those of us who do not suffer from Asperger's are at some massive disadvantage because we will be talked out of our interesting, original creative ideas before they're even fully formed. Think about trying to talk Elon out of building SpaceX. Good luck with that. This is the last thing that Peter says, oh, that's a bit too weird. That's a little too strange. And maybe I'll just go ahead and open that restaurant I've been talking about that everyone else can understand and agree with with or do something extremely safe and conventional. **[12:42] Speaker B:** Yes. So it's pretty common today. Even the current founders. **[12:45] Speaker A:** Definitely. In tech. **[12:46] Speaker B:** If you look back to Carnegie and Rockefeller, is there any evidence in what you've been reading that that was pretty prevalent back then too? **[12:55] Speaker A:** No, No, I don't think so. That's the interesting thing. Maybe there's something particular about technology. **[13:01] Speaker A:** We're in San Francisco today. You know, paradox. Like, you should move here. I think it's very beautiful, you know, physical beauty. But I have a very unique vantage point in the founder ecosystem because all kinds of founders listen to founders. And what I would say about dropping into these different communities is like, the problem with the Bay Area and San Francisco is they're all mimetic about being anti mimetic. So that therefore makes them the most memetic of all. And I think a lot of this is people pretending to have autism or pretending. Yeah. 100%. **[13:30] Speaker A:** We naturally imitate. **[13:31] Speaker B:** Yes. **[13:32] Speaker A:** And even though Peter Thiel spread, obviously the. The issue with being mimetic and that then I think increased people being mimetic. **[13:40] Speaker B:** Okay. You know, a lot of VCs, and there's some tropes about what VCs are looking for in founders. What do VCs have wrong? Like, you've studied the best. **[13:50] Speaker A:** I don't actually spend any time with VCs. **[13:54] Speaker B:** Chip on your shoulder. **[13:55] Speaker A:** Yeah. **[13:57] Speaker B:** Carnegie for Jesus Rockefeller. **[14:00] Speaker B:** Da Vinci Rockefeller did they all have a chip on their shoulder? **[14:03] Speaker A:** I don't know about all of them but like we could take specific examples. Like if we go back to that father, the impact of the father has on the son. **[14:10] Speaker A:** Right. I mean Rockefeller's father was a bigamist. He had multiple families. He was a scam artist. He would try to cheat his sons. This is in all biographies and I collect obscure Rockefeller biographies. I probably have like 15 of them. I made my own biography. I have a 1700 page transcript that I'm going to do an episode on of Rockefeller giving this interview later in life. You can't buy it. I got it from Rockefeller archives, I printed it and fucking bound it. That's how obsessed I am with Rockefeller. And it's clearly that, like was he on the spectrum? No, I don't think so. **[14:37] Speaker B:** But he was obsessed, focused and. **[14:41] Speaker A:** And part of this I. **[14:42] Speaker B:** Did he have a chip on his shoulder? **[14:43] Speaker A:** Yeah, sure. Did they all trying to think of counterexamples that did not. I can't think of one right now. I'm sure. **[14:49] Speaker B:** So generally, yes. **[14:51] Speaker A:** Yeah, generally yes. I think talking absolutes, we're obviously going to find some kind of example, but yeah, generally, yes. **[14:55] Speaker B:** Okay. **[14:55] Speaker B:** This, this sort of the immigrant advantage. VCs like immigrants, people who landed in this country. I interviewed Kaz from Opendoor. Yes. Who I love by the way. **[15:07] Speaker B:** There just wasn't a lot of options to him. And that risk adjusted options. Starting a company was the best option. What is your take on that? Sort of a common trope amongst VCs. They like the immigrant advantage. **[15:17] Speaker A:** I can only speak from my personal experience. My dad was born in Cuba. I'm the son of a Cuban immigrant. I grew up meeting people that came to this country. They risked their lives literally on fucking rafts and think about how much you love your son and how bad Cuba had to be and communism had to be to put your 14 year old or 9 year old son on a raft and hope to make that 90 mile journey to South Florida. **[15:39] Speaker B:** Yep. **[15:40] Speaker A:** What does that tell you? That had a profound impact on me. And this is where I'm like this most pro American, pro capitalist person that I know. Just because it's like, no, I know what we have. Like, I'm unabashedly pro American, pro capitalist. I think a lot of these people, even if they don't become entrepreneurs, they have fierce work ethics because they're like, oh my God, I didn't have any opportunity. And I come to this country and it's unlimited opportunity and it's weird that people that their families have been here for multiple generations think, oh, there's no opportunity. Everything's gone. This, this sucks. **[16:04] Speaker B:** It's like, yeah, okay. One of the things that surprised me when I looked at kind of the modern tech CEOs, only three of the 10 were immigrants. Jensen was an immigrant. Elon was an immigrant from South Africa. Sergey was an immigrant from Russia. Most of them were born here that actually. Hold on. **[16:19] Speaker A:** But those three are responsible for what, like, oh yeah, 80% of market cap. **[16:22] Speaker B:** There's some other winners on the list, though. **[16:24] Speaker B:** I was surprised. I thought it was going to be 8 out of the 10. **[16:26] Speaker A:** Bezos dad was a Cuban immigrant. **[16:29] Speaker B:** Yep. **[16:29] Speaker A:** A bunch of them had dad Bezos is a Cuban. **[16:31] Speaker B:** Three out of the ten were immigrants. Three out of the ten dads were immigrants. But it certainly wasn't the, the, the common factor. **[16:39] Speaker A:** I would never be a VC in my life, but if I was, I wouldn't waste time trying to be like, here's these patterns. And like, I'm going to run this through a rubric. It's for me, like, I don't even. I barely invest and my whole thing is just like, I don't. The investments I've done. It's just like, I don't even want you to tell me what the company name is or what it does. I just like bet on you. **[16:57] Speaker A:** I knew for a fact that there was no way I wasn't gonna succeed. So I will fucking kill myself before I fail. And that's what I would look for. I wouldn't look for chip on shoulder, immigrant, anything. This person's gonna figure. Like, Ed Catmull yesterday, one of my favorite things he ever said, and keep in mind, Steve Jobs said he learned more about managing highly talented people. From Ed Campbell to anybody else in his career, that's a hell of a compliment. And Ed goes, it's all about the people. Because he'd give these talks and he'd ask what's more important, ideas or people. And he's like, no one realizes a false economy. It's like, ideas come from people, therefore people are more important than ideas. And his whole thing was it's all the talented people. So he's like, if you give a great idea to a mediocre team, they'll fuck it up. **[17:37] Speaker A:** If you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they'll either fix it or throw it out and create something new. So that's what I would