YouSaid · the spoken record

Enzo Ferrari

lines on the record: 38
first: 2021-12-09
most recent: 2021-12-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“He was obsessed with the process, he was in love with the organization, the creation of the cars, not the outcome of the race. Of course he wants to win the race, but I think that's a really good sign that you're obsessed with the actual journey. That's an interesting idea, I hope I remember. So, like I said earlier, Enzo does this until he dies. There's a great story in the book that is pure Enzo. This is right before he dies. Cianetti goes and visits him. Enzo's mind is still sharp, but his body's betraying him.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so Enzo is also famous for never going to see his own races. And really, you could tell he loved what he did because the simulation was not in the result, but it was in the process. And I thought that was fascinating. Let me read this to you. For the most part, he watched the contest alone, the races, that is. Although one associate was occasionally invited to sit in, he recalls that Ferrari never showed emotion no matter what the fortunes of his automobiles. Ferrari simply sat there, silent and inert, never responding to either victory or defeat. His view of racing remained constant. The event itself was essentially meaningless. For him, the stimulation came in the planning and preparation in the creation of the machines, in the organization of the human beings who would man the team.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so you and I have talked about this over and over again, the fact that Enzo really had nothing else that was important to him. So the idea, like, he's not going to retire. Didn't know what I left myself on this page as a quote from David Ogarby, and he said retirement is fatal. Those who knew him best understood that Enzo Ferrari would never retire. There was little else in his life besides automobile racing. It was that simple. So even when he sells his company to Fiat, he still continues to work, he still has complete control of the racing,”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mentioned earlier the fact that Ferrari had a very different take on things. He's just like, if there's a race, I don't care what kind or where it's at, we're entering it. Now you can't do that towards the end of his career, he couldn't do that. So it says part of the problem was Ferrari's insistence on being everywhere at the same time. During the period during this period, he was competing in Formula One, Formula 2, the Tasman series, the Can Am, major sports car endurance races, and all the European hill climb championships. His engineers tried to convince Ferrari that demands were too much, but this engineer's voice, it was a voice in the wilderness, meaning Ferrari just would not listen to him. I'm not entirely sure why, but when I got to this section, it reminded me of...”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just want to bring again to your attention this monastic adherence to routine. This guy that he really liked, his name is Skagaletti. He was one of the designers that made cars that shaped the Testerosa, the 250 GT spider, the California, all these other things. And so he really liked the fact that this guy was a craftsman, but he had a commoner sense of reality, which was how Ferrari thought as well. So he says each Saturday, Skagaletti would receive a phone call. Well, Skagaletti, it was from Ferrari. Well Skagaletti, what are you doing now? Would be the standard question. The reply was cast in stone. He had no plans. A lunch would then be arranged. It would seem impromptu, but in fact the same schedule was maintained for over twenty years until Ferrari's health failed in the mid nineteen eighties Ferrari would lapse into recollections of his youth repeating hundreds of times the story of his”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“was self made a school dropout who had liked mechanics before learned mechanics before rising to start him on motorcycles and then in automobiles so again this is what he likes he likes the fact that this guy's moody intensely competitive self-made a dropout one who learned mechanics before rising to start on a motorcycles and then in automobiles both men were utterly single-minded when it came to racing and unlike many of the dilettants who had driven for the team but had never gotten their hands dirty sutris was prepared to work endless hours just like Ferrari in the dino rooms and engine shops at the factory seeking more power and reliability he was a racer to his core”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A decade right up until they're overtaken by Ford. I mean, he dominates for a decade. So he's like, this is expected. But anyways, earlier I was saying you can identify, you can learn about a person by saying, like by studying who they don't like, you can also do that by who they admire. This is what Ferrari liked about one of his drivers. Ferrari seemed to genuinely like this moody but intensely competitive 30-year-old. Like himself, Sutris, I'm probably pronouncing that correctly.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Ferrari is notorious, especially because so many of them were dying, never getting close to many of his drivers. There's a hilarious story in the book where this guy, one of his drivers, wins a race. It was like the biggest race of the season. brought all kinds of attention and glory to Ferrari. And he said Ferrari never said anything to him about it. Weeks go by and they just happen to pass each other in the factory. And Ferrari just says two words. He says, hey champion. And the driver's like, that's all he ever said to me about it ever. The indication of that also is that Ferrari, like General Groves, a couple weeks ago, when I did that book, Genius and the General, the General and the Genius. Are the genius in the general? I don't know which one came first. General Groves, the guy leading the Manhattan Project, would not give out compliments. They're like, why don't you compliment people when a job is well done? He's like, because it could always be done better. And I think Ferrari thought, it's like you won. That's what you're supposed to do. We're Ferrari.