#327 Ted Turner
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okay. So too quick things before we jump into this unbelievable episode on ten Turner. I think the intro to this podcast is one of, Frankly, just one of the most shocking intro that i've ever done.

And I kind of sets the tone for teds just incredible, you know, multi decade long career. Uh, the first thing I talked about is I was invited to fly to order name that he speak to a class called the art of investing. That class was actually recorded and turned into a podcast.

So whatever packet ping this on, if you don't mind going in searching for art of investing for, do my fever fall that show, and then listen to episode number four. The feedback on that episode been incredible. But more importantly to you is that in about ninety minutes, I tried to somewhere ize the best I can about the main lessons that i've learned from this, you know, seven or eight years of intensive study on history s greatest founders.

The second thing I want to tell you about is this collaboration that I have with read wise, a bunch of people have already subscribed to this. So back in two thousand and nineteen, one of the cofounder of my favorite APP, the best APP I pay for, I literally could not make the podcast without IT is called read wise. I've been talking about for years.

I've been treating about IT for years. Every single other interview on other people's part cast, I go on, I talk about this, and I did this way before I knew was onna partner with them on my own product. So I built this product with read wise.

It's called founders notes. You can see IT at founders notes dotcom and its founders with us, just like the podcasts o. Founders notes dotcom.

I got a dm from tristan, two thousand and fifty, and he used the one that made me aware of read wise. IT was perfect. And the reason is perfect is because I have way more high lights and notes on my books, and most people do.

So I have over twenty thousand. Over the years, i've added over twenty thousand highlights and notes for all the books that I read for the podcast to the read wise APP. And so in the rest, I do as because i'm able to search everything that i've ever done.

I use this everyday. I searched every day. He really is the world's most valuable nobility for founders.

So I contacted the founders, read wise said, hey, can we do this? Can we actually do this project together? I want to make my own version.

I want people to have access to everything that I see. Literally, if you sign up a founders note com, you are able to search and see every single one of my highlights notes. It's exactly what I see.

And so as an illustration of just one of the ways that I use this is at the end of this episode, i'm gonna include this twenty minute episode I made for my ama feed, where somebody asked me like, how did history's greatest entrepreneurs think about hiring? And any time I ask question like that, any time making a podcast, what i've do is constantly searching my read wise APP, which is now available founder, no 点 com and just IT， gives me a complete list of all the different ways that history's greatest founders have thought about. Whatever subject I happened to be thinking about are working on, are investigating.

So at the very end of this episode, you're going to hear me speak for twenty minutes, and IT answers the question, how did histories questions think about hiring? And all that information came from me searching my notes and highlight, which is exactly what you can do with founders notes. To keep in mind, this is made for founders already running successful companies.

Those already running sucessful companies will get the most value of this, because it's the way for you to reference the thoughts and ideas of history. Hated founders and then you know how to apply them to whatever is going on in your company at this very moment. The other thing I would say that is currently Prices at fifty percent, what IT will be.

So it's actually going to double in Price. And the reason I did this is because i'm adding a lot of features that think are dial and I have to build up the landing page and everything else you sign up. Now obviously, as I add features, you don't have to pay any additional.

I truly do believe IT is the world's most valuable noble confounders, and the value you get out of IT will be incredible. You can get immediate access to over twenty thousand of my highlights and notes right now by going to founders notes dot com. Turner advertising company was already one of the largest billboard companies in the south.

When my father put together a deal that would make IT the biggest, my father had developed a close relationship with a successful bilbow Operator in minnesota named bob nagle. And together they hatched a deal. They would go in, purchase general outdoor and then split IT into two pieces.

Ngos company would take the properties in the north, while my father would own the markets in the south. This merger would could drupal our revenues overnight. To afford the deal, my father had to finance nearly all of the purchase Price.

When the dust settled on the general outdoor acquisition, my father moved into our new headquarters as CEO of the biggest outdoor advertising company in the south. Dad was elated. This was the most energized I had ever seen him unblown ed, to all of us.