look for. **[17:44] Speaker A:** Travis Remover, just look into his history. That dude was Going to make Uber work. **[17:49] Speaker B:** Yep. **[17:50] Speaker A:** Or he was going to die trying. **[17:51] Speaker B:** Yep. **[17:52] Speaker B:** Okay. He studied all these folks. Some founders who walked through the door at Sequoia, they're solo founders, some are co founders, some have big teams for the most part, when I look back at it, some had founders at the beginning, but generally it was the one person that drove the company. Always one in that other founder, sort of. **[18:08] Speaker A:** There could be some examples, but this is awesome. **[18:11] Speaker B:** Not many doesn't. **[18:13] Speaker A:** Again, I don't pay attention too much of the startup scene. Doesn't Y Combinator, like, heavily recommend co founders? **[18:19] Speaker B:** I think in general, the conventional wisdom is co founders is a very good idea. In fact, MIT did a big study and they said the optimal number of co founders is 3. **[18:27] Speaker B:** Not sure I buy that. Anyway, you spent some time in Charlie Munger, who was not the co founder of Berkshire Hathaway, but sort of was. **[18:34] Speaker A:** Yeah. **[18:35] Speaker B:** What have you learned about that co founder situation? What about partnerships that. **[18:41] Speaker B:** We've studied all these folks. **[18:43] Speaker A:** So we're at Sequoia. I think people should read the forward to the updated version of Michael Moritz's book Return to the Little Kingdom. It's a book he wrote before I think he even was at Sequoia. So in the first six years of Apple. Then he did this updated version like 2009, 2010, called the Return to Lower Kingdom. Read the four of that book. Okay, first of all, Moritz's writing is fucking incredible. **[19:03] Speaker B:** Great writer. **[19:04] Speaker A:** Oh, my God, I want to do a podcast so bad on the biography he did of Don Valentine. It's like the perfect biography. It's like 60 pages long. **[19:13] Speaker B:** Believe it or not, I never read it. **[19:14] Speaker A:** Oh, my God. You need to do that today, this weekend. **[19:17] Speaker B:** Okay. **[19:17] Speaker A:** It's phenomenal. Got it. He was talking about, you know, Steve is singular. It's like, when did anybody essentially refounded the way he frames it in the four. He's like, Steve refounded Apple. He didn't found Apple once. He founded it twice. And the second time he was alone. And then he pulled off the craziest turnaround in technology history. **[19:36] Speaker A:** And so this is when I think of like, even they're like, oh, Buffett's not the founder of Berkshire Hathaway because it was. Shut up. And just like Munger. Munger. Munger's his co founder, dude. **[19:47] Speaker B:** Carnegie, Ford, all these folks. There wasn't many partnerships. **[19:51] Speaker A:** No, that's not true. So Carnegie didn't even run his company. This guy named Henry Clay Frick ran his company. **[19:56] Speaker A:** There's a great biography on this I'll send to you, you'll love. It's called Meet yout in Hell and it's about the bitter partnership between Andrew Carnegie and Henry K. Frick. Frick was the operator. Carnegie was often like sailing around the world when Frick was the one building Carnegie Steel and then kind of forced the sale to J.P. morgan. It's a fascinating story. Anytime there's like this new technological change and disruption, there is physical violence. And we're seeing this with the attacks against the data centers and the founders of these AI companies. That is unbelievably predictable. It reoccurs throughout history. Frick, let me tell you about Frick. **[20:28] Speaker A:** They're going through this. It's Industrial revolution. There's all this change. When you have strikes, people just go read the history. They died about this. **[20:35] Speaker A:** Frick got shot in the neck. An assassin went into his office, shot him in the neck, grazed him. Then they arrested the guy. Frick had it sewed up and insisted on finishing his day's work and then went home. So Frick is a very badass dude. **[20:53] Speaker B:** Is this an exception though? Is the co founders that or the partners that last an exception rather than sort of. **[21:00] Speaker A:** I would take them one on one. So like if you want to go **[21:03] Speaker B:** through the robbery, 400 for crying out. **[21:04] Speaker A:** Yeah, no, but like, but like, okay, so like Carnegie was like made all the money. He was the largest shareholder. But Frick was running the company. He was smart enough to acquire Frick's company. **[21:12] Speaker B:** And we like Ford. **[21:14] Speaker A:** No, Ford was an autocrat, okay. And wouldn't listen to anybody else. He would remember by 1919 he owned a. He bought out all shareholders. He owned 100% Rockefeller, a Ford Motor company. **[21:26] Speaker A:** Rockefeller built a team of founders. If you look at his board, it's not a board but it's like they called him partners. All the people taking dividends from Standard, almost every single one was a previous founder. And he made essentially a board or like a company of founders. He happened to be the dominating personality. **[21:42] Speaker A:** It was much more of like a. I don't even know how there might have been a dozen of them or 8. I forgot the number, but there was a lot of them. I talked to Munger about this. He was just like, Buffett is a once in a century talent. And he's like, you are so arrogant. **[21:57] Speaker A:** Because Munger had a big ego. When I met him, he told me the funniest thing. **[22:02] Speaker B:** I'm actually surprised to hear that. I thought he subjugated his ego a lot. **[22:05] Speaker A:** He talks about this so he used that word, subjugate. That's exactly what he said. But he goes, if I could do life again, I always thought I was smarter than everybody else. If I could do life again, I'd still think I was smarter everywhere else, but I would do a better job of hiding it. But it's funny, he goes, I thought I was really smart, but I recognized the talent that Buffett had that I didn't. And Buffett was more singularly focused. **[22:26] Speaker A:** He wanted to fish and boat and design architecture and do real estate and do all this other stuff. So he's like, how arrogant would I have to be to not subjugate myself to a once in a century talent? **[22:37] Speaker B:** Got it. **[22:38] Speaker A:** His thing was more of like, Buffett let him shape his mind and his thinking. But he. He realized that Buffett was the driving engine behind their success. **[22:46] Speaker B:** One of my ahas, though, and I haven't listened to all your podcasts, is I don't think there's a lot of co founding teams that lasted the test of time. I think it's pretty rare. And I kind of see that today and in Silicon Valley. **[22:58] Speaker A:** Yeah. **[22:58] Speaker B:** There's kind of one dominant person. **[23:00] Speaker A:** Yeah. And then they go away. That second person, usually Wozniak, went away. All the people that the co founders of Facebook went away. **[23:07] Speaker B:** It's pretty common. **[23:08] Speaker A:** Yeah. This was my argument about this. Now, maybe that one guy needed these other people at the beginning, but there's always just one. There's usually a singular driving force behind the company. **[23:20] Speaker B:** Let's talk about these