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The person from Ford leading the negotiation says you do not go, responded Frey without hesitation. Ferrari stiffened in his chair and said nothing for a moment. Then he stood up and gave Frey an icy glare. It was nice to know you. Frey understood instantly that the negotiations were over, under no circumstances would Ferrari release control of his racing operations to Ford, or to anybody else for that matter.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And like I said earlier, this is just stubbornness to show up no matter what. Some of these races he wins by default because maybe they actually get the cars from Europe to Argentina or something like that. But the driver gets sick or there's an immigration issue or the car breaks down and then Ferrari's there not supposed to win the race, not expected to win the race. Guess what? I win by default. Now my greatest competitors had some unknown catastrophic event that prevented them from performing or from being able to race and guess what? I'm here, so I'm going to do it and I'll get the win and then obviously you get the prize money, you get the prestige, you get everything else. It's like this virtuous flywheel effect. They go into the book also goes into detail about this whole forward trying to buy Ferrari talked about that and go like hell talked about that in other places mentioned earlier in that clip. I just want to go to the end of it because I thought that was funny. Gives you an illustration of Enzo Ferrari the person. The fact that he's obsessed with control.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I thought Ferrari had a really counterintuitive point on losing. I want to bring to your attention. So there's a writer for the New York Times, this guy named Daley, and he's spending some time with Ferrari. He says, Daley observed that Ferrari appeared to be happier when he was losing, which jibes with the mechanics working at Ferrari, with the mechanics observation that the race shop on Monday was more serene following a defeat than a victory. But why? Ferrari explained, there is always something to learn. One never stops learning, particularly when one is losing. When one loses, one knows what has to be done. When one wins, one is never sure.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this goes back to what's most important to them. In the fact, I told you he had a strict adherence to this schedule of his. And this is, in my best writing in the book, this man, so rooted in time and place that he never slept out of his own bed for the final forty years of his life. His automobile business was not a means to an end. It was the end. The very essence of his being. In the final analysis, the fast cars, the Grand Prix victory, the factory itself were all secondary to what they stood for. The towering ego of the man whose name they carried, Enzo Ferrari. His personal style was an extreme contrast to the automobiles he created. They were flashy, high styled, daring, brash, openly outrageous. He was drab, mundane, semi monastic. Ferrari remained a simple man with simple tastes.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Somebody knows, especially somebody's wealthy, powerful, used to getting their way, it only makes them desire that object more. So as time goes on, he's still building the company, still focused on racing. We see his explicit goal. Enzo Ferrari had clung to the dream of becoming what he called a grand constructor. He's like, I don't consider myself an industrialist. I'm a constructor. That's how he described himself. The class, in addition to, and then he got to his goal of being a grand constructor by being an agitator of men. Those are two ideas that are linked together. The classic manufacturer of complete racing cars and high performance road automobiles for a select clientele of elite enthusiasts. That's what he's trying to do. Only a few men in history had achieved such an elevated status, most prominently Bugatti and then Bed. So Bugatti in Italy and Bentley in Europe. Excuse me, in England rather.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So fast forwarding throughout the war, his factory gets bombed by the Allies multiple times. After the war, there's electricity in Italy scarce product. Materials are scarce. And this is the environment he decides, hey, I'm going to start my home company. This is Ferrari. And it says, and this is the reason. So he closes down. Now many years have passed, he can use that name again. He can get back into racing. His reason for returning to the automobile business was simple. It was all he knew. The machine tools had been a transitional had been transitional stopgaps for the duration of the war, but his reputation, his context, his passion centered on cars, and there was no logical reason that this would not be his area of concentration once the fighting stopped. And so another way to think about that is he knew what his circle of competence was and he was going to stay within that for the rest of his life. I need to point out something here when he's building his first car. One of his first cars that's extremely important.