YouSaid · the spoken record

David Perell

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311
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2023-03-29
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2023-03-29
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  1. “I'm going to go with Paul Graham too. Berkshire, they're teaching, like you could just not read a book and just read Berkshire's letters and you're going to get fantastic education, right? And then in there is like, oh, by the way, we'd like to be the buyers of choice. So if you happen, if you happen to know of this business,”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Tied to why I think the Bush Hire letters are the greatest content marketing of all time. He goes, and I go, I wonder if this is because they spent so much time teaching others. So what is, when you listen acquired, you guys are teaching, right?”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “We were ambitious and driven, but there's no way you could say, hey, I'm going to be worth Berkshire's market cap right now. I don't know. Yeah, whatever it is. But he said. But the reason that popped my mind when I was asking him these questions, let me actually get the exact notes. I don't want to mess up the way he said it because his lines were just excellent. And so he goes, he's surprised how successful him and Warren turned out. How could you not be surprised? And then he says something that was fascinating. He goes, I think we get too much credit. And I was like, whoa, that's not interesting. Like, why do you think that, Charlie? And he's like, it's very, he goes, I find it odd to be so wealthy and loved. That's not, these are not exact words. These are my interpretation of his words. Let me just be clear here. I find it so odd to be wealthy and loved. That's not a usual human reaction. And then my note.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “No, I asked him about, like, so I was explaining to him. I was like, Charlie, I'm literally in the middle of reading about you when you were like around my age. So every time I read a book, I'm like, okay, first of all, I know what year they're born. So every time as I go through the books, I'm like, how old are they? And I write down, okay, he's 24 here. I want to know what they were doing in and around my age. And so I'm like, Charlie, I'm thinking about you guys. Like you just started. Like your fun starts, he's like 41 or something like that. I don't remember what it was, right? And I was like, then like 50, you start out, you're trying to figure things out. You could see them kind of figuring out, making mistakes. You guys did an excellent job on your episode, like talking about what they learned from, getting to like get away from the Ben Graham, like get to one excellence. Great businesses are rare. We should be in there. And then just let time do all the work. And I was like, and now, like, you guys put up the greatest investment record the world's ever seen. It's like, are you surprised? He goes, of course. He's like, of course I'm surprised. Like, how could you not be? Like, we want to be successful. And we were like, had.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “No, Berkshire shareholder. Totally, of course. Berkshire shareholders. Because this is how you know Jesus is a genius. It is the greatest act of salesmanship because you never even see the sale happening. It's like, hey, and they spend, you know, you guys have probably done this research how much time they spend on those letters. It's like half a year, seven, eight months for every letter. This is not like, oh, I just jotted down what I learned this year. And the crazy thing is like... How many people have this is something Charlie talked? Oh, so this is a great thing that this came up here.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “We should say there have been iterations of this. This is how Union Square Ventures became Union Square Ventures, our Foundry Group became Foundry Group because blogging and then Brad and Jason writing the book on venture deals. I mean, it's like.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Or Edwin Land. So Edwin Land plays a huge role in my life, founder polarized Steve Joss Hiro, because he said I have a personal model. It may not fit anybody else. Don't do anything somebody else can do. And so I was like, okay, I don't think anybody else could do founders the way I do it, so I'm just going to do this, right? So my point being is like, how would you do it today? Well, you would, it would look very much like what I think you guys are building. And I'm not an investor, so I don't know anything about your world, but it's just like I'd spend my time reading and learning about business history. Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett did that. Every single investor you guys have probably read about does that all the time. They read constantly, right? I would share what I know that's going to build my network of other people. Those people are interesting in so many deals. Then I have this huge advantage that you couldn't even do 10 years ago or 15 years ago because there's no such thing as a podcast, right? It's like, now I could record all the stuff I'm learning, right?”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I was like, think about it. That was an ancient, investing is an ancient business. So, like, you wouldn't do what Heddy Green did. Like, where did she get her deal from? People knew her. They knew she was wealthy. They knew that she was the first person to go to in financial panics. They called financial panics Like you want an edge. Everything we're talking about is like you need an edge, right? You can't play. Ed Dorpe has the great quote in his book. He's like, I've been a money manager for 50 years. One thing I know is the surest way to get rich is only play games and make investments where you have an edge. Right.