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J. Paul Getty

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2024-06-15

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2024-06-15

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1. “At Amrad, I hired a young physicist from Texas named CG Smith. The way I hired him is interesting. An interview of that sort is always likely to be on an artificial basis and somewhat embarrassing. So I discussed with him a technical point on which I was then genuinely puzzled. The next day he came in with a neat solution, and I hired him at once. Here's another idea. This is from Nolan Bushnell, Nolan Bushnell is the founder of Atari, founder of Chucky Cheese, and Steve Jobs mentor. He hired Steve Jobs when Steve Jobs was like 19 at Atari. He would ask people they're reading habits in interviews. This is why. One of the best ways his whole thing was he wanted to build all of his companies laid on a foundation of creative people. So that's what he's looking for. He's like, I need creative people. One of the best ways to find creative people is to ask a simple question. What books do you like? I've never met a creative person in my life that didn't respond with enthusiasm to a question about reading habits. Actually,”

   2024-06-15 · Founders · #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Caused me to come out of retirement at the age of 26 and begin working again. I look back over the years and searched my memory and my conscience for the reasons that motivated me. I recall the elements clearly. The challenge inherent in the search for oil was a powerful factor. As was the sense of responsibility I felt towards my father in the business that he had created and built. What followed was a constant source of astonishment to me. If I can claim personal credit for having made the best of my advantages, it is by likening myself to a tennis player. Once into the game I did my damnedest to be competitive. I always sought to return the ball, no matter from which direction or with what velocity it came into my side of the court. I always sought to return. The ball”

   2024-06-15 · Founders · #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Billionaire, and that's what they call him. And he's talking towards the end of the book. Like, what he's reflecting back as his light, on his life as an 80-year-old man, like, what actually drove me? And I think this series of reflections is a perfect place to close. He says, the billionaire. I harbored no desire to be the world's richest man, not at any time in my life. I have gone this far on this particular path. There is no reason why I should not go further and see where it leads. It may well be that I will learn something from it myself. I made my first million dollars quickly, almost overnight. I was stunned at the realization that I had so much. I believed it was all the money I could ever use or need, and I stopped working entirely. I can face myself squarely in the privacy of my study, late at night, and say that it was not greed or any desire for more money.”

   2024-06-15 · Founders · #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Had to live with doubt and guilt over the role that he played in his son's lives. And so moving on to another, I would say tenet of his career is the fact that relationships around the world, he went out of his way when he's not working, and I guess this is considered work as well, to build relationships with world-class entrepreneurs. He knew essentially every single U.S. president, nearly all the leaders of the countries in Europe and Middle East. But he did this intentionally. He does something that's very fascinating. I mean, he talks about why it's so important. So he sets this thing up, which I mentioned called the liaison center. So he buys this gigantic estate and it was a very old estate. I think it was first created in like the 1500s and it's called Sutton Place. And if you Google Sutton Place Getty, you'll see it. I think it sits on like a thousand acres. It's like 72 different rooms. It served as a de facto corporate headquarters. And so he would invite all the people he wanted to build relationships with. They could work out of it. They could stay for days. And he says why? He says liaison.”

   2024-06-15 · Founders · #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Absolutely devastating. He experiences multiple family tragedies. His 12 year old son dies from complications of surgery. He had survived having a tumor taken out and then had a series of ongoing surgeries and died from complications of one. One of his grandsons gets kidnapped, and he's famous or infamous for trying to negotiate with them. His whole point is like, I got 15 other grandchildren if I just keep immediately paying out money. I'm signaling to the world that if you want to make money, just kidnap one of my kids. There's entire books. I ordered five different books on Getty, one of which is dedicated to what happens, like this danger of, you know, he says I wanted to create a dynasty. And much like the Kennedy family, the Kennedy family dynasty, because Joseph Kennedy had similar instincts, desires. There's just a lot of tragedy that happens there. So I'll read the book. I'm not sure if I'll make a podcast on it. If there is some lessons in there for you and I, then I will. But this guilt is present. He mentions it multiple times.”

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6. “Effects of a lethal combination of alcohol and barbituates. One question will continue to gnaw me to the end of my own days. I remember the conversations I had with Randolph Churchill, and I know that all too many businessmen and executives rely on a few evening drinks and sometimes barbituates as a means of easing the tensions and pressures created by their work. Is it possible that these were unduly greater for George because he strove too hard to live up to the images of his grandfather and me? In other words, did I cause the pressure that killed my son?”