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, I'm going to read a quote from that book Go Like Hell, and then I'm going to go back to this book. It's describing Enzo Ferrari in Go Like Hell. He works seven days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day, holidays included. At night, he returned to Medena. He felt extremely emotionally attached to his city, except for his daily drives to Marinello, where his factory is. He refused to leave Modena for almost any reason. He did not attend races, not even the Italian Grand Prix. One of the world's most famous circuits. When asked about the root of his mania, his obsession with victory, Ferrari told one reporter in 1958, Everything I've done, I did because I couldn't do anything less. One day I want to build a car that's faster than all of them, and then I want to die.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With Ferrari I learned the business of racing for there was no doubt that he was a businessman. Enzo Ferrari loved racing. Of that there was no question. It was more than an enthusiast love, but one tempered with the practical realization that this was a good way to build a nice, profitable empire. I knew that he was going to be a big man one day. Bugatti was a patron, Enzo Ferrari was the boss. Bugatti was imperious. Ferrari was impenetrable. So now he's about to turn forty. I want to give you a description of what I mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast, something that I most admire about him is that he just had this singular focus. Now I don't think like he obviously did not have a balanced life. So my own personal blueprint I've told you over again is Ed Thorpe Founders number 93 or 93 I think because he identified like a handful of things and was good at all of them and didn't make the same mistakes that a lot of people make where they overoptimize for their work at the expense of personal life. But I want to read”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Always a blueprint in these books. There usually somebody has identified they see somebody that came before them and they're like, I want that. And for Ferrari, Maserati brothers were also racing and producing cars under their own name, which is what Ferrari wants to do. But largely his blueprint was Bugatti. And so here it says, if there was ever a prototype operation for what Enzo Ferrari envisioned for the Scooteria, it had to be the legendary, I don't know how to pronounce his first name, but we all know his last name, Bugatti. This part art, listen how they describe Bugatti. This is really interesting because I've heard the car. I knew they saw for like a million dollars, some crazy like that, maybe more. But I didn't know much about the person. I should actually see if I can find a biography on them. This part artist, part engineer, part entrepreneur, part sculptor, has since 1910 created an automotive fiefdom in a tiny village. The Bugatti estate included a, we talk about a lot.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As a triumphant homecoming to a place that's safer a few racing enthusiasts had ignored his presence. My return to Modena was kind of a mental revolt, he later wrote. When I went away, I had merely some slight reputation for being a strange, this hilarious. Listen, how people thought of him before when he left away or when he went away rather. When I went away, I had merely some slight reputation for being a strange young man keen on cars and racing, but did not seem to have any particular capability. So now what is this? This is like 12 years passed since that point, right? My return in order to transform myself from a racing driver and team organizer into a small industrialist represented an attempt to prove to myself and others that during the 20 years I was with Alpha Romeo, not all my reputation was secondhand and gained by the efforts and skills of other people. The time had come for me to see how far I could get on my own efforts. Now this is what I mentioned earlier that there is”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So now we get to when Enzo is 31 years old. This is going to be the start of the Scuderia Ferrari. And that word just means racing stable. It's kind of like a joint venture of sorts between Enzo Ferrari and Alpha Romeo. It says with their money in Ferrari's connections and racing expertise, why not pool their talents and form a Scuderia? The deal would be simple. It would be a limited partnership would be formed in which the shareholders would set up an operation to buy race and perhaps someday build high performance cars. And so this is what ENSO is going to do for quite a while. It's almost like two decades, something like that, maybe 15 years from this point in the story before he sets out on his own. Like he's under his own name, that is. But this section is really about the fact that he felt triumphant. He gets to return to the city of his birth, and he's now transformed himself at a rather young age from agent and employee to the founder of his own company. Ferrari symbolically viewed the formation of the new scooter.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so he winds up recruiting two of the best engineers and also drivers. He does this throughout his, I mean, this is his MOS playbook for his whole life, actually. And what happens is now you have this Alpha Romeo team, which was the underdog, beating Fiat, which wasn't supposed to happen. And so it says while Ferrari could accept no credit for beating Fiat on the track, meaning he wasn't driving, his contribution to their overall defeat by aiding in the defection of Bazi and Jano. These are people he recruited was pivotal. Following the pair's flight, the once unbeatable fiat racing department was in shambles. Their losses prompted Fiat to drop racing after the 1924 season. A short-lived return would be made a few years later, but for all intents and purposes, they departed the sport forever, considering Enzo's deeply rooted sense of honor and his need for revenge. Remember this is a firm that would not hire him. One can be sure that this capitulation by the company had been rejected.