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “New York, her family, so the richest when she was alive, the richest city in the world per capita was like New Bedford, Massachusetts. Oh, yeah, Willie. So her family made so much whaling. And the way they looked at the family fortune is I am a steward of this money. My job is to make it grow so that the next generation has more and then she's like the third generation of these whaling and then whaling like it died out. I think the generation before her. So they had to figure out how to make money. The technology stocks of her day, railroads like she made a ton of money roads and then she'd buy land like real estate in New York and everything else. But anyways, my point being, and I had this conversation with Patrick one day.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Going in there. There's no ad like a sign on the door. It's like, here's JP Morgan company. He's like, it was a relationship based. It's like you got in if you knew somebody, right? I read this biography that's incredible. I highly recommend people read it. It's episode 103 of founders. It is the richest woman in America, Hetty Green. I can't remember this.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “You went to Amazon Ghost store just as pure curiosity. It's like not like you needed something. And so you guys have probably read that story too, where it's like at one time they were going to do like meat and like all this other stuff that you'd have to like talk to somebody. He's like, no, you have to redo this. This doesn't make sense. The key differentiation here is that you walk and you walk out. Not walk in, talk to some guy, he's like cutting salami for you. You got to get that out of there. And so I've had this thought because I've read a bunch of biographies on investors too. And like investing is an ancient business. And we're just doing it in different ways now. And so I was like, well, if you wanted to invest, right, let's say you wanted to invest in private companies, which people have been doing forever, I always think of like, like, where did JP Morgan get his deal flow? And you know, like you've read through the history. It's like people think, oh, that was JP Morgan Bank. Like, no, there's no retail bank. Like, you're not.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “So I have a thought on this. One, I don't know anything about venture investing. Two, I don't know anything about investing period. Like I get to talk to super smart investors, and I'm sure the questions are like, hold on, you had to find that for me, and I'm sure they're like, this kid's an idiot. But when you guys were talking a little bit about your business and the venture game in general, is I just think of what one of my favorite things that I heard Jeff Bezos say is, you know, for years people were like, hey, when are you going to do physical retail? When are you going to do physical retail? When are you going to do physical retail? And he says something that was crazy. He's like, physical retailing is an ancient business. And I love that term. He's like, it's ancient business, so I'm not going to do it until I know like I can, it's so hard to improve on an ancient industry. It has to be completely differentiated. You mentioned I heard you on one of your podcasts where you're like,”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I totally disagree with this. I think when capital was a commodity and money was free, it was extremely hard to differentiate yourself as a venture firm or any financial firm. It should be easier than ever to differentiate yourself because the thing”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “And so he goes, hey, Colossus Network, I'd like to buy up every single ad inventory for 2023 on every single one of your shows. How you know that that likelihood that guy is going to win? Like, I don't know the details of his business, it's private and everything else. It's like that's the right decision. The same decision. That's what Ogarvy would have done. That's what Buffett and Munger do when they put money in. That's what Coca-Cola does. It doesn't matter the economic climate. You ever can see less billboards? You can see less Coca-Cola. No.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “It's a production cost. It's an actual cost of manufacturing your product. And so what Tigus, what Michael Elnick did that was such a genius move, was, first of all, he knew something was working, right? And he scaled up through podcast ads. And he knew it was effective. And then he's like, oh, okay, well, like now you have all these people in the tech industry. Their stock's creating. Everybody's like running a retreat. What does he do? He goes like, oh,”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So, I talked to Michael Elneck, who's the co founder of Tigas. And he's an actor. Oh, yeah, we all know each other. Great deed. And we talked about this And this is another example because this somewhat affects our business because when there's like a decline in overall economics, like ad markets usually shrink a little bit and ad rates come down. And it's like, oh, you're doing exactly what investors do. What if Charlie and Buffett do when there's a crash? They don't deploy, deploy. You read Izzy Sharp's fantastic autobiography, the founder of Four Seasons, right? And he says this. He goes, he's building what didn't exist at the time, the only chain of five-star hotels at the time. And he says, I grow. And this is every founder does. Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Kelly Frick, when they have recession sets, when they grow. So what he would do is his competitors would pull back on advertising. He would spend more. And he says he claims, I think in the book, he increases market share by like 25 or 28% using this over and over again because human nature is, oh crap, things are small. And they cut, this is what Ogave said. Ogave's like, if you need advertising to sell your product, it's not a marketing expense.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I go, David Ogrey ran the same exact ad in the same magazine for 30 years, and it was still effective. And so I went, I was like, this is, I go, what do you think Coca-Cola has been doing for a hundred years?”