individuals. You get inside their heads. And some people have positive self talk. I have negative self talk. **[23:27] Speaker A:** Still. **[23:27] Speaker B:** Yes. **[23:28] Speaker A:** I just changed this about myself. It's the best ever. **[23:31] Speaker B:** Okay. I've tried. **[23:32] Speaker B:** What about these people you're interviewing? Do they have imposter syndrome? Do they have negative self talk as **[23:37] Speaker A:** they overcome the imposter syndrome? Is an interesting idea. **[23:40] Speaker A:** Interesting question. I can't think of anybody I think that has imposter syndrome right now. You still do? **[23:46] Speaker B:** Yeah. I feel like kind of nervous right now. **[23:49] Speaker A:** Why are you nervous? **[23:50] Speaker B:** Just. Damn. **[23:53] Speaker A:** So I don't know about the imposter syndrome. **[23:54] Speaker B:** I was just in a board meeting for the last three hours. **[23:56] Speaker B:** It's like, what am I doing here? **[23:58] Speaker A:** Interesting. **[23:59] Speaker B:** Yeah. **[23:59] Speaker A:** One of the greatest pieces of I, Steve Jobs ever got, he got from Nolan Bushnell. So Nolan Bushnell was like nine or 10 years older than him. **[24:05] Speaker A:** He was his mentor, founder of Atari. And he told Steve, he's like, if you pretend to be in control, everybody else will assume that you are okay. Steve took that advice and ran with it. **[24:14] Speaker B:** Okay. **[24:14] Speaker A:** So I don't know about a poster syndrome. What was the other part of your question? Just negative self talk. **[24:18] Speaker B:** Yeah, Yeah. **[24:19] Speaker A:** I mean, Jensen dude. **[24:20] Speaker B:** Yeah. **[24:21] Speaker A:** Like, like he wakes up every day and he says, he looks in the mirror and says, why do you suck so much? Yeah, he. **[24:28] Speaker B:** Do you think that's common? **[24:30] Speaker A:** I mean, then you think about Elon. He says his mind is a storm he doesn't see. He seems to like embrace chaos and need like some kind of foil or some kind of problem. He seems to be like freaked out when things are going well. **[24:40] Speaker B:** Yes. **[24:41] Speaker A:** So I definitely think he's got a dark mind. **[24:43] Speaker B:** I'm kind of negative inside, but as a founder trying to project positive outside, **[24:48] Speaker A:** I think it's way more common. The best founders, they don't like sleep on wins. They essentially do something great, celebrate for like a day, and then back to it. So like I just did Tony Zhu of DoorDash, who I think you guys were investors in. Yeah. **[25:00] Speaker A:** And his whole thing is like, he's like, we got so much more to do. He's like, okay, we had a something good happen. Like, let's go out to dinner. And by the time the dinner, before the dinner's over, I'm thinking the 17 things that are not going right. That's why he's great. That's also different than like being super critical and negative. And I think for me, Brad Jacobs, y who started eight separate billion dollar companies, he's the one reading his book and then building relationship with him. I don't know what happened and this has never happened in my life, but just something about being around him because he has 45 years of experience as an entrepreneur, longer than I've been alive. And he used to be fucking ruthless with himself. He's like, it's not serving me. **[25:38] Speaker A:** And we were talking about this. He's like, you love what you do. He's like, would you stop? He's like your source of drive. That negative source of drive is not serving you anymore. **[25:47] Speaker A:** Now you love what you do. You found what you think is your life's work. Your inner drive should be generative. It should be like, hey, I'm trying to make something that's good for the world that I love to do, that I'm very proud of. And I'm telling you, it was almost like might not have been overnight, but pretty. There's just something that clicked. I'm like, I'm done with that. And now it's just like I wake up Every day I'm like, I cannot believe I was texting my team last night when we got done with Ed Catmull, I was like, how is this my life? **[26:08] Speaker B:** That negative self talk is what gets you to where you are today. **[26:12] Speaker A:** But then your fuel source has to change because it could also destroy you. **[26:16] Speaker A:** But yeah. And so it's like, I, again, I don't want to do something for five years, for 10 years, for 15 years, I want to do it forever. If you look at the people I'm selecting to talk to, they've been doing it for 30 years, 40 years. I just, I'm obsessed with people that people say, if, oh, if you love what you do, you do it for free. There's another level. **[26:34] Speaker A:** If you love what you do, they couldn't pay you to stop. Yes, those are the people I love. **[26:38] Speaker B:** Yes. Okay. You brought up something interesting about platform changes. The Industrial Revolution, obviously, huge platform change. Even like Henry Ford in the assembly line, kind of a big platform change. **[26:51] Speaker A:** Massive. **[26:51] Speaker B:** When those things happened, did the profile of the founder, CEO change and did the way they ran their companies change? Because we're going through something maybe bigger, maybe not, but probably bigger now. **[27:06] Speaker A:** What do you mean by the profile change? **[27:08] Speaker B:** I'll give you an example. You know, Paul Graham talked about this thing as founder mode and manager mode. Manager mode being kind of Jack Welch military style, organizational structure, very top down. Founder mode being Brian Chesky, who, pretty distrustful of conventional wisdom, thinner layers of management, gets right down to the coal face as much as possible. **[27:31] Speaker B:** And so those are sort of the two modes I see of CEOs today. People are kind of tilting towards founder mode. In the Dorsey interview we were talking about a second ago, Jack Dorsey is doing, I call it Dorsey mode, where he gets rid of the org chart, he gets rid of titles, and more and more of the decisions are actually made by his AI system in the middle of the company. And the people are in charge of just giving more context to that AI system in the middle. Circular shaped, they're feeding contests, they have judgment on the outside over time. The AI system makes very few of the decisions today, but maybe 5%, 10% in the percentage of decisions the AI system makes versus the humans starts to flip. And so I kind of call it Dorsey Mode. Like a new way to think about building a company. **[28:12] Speaker B:** Far fewer people than you would have needed in the previous generation. Did something like that happen to the profile or the way they built companies back in the previous. **[28:22] Speaker A:** It's a great question. I just asked Michael Dell this because if you think about Dell, like, he started his company, he was 19, with $1,000. He's like, hey, I'm in my University of Texas dorm room and I'm going to take on the biggest company in the world, which is IBM, which is absolute batshit crazy idea, right? Most people don't know. I just had a conversation with Mark Andreessen about this on my podcast. **[28:42] Speaker A:** IBM was the first company in history to hit $100 billion market cap. It had 80% market share of the entire technology industry. **[28:48] Speaker