YouSaid · the spoken record

Sam Zemurray

lines on the record: 21
first: 2022-07-02
most recent: 2022-07-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“War effort, but whose import from Asia had been blocked by the Japanese during World War II. So he grew things like hemp and rubber trees and essentially figured, hey, we're going to make America more self-sufficient and we're going to pick things that are in high demand by the military. By 1944, Zurray had thousands of acres bearing strange fruit. It was among the proudest achievements of his life. He was a farmer at heart, and here he was behaving like a farmer in the midst of a locust blight. He was innovating his way out of ruin. So by this point in his life, Zamaria's a much older man, his son is 31 years old. He's a pilot, and he volunteers to fight in World War II. Sam Zamuray Jr. enlisted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In those days when the fighting started, you went. If you didn't go, there was something wrong with you. It was extremely dangerous work. Here's a photo of Sam Jr. taken in the fall.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fast forwarding about a decade, World War II is going to make the sale of his primary product, the banana, very difficult. In fact, like Britain says, hey, you can't import him anymore. It's like a luxury. And so the reason I want to point this out to you is because Zamuri's reaction to this is just perfect. He chose innovation over despair. Zamurray was never heard to bitch or justify. He was a member of a generation that lived by the maxim, never complain, never explain. What do you do when your product rots? You find something else to sell. Zamuri began to look for other crops he could grow on his plantations, crops that could be classified as necessities, meaning they would not have a quota, right? Like some countries, you couldn't import any bananas and then other countries said, you know, we have a limit of how many we're going to import. So that's obviously not good. If countries are limiting how much of your product can sell, he sent agents in search of plants and trees that grew in the tropics on other parts of the globe. So around the equator, right? He was especially interested in plants critical to the”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“United Fruit Ship did not leave the port until it was packed. He had United Fruits holdings reappraised, the value of the machines and the land had collapsed during the Depression, which saved the company millions in taxes. He left fields follow, further decreasing banana supply so he could control the market price. On some plantations, he replaced bananas with sugarcane, a staple that was always in demand. He looked for other crops to plant, like coconuts and pineapples. From Boston to Bogota, he weeded out superfluous employees until one of every four was gone. So he lays off 25% of their workforce. It was not these policies alone that turned things around. It was also the energy behind the policies, the six-week tour, the hiring and the firing, the tough decisions made about the fleet in the fields, a firm hand had taken hold of the company. The stock price doubled in the first two weeks of Zuri's reign. This had less to do with tangible results.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he's going to run this company for another 25 years, but he saves the company in the first 60 days. This is what happens. He overlooked nothing. Whenever he found a man who could not act or was slow to decide, he replaced him. He said, I realize the greatest mistake the United Fruit Management had made was to assume it could run its activities in many tropical countries from an office on the 10th floor of a Boston office building, Zamurray said. I should, I guess I should have told you. I mean, it's pretty predictable what his move was going to be up before this. He just went straight to the field. So that's where it's saying he overlooked nothing. Executives on the spot were treated like messenger boys. I completely reversed that policy. I laid down what might be called a constitution for the companies, as Murray said. It was established as a fixed policy that if a plantation manager could not handle his difficulties, we would appoint some man who could. And so over the next 60 days, he's just going through every single doing an inventory of every single part of the company. And he's there in person talking to the people actually doing the work. He saw the problem of half empty ships, selling some ships, renting out space and others.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is wild. This is when the fish is going to eat the whale. The chairman of the board was Daniel Wing. He was also the president of the First National Bank of Boston. To him, Zumuri was still Sam the banana man, the fruit jobber from the docks. He already knew what Sam could teach him about the business. Nothing. When it was Sam's turn to speak, he chose each word carefully, explaining his ideas in a thick Russian accent. When Zamuri finished, Wing said, unfortunately, Mr Zamuri, I can't understand a word of what you say. The men at the table with Wing started to laugh. Zur Zumuri's hands turned into fists. He went to the other room to retrieve his bag of proxies. He came back, slapped him on the table, and said, You're fired. Can you understand that? You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out. And this is just a fantastic, this just blew my mind, this paragraph.