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “This is the intelligent thing. This is what Tigus is doing with Invest Like the Best. And this is why, like, it's crazy to me when I talk to people and they don't understand this. I had a conversation with a founder and he's like, it's really weird. I'm not going to say who it was. He's like, it's really weird this company is running ads on.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “That's dive into a deal structure on that. So what if they weren't giving up control? And what if you weren't giving up economics forever? You're just doing a period of time buyout of all your ad inventory.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “You guys already know this was like there's been like something like 15 acquisition or investment offers for founders. I said no to every single one. A lot of them are like this where it's like, oh, well, you have the attention of people that are valuable. You just said the worst thing that happened to a venture firm is they miss the hit of that. So they have to expand. Like they have to make sure they catch that, right? So it's like, hey, we'll pay for founders or whatever, give you X amount of money, pay you to do it. You do exactly what you do. The only difference is essentially they're trying to buy up our inventory forever. It's like, hey, founders is presented by X company. If you're going to raise money, email here, you know, and the response I have when I get these pitches is like, if I did that, that means I'm not actually learning the lessons in the books, which is like you never give up control. It's like, no, let's.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Record this album, and then I can sell like normal. You know, stream it and then sell it for $10 if you want the physical copy, et cetera, et cetera. He goes, he goes, what if I just want my money guaranteed? So he goes to Samsung and says, Samsung, you're launching this new app, this new phone, and you have your own app on it. I'm going to sell you, I will sell you a million copies, five dollars each. You give me $5 million guaranteed from an album. I'm still going to own it so he gets a streaming lights. He goes. And so what I'll do is like, you pay me $5 million. The first million people that get access to my album are going to be Samsung to have whatever phone was coming out. You download it for free if you have this device. And so it's advertising to the Samsung and it's guaranteed money to him. I go, dude, you're writing about technology founders. I was like, there's these venture capital funds that have $80 billion of asset center management. It's like, hey, will you pay me a million dollars to write this book? And then you say, hey, this book is now presented by whatever firm. This is why me and you have us, we've talked about this privately.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “And realize that the business model matters, which is why I brought up Gamecraft. So, what Jay-Z did this is years ago. This is his Magna Carta Holy Grail, probably came out in 2013. So he goes, he goes, you know, I could.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Jay-Z has found her mentality and he had it since he was a kid. And you just see everything his whole career. And people look at him like, oh, like. This is another thing about intelligence manifests itself in vastly different ways. It's not always like credentialed, in many cases it's not, right? But like JZ is a Straight up genius, if you listen to him and what he did. And he looked at it, he's like, Yeah, he says it from the get-go. He's like, I thought I told you characters I'm not a rapper. He's like, I'm a businessman. And rap just happens to be my product. And so I'm going to think about it like that. I go, Jimmy, you should do that. I go, why don't you just find a deal like Jay-Z did with Samsung? He's like, what are you talking about?”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Jimmy, I was like, Do you know the deal? Like, just think about this as an entrepreneur. Like, you're not a writer, you're an entrepreneur, and your product just happens to be a book. But you can make money off that any kind of way you want. Like, you can just get creative. I go, people who think it's crazy where I'm like, I'm trying to be the Jay-Z of podcasts. And people are like, what the hell is wrong with you? And I did like that episode. Have you done?”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “So excellent, unbelievably good. And what I loved about is how they focused on the business model innovations and how one decision by some random group of programmers in the 1980s affected a business model decision 10 years later, whatever. And I was talking to Jimmy about this. Books are fantastic. They're the best products in the world. There's a great quote in poor Charlie's almanac which says that there's ideas worth billions on a $30 history book. For Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, that is literally true, right? And what I don't understand is you guys have such a high value product and you haven't innovated on the business model at all. And so I was telling.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Was talking before we started recording. I was like, man, Jimmy Sony would be great to do a sessions with just because he's got this historical knowledge of PayPal, PayPal being so important to Silicon Valley history. And we were talking about this. And he's like, no, like, I have to pay that back through sales. I'm like, oh, because the thing is, going back to you guys listen to Gamecraft, Blake Robbins.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “The whole business is about did I sign up James Clear this year and like you know when you have Michelle Obama on your hands and you have to pay for it but you don't know when you have a James Clear on your hands and when that becomes the book that America reads this year you better make sure it's in your publishing house and not one of the other three big or four big whatever it is publishing houses”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “The book business is the venture business, which is so interesting to me how the advanced model works. It's like quite similar to a seed financing. I mean, they put out $50,000 for an advance on your book, which covers your cost of living while you're writing it.