A:** I think Mark said on the podcast, that's like having 10 Googles. It's just like we haven't seen that level of domination ever since Dell. It's just a crazy thing. And he wound up succeeding. And Dell was actually profitable every single quarter for the first 20 years of its existence. It's a crazy feat. Cause I'm always skeptical of this time is different. Because everybody in history says this time is different. **[29:06] Speaker A:** And so Michael has had to navigate through how many different platform shifts and technological revolutions. I asked him that because I can't. Like, to me, it feels different. And he's like, no, this is not like anything else that I've been through. I actually think the way to run a company. Toby Luque believes this too. **[29:23] Speaker B:** Yes. **[29:23] Speaker A:** I do think the way to do it and how you could do it and what's available to you is completely different. Like this time, in my opinion, is actually different because the amount of leverage **[29:34] Speaker B:** I think is too. **[29:35] Speaker A:** Yeah, exactly. So that, that's what I would say. **[29:37] Speaker B:** I think the shape of the organization changes. I think the number of people you need changes. I think the way you compensate people because you have 100x people now that are really proficient with these tools changes. **[29:48] Speaker B:** I think the planning cycle changes because it's moving so fast. I actually think it's different, like, compared to like I went through the Internet, like 1990s when I started my career, and Google came along and that SAS came along and mobile came along. This is a lot different. **[30:02] Speaker A:** There's a great line in the Almanac and Naval that my friend Eric Jorgensen wrote about the book of Naval Rabican. And he says, in the age of Infinite leverage, being at the extreme of your craft is very important. **[30:13] Speaker A:** That was before AI and AI is just leverage. **[30:15] Speaker B:** Yes. **[30:15] Speaker A:** And I think this is why we talked about. I think we started this conversation with me and you've had this conversation before. It's like the premium one focus, just trying to be the best in the world. Whatever it is that you do, you're going to reap so many more rewards. Being at the very frontier in the extreme edge of your craft is going to be unbelievably valuable to the point where you just said, you know, you can have somebody makes, you know, 1x and then you're going to have the most talented people. We've already seen some of this. Well, they're not 100 times more valuable. They're like a thousand times, I don't know. So I'm really close to John and Jordy of tpbn. I'm obsessed with podcasters. I've built relationships with all of them. And the way I put this is, yeah, maybe they bought the show is incredible. **[30:51] Speaker A:** I spent a lot of time talking to him about this. **[30:54] Speaker A:** But Jordy came into podcasting and it wasn't like he was like this 2x as good marketer as the next best podcaster. He was like 100x better. And if I was OpenAI, I would make him the CMO of OpenAI. The value is he could produce. I'm not saying he will. **[31:13] Speaker A:** Saying he could produce billions of a single individual and the ideas that come from his very unique brain. When it comes to marketing, he's really gifted at this. Look what he did for the show for that was seven, only 17 months old. Everybody's talking about, oh, all these people trying to clone them. It's like they can't clone their minds. They have no idea what was coming. **[31:29] Speaker B:** Yeah. **[31:30] Speaker A:** And so, yeah, I do think you're going to see people like that in other areas. Marketing, obviously, research everywhere else that you should pay them 10,000x. **[31:37] Speaker B:** I think that I don't know about that. One other thing that's different I want to press you on a little bit is I was a preacher of focus inside of HubSpot. Every year it's like we can only do three things. What are the three things? What are the 50 we're not going to do? I've noticed that the modern AI native CEOs like Winston from Harvey and Anton from lovable Mati from 11 Labs, they're not that focused. They're doing tons of stuff and they're able to do stuff fast. Bezos used to talk about those one way doors and two way doors. Yeah. Things that used to be one way doors. Like, we're going to do some big initiative, we're going to go international, some big thing. **[32:12] Speaker B:** A lot of those one way doors are two way doors now. Like, okay, let's press for a month and see how far we can get. Okay. If we Miss, let's just go back. What's your take on that? That maybe focus isn't as important in the age of AI. **[32:24] Speaker A:** I don't know if I have a take on it. I would say, like I'd be very wary. Like these people that you mentioned have built great products. They haven't built durable businesses yet. We have to see how this plays out. **[32:33] Speaker B:** Yes, still early. **[32:34] Speaker A:** Yeah, so that's the issue I would have. It's like, yeah, maybe those are good ideas. But like I'm interested in people that build durable businesses. I again, I don't want to acquired. I want to be around running my business forever. I've spent a bunch of time with older founders. I'm talking 70. **[32:47] Speaker B:** A lot of time with older founders. **[32:49] Speaker A:** No, but I'm talking about recently 70, 75, 80 years old. I realized if you sell your main thing, get out of the game completely. Because if you sell your best idea and then you have another decade, two decades, 25 years ahead of you, and then you're just working on a bunch of bullshit. I don't know how many people can found multiple great companies in their lifetime. **[33:09] Speaker B:** Very rare. **[33:10] Speaker A:** Elon. **[33:12] Speaker B:** I think the second time founders thing is really overrated because most of the successes are first time. **[33:16] Speaker A:** And so what I've seen is people that either sold their best idea, that was a generational company, or maybe they had a falling out or something happened. Like now you Fast forward, they're 75 years old. This happened maybe 25 years ago. **[33:28] Speaker B:** Asking for it is you don't want **[33:29] Speaker A:** to be in that spot. And so my point is you're all in or all out. But why would you be all in on your second, third, fourth, fifth best idea? And then they try to recapture that magic. And it's almost impossible, especially at 50 or 60, to do what you did at 25 or 35. Like that's very difficult. That was just some, some kind of like weird sixth sense I had about having these conversations where it's like, man, this is like so far down what you had accomplished in the past. And like you're just like, oh, I have to play the game. It's like I would just if you're out, then just you're done for the rest of your life. Go on your boat or go do **[34:02] Speaker B:** whatever they're not capable of being. **[34:03] Speaker A:** And that's. And I don't think so either. That's why you don't sell. And so that's what I mean about being very hesitant of taking knowledge or like ideas and like, oh, look, this company that has raised a bunch of money and is a stone startup is working on 15 different products. Well, let's see how the time. Give it time. Let's see how it