This upp behavior came justice. He was approaching the brink of a collapse almost overnight. His behavior became significantly more erratic and unpredictable. One day he'd be high as a kid, and the next he had been a state of object depression. He had always been a fairly large man, but now he was putting on more weight and growing a big pot belly.

After years of smoking, two or three packs of cigarets a day, he had developed a bad case of emphasize that, combined with his drinking and his weight gain took a heavy toll on him physically. It's clear to me now that reaching new heights in business and material wealth actually undermined his mental state. He told me a memorable story on this subject.

He was preparing to enter duke university just as the great depression hit. His parents lost nearly everything, and they struggled to tell him that they could no longer afford his tuition at that Young age. He consulted his mother saying, don't worry, mom, when I grow up, i'm going to work really hard and i'm going to be a success.

I'm going to be a millionaire. I'm going to own a plantation and a yet he had achieved all three of these things. He said that now, having checked off each of these goals, he was having a really tough time, reevaluating things and coming up with the plan for the rest of his life.

He then told me something that i've never forgotten. He said, son, you be sure to set your goals so high that you can't possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way you always have something ahead of you.

I made the mistake of setting my goals too low, and now i'm having a hard time coming up with new ones, in addition, achieving all that they ever hope to this new acquisition seem to trigger other insecurities in dead. Seeing his parents lose everything in the depression created a deep seated concern about going too far into debt. His post acquisition interest payments were big, and the company needed large capital investments to continue its growth.

The billboard business was doing well, and he shouldn't have had trouble meeting's obligations. This was an irrational fear of losing everything. And he began to consume him.

He tried to get his additions under control by checking into rehab. They managed to curb his drinking and his smoking, but then he was also prescribed a variety of medications. My dad basically swapped alcohol and tobacco for prescription drugs.

After years of grooming me to succeed him, all the sun, he seemed in a panic about the company's future. IT was the middle week, and I was in atlantic working my phone ring, and he was my father calling. He said that he was calling to tell me that he was selling a large chunk of the company.

I couldn't believe that I was stunned. I tried to talk him out of IT. I told him that the company was doing well, and there was no doubt in my mind that we could make our their payments.

When I was clear, I wasn't getting anywhere. My shock gave way to anger and I said, dad, all my life, you told me to work hard and not to be a quitter, and now you're the one who's quitting. What happened to you? How could you do this? Dad remained surprisingly calm and unmoved.

I hung up the phone, dazed and disappointed. Just a few days later, I got another call, but this time he was my step mother. Dad was dead.

After having a relaxing breakfast, my father walked up to his bathroom, climb ed into the tub and shot himself. I never thought IT would come to this. I had lost my best friend.

That is an insane expert from the book that we talked about today, which is ted Turners autobiography, IT is called comi ted. I want to start a few years before his father's suicide. Ted is around.

This is, this is an the same story. There is so much just going on that happens in this book. So ted is around twenty four, twenty five years old.

When his dad kills himself, he inherits his dad's company. The company is worth in like today's dollars at that time, something around fifteen million dollars for the next fifty years. Ted Turner's going to work on this company.

He is going to sell the company to time Warner for eight billion dollars. And then a few years later, time Warners going to merge with the ol technical ck goes up to the value of ten billion dollars. And then he once up, losing, over the next thirty months, eight billion dollars.

He has a funny line in the book where he says, my netware dropped by about sixty seven million per week, or nearly ten million per day every day for two and a half years. Losing that much money so quickly might have been a record, but he obviously wasn't the kind that I was hoping to set. So his merger is sale to time Warner actually happens about thirty seven years in the future from where we are.

His dad is still alive. He's just hear on college age, he'd been working for his dad's bilbo company every summer and every year since he was travel result. So he's like, okay, I have a very the relationship with my father, but I need to stop, delay the inevitable and i'm actually going to work full time at the turn.

Or advertising company, which at this point in history is just an outdoor advertising company. There are so focused, they have a bunch of bill boards. And so ted describes the education that his dad is giving him once he comes to work with his dad full time.