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, as his racing career declines, he does something smart. He realizes that the failure of his one dream, right, remember what he looked at his friend when he was like, what, 18, whatever, how old he was, maybe 19? I'm going to be a race car driver. That was his dream, right? But his failure at one dream leads to discovery of his true talent and something that he's going to do for the rest of his life. For all of his attempts at reaching the big time of Major League Racing, Enzo Ferrari would be doomed to the role of spectator. Yet his stature as an organizer and leader of men would soar to unexpected heights because he was able to strengthen the Alpha Mayot team and aid in propelling it to the very pinnacle of the sport. And so as he's turning around the fortunes of Alfareo, he's introduced to the very real specter of death that this sport produces, which is unbelievable. I think the best description of that is that little fun book I did on Funders numbers 97, Go Like Hell. It's also you've seen the movie Ford versus Ferrari with Christian Bale and Matt Damon. Matt Damon placed Carol Cheribly. I also did a”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is around this time, though, that he's going to start making more money he's ever made in his life, and that's going to come from actual car sales. So it says his aggressive sales tactics permitted him to become an exclusive sales agent for Alpha Romeo automobiles in this little section of Italy that he's in. I'm going to skip the name by urging by using his growing reputation as a racing driver, he artfully enhanced the marquee image among the rich clientele in the region. As his financial fortunes in the car business increased, his racing career entered into a severe decline. He's 24 years old.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bumpkin image. At one point he lamented I feel so provincial, but that sense of inadequacy was more than compensated for his necessity like the way to think about this by his street wise cunning and a brash ability to deal with the social and professional superiors like a man twice his age. So he's also doing racism. I'm skipping over most of that part because he was, you know, even by his own admission, not a great race car driver, way better at obviously being the agitator of men. But this is the problem that a young Enzo is trying to solve why he's doing the work at Alfa Romeo. The modest firm of Alfa Romeo was still operating in the minor leagues of the automobile racing business. Chances of their victory in major events seemed a distant hope because they're going against the mighty fiat, Mercedes, all these other people that have way more resources than they do at this point in history. It was simply too great to even consider a high placing in the major grand pre-events, but Ferrari plunged into his job with typical vigor.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Enzo Ferrari had to be committed to his desire to be successful. He is like 50 years old, something like that by the time he's able to start a company Ferrari under his own name as that sentence just hinted. He began an association with Alfa Romeo that was to last for nearly two decades. So, this is where he starts to race cars. He's going to become a car salesman as well. And then eventually he's going to run the racing team for Alpha Romeo. And I need to give you a bit about his personality, though, because this is one of the most important things to learn about him. And it says, there is no question that by this time Enzo Ferrari had become a compelling salesman and manipulator. So this section reminds me of something I learned when you see it a lot actually, but what comes to my mind is when I read George Lucas's”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hardly a leisurely tour through the countryside. Ferrari called that they drove into a nasty blizzard one day, and they were set upon by a pack of wolves, which had to be dispensed by shots from the pistol that he always carried under his seat. So imagine if one of the occupational hazards of your job is that you might be set upon by a pack of wolves. So we see I'm skipping ahead, obviously going very fast through the book. Ferrari soon left CNM to seek his fortune in other realms of the Italian automobile business and to further his career as a racing driver. So it's another step up. Shortly thereafter, he began an association with Alpha Romeo. So again, Alpha Romeo, gigantic, successful company of its day. I think it winds up being nationalized by the Italian government. I think Mussolini nationalizes it, if I'm not mistaken. Mussolini's in this book quite a lot. I'm going to skip over most of those parts. Ferrari began an association with Alformeao that was to last for nearly two decades. This is another important part I want to bring to your attention is how long.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then they have fantastic names, by the way, or cities. So I'm just going to call this guy Ugo. I have no idea how to pronounce his last name. Ugo is going to be a mentor of sorts to a young Enzo Ferrari. Ugo hires him as a chief test driver for the new automaker. It's CMN. It says the company was embarked on a full-scale campaign to manufacture high-performance vehicles. And as was the universal custom of the day, the factory was entering a variety of races. Ferrari was hired by Ugo to be his assistant. He had begun his climb up the ladder. And so he couldn't get into fiat, couldn't get into Alpha Romeo yet, so he starts at the very bottom. CMN is a tiny firm. It's a new firm. And this is just a little bit about the occupational hazards. I thought this paragraph was rather amusing. So the tiny CMN firm could not afford to transport its race cars by rail or truck. So Ferrari and Ugo were assigned the job of driving to the race. So he's got to transport the cars to the race.