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7. “And so he gets called to the telephone, and he immediately knows something's wrong because he gets on the line and they said, I think you better brace yourself, Mr. Getty. He is told that George, his son, had a stroke and that he's unconscious in a hospital. And then it's updated and it says George died a few minutes ago. And he is not alone when he takes the call. So we have a description of what happens. He says it's impossible for me to recall much about my emotions and reactions. My memories are vague and confused. I am told that I sat for hours staring into space saying nothing. And I can only remember one thought that it was untrue, that it was impossible. I had always believed that my first son George would outlive me by at least thirty-five years. The next day I learned from the newspapers, television, and radio what they had refrained from telling me George had not died from a stroke, but from the”

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8. “Would experience many disappointments before learning that I could not predetermine their careers or the course of their lives. So none of his sons were interested. There was one son that showed an interest and that worked in the family business. And that was his son, George. And so there's many times throughout the book where he's just so excited to have a son that's interested in the same things that he's interested, talks about in his like the dire entries, oh, met with George today in London. We talk business for 12 straight hours. This went on and on. And so he's going to call his son's death an accident. Other people have described it as a suicide. I do not know which description is accurate. All I know is that they all agree on that he drank and he combined drinking with taking barbituates. And so this is where he's talking about the fact that, oh my God, did I cause the pressure that killed my son?”

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9. “Getty's dad spent with his son when they were growing up. Getty did not do the same. And Getty talks about that. My father's influence, an example where the principal forces that formed my nature and character, unfortunately I had no like degree of influence and control over the lives of my own sons. The reason for this was, of course, the failure of my marriages. I had hoped and desired that my sons would enter the family business eventually taking over for me just like I had taken over from my father. I had a wish to perpetuate a dynasty.”

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10. “With the way that Randolph lived his life. In fact, I found a quote that Churchill has on his son. It says, you're idle and lazy life is very offensive to me. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence. And what is fascinating about this is the contrast that Getty makes because throughout the first two decades of his own career, he knew. He's like other oil men are going to measure my performance against that of my father and it seems like Randolph kind of like you know had a little pity party and got upset about it and Getty just worked harder and my own guess is that one of Getty's greatest regrets in life is the fact that you know he was the son of a great father and I don't think his kids would describe him as that and part of it is like this fractured lifestyle he had five different wives four different baby mamas if I if I'm counting correctly most of them are not living with him like think about how much”

    2024-06-15 · Founders · #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “And 50,000 gallons of kerosene annually to the Saudi Arabian government. We have to pay the salaries of Saudi government inspectors and other personnel. We have to provide pension, retirement, and insurance and other benefits for Saudi Arabian employees of the company. And this is what I mean about it's hard to overpay for a truly great business. This deal makes him one of, if not the richest private citizen in the world, by the standards of some oil companies operating in the Middle East, the terms reviewed as being too much. They were called outrageous. It was widely predicted that Paul Getty has finally overreached and he'll lose his shirt in the Middle East, when in fact the exact opposite, the exact opposite happened.”

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12. “To look at the neutral zone, and he gets back, he says, He sent me this TERS cable. It is three words, structures indicate oil. I absolutely love that. Are you and I confused at what that message is meant to, how that message is meant to be interpreted for J Paul Getty? No. Structures indicate oil. Sign the damn deal. And this deal is going to be really expensive. And what I love is everybody around Getty saying, oh, he lost it, paid too much. This guy's an idiot. He doesn't know what he's doing. I'm just going to give you a little bit of like overview of the deal. He had to pay the Saudi Arabian government an immediate cash of $10.5 million. We have to pay them a million dollars a year and a 55% per barrel royalty on all oil produced. We have to pay 25% of our net profits to the Saudi Arabian government. We have to build refinery and storage facilities in Saudi Arabia. We have to deliver 100,000 gallons of gasoline.”