There were many days when he drive me tune from work in the entire ride. He'd only talk to me about the business. IT was almost as though he gave me the business degree that he didn't get in college.

He'd punctuate his lessons with funny stories or are memorable expressions once to drive home a point about the difficulties of attracting good, loyal employees. He told me, heck, jesus only had to pick twelve disciples, and even one of those didn't turn out well. One of his favorite models was one that i've used for myself ever since, early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.

That's a great line. It's funny, actually, that are no sources are actually adopted that as his model as well. He would repeat in his bike phy, early to bed, early arise, work my hell and advertise.

And so one thing that sticks out about ted Turners and his early life, his dad sent him to a bunch of like Christian military academies. And he was really trying to teach his son like self discipline and a fierce work ethic. Ted is clearly being goom to take verse.

Dad's company, he's going into the company and he doesn't want people to think that he's getting hand hand out. And this is the first time we see a hint that ted is definitely a work cohosh c many times he never leaves his office. He sets up a bed, he sleeped there, he wakes up, gets to work.

He works all the time. He says that later in life. But he's also doing this tiny one year old. I was trying to do my best to do everything right. I would work the harder to follow every rule and seek excEllent thing I did.

As the boss is sun, I made a point to impress the other employees by being the first one to arrive every morning and the last one to leave at night. And so there's probably about fifty pages that just deal with the relationship that had had with his father. There's a bunch of stuff in here.

It's interesting that were still we have got to the point where his dad shoot himself and then ted response that he lost his best friend because, Frankly, there was a lot of times was like, man, I wouldn't want my son to describe me this way. They had a very complicated, contemptuous relationship. His dad is definitely control free because his dad is definitely dictator.

Ted own kids would describe ted that way as well. But at this point when you're twenty one, he's like i'm my own man too and so he's actually having a conversation with his dad because is just reaching A A boiling point where his dad just trying to to control every single decision personal, are professional that ted is gonna make. And this is what he says to his dad.

Dad, IT gets tough. When you involved in every aspect of my life, you tell me where I should live, who I should date. I'd like you to consider letting me be myself a little bit in my business life.

I'll do anything you say, but please try not to bug me so much about my personal life. When I want advice, i'll ask for IT, but if not, please let me try to work this out for myself. And the fact that ted stood up for my self told us that exactly he felt in what he wanted happened was really important, because this was what happens next.

He actually gets him a letter from his dad, will first be driving into the airport in, his dad tells him, sun, you're starting out where most man finish, meaning here. I was twenty one years old running a business. A few days after I got a letter from him telling me what a great job I was doing and how proud he was at me.

My father was very sparing with his praise, and nothing he ever did before, after that day ever made me feel as good within three years of that letter, his father would be dead. And so as I go over all the notes of this complicated deal, he put together the fact that he was abusing drugs and alcohol, the fact that he was out of rehab. There's a line that I heard from charme monger one day that i've never forgotten.

And it's something that he realized with human history with a lot of like really success entrepreneurs and and executives. And he says that the problem isn't getting rich. The problem is staying sane.

The problem isn't getting rich. The problem is staying sane. Ted's father got rich, but he was incapable staying sane. So imagine your ted Turner at this point in the story. You're twenty four years old.

Uh, your father, who is your best friend, didn't say anything, didn't leave a note, went into the battle and shot himself in the head. So now I did you lose your best friend, but now you have to try to save his company. And what he's realizing is he had signed this deal to sell off these assets back to bob ago the day before he killed himself.

And he actually wrote IT. IT was a hand written note. And so from test respectively like, okay, well, my dad and bob negga or friends, my dad was obviously not a sound mind when he introduces the agreement considering that he signed IT one day and then pop to top the next, i'm going to a get out this deal.

But now he's a twenty four old and experience treating ur going to a sixty year old man that is built an incredible company saying, hey, how we have home, we get this deal and bob like, listen, I admire your father. I'm very sad that he died, but i'm not I have no intention of letting you get out of this deal. This deal will continue and go forward.