plays out. I don't know. **[34:20] Speaker B:** It's fashionable in AI worlds for people to say the best founders have great taste. What's your take on that? And when you look back through the 420 that you've studied, is that a common thing or is that new? Is it bullshit? **[34:37] Speaker A:** I think taste is very real. **[34:38] Speaker A:** Now, what's. What's coloring this is like, I've been a big fan of Rick Rubin. **[34:41] Speaker B:** Yep. **[34:41] Speaker A:** Taste is very real. The guy's built a wonderful career. Same thing started at 18 in his dorm room. He's 62, 63. Still doing the same thing. Why do people want to work with him? Because he. His taste. **[34:51] Speaker B:** Yeah. **[34:52] Speaker A:** And. And I realized he's, like, scary good at making podcasts too. And we were talking before we started recording, and I go, dude, I've been thinking about you. **[34:59] Speaker A:** Why you're so good when most people make podcasts are very, very bad. And I go, I realized you took **[35:04] Speaker B:** a skill that I'm very, very bad. Is this your way of telling, no, I wouldn't be here if you were kidding. **[35:09] Speaker A:** Wouldn't be here if you were. **[35:10] Speaker A:** No. But I realized he took a skill from music and applied it to podcasts. **[35:14] Speaker B:** Yes. **[35:14] Speaker A:** Which if you think about what his main thing, I go, you're a professional listener. And he lit up. I started explaining my theory on why you're so good at podcasting. And he goes, stop. **[35:24] Speaker A:** He goes, we have. Stop. We have to record this. This is too good. And so he agreed with that, that his sensory skill set, not just his taste, but most people when they're talking, like, maybe even when I'm talking, maybe you're listening, maybe you're just waiting to respond. And it's very common for humans. He's just, like, not forming any opinions or judgment. He's just, like, really interested in these people. That's why he's very selective who he works for or works with. And so, yeah, he has very real taste. **[35:47] Speaker B:** Is he an exception, though? **[35:49] Speaker A:** Oh, of course. **[35:50] Speaker B:** Did Bezos have taste? Jobs obviously had taste. **[35:53] Speaker A:** Jobs obviously had taste. **[35:54] Speaker B:** Did Nvidia, Did Jensen have taste? Zuckerberg have taste? **[35:57] Speaker A:** I think so. We mentioned the broadcast guy, Hock Tan, I think is his name. He was just speaking about this, and his whole thing was like, he thinks these founders that pontificate and, like, I saw this strategy coming. I think his company's like 1.5 trillion now. He's like, that fucking no idea this was gonna happen. The opportunity was in front of me. I made a good decision. Then I was like, oh, what can I do now that I got to the next rung, and he looked around and then he's like, that was a strategy. He's like, there's no fucking way. There's way too many moving parts, way too complicated. I could predict that 20 years ago it was gonna happen. So I don't know. I think be very wary of anything where there's, like, this echo chamber on X, where the current thing, the thing of the day, I think that's almost useless to even pay attention to. **[36:34] Speaker A:** So I don't even think about it. **[36:35] Speaker B:** This is exactly what I want to ask you about. Like, a lot of the people that you see on X today, or you read their biography, you're studying them after they're incredibly successful. **[36:46] Speaker B:** They've hired a PR firm to make everything look good. They get advice on how to post on X and how to be in the world. Advice to founders. Should they just be themselves or should they get some help? **[36:57] Speaker A:** Depends on who you are as a person. I mean, some of these people are terrible people or they're terrible communicators. I would not be yourself, buddy. I don't tell you. Yourself sucks, so I would not be yourself. **[37:08] Speaker B:** How much shaping should you take? Like, as a CEO, I remember coming up and we're going public and we hired people, like, trying to shape me, and we did a little of it, and I think it worked. Is that a good idea or a bad idea? **[37:19] Speaker A:** I think, obviously, depending on the industry you're working in, who you are as a person. Everything comes down to, like, who you are as a person would, like, we have one shot at life. How do you want to do life? This is why I like reading biographies. It's like, yeah, there's a lot of good business ideas in there. But essentially every week I'm just like, this is how this person did life. We're all doing life. We're alive. You're listening to this. We're doing life. How do you want to do it? I want some ideas on how I could do life. And so for me, I'm unmanageable. I ran a fucking podcast for 10 years that had no employees by myself. What does that tell you? I have very hard time working with other people. I'm very disagreeable and micromanaging and everything else. And my. **[37:52] Speaker A:** Now this new podcast, like, ask my team. Like, I Am I can be ruthless in a nice way. I'm not mean, but like, nope, we gotta redo that. **[37:59] Speaker B:** Most of these great founders disagreeable through. **[38:01] Speaker A:** Yeah, for sure, for sure. But what I would say is, like, I don't want to censor myself. A good friend of mine was mentored by Sam Zell for 25 years. And I was doing another episode on Sam Cell, he's like, come over for dinner and I'll give you some Sam Zell stories for your episode. And what you know about Sam is like, he always, like, ran his own money. His company was like his family office. And he made the investment decisions. He would raise money on an individual deal by deal basis, but never know permanent capital structure, no fund. Why do you do that? And my friend said the funniest thing. He goes, sam was constitutionally unsuited to manage institutional capital. **[38:33] Speaker A:** Meaning Sam was a wild man that was uncontrollable. And he would say, shit. He had no filter, and he didn't want LPs calling him, saying, you're no professional, that kind of thing. Sam knew who he was. So it depends. Like, Sam should be who he is. Maybe in this case, this other founder shouldn't. It really just depends on, like, the industry, who you are, what you gotta be. I don't want to have multiple sides of me. I'd rather just be like, this is what I believe. This is what I think is interesting. Like, if you think about founders, like, when I go through the books, everybody's like, how do you pick out what you want to talk about? Like, what are you thinking about when you're reading? And I'm like, absolutely nothing. Like, I'm reading. Like, that line sticks out to me for some reason. **[39:10] Speaker A:** I underline it. And then I write, jot down what comes to mind. And then when I. Before I sit down to record, I just go back through the highlights, and if I read it again the second time and it's still interesting to me, I put it on the podcast. There's no thinking at all. It's all instinct. **[39:23] Speaker B:** Okay, you're an interesting case on this because you did 400 plus podcasts of mostly dead people, and now you're doing very much alive people. And it's a little bit like, you never want to meet your heroes. **[39:36] Speaker A:** I met my hero, Jim Ston. **[39:38] Speaker B:** Okay, yeah, let's come back