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Trust him, trust him. If you don't trust him, fire him and get a man you do trust in the job. So the summary here is he's offering all these suggestions and they're not being listened to. So he's like, okay, I'm not going to just go away mad. I'm going to solve the problem. He goes around and he, remember, he's the largest shareholder, so he goes and has these secret meetings with all these other shareholders. And he's like, hey, give me your proxies. He spent the following weeks on the road sitting in the offices and living rooms of shareholders. He made the same case over and over again. The current management is not up to the task. When Zamuri spoke to the board again several months later, he had with him a bag full of proxies. So those are the voting rates turned over to him by other stockholders.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gasoline, but a man focused on the near horizon of costs can sometimes lose sight of the far horizon of potential windfall by his quick calculations Sam realized that whatever money was being saved on fuel was being lost on the higher percentage of fruit that ripened during the extra days on the water. These smugs, they're losing more than their saving, he said. So he goes next year to the board of directors, and he goes to the meeting. At this meeting, they were discussing a request from plantation managers who wanted $10,000 to build an irrigation ditch in Guatemala. The executives called on experts who detailed the cost and benefits of the project. Zumuri grew restless. To him, such a debate was symptomatic of a greater problem. This man in Guatemala, he's your manager, isn't he? Zumeri asked. Yes, they said. Then listen to what the man is telling you. You're here, he's there.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hey, I got to take on a partner, even though it kind of goes against his nature. Sam Zamuri took a partner in 1903. This was out of character. He was a solitary sort, a late night walker, and a party avoider. He liked to make decisions on his own, better to ask forgiveness than permission. But he had gone as far as he could with ripes. He wanted to move into the more respectable precincts of the trade. That was where the real money was. For this, he would need capital and help. So he takes his partner. It says, Hubbard, that's the guy's name, is gone now, dead and buried and forgotten. He was a poor bastard who lacked the nerve, who sold out too early, who quit the game a minute before the number came in. That happens in the future, though. At this point, they join with an ambitious goal to traffic yellows and greens. This meant they'd have to contract Central American farmers for a percentage of each harvest, which Zamuri and Hubbard would then import. For Sam, who had always kept costs down, this meant assuming a new level of risk and that risk his high tolerance.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Back to Zamuri. I think he only had like 10% of the company, something like that, which is going to lead to Zamuri building the most formidable competition that United Fruits ever seen. And then eventually there's what the entire book's about is how the hell does this fruit jobber, right? This little guy from the docks is what they called him. How does he take over one of then run for 25 years one of the first truly global corporations? He's going to wind up taking over Preston's company. He does it after Preston dies, but it's just wild when you think about, wow, all the way back in 1903, they're just meeting on the docks in Mobile, Alabama, and you have Preston be like, hey, I need to be on this guy's team. I see me and him. So let's go back to the book. A few years before Zamurray seemed like a fool buying garbage. Now look what he accomplished, selling hundreds of thousands of bananas a year. He become one of the biggest traffickers in the trade. And he'd done it without having to incur the traditional cost. What does that mean? His fruit was growing for him.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He became a gambler by necessity, a risk taker, a salesman, a brawler. That little fellow is the big executives in Boston called him, but that little fellow would build a kingdom from ripes. So for the next few years he's going to focus on this profitable niche that he identified and he realized, oh, I can grow fast and wait till we get to how fast he grew it is remarkable. Some more background here that just talks about the, you know, you and I have talked about this idea over and over again that I think most people that I've ever lived overestimate or underestimate maybe that's the right word a lot can change in one lifetime. I think that's the key reason to read this book and what I got the most of rereading it the second time is it completely like takes whatever's in your mind about what one person can accomplish in one lifetime takes your brain out of your skull and like stretches it it's like oh like you can do so much more and as long as you don't limit your options cap your upside by any means which sam”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His weekly earnings just a few years before Zamurray had stumbled on a niche, ripes overlooked at the bottom of the trade, where the Bigfruit Companies monopolized the upper precincts of the industry, and to do so you needed capital, railroads, ships to operate in the Greens, which is like you're essentially farming your own bananas. That's the way to think about that. The world of ripes was wide open. It was in