And so this is the first time in the book we see some trades that ted going to have his whole life. He likes the fight. He just does.

He doesn't back down the giant conclusion ate that this guy takes on ah in the early days of like the the cable industry in the satellite TV industry is incredible. He's involved in multiple lawsuits and so he's like, okay, well, this guy thinks i'm just some not known twenty four old rich kid. He thought, oh like i'm going to threaten his son his dad here a safe room.

He's onna back down. Ted dos do that at all. And so ted are okay. Let me go and actually read all of like this, this very informal greeting.

And what he realized is that bob nago made a giant mistake that he did not actually call for a non complete cause, claws for the employees of tedda s company. And so ted ideas like, how can I severely diminish the value this asset, so bobs not can actually want to anymore. And so he says, i'm going to jump his leases.

So I didn't know anything about this. He says, in the billboard business, a company's leases are its most valuable assets, and if you really wanted to mess up a competitor, jumping the leases was a great way to do IT. So what does that mean? Most of these, these is what the bill board companies did, right? You'd go round of people that owned bunch of land next to highways or high traffic areas.

They go knocked on the door and say, hey, we'd like to put up a bill board here. In return we'll pay you, you know, this one thousand nine hundred fifty. So it's like we will pay you twenty five dollars a month.

There are fifty dollars a month you can enter into these agreements with us. But guess what, if you change your mind, you can always cancel, at least within sixty to ninety days. And so, ted, I OK so I am going to jump all these leases.

I can use the exact same people. So the exact same group of people that signed up releases are now going to contact these people again, but with from a different company and say, hey, I know you can cancel six and ninety days. You are getting paid, uh, fifty thousand ars a month or twenty five month.

Guess what? We're going to pay you twenty five dollars a month if you'll switch at least to our company. So for the next few weeks, all ted Turner and his team do is they go and work the phones and their previously just renegotiating and jumping all these leases.

And over and a matter few weeks, he did significant damage to these assets that nego wanted to acquire. And so finally, nagle figures out what he's doing. And so he comes up with the deal is okay, if you pay me two hundred thousand dollars, then we can cancel the deal.

And ted like, okay, great. Agree right away. Here is a prom. Ted doesn't have two hundred thousand dollars is another main thing. From his career, his consent to deals.

Then he realized a lot of how the money, so he's got a constant get really creative, and how to raise the funds. This gets really complicated later on. This is like a more simple idea. So he had this idea.

What is that? Okay, we have this agreement. I'm going to pay two hundred grand.

I'm going to keep all the assets that my dad was trying to get rid of the day before he committed suicide. But I need to find a creative way out. And so this is what ted says in the book.

When we read this part, too, I learned a lesson that would stick with me without my career. When the chips are down in the pressures on, it's amazing to see how creative people can be. And with a ninety day clock ticking, so bog gave a, we had to get really creative very fast.

Now this was very interesting. He realized, well, bobs, a very rich guy, makes a lot of income. At this point in american history, the the top he was, he was at the the highest bracket, like income tax bracket.

And so at this point he was like, what if I pay you two hundred grand and cash that's taxed at a ninety percent rate? So you wind up with, what? Twenty thousand dollars and the the government, U. S. Government get one hundred eighty thousand.

Obviously don't want to do that because this is being treated as a short term capital game and therefore, it's taxes or no income, right? And so he goes, well, what if I actually give you stock in internal advertising, which is the company they even heard from his dad? And in that way, you can hold the equity as long as you need you to shill yourself from any heavy tax, say you would get on a short term game gain.

And bobs OK, I accept that offer. So I want to jump to another example where ted always has to get really creative when he's financing these deals and something to know about. He's acquisitive by nature.

If he has no bill boards in georgia, he wants expanded to tennesee. If he has billboards, he wants to get into radio. If he has bill boards and radio, he wants to get into billard radio in TV.