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Demand for automobiles or these rather primitive automobiles in post-war Italy, just like there was in post-war America. So Ferrari's taken as a general handyman, and then he's also hired to transport and to drive and get the trucks or the truck chassis up to where they need to go. So it says Ferrari carried Italian. Oh, this was interesting. Ferrari carried Italian driving license number 1363. So they actually numbered them. That would imply that he's one of the nation's earliest motorists. So he uses this job and then to meet other people. He eventually is going to meet. This is a mentor of sorts. So he's just going to, again, this job serves a point just so you can meet new people. Once he meets new people, they tell him about other opportunities if he feels that opportunity. It's better. He's going to jump. So he jumps from opportunity to opportunity. This guy's name is Italian words are going to kill me. I can't even pronounce English words correctly. There's no way I'm going to pronounce these Italian names.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This industry and then I'll figure out a better way. The very first job he gets, if you think about it, he hooks up with his car dealer, this guy named Giovanni, and Giovanni hires him because Giovanni is purchasing all the army trucks, like the Italian army trucks. There's a giant surplus, and he's figured, okay, I'll buy these surplus army trucks from the government. You know, I can get them really cheap. I'll strip them down to the Bear Chassis, and then he's going to resell the Bear Chassis to a coachmaker. That's what they call cars at this time. I mean, if you look at them, I went and looked at what the first Alpha Romeo when Ferrari works there. And they don't look like cars. They're called cars, but they definitely don't look like cars to us today. And so he's like, okay, I'm going to take these bear truck chassis and I'm going to ship them to this coachmaker in Milan. And then this coachmaker is going to put passenger car bodies on top of them because a ton of, there's a giant...”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And he's going to reference this because 50 years later he's going, remember this is fiat. Well, I don't know if you know this actually. I shouldn't say remember. Fiat buys Ferrari. And so 50 years after this point, he goes back and once he sells the company, he sits on that same bench and he essentially has this wrong in his mind rectified. So it says this slight by Fiat Fester in his brain creating an anger that blossom with the passage of time. The reason I'm reading this section to you because anger and revenge are extremely effective motivators of human behavior. And we see it's definitely a dark side to Enzo for sure. And part of that is the fact that he's got this giant ego and he wants other people. He wants to prove it's very important how other people view him. And so he wants to prove, hey, you made a mistake. Revenge was a priority within him that would not be subdued and repayment in kind was a debt he swore to.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so let's go back to this point in his life. So he goes, okay, I'm going to travel all the way to Tehran. I'm going to try to get a job. This is not going to go good for him. One, he doesn't have an experience, and two, there's a huge influx of unemployed Italian males coming home from the war. So says it was into this exclusive melee that the poorly educated, still unhealthy, totally unqualified enzo Ferrari poked his nose. It was useless. The post-war job market was glutted with veterans, and Ferrari was doomed from the moment he entered. I want to bring this to your attention because this is something this rejection is something that he holds inside of him for 50 years. He called it the lowest day of his life. Ferrari wrote of this moment with poignancy. He wandered through the busy streets to a bench in Valentino Park. And then he says, I was alone. My father and brother were no more. Overcome by loneliness and despair, I wept. And so this is the lowest point of his life. He's depressed. He has no resources. He just got shot down.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will become a race car driver. So he has limited money, no connections, so he goes to, you can really think about his next move is he's trying to get a job at the leading technology company of his day. And it's funny because this is fiat, which is at the time that that company has been way, I think it's like 120, 125 years old. So today you don't think of fiat as the leading technology in the company's day. But in the end of 1920s, it was. So it says, so he goes to where they're located. He travels. He says he had come to Turin with a single purpose in mind to gain employment with fiat. Fiat was an acknowledged leader in the new technology. They're talking about this is the very beginning of the automobile industry. And this time history, I find extremely interesting. Actually, there's a parallel between the early automobile industry in Italy and the early automobile industry in America. So I did a multiple part series. It's round found”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Long am I going to survive? How long will live? I need to get on with my life. So he comes out of his service. He luckily the war ends the next year and he survives. And he's just bound and determined to get the job that he wants and to actually live the life that he wants. He was discharged in 1918 as Europe gas for breath and men groped to justify the sacrifice of 30 million lives. Ferrari seems to have seized with an epiphany of sorts during this period. He wanted to follow a career in automobiles. And in his autobiography, he describes this period. Him and his friend get this, it's like a magazine or some kind of publication. It's amazing how often I'm about to read to you