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “He's like, it's zero. The average is zero. It's crazy. And yeah, to your point, I've become friends with a bunch of writers. Some of them I met through the podcast. And they've been telling me, like, teaching me about the publishing industry and just breaking down 98% of books ever published sell less than 5,000 copies. It's power law. Everything's ever.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “And I couldn't believe that. I was having dinner with the same friend that was telling me I told him, oh, I'll try to build a business around my reading. This is like a couple months ago. And he's like, you vastly overestimate how much people read. He goes, how much books a year do you think the average person raises? I was like, I don't know, 12.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “That can't be true. No, that's the dirty secret of acquired and founders is that people don't read books. So if you just read them and then tell people what's in the books, you're going to 100x the market for books.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “The point I was making there, though, is because you guys do so much preparation and it's now your life's work. It's just so much, it's going to be so hard not to add value to the people in your life, whether it's like friends that never show up on a podcast or friends that like you don't have a business relationship with. You're just going to add value because what you do is so rare. Like I, Naval Ravicon has this, he's influenced my thinking a lot too. And he has this thing in Naval, the almanac and Naval by our friend Eric Jorgensen. And he's just like, if you read an hour a day that puts you in the 0.0001% of humans. And I'm like, that can't be true.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Yeah, I think we now have a process that means that when you and I put in the work, the product is good, but it took a long time to arrive at that. It's almost like this is another Sam Hanky thing. Trust the process.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “It's like who cares? I could spend all the time in the world and fail to synthesize the narrative and the takeaways. And all of a sudden that I've just, you know, then I've failed them regardless of how much work I did. The product wasn't good. And so that's the thing. It's”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Doesn't mean I'll be the most dinner they've ever had in their life. That's not what I'm saying. It's just like they're going to hear something that's like, oh, that's interesting and goes through their own brain. And it's only because I've spent six years. And same with you guys. It's like, oh, you should feel comfortable, like you guys mentioned earlier. It's like your audience feels like two football fields and like, oh, it's a little bit of like, you didn't use the word insecurity, but like, you know, a little like nervousness. I want these people to like like me.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “And then now I've built this machine where, oh, that's an interesting idea. I'll just plug it into this business. And it's not a financial transaction by any means, but there's no, the reason it's not that like Charlie was the first person I met that I was actually nervous about. And it's the reason I'm not nervous is because I know I've done the work. Like you can't put me in a room with anybody on the planet and I'm not going to be able to tell them at least one interesting thing.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “You also, but here's the thing what people get wrong is they're like, oh, I want to meet this guy. You have to do the work necessary to make them worth your time, right? Which is like the unfair advantage that the three people sitting in this room have is that it doesn't matter. That's why like in the last six weeks, I've gone to lunch or dinner with multiple billionaires. And the people that you get to talk to and all this stuff, this is like, this dude is crazy. He's read 300 biographies of entrepreneurs. There's no way I'm going to have dinner with him and not pick up one idea.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Something that Buffin and Munger did with the Graham group that was way ahead of its time that now anybody can do is they formed their social networks outside of geographic barriers and they found their most compatible, most like-minded, highest level of talent peers. And then they just got on planes and got to go see them. That was really hard to do back in the day. And now anybody can do it. It's kind of like the Bill Gurley, you know, you have no excuse not to do that.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Even my 10 year old daughter, like right now, she wants to spend time with me. Like, it was the cutest thing ever. I was leaving, going to LA to see Charlie and then coming up to San Francisco to see you guys. And she texted me, she goes, I'm wearing your sweater because it makes me feel close to you. While you're gone. You know what I mean? But if you ask her, do you want to spend movie night with dad and mom or do you want to go play Roblox with your friends? They're friends. And she loves me, don't get me wrong, but their friends are really important to them.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Okay, so you get to talk to him, see him, but you have your whole life, right? Right. When your kids are small, there's like this tiny window when they're like two to five to six where you're everything to them.