If he starts buying the land a brave, and he wants to also the only a lena hawks, this is something he does his entire life. He's very, very acquisitive at this point, says, i'm eager to expand. I found a very profitable billboard company in chat new gutta sea, but the Price was a million dollars.

great. I'll buy IT. Here's the problem. I didn't have that kind of cash. So he convinces the seller, right, this is how he makes the acquisition no money down. He's like where you finance seventy five percent of the purchase Price over seven years at a very high interest rate. He says yes.

Then he goes to a bank is actually looking to expand their investments in the south and they lent to the rest of the money in return for equity in the chat uga company. So this is another important thing. You learn that his main company rate is turn or advertising.

If you're gonna and acquire another company, don't just fold that into Turner advertising. You want to to keep that as a separate entity, he says, my father always maintained many the different bill board businesses as separate legal entities. And so in this deal, this is important.

why? For two reasons, he could offer the bank the equity in the chat ugar company without deluding his ownership of the main entity, which is turned advertiser OK. IT also allows for period of reorganization to offset potential capital games liabilities.

And especially at the time, it's is still important to the day, but it's it's really important when when your top margin tax rate is ninety percent. So he continues to expand by acquisition, but he's not content being the biggest billboard company around. He wants to get into newman exciting industries.

So the first thing he does is like, okay, I want to go and buy a bunch of radio stations. Now, this is very important because he repeats multiple times of the book that when you want to access your job is to maximize value. And what ted is really great at this may be the most important idea, other than he failed to to.

He's a dictator. And if you're dictator, you want to listen to James dyson when he's everyone. The most important things is attention of total control. A ted is a dictor but then sells company and then loses control and is very frustrated when he watches other people take ten billion hours of assets and derry IT into the ground. And so that was another big mistake.

But although than that, I think the most important idea in this, a book for me, is that he's really great at combining his assets in a way that his competitors can't. So you can think about this is like you find an advantage by doing only what you can do. And so there's a bunch of people that own radio stations.

That's great. Uh, not many people owned a bunch radio stations and also own a billboard company. And so this idea what is about to do here, he also does when he gets into T, V, which you're going to jump into a minute.

So he starts buying up these radio stations, these iguanas not going to like if i'm going to buy my first radio station, like what is the advantage that I have that other people don't? I should buy a radio station in the same marked where they have billboards. So there's two things happening.

One, he he benefits from efficiency in sales and promotion because he's selling at is the same thing. Like if i'm selling ads on a on a billboard, right, my sales team can sell ads on bill board. My cell team, the same very es, very same sales team, can also sell ads in a radio station.

So that was fascinated. Even Better is what he does. So I say on a radio station, right? And I want to compete what you want.

You want more listeners ers than the other people. This isn't podcast, right? Is not like, oh, anybody all over the world can listen to IT.

You're listening to IT in a specific geo. You're constrained by a specific geographic location. So therefore, IT is a much more zero sum game.

So I want to take a listenership right away from the people because we're fighting over, let's say, all the resistance of atlanta. And I want to beat the other radio stations. And so what happens is like, okay, well, you have a radio station.

I have a radio station. We're competing ing at each other. But guess what? I have the the biggest bill board out bilbow alert advertising company in this area.

Fifteen percent of my ad sales on my elementary, on my billboard company every month goes unsold. Guess what i'm going to do? I'm going to put ads for my radio station.

I'm going to use that unsold mentorian because has no costume, right? Going to put the ads for my radio station on these billboards that can increase listenership. I'm going to have more listeners in you.

I'm going to make more money, add venture. I can acquire all these other radio stations. He does the exact same idea in local T, V stations before he gets into satellite and cable T.

V. As well. And again, IT comes from this. Main idea he does is in a variety ways, you combining the assets that he has in a way that his competitors cannot.

And he's also good at taking ideas that worked in one industry transfering to another. He doesn't even like that. Like if you really think how crazy this is, right? Ninety percent, maybe eighty percent of the book is his career in T.

V. He says, I never developed a, this is why I never developed a passion for radio, the way I later would for television, for television. This is why he's going to start getting into the TV business.