    2024-06-15 · Founders · #352 J. Paul Getty: The Richest Private Citizen in America · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “That is 1932. It's going to take him almost 17 years to get another shot at fixing that mistake. And this time, at a gigantic cost. But again, it's kind of a weird thing about this game we're playing. It's truly hard. It sounds so silly to say it, but it's truly hard to overpay for a truly great business. I realized it was imperative that my companies obtain a foothold in the oil-rich Middle East. 17 years later, most of the giant corporations that had many times the financial resources that Getty had at this point had already got all of these great concessions. There was one very significant area that had been passed over, and that was the neutral zone, this zone that I've already described, it's 2,400 square mile in between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. So he's like, oh, this might be an opportunity to make up for my mistake that I made in 1932. So he sensed, this is the biggest opportunity of his life. He sends the geologist out.”

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14. “Same situation here. This is tens of thousands of dollars to get for the opportunity to drill in Iraq, but I didn't do it because I was scared because it was of other financial panic. This is not just an overall financial panic with the Great Depression, but a financial panic within my industry. I was reluctant to expand into the Middle East under these conditions and ordered my agents to break off the concession negotiations. It is impossible to estimate how much revenue the Getty company lost because of my decision.”

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15. “That would have given my companies the right to explore and drill for oil over a vast area. The initial cost would have been minimal, a matter of some tens of thousands of dollars, but there was an abrupt and disastrous break in US crude oil prices. The Great East Texas oilfields had been opened up, and crude, so the price of crude, craters, and it goes down to 10 cents a barrel. This was a full-on financial panic. I was reluctant to expand into the Middle East under these conditions think about this. This is why, again, I get still hyped up reading this stuff because it's one thing to know what the right thing to do is. It's another thing to have the courage and the temperament to do so. He knew the time was to expand. We cannot just stay oil explorers forever. We got to vertically integrate. There's a big financial crash. We can pick up stocks for 120th what we could. We have to buy now. Two years later.”

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16. “Brought to the surface, but by 1954 it was evident that the neutral zone had immense oil reserves. Getty companies had done considerable international business before he's describing a giant leap up, right? He does not become what is widely considered the world's richest private citizen without the steel. Getty companies had done considerable international business before. Neutral zone fines and production transformed us into a truly global enterprise. Much work and capital and a sweeping organizational restructuring was needed to make this new business empire viable. Tankers, supertankers, pipelines, storage facilities, and refineries had to be built. This is my favorite sentence of this entire section. The list of things to be done was awesome, but those things were done.”

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17. “He needed that domino to fall because then it brought down a bunch of other dominoes with it. He talks about this arm with John D. Jr.'s assignment of rights. I approached the other Jersey Standard stockholders with predictable results. Many of them felt that if a Rockefeller thought it was wise to sell his mission corporation rights, that they would be wise to do the same. That was a huge leap forward in his business is going to unlock another opportunity, the opportunity of the lifetime. He is going to secure the rights for what is known as the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And I just think there's an abundance of lessons in here for us. So this is the year 1948 to 1949. He says, Getty interest, obtain the oil concession on Saudi Arabia's half-interest in the neutral zone. This ground that's lying in between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Four years and tens of millions of dollars were spent before a drop of oil was”

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18. “Water shares. For a pygmy independent operator such as I was, could hardly stand a chance against one of the world's largest and most powerful major oil companies. By the time I discovered the truth, I was too deeply committed to withdraw from the fray. And so now some of the owners, it's not just the Rockefeller family owns tidewater, but some of the other owners like, well, we don't want to be taken over by this Getty guy. So they have an idea. And so at New Year's Day, he gets a call. He is hanging out at William Randolph Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. I also visited there last year. It's incredible if you ever get the chance to visit. It's open to the public now. I think it's owned by the state of California. It really is this great illustration of this idea that you and I talk about all the time. Mute the world and then build your own. Hearst built his own world and you get to visit a part of it. It's remarkable. On New Year's Day, he's at the Hearst Castle. They're like, hey, there's some guy on the phone looking for.”

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19. “So, going against the advice of the people advising him, right, and going against the current economic climate, he starts buying shares in this oil company called Tidewater Associated Oil Company. His idea was to accumulate enough shares so that he could win control of tide water. Now this is hilarious. Listen to what he says. Tidewater actually belonged to Standard Oil of New Jersey, which was controlled by the Rockefeller family. He didn't know it at the time because if you listen to the multiple episodes I've done on Rockefeller and his family, they constantly would have secret ownership in companies over and over again. They did not want people to know how rich they were. They did not want people to know how powerful they were. They love this network of secret allies. So it says they actually belonged to the standard oil of New Jersey. Standard oil of New Jersey was controlled by the Rockefeller family. Had I known this originally, I would never have begun buying tied with...”