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Do it again. I had to do this. I had to get after it. I had to improve. A lot of them get to the end of their life and like, oh, I regret. The founder of IKEA has the best words on this. He said, you know, I had three sons growing up. He started IKEA when he was like 17, worked on it until he was like 80-something. And he's like, I sacrificed my three sons' childhoods. I regret it. He goes, anybody that has kids knows that childhood does not allow itself to be reconquered. And so like we were hanging out today. We were going to do recording, go to dinner. And I was My plan was I was I want to see my son. He's like and my daughter. It's like, I'm going to take the red eye. And then I realized it's like, yeah, but I want to spend time with David Ben. So I'm leaving early tomorrow morning. But it's like, I'm doing this as fast as possible. And if I had to, I'd like fly back and forth because like your kids are think about like the relationship you guys have with your parents. Are they still alive?”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Yeah, so I have no idea. Really, and that's the biggest thing where I think this is one of the lessons I learned from the podcast where you mentioned this at the beginning, Ben, where most of these people are just so, they're like best in class in this one dimension in the world. And of course, to get that, they had to be poor, they couldn't optimize all other areas of the life at what they did for like their work, right? You know, Sam Walton's one of the rare guys where he gets to the end. He knows he's dying because he's got cancer all over his body when he's writing that book. And he's like, listen, if I could do everything again, he's like, yeah, I missed some of my kids' childhood. They worked in the stores and he took them with them. But he's like,”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Because it's so dependent on who the person is. Maybe you give them money going that Bob Magnus' grandsons. Maybe they're like Warren Buffett's kids where like they run foundations and they want to give the money away and I don't think they're coke addicts. I don't know. But like you don't, it's just dependent on the person. So if there was a simple answer, I think some of these guys, some of these guys would have figured it out would have figured it out.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “There's only going to be three words on his tombstone. I don't know because that's what he would say over and over and over again. He's having this conversation. Same thing. He was the son of a poor man. He is now a rich man. His kids are rich. He's talking to other people that have the same experience. His peers are like, what do you do? And the answer they came up with. I don't know”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “I have no idea. I have no idea. Me even giving you an answer to that is like, there's this guy named Charles Ketering or Kettering. I don't know how to pronounce his name. I read his biography. I think it's episode 127 or something like that. So he invented the electric starter. He founded AC Delco. That gets acquired by GM. He is the head of research and development at GM when GM is the most valuable company and most like the cutting edge of technology company in the world at the time. There's a story from his wife and his daughter in that book saying, hey, when he dies,”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “So, okay, so what do you think is the ideal way to handle it if at 35 someone becomes very wealthy? And so when their kid's memory starts around age three, so for their entire kid's memorable lifetime, they've grown up in wealth and privilege. Like, how does one handle that”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “His whole thing is aimed for the highest quality you can get, and then that's going to solve 99% of your problems. And then when you have the problems, the inevitable problems are going to come, okay, just deal with it. He talked about when he lost the money on Alibaba, he brought that up, you know, that people try to make fun of him for or whatever. It's like, You guys are missing the point. Like, you're not going to escape, get through life without making mistakes. The founder of IKEA has this great quote where he says making mistakes is the privilege of the active. Only those asleep make no mistakes.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “And like, what's He's just like human nature. This is my biggest takeaway from Charlie, and I think the biggest benefit that people that listen to founders and acquired and then hopefully read a bunch of the books and do studying on their own are going to realize is like, Charlie, I said at the top of my notes, and this is the first thing. This is like, it's comforting. The conversation with Charlie was comforting the same way that people tell me listening to Founders is comforting. It's like, Charlie has an almost complete indifference to problems. Troubles from time to time should be expected. This is inescapable, so why would you let it bother you? And the difference, and if you think about that's the main takeaway from this three-hour dinner I had with him, right? And if you think about how does he avoid this? He avoids it by great things have less problems. You're never going to escape problems. But if you're around great people, they're not going to throw up just like a great business doesn't throw up big problem after big problem after big problem. Your wife, your kids, your friends, your co-workers.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “I don't know. The point was that wasn't good for them because they were not motivated. They did a bunch of drugs. I think they went to jail, like that kind of stuff. And you see that so much. So my thought was like, oh, like get them a little bit, but not enough that they don't have to work or whatever. And Charlie's like they're going to hate you.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “So Bob takes that $2,500 loan and then, let's say, 40 years later, Bob dies, and he's got to pass on his money that was created from the company he created to his two kids. And he winds up giving them, I think, I don't know the numbers, I want to say like 200 million each, two sons. So think about that one decision. I think I talked about in the episode. And if I didn't, it's a big mess up on my part. And I stopped in that part. I'm pretty sure you did.”

    2023-03-29 · Founders · A conversation with David and Ben from the Acquired podcast · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source