He thought the TV business was a way more exciting. And he says, you should always bet on medium that looks like I would grow the fastest. And obviously tps going to grow a law fast from the radio is from this point history, and so is a great listen.

If IT comes down to buying a lousy radio station or a lousy T, V station, then the choice is easy, because I won a bet on the that look like IT would grow. And so when he buys this local T, V station, you're only watching if you're in and around the land area. This is before, remember this, or decades before the internet forgot sake.

But there is before. Cable and satellite T, V, that does not exist is all like an atta. So he does the exact same thing here.

He's a OK. While I still have this, you know, fifteen percent of the bilbow inventory, it's gonna go unsold. So i'm just going to put ads for my T, V on these bill boards, just like I did when I only had radio stations.

And when he says that these are lousy, right? These are loud TV stations. He means that listens to this.

This is the first channel that he buys, the first station he buys. The more I learned about T, V stations, the more I realized that s was a disaster. Of the thirty five people who were on the payroll when we took over, only two were still there.

A year later, the custodian and the receptionist. One of the the, the most important things about ted Turner and understand his career is that he believed in the power of T. V.

Finally, if you could have a twenty four our station, or if you could reach people all over the world, we are not constrained by, you know, just the small being in one small city, right? He believed in the power of television, a more than almost anybody else where he built a media company. All of his money is going to come from ads.

And so this is the first hint that he gets that TV can be an incredible distribution channel. And so one of the people that are paying him to do a show on their TV is these television es are are gonna to be becoming infamous many decades of future. Jim and Tammy fae Baker.

Jim is known for become when the largest telephones in the world. And then get caught, I think, with a bunch of hookers and you like cries on TV and stuff. This is like a very well known uh, event that happened, but this is multiple decades before that happened.

And listen to this. The only show that air live from our studios was a was a religious program hosted by a Young couple named jim and Tammy fae Baker. Well before they went on international fame, they got started with this local show.

And before long, they were bringing in more money in a week than the entire station made in a month. Okay, so this point in tech career he is, he owns one, is only two independent T, V stations in the land area. He wants one of them.

The other one is gonna out a business. Remember, he said, there are lousy businesses, especially almost no finances. So when you get in A A jam is really hard to get financing.

But what happens here is, is a blessing, because he's, I OK well IT hopes if I can be the only one bidding because you're buying content. And at this time, IT is restricted by your geographical location. That means that you can bid on syndicated programing from, say, M G M, right? M G M studios for atlantic, unless you won a show, or unless you on a station in the lana.

So the only two previous bitters, now the other bitter is gone. And so he's the only buyer in this entire market. And so what ted are also really good at, he happens to understand, he says the last time, thinking about, thinking about and understanding the financial incentives of the person that he is buying from.

Again, he understands the financial incentives of the person he is buying from. And so he's like, well, uh, if the other stations gone, no one else is in the lana is buying old movies. And why is important? Because there's thousands of old movies and thousands of TV shows that no one else is competing to air them on in the market that right now he finds itself with the temporary monopoly on right.

And these old films were long since fully amOrtized by the studios, and they don't have to pay any the talent. So that means that any revenue that is generated by selling these old movies to ted drops straight to their bottom line. And so as a result of this, he's able to get great pricing.

He buys about every single movie they can get his hands on. And he strikes long term deals when ever possible because he this isn't going to this series of events like this advantage is going to change as soon as there's another Better in the market. So the long term part of that is actually really important.

And he's doing business with M G M, Warner brothers, paramo, M C. A, all of them. And then he also has sports. What he realizes that now there were in the one thousand nine hundred seventy. That local sports is huge. And so he winds up being the one he bids on, and he wants up broadcasting all the elena braves baseball games. And so this is an idea that you i've talked over over again, the fact that relationships run the world.