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20. “Of a company with refinery facilities and marketing outlets. In other words, economic conditions created a unique opportunity to put together an integrated well to consumer oil company. It's one thing to know that it's the right idea. It's completely another thing to actually have the temperament to act on that belief when everybody around you is panicking. He's in the middle of a financial panic. You know what I thought of when I got to this section? Sam Zurray from the book, The Fish that ate the whale, the life and times of America's banana king. There was a great paragraph in that book where Samsa Murray does something very similar. He knew the timer was right for him to expand. Listen to this description. I'm going to read this paragraph to you. It's excellent. There are times when certain cards sit unclaimed in the common pile, when certain properties become available that will never be available again. A good businessman feels these moments like a fall in the barometric pressure. A great businessman is dumb enough to act on them even when he cannot afford to.”

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21. “Vertically integrate. And this is how he describes his thinking. I was convinced of eventual economic recovery and I firmly believed in the business dictum that you should buy when prices are low. I urged a program of expansion. Stocks and publicly owned companies with huge if temporarily undervalued assets were selling at prices that made them barely believable bargains. There were shares selling for as little as a twentieth of their net underlying asset value. That means anyone who purchased them was in effect buying twenty dollars for every dollar he spent. The Getty Companies, my father's and my own, were primarily engaged in oil expiration and production. Their crude had to be sold to refineries or pipeline companies. I reasoned that with share prices being where they were, the time was ideal to obtain control.”

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22. “Once I have committed myself to any undertaking, a powerful inner drive cuts in and I become intent on seeing it through to a satisfactory conclusion. Think about that hatred of failure is a main motivating force. It is a powerful inner drive. It is not the love of success, it is the fear of failure that is pushing him. How and why is it that I've been able to build my own automobile, drill oil wells, run an aircraft plant, build and head a business empire, yet remain unable to maintain even one satisfactory marital relationship? It is one hell of a question.”

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23. “My habits and my patterns merely because a marriage license had been signed and sealed. And then he's able to finally summarize his failure in marriage and then his success in nearly everything else. There's a great line that I attributed previously to Munger because he repeats it, but he said Buffett is the actual one that taught him that. And More and Buffett would say that it's not greed that drives the world. It's envy. And Getty says he's not envious of anybody else except the people that were able to actually make marriages succeed. He says, whatever my other flaws and weaknesses, I have never been given to envy. Save for the envy I feel towards people who have the ability to make marriage work and endure happily. It is an art in which I have never been able to master. My record, five marriages, five divorces, five failures. And he continues, and this speaks to my soul because I feel this way too. A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature, and I suppose one of the more pronounced motivating forces in my life.”

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24. “Married in 1931, get divorced in 1932, get married in 1932, get divorced in 1933, get married in 1933, get divorced in 1934. And you look at a sequence of events like, how? How are you making these decisions? And then another thing is not communicating with your wife enough because a few of his wife's complain like, why are you away from the home so much? You're already rich. Why do you have to work? They didn't understand what was actually driving him. And then, you know, he's a very extreme person. He says, my business interests created problems. I was drilling several wells simultaneously, and it was by no means uncommon for me to stay on the sites overnight for two or more days, and when I wasn't when he wasn't on the wells, he's traveling extensively all over the world looking for more opportunity to drill oil. And he didn't see the need to change his habits just because he got married. He says, I found it extremely difficult to change my”

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25. “Him self analyzing, just like, how can I be so great at business and so terrible at marriage? It goes on throughout the entire book. And I just try to organize in one section. He goes, I see my marital patterns as a violation of Cicero's maxim. To stumble over the same stone twice is a proverbial disgrace. Yet I doggedly persisted in tripping over the same boulder. He repeat, I was very irrational with marriage because work always came first. He talks about, so here's the problem. He does some interesting things again. This is one of the benefits of reading biographies and autobiographies, in my opinion, because you have some of the smartest, most protective people ever live and you see them making bad decisions and mistakes over and over again. And you realize like perfection is not required to attain wonderful professional success. And in Getty's case, like undeniable business genius. And let me give you an example. I'm just making up the years, but at the very beginning, so he gets married five times. But the first three marriages are very bizarre. So it'd be like get.”