these months on train platforms all in the small towns in American South that Zamuri first came to be known as Sam the Banana Man and more great writing that I think really puts the image in your mind of Sam the Banana Man at this point as a salesman of a perishable product he was skirting the line between wealth and oblivion health and rot a writer of railroads a chaser of time it was life move the fruit now your rule”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get word ahead of the towns along the line on the railroad. I'm sure the grocery owners would meet you at the platforms and buy the bananas right off the boxcar. During the next day, Zamurray went in and then we see the relentless resourcefulness that is a hallmark of Zamurray's entire life. Zamurray went into a Western Union office and spoke to a telegraph operator. He had no money. So Sam offered a deal. If the man radioed every operator ahead asking each of them to spread the word to local merchants, dirt, cheap bananas coming through for merchants and peddlers, Sam would share a percentage of his sales. When the railroad arrived in the next town, the customers were waiting. He sold the last banana. Then he went home in the dark where he tallied his money. I asked you to remember that he was making a dollar a week chasing pigs, right? This is just a few years before this is happening. It came to $190, his first real success after accounting for expanses, Sam had earned forty dollars in six days. Earth put another way forty.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can hustle where others have been satisfied with the easy pickings of the trade. Let's go back to the book. Zamuri's first cargo consisted of a few thousand bananas. He did not spend all his money but retained a small balance, which was used to rent a boxcar on the railroad. The trip to Selma, where he's taken the bananas, was scheduled to take three days, meaning he would have just enough time to get the fruit to market before the sun did its worst. Since the frites is so wild, since the freight charge used the last of his money, Zamuri traveled in the boxcar with the bananas. And this is just fantastic writing. It seems appropriate. Zamuri sleeping besides his first haul, attending to his product like a baby in a nursery. And so we see another trait that Sam has his whole life. He's always listening. He wants the information that you have because that information, if I shut up, if I use my ears more than my mouth, that's how I get smart, right? And so he winds up talking to a brake man, just a guy working on the railroad that gives him a great idea. And this is what the guy said to him. You got a good product there.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Others only saw waste. He was the son of a poor Russian farmer, for whom food had once been scarce enough to make even a freckled banana seem precious as another main theme of the book that'll pop up over and over again. That is the primary way he viewed himself as just a farmer. Sam walked down to the pier to talk to the company agent. Zamuri had saved $150. That was his stake. He figured it would go further if it was spent on ripes. He was no fool. He knew what this meant, that he'd have to move fast, that he was entering a race with the clock. As far as he was concerned, now keep in mind, I'm going to tell you what I thought about this paragraph after I read it, but I'm going to tell you it before I read it to you. This is going to remind me of Jay-Z, and I'll explain why where that connection is coming from. As far as he was concerned, ripes were considered trash only because Boston fruit and similar...”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He goes down to the dock and he's looking for opportunity. There's a line here that just is really a main theme of the book. The main theme of the book is that you should learn every detail of your trade. He just said the reason he's doing this because if I know everything A to Z, there's no problem I can't solve. He wanted to learn every detail of the trade. The bananas that did not make the cut were designated as ripes and they were heaped in a sad pile. A ripe is a banana you have left in the sun that has become freckled. These bananas, though they're still good to eat right now, would never make it to the market in time. In less than a week, they'd begin to soften and stink. As far as the banana merchants were concerned before Sam, that's the important part. These were trash, so they're telling us Sam's essentially spotted an opportunity where others saw nothing. Sam grew fixated on the ripes. He recognized a product where others had seen only trash. It was a world, it was the worldview of the immigrant, understanding how so-called garbage might be valued under a different name. Seeing nutrition were otherwise.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A dollar a week. A dollar a week. And then this next part demonstrates, at least this is what I wrote to myself when I got to this section, he may be young and poor, but he's got a brain. And you clearly see that now. He kept a job long enough to know that he would rather be the man who owned the hog than the man who collected the junk. And he'd rather be the man who discarded the sheep metal than the man who owned the hog. A series of odd jobs followed. He was a house cleaner. He was a delivery bore. Boy, by eighteen he had saved enough money to send for his brothers and sisters. But his real life began only when he saw that first banana. He devised a plan soon after. He would travel to Mobile, Alabama, where the fruit boats arrived from Central America, purchase a supply of his own, carry them back to Selma, and go into the business.