This is how he wants to buying the land of braves and why member his channel is the one that Carries the braves games and so he like doesn't the ratings for the local braves games I think is the highest thing, highest rated show ah that he has on his TV network. R T V ation rather right. But the problem is like the fluctuate, whether the team is winning or losing, team wins more games, obviously more people tunit right? And so he goes to the president of the club.

His name is danny is, again, I consider us to be partners. We need to add some more excitement next year. What do you going to to get the team on track and then tells them, well, i'm not to do anything because i'm going to sell the team.

And ted, for what are you talking about who are going to sell to? And dance says, i'm going to sell IT to you. And the reason I say relationships are on the world is because one is in this book.

And over you see this, these bike phy over, over again. But it's also something that is dad told them a long time ago, he says, my dad told me early on that long term relationships with your customers and partners are very important. You never know how the guy who you're friendly with today might be able to help you tomorrow.

And so what's happening is like they're offering me a first look chance to buy the franchise. And this is another example with ted does not have the money. And this is what he says.

Like, I IT didn't matter how I don't have any money, I have to do this. The braves were a key asset, and I had to go for them by owning the team. I could control its long term.

T. V, too important to his TV station. And so they're like, okay, we want ten million dollars for the team. Could you imagine buying a compromised al sports team for ten billion dollars, by the way?

And so this is where he has to get creative with, is like, okay, I can give you a million dollars down and then you give me nine years to pay the rest at a high interest rate. And they say, yes, another smart thing ted does. So he understood this is very faster, working again into the literally the invention of the cable T.

V industry. The best book I read on this is actually cable cowboy. Actually, episode two, sixty eight, if you haven't gone back and listen to IT, IT tells the story of john alone.

Oh, is there anything? The remarkable thing about this book is all the different people that at the time, they're still coming up. But these people are like world famous.

All of these people are now in their eighties. Most of them are multibillionaire. D love reading stories about people like intersection of these, like a players that all you know each other. Sometimes they collaborate like limit giving, example, a ted turn, or goes to A A meeting. There's four people in the meeting, ted Turner, john alone, warn buffett and bob egger.

And this is before bob eggar was the CEO disney uh john allows in this book all the time because he saves ted a couple times but also um the book is structure a way where like ted to be told his story and then they'll be other people throughout his life that commented on what was also taking place at that time and some of them you know like I have a little different view on that. And so john alone, what I think i'm going to do is actually um you could buy the kindle version of the book and just search jom alone and just read all of like mom's exerts and I think it's actually that's even worth the Price of the book alone. There's just a million like really interesting people that are spread to out the book that was one of my favorite part in the book.

But let me go back to this. So what what was fascine is right now, ted is considered a broadcaster. He owns a TV station.

You can only get access to that TV station when if you have, like, an anta na. And yet this is the brand. New cable T.

V industry is going to be seen as a threat by broadcasters. Ted is a broadcaster, and he realizes this is not a threat. This is an opportunity. So he says, I also saw that people were signing off a new service to get local stations they were unable to tune into with their antenna, which is the basis of his T, V business.

At this point, this technology was often referred to as C, A, T, V, which stood for a community, attended a television, or more simply, cable T, V. Ted thinks this is a massive opportunity. So anytime he thinks there is a massive opportunity, ted is the same thing.

He goes and tries to build relationships with good with the main players in that industry. So he goes and becomes friendly with the cable TV Operators. And this is hilarious because this is what they tell him.

They told me that I was their first friendly broadcaster that they had ever met. Back then, broadcasters saw cable Operators as the enemy. For many years, local T, V stations had a monopoly, and they viewed cable Operators with fear and suspicion.

why? Because broadcasters say, hey, how dare you import distant stations? I have a local monopoly and you're coming over the top. And ted, that that was a stupid position to have because it's like, no, you're not coming over the top.

You're greatly expanding my audience now instead of twenty thousand people watching the show or hundred thousand people watching the show though, there's going to be millions of people watching my shoes. So at this point he starts the first they call the superstition. So, uh, he's credited with creating this like the superstition concept.

