YouSaid · the spoken record

Monty Moncrief

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10
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2024-02-13
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2024-02-13
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1
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  1. “And so when the book ends, Monty's in his 80s and he's still at it. And I think this is a good description of why. Moni Mon Creef grew up amid the harshness of a developing frontier land and made hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of his eighty odd years. He had realized his ambitions in a town that he helped to settle and shape and make grow. He had been able to trace his shadow, leave his mark upon an empty land, and set a standard for those who were to follow. He created a dynasty. For Monimon Creef and for men of this pioneer generation, achievement, not refinement is the measure of all things.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Commission ordered Humboldt to compensate him for his fields. They were forced to pay him $100 million along with percentages and residuals on those percentages. And so it said it was a victory for his dynasty and a means for its perpetuation. And there's just a great line in the book about this, you know, because you think you're nuts, essentially suing a potential partner in the future. You're nuts for doing all the behavior that the wildcatters are doing seem nuts at the time. And it says being crazy is something that majors just don't understand. And being crazy and having imagination is actually a huge asset for the independents. This stat blew my mind. Independent wildcatters find 80% of the oil and gas in America despite the fact that most of the mineral leases they acquire have been rejected by the big companies.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “So, this was fascinating. This was really surprising, and I think its VC influence said that our railroads had on the early American oil industry. So independents like Monument Creef, they usually are rarely willing to jeopardize their relationship with major companies by taking them before regulatory boards. Monument Creef had to do this because he feels that he thought that Humble was decreasing the value of his oil fields because they were draining essentially like, let's say he was on the outskirts, they own the middle, they were draining things that were not in the middle. And so if an independent wanted to file suit against a major, he would go through the regulatory board of the oil industry at the time, which was called the Railroad Commission. That was surprising. Again, it's not the oil board, oil regulations, the railroad commission. And in this case, this wind up making them over $100 million.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “The first well is 18,000 barrels a day. And then it says this further convinced him that the good Lord must be looking out for him. In other words, that he was born lucky. Now, what's fascinating is how fast his fortunes change. So it says Monnie and his partner held onto their leases until the end of 1931. If I'm not mistaken, they actually hit it. I can't find the exact year. I'm pretty sure they hit it that same year. I think they held on to it for a year.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Flyer, I've drilled 29 duds. I don't have money for this. What do I do? I gotta walk down the hall, knock on some doors, and see who wants to go in on this deal with me. So now we're 50-50 partners. We're like, all right, we got the leases. We ain't got no money to drill. What are we going to do here? We'll go to a bigger oil company, say, hey, give us somebody to drill. And if it works out, we'll obviously give you some of the interest in a goodwill. And then I love his relentless optimism here because of the first well that he drills Gush Force 18,000 barrels of oil a day. And then his response was hilarious, right? Because it's like to be delusionally optimistic. You just go from one set back to another setback without any loss of enthusiasm, which I love. And it says, like, so, you know, it's all these struggle for years, doesn't have the money, winds up figuring out how to do it. The first well they drill on this other thing. So this would be what his 30th attempt.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “5x. They're like short term traders, I guess is the way to think about them. Very different than what Monnie was interested in doing them. Mani Mon Kreef thought it was possible that this site may be sitting on top of the Northeast running trend and on impulse, meaning that it's close to the dad joiner discovery. And on impulse he bought the leases. And he bought the leases even though he didn't have the money. So what does he do? They do this over and over again. They take on partners to save himself money. He went partners with a man named JT Farrell who worked down the hall from him. Mon Kreef and Farrell didn't have enough money to permit them to expand their holdings and undertake the expense of drilling at the same time. So they did what independents have always done and then sold off pieces of their enterprise. They gave up some of their interest to Getty. That's Getty Oil. So think about what just happened there. BA skipper comes to Monty with an opportunity. Mony's like, okay, I'm going to take another.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “And so these wildcatters raise money and they start drilling holes. Monnie's first 29 wells all come up empty. So at the beginning of his career, remember, he still thinks he's born lucky. He was destined to it. I have a gift. This is the way he's talking about. I have a gift for finding oil. Imagine believing that, right? Quitting your job, moving states, raising money first 29 times. They're all duds. They start calling him dry hole Monty. That was the situation right before he hits one of the largest oil discoveries ever. There is actually, let me read this to you. There's a great line I think about all the time in the book, The Fish That Eat the Whale, which is about Sam Zaurray. And it talked about this. Essentially, he goes and accumulates assets when he does not have the money to do so because he believed if he did not get those assets, his business in the future wouldn't work out anyways. There is some degree of...”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Self confidence. I don't even know if that's the right word. A lot of these early wildcatters, they were default optimistic by far, but they also believe that they were born lucky. This is not a joke. So he says, Monty Mon Creeve believed that he had a gift, a special talent for finding oil. He believed that he had been born lucky. When asked why he set himself up as an independent oil man, he said I had always had it in my mind to better myself, and to better himself has always been his quest in life.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Their actions they did before that helped shape America's destiny. Okay, so then the book goes into his early life. I think this is the way, I think I can essentially tell the entire story in just two sentences. And so this is not a direct quote from Monte Monk, but this is my interpretation if we were able to talk to him, this is what he would say. My dad got to Texas in a covered wagon. I made hundreds of millions of dollars in my lifetime. And so when Monty is a young man, he serves in, he goes to Europe to fight in World War I. While he's doing that, he actually becomes friends with the son of an Oklahoma oil family. And so after the war, when Monty gets back to America, he decides to head for Oklahoma and he starts working for his friends, families, oil company. And so his first job in the oil industry, he has a job called a landman. So it says he worked first as a landman as many future independents often did. Landman”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Me, it was time to quit law school and come to work for him. I did it, even though it was the hardest thing in the world for me. And even though he told me I'd have to run him out of business before I could get my share. That's funny because that's happening in Texas. Also, I don't think it's exclusive to Texas. When I got to this, so then I left myself was, oh, this quote could be from Ted Turner. As you and I learned in episode 327 on Ted Turner's autobiography, he tried to rebel. His dad started that company. It was very successful, one of the largest, I think it was the most successful billboard company in the Southeast. And, you know, he took off running, but eventually exactly what they said. You know, he called him. He's like, you just, now's the time. You have to come. And even though Ted wasn't sure, he's like, you know, I'm going to go do this. Back to this book. This is also something that I've noticed that the entrepreneurs that you and I study are way more similar to each other than you and I are to maybe like the general population or the population that are not entrepreneurial. Traveling through oil country.”

    2024-02-13 · Founders · #338 Monty Moncrief Texas Oil Billionaire · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source