to that. **[39:40] Speaker A:** Go ahead. **[39:41] Speaker B:** Any surprises in meeting these people face to face versus books? Is there whitewashing in the books? Are the people face to face like, very different than their whitewashed external Presence. **[39:53] Speaker A:** I would have to imagine, if you're. Especially for autobiographies, you write an autobiography of your life. I write an autobiography of my life. That's whitewashed. Come on, man. We're like, of course you want to look the best. And even if you don't lie about stuff, you're going to omit stuff that makes you look bad. **[40:08] Speaker B:** Of course. **[40:09] Speaker A:** And so this is the. I always get this real, like, well, how do you know the stuff in the books is true? **[40:14] Speaker A:** You don't, but we're not taking a history. It's not a history test. **[40:18] Speaker A:** If I read an idea in the book, right, it said, Sam Walton found a way to beat back bureaucracy. And that never happened, but it's still a good idea. And I apply that idea to my business. Why? All I care is, is this is a useful idea. I can't prove, nor do I care if it's true. I'm just looking for interesting ideas. It's not a history test. **[40:36] Speaker A:** What I would say about all the people I've met is they've been unbelievably, like, kind and generous and thoughtful, but I also don't work for them. So who knows? And I'm not. I'm not in their family, I'm not in their house. Like, it's like a different interaction. I don't think. **[40:52] Speaker B:** You think people today, the great founders, are different than the ones of 100 years? No, no, same, same. Same personality type, same phenotype. **[41:00] Speaker A:** Yeah. **[41:00] Speaker B:** What else is in common? **[41:01] Speaker A:** Like, kind of personality traits. **[41:03] Speaker B:** Yeah. **[41:03] Speaker A:** So obsession, high level disagreeableness. **[41:06] Speaker B:** Talk about that. So somebody comes in to pitch with Sequoia, let's say, and some people are very charming and some people a little disagreeable. I think it's just very natural to want to do business with the very charming person. Is that a bad instinct? **[41:18] Speaker A:** I've done like 15 episodes on, on Steve Jobs and read almost everything I can find on him. And I learned something about him that I never knew yesterday for Ed Catmull, and Ed said that Steve fired two people off the Pixar board, and he fired them because they never disagree with him. **[41:33] Speaker A:** And he's like, if they don't disagree with me, yeah, what's the. What value are they giving me? He wanted you to fight back and **[41:39] Speaker B:** to be disagreeable himself. Are they all disagreeable? **[41:42] Speaker A:** Rockefeller had very advanced social skills, I would say. **[41:46] Speaker B:** Okay, did they all have advanced. **[41:48] Speaker A:** No, no, no. So, but Rockefeller is an interesting thing because there's people that worked for him for like, 40 years that said he Never heard him raise his voice and never said an unkind word. That's crazy. **[41:58] Speaker A:** And then even the way he would arbitrate disagreements between him and his partners was essentially like, there's this one thing where they wanted to invest like $3 million into some kind of new technology that I think would transport oil faster or refine oil faster, something like that. And there was a huge disagreement on the board. And Rockefeller sat there quietly and let them fight. And then he said, I believe in this. If you guys don't want to do this, I'll put up the money myself. **[42:20] Speaker A:** If it works, Standard Oil can pay me back. If it doesn't, I'll eat the 3 million. And then his partner's like, well, if you could take the risk, we can too. And that's how they agree to do it. That's not disagreeable. **[42:29] Speaker A:** That's something else. It just depends on the person. But yeah, there are these traits that obsession, focus, cost control, obsessed with having the lowest cost. They see that advantage compounds over and over again. You don't see that with the new technology founders at all. I think it's a great disadvantage. Micromanagers, what Paul Graham calls founder mood. That's not new at all. I'm a huge fan of his essays. But when that essay went far, like we're bringing this back, I'm like, this is a new thing. It's like, this is not new at all. **[42:52] Speaker B:** Interesting at all. **[42:54] Speaker A:** Nothing is new in this at all. **[42:55] Speaker B:** What is new? **[42:57] Speaker A:** I think what we talked about earlier, like what Jack Dorsey was saying, what Michael Dell was saying, that I do think, I mean, Toby Luque, when I talked to him, you know, he. **[43:07] Speaker A:** He said that we're going to look back on 2026. We're looking back on this year in history as like the year that every single business was up for grabs, that you can rebuild almost every single business AI native and have a massive advantage. And I think that's an interesting thing. **[43:24] Speaker B:** When you look back at all these folks, how many of them had like great, well balanced personal lives, great families, had like a really deep life beyond between the lines. **[43:39] Speaker A:** I think three of them. **[43:40] Speaker B:** Out of all of them, only three. **[43:42] Speaker A:** I think Ed Thorpe, who is a very fascinating character, created the first quantitative hedge fund, invented the way to count cards for blackjack. Phenomenal investor. **[43:53] Speaker B:** But the fact is only 3. **[43:55] Speaker A:** 3. Him. Sol Price. Do you know who Soul Price is? **[43:57] Speaker B:** No. **[43:58] Speaker A:** So Sol Price is the most influential retailer of all time. Sam Walton said he took more ideas from Sole Price than anybody else. Jeff Bezos took A lot of ideas for Amazon from Sol Price. So he knows who he is. Bernie Marcus literally got the idea for Home Depot from Sol Price. Jim Sinegal of Costco literally said, I didn't learn a lot from Soul Price. I learned everything I know from Sol Price. So he created all these billionaire retailers. Other one I would say is Brunello Cucinelli. But that was his autobiography and I heard that may or may not be **[44:26] Speaker B:** true advice to founders. So I spent all my days with founders trying to build trillion dollar companies, advice for them on their lives. **[44:33] Speaker A:** I don't ever give advice. **[44:34] Speaker B:** Why not? I'm asking you for advice right now. **[44:37] Speaker A:** For you. **[44:38] Speaker B:** Let's use me as a proxy. **[44:40] Speaker A:** I think people are going to do what they want to do and so they'll seek out useful information. But I think these people that go around, not you, but like anybody that just goes around like trying to identify what's going on somebody else's life, like I think it's almost like relatively useless. I think people literally do what they want to do. I talked to a lot of founders. Now there is this thing where they find it very useful to have like a conversation. They kind of like dump what's going on in their company to me and I kind of run it through everything I've read and Right. Maybe I come up with something interesting. But I wouldn't consider advice. It's just like, oh, Rockefeller ran into that situation. This is what he did. Or Ford did this or this guy