happens in these biographies. So him and his friend are sitting there looking through this publication and it says they had examined a photograph of Ralph de Palma, the marvelously talented Italian who had moved to American in 1893 and by 1916 had won both the Indianapolis 500 and the Vanderbilt Cup. He was believed by many to be the greatest driver in the world. So Ferrari turns to his friend,”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have been influenza, typhoid fever, or any one of the dozen illnesses that ravaged the trenches and camps of the World War I combatants. And Dino was serving in that war. Furrier was devastated by the loss of his Ferrari of his father and brother. And then right after this, he winds up getting drafted, and so then he's got to serve in the Italian army towards the end of World War I. So I'm going to skip over most of his time in the war. There is one thing that he talks about over and over again in his autobiography and other people and other documentaries on him that I've seen repeated is the fact that he winds up getting sick. He's sent to a hospital. And one of his memories is the fact that he's left in this dark room on the second floor. And all he can hear all day and all night is the hammering of lids of coffins being pounded into the place. And the reason I bring that to your attention is because he's very familiar with death at an extremely early age. So he's like, okay, I don't know how.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Factory manufacturing artillery cells. This was a confusing time for Ferrari. His father was dead, and with the convulsions of the war, plus his lack of serious career goals, he meandered through his late teens without direction. Then suddenly, shockingly, Dino, this is his older brother, was dead as well, and so this idea that death is an acquaintance that's going to stay with him for the rest of his life. 18 years old, his father's dead, his older brother's dead. All that's left in the family is him and his Ferrari and his mom, Enzo and his mom rather, Ferrari is eventually going to have a son. He's going to name his son Dino after his brother. His son is going to die, what most people think of. He died from muscular dystrophy when he's in his early 20s. So death is a constant companion throughout the life of the extremely long life of Enzo Ferrari. And his brother died because he was in the war. So it says, and they're not entirely sure, there's just a bunch of...”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When he's 18, something terrible happens, and it says in 1916, and so Ferrari had his first close encounter with death, an acquaintance that would stay with him for the rest of his life. That's a very important sentence too, talking about the dozens. I mean, I don't even know how many drivers die at the very beginning of automobile racing. Not only do tons of the drivers die, but tons of the spectators die. And I'll go into more detail. I went into a lot of detail on that on founders number 97, Go Like Hell. It just really surprised me at the beginning of the sport how they just, they had a high, extremely high tolerance for death. And so he's 18 and so forth his first encounter with death, and an acquaintance that would stay with him for the rest of his life. His father died of pneumonia. The little business, so his little business that his dad had collapsed in Enzo drifted through a series of menial jobs as you probably realized from the year that we were in 1916, World War II, or excuse me, World War I is happening. So he's got to do a bunch of work. He became a trainee in a small”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And don't interrupt that, right? So examinations of his use supply nothing to indicate any extraordinary talents, no glittering, undiscovered genius, not even the singular talent for leadership and organization that was to blossom later in life. Enzo Ferrari for his first 20 years was simply another Italian boy who, like bicycles and car races and football.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fascination obsession. He was not really interested. He just accidentally started manufacturing some of the greatest cars the world's ever seen. But the racing always took precedent over that. He sold cars so he could fund his racing operation. His first contact with automobile racing came when his father took him and his brother to a race. He was 10 years old. The following year, Young Ferrari treked to his first race. This is the second one. The following year, young Ferrari trekked two miles across open far and land to watch his second race. Ferrari said, I found these events immensely exciting. And so if I'm very young age, he identified exactly what he wanted to do. He's eventually going to try to work for car manufacturers and then become a driver, a racing driver himself. But this might be the most important paragraph in the entire description of his early life. Examinations of his youth supply nothing to indicate any extraordinary talents. This really speaks to the benefit of not interrupting the fact that knowledge compounds.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so now I want to go to Enzo's early life, and then I'm going to build up and tell you how he became Enzo Ferrari, because he definitely didn't start out as anything rather like unique. No one would have predicted if you see Enzo at 20 years old. There's no way you're going to predict that he becomes the greatest car manufacturer of all time. And two quick sentences here that give you an idea of who he was as a kid. He hated school. He simply wanted to be a worker and nothing else. So his dad, they're living in Italy, of course, so he spends all his life, actually. And his dad is going to take him.”
2021-12-09 · Founders · #220 Enzo Ferrari: The Man and the Machine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source