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26. “I had a wonderful dad, a wonderful position in my life, and I was a shit. He says, like, I was a shit husband. He doesn't try to hide it. My autocratic tendencies were no less apparent in my personal life than in business. I was often short-tempered, brusque. I forgot birthdays, anniversaries, and dinner engagements. Each of my wives was jealous and resentful of my preoccupation with business. And then he also has a little line in here, a little zinger though. Okay, he's like, they're jealous of all the time preoccupation with business. Yet none showed any visible aversion to sharing in the proceeds of that preoccupation.”

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27. “What he admires in other people. And so the list of traits that he just described to us in two paragraphs. The great entrepreneurs I know have these traits. They're devoted their minds and energy to building productive enterprises over the long term. Remember both Onassus could have retired decades before he did. They're not in it just for the money. If they were just in it for the money, they would have quit a long time ago. Think about that. They devoted their minds and energy to building productive enterprises over the long term. They concentrated on expanding their empire. They concentrated on making their companies more efficient. They reinvested heavily in their business, which can then help efficiency and expansion. They are always personally involved in the business and they know their shit down to the ground. And you just saw that with OSA. So NASA shows up by himself and he can handle. You have 10 people across the table. I know my business down to the ground. It's been a while since I've made an episode about”

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28. “Next door neighbor. My house cost $100,000. So think about that. They both live in Santa Monica at the time. Hears, and this is for his mistress, actually. So I don't even think William Ranolph Hearst lived there most of the time. So that house costs $3 million. I live next door. I paid $100,000 for my house. This is a good illustration of the differences in our attitudes towards money. In 1935, when this is taking place, when these neighbors next to Hurse's mistress, in 1935, I was one-third as rich as Hearst, and by 1950, I was twice as rich. So again, advice for entrepreneurs, don't be like Hearst. That's what Getty would tell you. Reinvest in your business. Keep a fortress of cash and use debt sparingly.”

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29. “Sparingly, this is what he says. I like to keep a lot of financial fat under my belt. There's nothing that can ever take the place of cash. The overwhelming majority of business problems and so many recent business failures result from businessmen exceeding themselves too far. There is most definitely a place and a need for the use of credit in business. However, I have always believed that the businessman who uses credit the most sparingly is the one who has the greatest chance for achieving success. And he talks about the fact that he lived next door. Oh, this is hilarious. So he's comparing the difference between the way William Randolph Hearst ran his business and the way that Getty ran his business. So he says, I have always spent $95% or more of my money on my business, meaning reinvesting it into the business, okay? While William Randolph Hearst was the opposite, he liked to live like a Roman emperor. Hearst beach house in Santa Monica cost $3 million. I was as”

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30. “One thing to say that you're into details. Another one to pay attention to how many days the ACU's running at this museum, that's what, 5,000 miles away from you? And so I just want to read this to you. Air conditioning. I'm not impressed with the argument that our art objects will be ruined if air conditioning is not available 168 hours per week. I seem to remember that air conditioning was invented only a few years ago, and that all of our 18th century objects necessarily passed a great many decades without the benefit of air conditioning. My instructions are that air conditioning in the museums shall be turned off at all times at night and shall be used during the daytime only on those days which are exceptionally hot. We should have very little need for air conditioning. And then he obviously applies that to the finances of his business. He talks a lot about, he gives advice for fellow entrepreneurs throughout this entire book. And one of this is don't be like William Randolph Hearst. You should reinvest in your business and you have to keep a fortress of cash and use debt.”

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31. “There's these letters that are reprinted in the book. And he's going back and forth with the people because he's in England. He sets up because he has to be in Europe, even though he loved. Many parts of this book is like a love letter to California. And you'd much rather be there, but he's willing to do things that he doesn't want to do that he's not comfortable with. He's willing to subjugate his own personal desires if it's better for his empire. And so for the last third of his life, he's set up in Europe because their business is in Saudi Arabia. And Southern California is way too far from the Middle East where he repraits primary businesses. He's also got business and obviously in the Americas, he's got it in Europe. He's got the Middle East, but he's like, okay, I have to set up in a very convenient location, even though this isn't the place I want to be. And so he's having this argument over letters with the people that are in charge of his museum in California. And he's pissed off because they're spending too much money on air conditioning. And so he's, again.”