did that. **[45:12] Speaker B:** To build a trillion dollar company and have a very well balanced life like Ed Thorpe. **[45:16] Speaker A:** I don't even pay attention to the public market. So 10, there's 10. **[45:19] Speaker B:** They're 12. Including like a Middle Eastern oil company. **[45:22] Speaker A:** Okay, let's just take the American companies. **[45:23] Speaker B:** 10. **[45:25] Speaker A:** Any of those guys well balanced. **[45:27] Speaker B:** Here's what I will say about them that I thought was interesting. Only two of them are divorced. Most of them were married before they were famous and stayed married. And most of them married. Their spouse was kind of an intellectually equal. They met them and they were very accomplished on their own. And so they started out with an intellectually formidable partner very early and stuck with them. I thought that was interesting. Of course, like Larry Ellison's had four wives. **[45:57] Speaker A:** Like I think six now. **[45:59] Speaker B:** Okay. **[45:59] Speaker A:** But yeah, he's doing some heavy lifting for these other guys. **[46:02] Speaker B:** But I thought it was interesting that they all got married very early to peers. And how about through history, in history. **[46:10] Speaker A:** They just like, they're terrible husbands. Like divorce, like just not. **[46:14] Speaker B:** I say good. **[46:16] Speaker A:** I would I would not consider them in many cases, bad fathers too. I see this is a very difficult thing to do. I remember I just finished reading Phil Knight's autobiography, Shoe Dog for the third time. **[46:27] Speaker B:** I love it. **[46:27] Speaker A:** And think about what he says at the very end. You know, like he had two sons, one of them died tragically in a drowning accident. And he was like trying to reconcile this as a grown 75 year old man at the time. And he's having a hard time understanding this, that, like this push and pull. Like I wanted to spend more time with my sons, but if I'm being honest, my biggest regret is that I can't go back and do it all again. And in Sam Walton's autobiography, you know, he sacrificed a lot of time away from his family to build Walmart. And he's, he knows he's dying, he's writing the book when he's riddled with cancer and he's dying. **[46:58] Speaker B:** Did you regret that? **[46:59] Speaker A:** No, that's what I was getting to. And he's like, if I did it all again, I would do the exact same thing I did. I'm very skeptical of these people that gets in their lives is like, oh, I have this regret because I think this personality type, it's almost like a compulsion. If they played out life again, they'd want to do it the same way. I talked to Jeffrey Katzenberg about this, who's very interesting. **[47:17] Speaker A:** He swears he has no talent. He just throws hours at everything. It's like, Jeffrey, you're obviously fucking talented. But he was telling me about this, he's like, listen, the biggest thing with your kids is like quality of time, not quantity. He's just like, don't do it where like you're on the phone or you're like distracted. Like, if you only have 10 hours a week with them, make those the best 10 hours ever. **[47:38] Speaker A:** Do a ton of planning with it. Like, make it so it's so memorable with them. I thought that was an interesting idea, recommendation. But look at the people. Like the AI race right now. This is the game of Kings. I met Demis Hassabis. He just did an interview on Fortune where he's just like, his schedule is he has his thinking time from 11pm to 4 in the morning and he goes to sleep. Then he works a full day at the office the next day, then has dinner with his wife and kids and then does his thinking time again. You think he's balanced? **[48:08] Speaker A:** He's got two work days. **[48:11] Speaker B:** Okay. You studied all these people. I spent all my time with Sequoia founders now advice to them. How did it become iconic that someone that you would read their book and do an episode on them? **[48:27] Speaker A:** I think the best founders don't need advice. I'm very skeptical of this narrative that, like, we back and discover the greatest talent. The way I would put this is like, Michael Jordan said something very interesting. He was at the end of his career and Kobe Bryant's coming in. They're like, we. **[48:43] Speaker A:** We discovered the, you know, Michael Jordan. We discovered the next or the next Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant. And he's like, this will happen again. There will be another me. **[48:51] Speaker B:** Yeah. **[48:52] Speaker A:** And he goes, first of all, you didn't discover me. I just happened to come around. And I think the best founders are like that. Like, they're not discovered. They make themselves known. **[49:01] Speaker A:** And I'm highly skeptical. Like, these are force of nature. Again, go back to Mike Moritz, the forward that he wrote in the Return to Little Kingdom. In a paragraph, he can describe what a founder is. He's like, these are irrepressible. This is the line he says about jobs. And the best founders, they're irrepressible forces of nature. They don't need your advice. They will find the information, and if they want it from you, they will seek you out. They will find you. **[49:23] Speaker A:** But going around like, oh, I would, you know, paint that a little different or I would do a different way. It's like, they've got it. **[49:30] Speaker B:** Yeah, I think you're mostly right about that. I don't proactively give advice. If they ask me, I give it to them. **[49:37] Speaker B:** And I think they're good about sort of ranking it in their head. And, like, I'll take that. I'm going to throw that away. **[49:42] Speaker A:** And to the degree, like, I am somewhat helpful in this domain, and I'm trying to be. All I'm trying to do is like, hey, I'm going to go and read these obscure books. **[49:50] Speaker A:** There's a gold mine here of all this past entrepreneurial knowledge. No one's fucking doing anything with it. Yeah, I'm going to, like a goddamn demon, go and mine this for you. I'm going to make it into a podcast that you can listen to in 45 minutes or an hour while your eyes are busy doing something else, and hopefully push this information down to the next generation of entrepreneurs. I think that act of service is a life well lived, but I'll get to the end of my life. **[50:10] Speaker A:** He's like, don't figure it out. Don't know what to do with it. I don't over explain shit. You listen to founders. I don't over explain shit. It's like this guy did that. And even when they do ask me, I'm like, I don't know, man. Ford did this way. This is the way this guy did this. You pick what's right for you. **[50:22] Speaker B:** One of the things that I think is interesting about you is there's actually not that many patterns. Like the whole episode kind of pushing on top. **[50:27] Speaker A:** I would, I would say it's not formulaic. There's patterns, there's no formula. **[50:31] Speaker B:** Any other patterns we haven't hit? **[50:33] Speaker A:** I think just a deep caring and love of what you're doing and the problem you're solving. In some cases, it's like, let me give you example. Ed Catmull talks about the very first time he met Steve Jobs. He very first time he met Steve Jobs before Steve got kicked out of Apple. The first