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Leading to odd job. Much of the color that would later, and the reason this sentence describes why I'm reading this section to you, much of the color that would later entertain magazine writers, because Sam's life had the dimension of a fairy tale, were accumulated in these first few years in Alabama. He was employed by an old timer. Now and then the old timer would offer Samson wisdom. Banks fail, women leave, but land lasts forever. So this guy's job, well, this is what this guy did for a living and what he's hiring Sam to do. The guy combed trash piles on the edge of town searching for discarded scraps of sheet metal. Then he would pile it on a cart and push it from farm to farm, looking for traits. All trages and wire for a chicken coop in return from one of those pigs that you got in the pen. After the particulars were agreed on, Sam was told to get moving. Catch and tie that animal, boy. It was the Murray's first real job. Remember the sentence for later. He was paid.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Staying close to the action in the fields with the workers, in the dive bars with the banana cowboys, you drink with a man and you'll learn what he knows, and this to me is the most important sentence in the entire book. There is no problem you can't solve if you understand your business from A to Z, he said. And there's a few more highlights that give you a good idea as like his personality. You get a good idea of who he is as a person or he was as a person and then we get into like some of the first jobs. He just did anything he could for money. Sam did not care for crowds and parties. He had a restless mind and a persistent need to get outside. He liked to be alone. So he starts out stacking shelves and checking inventory in his uncle's store. He dealt with the salesman who turned up with the sample cases. He stood in the alley amid the garbage cans asking about supplies and costs. There was money to be made, he realized, but not here. He interrogated customers. He was looking for different work and would try anything. His early life was a series of adventures with odd jobs.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is what his family told him to do. He was to establish himself and then send for the others, his mother and his siblings. He popped up in Selma, Alabama, where his uncle owned a store. He was fourteen or fifteen, but you would guess him much older. Now this is a crazy sentence that I've seen over and over again. The idea behind this sentence over and over again in these books. The immigrants of that era could not afford to be children. By sixteen, he was hardened, a tough operator, a dead end kid, coolly figuring out the angles. Where's the play? What's in it for me? His humor was black, his explanations few. And this is another great sentence. The writing I just ordered another one of Rich Cohen's books, he just actually published a biography of his father. But this is, he's one of the best writers I've ever come across in terms of just making a founder biography. Not only is there like a ton of interesting lessons in here, but it's hard to put down the book. It's just absolutely fantastic. Writing, he was driven by the same raw.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mercenaries. The Hornet was a fearsome armor clad cruiser that had seen action in the Spanish American War. Zamurray had brought the ship secretly through a third party for his mercenaries. Then Zamuri jumps off to another boat. Zamuri said goodbye to the men. He then stood deck on his ship, watching the hornet pass the Barrier Islands and sail into the open sea. Okay, so from there, the book starts telling the story. Like, how do you get to that point? You just said he arrived at 14 years old from Russia, immigrant, no education, no money, and then was at 15, 16 years later, he has enough money and he's built up this business where he decides to overthrow a government because that government is hostile to his business interests. So let's go to his early life. And the note on this page is simple. He was driven ruthless and relentless. He was born in 1877 in Western Russia. His father died young, leaving his family penniless without prospects.”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is The Fish That Eat the Whale The Life and Times of America's Banana King and it was written by Rich Cohen. I had originally read this book many years ago. It was originally Founders Episode No. 37. It's one of the best written books that I've read so far for the podcast, and Sam Zamuri's life story may not have an equal. And so I wanted to reread it again and then put it into context with everything else that we've learned over the last, what, 200, almost 230 founder biographies that you and I have gone over since episode number 37. So I want to jump right into the prologue at this point in the story. Samsa Murray is 33 years old and he is organizing a coup to overthrow the Honduran government. Sam Zaurray spoke in no accent, except when he swore, which was all the time. He was a big man, six foot three, nothing but muscle and bone, and with the wingspan of a condor. He had a crisp, no nonsense manner. At thirty three years old, he was”
2022-07-02 · Founders · #255 Sam Zemurray (Banana King) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source