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32. “And clannish lot. When a boss knew his way around a rig and could perform any task, oil-filled workers accepted him as a full member of their exclusive fraternity. So think about that. Remember, we go back to the wisdom of his father. Getty is in his 30s when he's, this part of the story, he's in his 30s and the decisions that his dad made. Hey, let me bring my 11-year-old son out here. He'll observe. He'll learn through osmosis. He'll ask questions. And then he's 15. He's working the fields. and he's working every summer. And he does that for half of a decade. That decision is paying dividends now, what, 15 years later? And so then like 200 pages later, 150 pages later, I come across this hilarious story. Because, you know, in the details obviously means knowing how to do every job, being where the work happens. Getty applies it to the most smallest details. Many years later, he's already one of the richest people in the world.”

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33. “Are indebted. There's also another positive byproduct of this because remember he's an oil man. He's a wildcatter. But he talks about the fact that he's on site. I want to be where the work is done. I know how to do everything. In many cases, I will do it if I need to. I will directly supervise. I will make sure my personal involvement, make sure that it gets done the correct way. And so he talks about that. Even at this point, there's independent oil companies, which he considers himself because he's on site. And then there's vast oil corporations and they're at faraway headquarters. And the oil men, the actual roughnecks and roustabouts and wildcatters are on site, they just don't respect these like far away suits and offices, essentially. And so he says an oil man who was a working boss, and that's what he considered himself a working boss, enjoyed a distinct advantage. Oilfield workers, they also know as roughnecks, riggers are drillers, were and still are a fiercely proud”

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34. “I never had to search further than myself when seeking to lay final blame for mistakes or wrong decisions, he quotes a bunch of leaders, one thing he loved about Harry Truman, was that the sign that he kept on his desk that he was known for. And he says, essentially that sign describes in the most clearest and most succinct way possible is how Getty operated his business. He believed the leader of the company, the founder of the company, the CEO of the company. You have to take extreme ownership. And he says Truman provided the clearest and most succinct explanation of what I mean with the sign that he kept on his presidential desk. The sign was four words. The buck stops here. When the man in charge, it could be a candy factory, a drilling operation, or the nation's government accepts direct final responsibility he makes full advance payment for the rewards and privileges he receives. He is released from any need to feel beholden.”

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35. “The fact that he worked all the time, that he's a micromanager, that he's in the details, that he knows his business for A to Z, the fact that he knows he wants control, that he has to have it, he is autocratic, the fact that he leverage relationships throughout his entire life, all of these things, I think, interact with each other. I think this is a great overview. And this is happening in the early days of his career. He says, my tendency is to be autocratic. I had long ago recognized this in myself. I chose to be my own drilling superintendent because it was the only way that I could be sure that my crews did exactly what I wanted. And paradoxical as it may seem, it gave me a unique sense of independence and self-sufficiency.”

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36. “Self directed learning, he said before he was being taught. And he's like, the key is not to be taught, it's to learn. And so the environment at Oxford, when Getty was there, was like, well, you pick your path. You figure out what ignites your soul. What do you actually want to learn? Lifelong learning is self-directed by nature. It's not going to work any other way. And so I don't have to even read any part of this section when he's at Oxford to tell you what I feel is the most important idea. The great founders apply their fierce work ethic to lifelong learning too. And all throughout this book, you see when Getty doesn't understand something, his first step is like, I'm going to read everything I can possibly find about the subject. It is self-directed lifelong learning. And then the last thing I'll say about this addiction, this obsession that he had with work, he speaks about why he never retired again. And he worked until the day he died. And he says, I've been an active businessman for more than 60 years. I still...”

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37. “All kinds poured in from every conceivable corner of the globe. There were countless phone calls. They were executives of Getty Companies and Engineers, accountants, attorneys, and other businessmen who had to be seen personally, and he wouldn't have it any other way, he says in the book, even 83 years old, I am still an oil man. I am a wildcadding operator at heart. And several times throughout the book, he's trying to describe to the reader this misconception a lot of people, you and I know this is the case. A lot of people from the outside think, oh, entrepreneurs are motivated by money. And obviously we want to build wealth for ourselves and our family. But he picks up on exactly. It's like, this guy's decades. He's a half century past the need to work for money. And he's talking about like why he's doing this. And he says entrepreneurs are people whose mind and energies are constantly being used at peak capacity. In other words, he's alive. He is fully alive when he's engaged in this game that he loves to play.”