time. **[50:44] Speaker A:** You know what Steve would talk about for an hour? He would just use the word insanely great products over and over again. **[50:49] Speaker B:** Yeah, it was still. **[50:50] Speaker A:** It was important to him when he was 19, when he was 25, it was still important to him Right when he was dying. He just was obsessed with insanely great products. **[50:58] Speaker B:** No founders ever talk about, I want to make a lot of money. How much do you think people being motivated by money matters? Or do you think they whitewash that out with we want an insanely great product? **[51:09] Speaker A:** I don't think small egos build big companies. And therefore, this is what I actually think. **[51:14] Speaker B:** I don't think small egos build big companies. **[51:16] Speaker A:** I think all of these people have giant egos. I think some of them are just better at hiding it. And I think that what, what motivates most founders is not money, it's control. And if you maintain control and you build a business or a product that makes somebody else's life better, that's all businesses. A business is just an idea that makes somebody else's life better. So if you maintain control and you build a product that makes somebody else's life better, you wind up with the money anyways. **[51:40] Speaker B:** Yeah, it's a side effect. **[51:42] Speaker A:** Yeah. They know that they're going to get the money. **[51:46] Speaker A:** I can't think of. I mean, Rockefeller, you don't think they're **[51:49] Speaker B:** born very motivated by money? They're. They're. Sure, if you're poor, they have large egos. By the way, I Look through those 10 CEO, the founders of the American companies in general, there's this narrative that they all grew up poor in generally, they were upper middle class suburban families. That surprised me, especially in the tech industry. Yeah. **[52:08] Speaker A:** But Bezos was the son of a single mom, like, and his dad dipped **[52:12] Speaker B:** out, like, but mostly they were suburban, upper middle class families. Yeah, yeah. Like Gates. **[52:18] Speaker A:** Gates, yeah. **[52:20] Speaker B:** Yeah. Mostly. Yeah. All right. Any advice for life? Advice for me? **[52:23] Speaker B:** I'm on my second act, I think **[52:26] Speaker A:** Dana White, there's like a simple genius to what Dana White runs his company that I really admire. He just told me something funny. He's like, I've never read a single book on business. I've never listened to a single podcast, which is hilarious. He said this because we talked a bunch after. And his thing was just like, deeply know who you are. Like, you've got to know for a fact. And he's like, I've known who I am for exactly who I am for a long time. This is what Dana was telling me. He's like, understand deeply who you are. Understand deeply what you want to do in this world. And then once you figure out those two things, you just wake up every day and get after it. And I think there's like this simple genius to that. Do you think when he started UFC, when they bought it for $2 million, 2 million with an M that they were going to do, there's such thing, Streaming didn't even exist. **[53:09] Speaker A:** Right. He didn't even exist. You stay in the game long enough to get lucky. That's a maximum that repeats over and over again. And you think he could have predicted back then he was going to sign an $8 billion shootout? **[53:18] Speaker B:** I like that. Maxim. **[53:19] Speaker A:** Yeah. Stay in the game long enough to get lucky. You guys are jumping around too much. **[53:22] Speaker A:** This is what kills me about these founders. They have a million different ideas. I'm like, I'm going to start, scale, sell. Okay, then what? Everybody's like, I go, what's the best company that you can think of right now? They're like, oh, SpaceX Elon founded when he was 30, 25 years ago. He didn't jump around. He did other shit, but he didn't let go of that thing. All the values in the future, this is, I think, really important. But I think back to Dana's point, it's just like, spend a lot of time understanding who you are as a person and what you want to do in the world. **[53:48] Speaker A:** And then from there, and then you just wake up every day and opportunity handled well leads to more opportunity. And so Dana handled that opportunity well. Couldn't have predicted. He did an $8 billion streaming deal, right? And he goes what do you think my next deal is going to look like? **[54:03] Speaker A:** Obviously a lot bigger. Yeah, I think that's hugely important. **[54:06] Speaker B:** Okay. I want to thank you not just for coming on the pod, but I've been listening to your content for a long time and as a CEO is super helpful. It's super helpful too. I'm sure tons of CEOs out here, so you're the man. I appreciate you. Thanks for coming on the pod. **[54:19] Speaker A:** Thanks for the invite. **[54:20] Speaker B:** Thank you for being David Center. **[54:21] Speaker A:** Appreciate it. **[54:22] Speaker B:** I hope you like that episode. David. He's a very interesting cat, very knowledgeable. I had three takeaways from it. **[54:29] Speaker B:** First is he talks a lot about focus. I think it's beyond that. I think it's obsession. And this may be me, but I think in general, at Sequoia, we look for founders that are obsessed with the problem. We look for people who have gone very deep down a rabbit hole and been obsessed with it earlier in their careers and then today when they're building the company to be very deep down that rabbit hole, have very deep founder market fit. **[54:56] Speaker B:** Like that's a common trait of the best founders that he's interviewed and the best founders that I've had on the show and the best founders that I coach is just a deep, deep obsession. The ability to mute the world and build your own. I really like that quote. The second. Aha. This is kind of depressing. It is very, very difficult to have good work. Life balance. As a founder, he went very deep on 400 founders. Only three had what he thought was a very well balanced life. **[55:27] Speaker B:** This isn't great news for me. I didn't have a great balanced life. I didn't have. I didn't have a lot of free time when I was a founder and I don't know a lot of successful founders that did. So if you're thinking about starting a company or becoming a CEO, be careful. **[55:43] Speaker B:** It's a lot of work if you really want to do it well. The last piece that I was curious about was this idea of imposter mode. I have imposter mode. I did. When I was the CEO big time. **[55:55] Speaker B:** I was always a little bit nervous. I liked what David had to say about it. I liked even more what Brian Chesky has to say about it. When he was early in Airbnb, he kind of led from a position of fear. He had deep, deep imposter syndrome syndrome. **[56:12] Speaker B:** And Brian has done a lot of work on himself and now he leads from a position of love. I'm trying to be more like Brian. Like what I Love is helping CEOs and founders like yourself go on that journey. From early stage startup founder to big behemoth legendary scale up CEO. And I'm trying to lead from a position of love versus a position of fear. **[56:37] Speaker B:** I recommend you do the same. Hope you liked the episode. You can follow me at Behaligan on X and we can chat about it more.