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38. “Abler man. He thought his father was a better man than he was. This is said in no sense as eulogy, but as an impartial appraisal of the facts later on in the book, he said that his death, his father's death, was the heaviest blow, the greatest loss that J. Paul Getty had ever suffered in his life. He says I was 37 when he died and no longer had any freedom of choice over what I would do with the rest of my own life. He is describing a sense of obligation and a desire to carry on the life's work of the greatest man that he had ever met.”

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39. “So before I move on to how J Paul Getty worked, I want to close this section about his dad with his father's death. His father suffers a stroke when he's 75 years old. And this is how J Paul Getty describes the impact that the death of his father had. Remember, he is writing this 45 years after his father dies. He says, the love, respect, and admiration I had and still have for my father were boundless. His death was a blow that the passing years have only numbed. And for his entire life, J. Paul Getty would keep a diary, so large chunks of this book are words that he wrote many, many years ago. And this is his description. He says, I wrote these words from the heart. They're from the heart, and they remain so, and they're about his father. His loving kindness and great heart combined with a charming simplicity of manner made George Getty the idol of all who knew him. His mental ability was outstanding to the last. I can only strive to carry on to the best of my ability the life work of an”

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40. “He realizes that he wants back in the game of business. And this is then once he gets back in, it's a game he never stops playing. But I love his description of this. And he's just seeing there's another oil boom happening. This time it's not in the fields of Oklahoma. It's right next to him in Southern California. And he says, other men were bringing in gushers. They were opening up new fields. I opened up nothing that could possibly gush except for far too many champagne bottles. This state of affairs first nagged, then gnawed and finally became intolerable. I unretired. And then we get another example of good guy dad. When he goes, talks to his dad about it. I got to get back in the game. Retiring's boring. This is ridiculous. And he says, my father said nothing, not even I told you so.”

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41. “And he tries his best to describe why it's the case, the sense of elation and triumph is always there. It stems from knowing that one has beaten nature's incalculable odds by finding and capturing a most elusive prey. That is how he describes it. He's constantly describing, exploring and drilling for oil as a hunt for oil. And this is when he makes his million dollars really rapidly. He looks up. He's like, oh my God, I'm rich. I'm a millionaire. I'll never be able to spend this much money. And he makes a mistake. Like, think about all the mistakes you made when you were in the early 20s. And so he's like, all right, I'm rich. I'm retiring. And so he immediately shuts everything down. He abandons all constructive activities as how he describes it. And he chooses a life of laziness and pleasure. But what's fascinating, he's like, you know, I have everything I want. I'm rich. I'm popping bottles. Like he literally says that. I'm dating all these women. I'm in the perfect place. And he's like, I am depressed.”

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42. “Adequately describe the elation and triumph that one experiences when he brings in his first producing well. The feelings do not diminish when it's the tenth or hundredth and tenth well that comes in as a producer. Even later in his career he still”

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43. “I did not due in large part to the warm hearted encouragement and advice I received from older seasoned oilmen like John Markham and RM McFarlane. McFarlane was the owner of McMahon Oil Company, one of America's most successful oil producing firms. He went out of his way to befriend me. He bolstered my sagging morale and gave me invaluable counsel and passed on knowledge and lessons that he had learned through long experience. And so this year experience, it's almost at the very end, and he says, I had nothing to show for my efforts as a wildcutter. Nothing. But he didn't give up. He's encouraged by his father, by these older seasoned oilmen. He decides, hey, I'm going to take another shot at this other piece of land. He gets the lease for a shockingly low price of $500, starts drilling, and the well starts coming in at 700 barrels of oil a day. And listen to what he says. Words cannot”

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44. “That the handful of words, that sentence from his hero kept him and motivated him to persevere through the inevitable struggles of bringing that idea to life. And we see something very similar in the life of J Paul Getty as a young man. He's 22, 23 years old when this is happening. I was frequently on the verge of giving up.”

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45. “Many, many years still, he's not yet ready to retire. She's like, hey, why don't you do this? Try your hand as an independent operator in the oil fields. If this experiment doesn't work out and if you're unhappy, you don't like the business, when the year is over, you can do whatever you wish and I will not say another word. And so this is the deal. This is why Getty says that his seat at the table was reserved for him. This is what his father proposes. He says, okay, if you find a promising lease, I will furnish the capital for the purchase of the lease and any kind of like drilling equipment that you need. And if there's any profits, I'll get 70%. You'll do all the work. I'll put up the capital, obviously. I will get 70% of the profits and you can get 30%. And J Paul Getty agrees to this. Now, his experience in the beginning of the oil industry is not like his father. You know, his father drills 43 wells, 42 of them come back in your first shot, right? He is not having any kind of success. He's not finding oil at all.”

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46. “He says, My father then asked the question, Then most fathers ask sons who have completed their formal educations but have not decided on their careers, what do you intend on doing now? Listen to the description of his father, many positive qualities for which George F. Getty was widely liked and admired was his unfailing habit of presenting any arguments in a calm, holy, reasoned, yet always tolerant manner. And so he's laying out the case to his son. He's like, listen, you know, you can, what do you intend to do now? Here is my suggestion. I've built an oil business that's worth some millions of dollars. I am nearing the age of 60, and you are my only child. And he explicitly tells his son, I've built what I hoped would be a family business. Would you be willing to consider it? And then this speaks to the wisdom that his father had. He's not, okay, you're 22, come in and take over my business. He knows he's going to be operating for...”

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47. “Knowledge of these fields was encyclopedic, and so by the time the JPA is 22 years old, by the time he is done with college, think about what his father did for him. He's 11 years old and he's observing all the stuff going on. He starts working in the fields when he's 15. He's got somewhere around a decade of experience before he begins full-time in the trade. He's got his father's guidance. The fact that he knew and believed that his father loved him and that he concerned himself with developing his character that he wanted his son to be a success. He's got the confidence that he's worked in every single aspect. He knew the business from A to Z. He was mentored by people that had decades of experience in the oil business. All of this is going to come to play. It's going to be really important because J Paul Getty is going to start his own oil company at 22 and he's going to make a million dollars and he's going to retire at 24 years old. And when J Paul Getty describes the way his dad gently guided his career, I pray that I have this patience and tolerance for my own kids. I'm not sure I will.”

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48. “83 year old man. He said the strict regimented environment was good for me. His father also taught him the balance. They were both voracious readers. So J-Pulketti's like reading Napoleon when he's like 12 years old, but he said his dad also taught him the importance of physical culture so he'd make his son box, run, swim, lift weights, and that emphasis on physical culture is really important because he's going to start out in the oil business as a laborer, as a roughneck, and he's going to learn the business from A to Z, which is really, really important too. And so when JP Getty is in college, he repeats exactly what he did in high school during the school year. He's in college. During the summers, he's working in the oil fields. And during one summer, he builds a really important relationship. And it is with what he calls a leathery veteran of the oil trade. This guy they call grizzle. So grizzle becomes J Paul Getty's mentor. These two sentences is why this is so important. Grizzle taught me all he knew about virtually every phase of field operations and his not”

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49. “And I enjoyed both. His dad is just making one great decision after another. He literally changes the trajectory of his son's life. And Jay Paul Getty got his full attention because J-Paul Getty was his only son. And he talks about a lot in the book that from the time that he could remember that his dad concerned himself with developing his character. He says like my dad believed in work ethic. He made me learn that money must be earned. He would not give his son just money just because he was rich. He taught him his son how to do sales. Oh, and he was rather strict disciplinarian. So years after he starts working in the oil fields, I think he's around 16 years old the time during the school year. He's getting bad grades and he's fucking off is essentially what he's doing. He's just not behaving. So his father's like, wait, you want to get bad grades? You want to fuck off? That's fine. You're going to military school. For the last two or three years of high school, he makes him go to a military school. And the line that J. Paul Getty has about this is looking back at this now.”

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50. “When I was not yet 16, I asked my father if I could spend my summer vacations from school working in the oil fields. My father's reply was characteristic. It is all right with me if you're willing to start at the bottom. This meant that I would be employed as a roustabout that's an oilfield laborer whose job it was to perform the heaviest and usually the dirtiest work on the drilling site. My father was explicit about the terms under which I would be employed. I would receive the Roustabout's going wage, which was $3 a day for a 12-hour shift. I could expect no preferential treatment because I was the boss's son. I would have to learn to hold my own with the other men. I had long enjoyed the advantages and comforts that might be expected to go with being a wealthy man's only son. To my astonishment, I adapted readily to this abrupt transition. I took to bunkhouse living and grub shack eating in strides.”

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