He was the first person. Ah this is actually gonna tbs where we know is tb s and he's always on the forefront. He's so usually so far ahead of other people that up with its financial decision like banks don't understand how a one of money because they understand what is doing are many cases, advertisers, they are not comfortable.

And so this is fascinating because he couldn't convince traditional advertisers to buy ad. He finds small companies with products to sell and then gives them. So the thing that saves his ass until he could bridge this gap is the fact that he does direct response.

So think about you have undoubting, let's say you are a manufacturer stake knives in your small company. You go on TV and you you sell your, sell your stake knives and like a two meeting commercial like Billy mays style, right? These are the small companies that he chooses to partner with.

And here's the thing, this is, again, he's always proving his concept. He knows that TV can be an incredible dirigo tion channel because back when nobody watching his station, he saw jim and Tammy Baker make all this money. And it's the same thing that's happening now when he experiences this region is like, of course, the bigger the market, of course, you have an increase sales.

So says we managed to sell a lot of merchandise to reread. SE revenue would prove to be vital for us while we worked to convince traditional advertisers that we were well worth considering. And remember, I said he was acquitted, and he sees the article and mentions that is this brand new company called home box office H, B, O, that is going to be a new pay for movie channel that's going to distribute their signal, not by antenna, not by cable, but by safely.

This is going to be both one, a massive opportunity and a big headache because he's buying hard from other people, those people there. Some of the content usually like to sell up by, again, the geographically constrained. He's like, not know.

I only am I don't want just putting like one little city or one state. I'm gona broadcast this all over the world and people feel about. So i'll get there in one second.

Now this is also interesting and IT is john melons take on ted Turner at this point in ted's career, that he was impervious to roadblocks that would stop people from even starting. So he says, this is jom alone. Member jom alone describing ted Turner.

He always had this kind of basic, almost child childish logic about him that refuses to accept artificial impediments. I think one of his biggest secrets of success over the years is that the things that most of us would sit there and ponder all these regular tory and legal reasons why IT might not be something you could do. And ted would just say, oh hell, you can overcome those kind of things and he just go and do IT.

And so he's making enemies everywhere he's fighting with. He's like, we managed to halide the hollywood studios, the sport leagues, the broadcast networks and the local stations all over the country. And so we have to fight this.

Actually, in washington, there can be a bunch of lawsuits, bunch of regulations. This is what I mean. He's going to describe what he, what this is one of the most difficult periods of his life. But this also speaks to this obsessive, work aholic nature that he has. There is a bunch of stuff in the book about his childhood was crazy about the way he went to multiple divorces, talks about, you know, wasn't really around when his kids were there.

If you're interested that i'm going to skip over that a from, I want to focus on the really how we built this business, but there is a lot of that in the book and it's well, we're threading. But this is um he's describing the hardest part of the period of his life. These issues were all on charter territory, all the regulators, the broadcasters, the program suppliers and leagues, the sports leagues, were sorting things out on the fly.

I was working as hard as I could. I'd go all out during the day working on sales, distribution, regulatory issues, whatever the battle happened to be. And IT worked right up until IT was time to fall asleep.

Ep, I had a pull down morphy bed in my office, and I would literally work until the point of total exhaustion. Then i'd put my head on the pillow at night, worried about problems. Then i'd wake up and spend the entire next day trying to solve them.

And so in many cases, the solution he comes up with to these problems is very creative. And so one of the problems he has at this point is there is this company called nilsson. So Nelson is the one that measures viewership for regular T, V.

Station at this point. He remember he's one of the first I think he is the first superstition on. A satellite and they're like, hey, we're not going to measure your audience.

We can't document your audience outside of atlantic. You know you're spread at all of a place. It's too expensive for us to do IT.

And if they don't do IT that he can see ads against IT because they can't prove how biggest audiences, right? They they literally turn over the news and data to the vert what they say there are ads against. Now here's the problem.

He's like, yeah, but this is bullshit. This is not why you're saying that your real motivation is because your customer base is actually the broadcast networks in the local stations. And i'm competing them and out competing them with the satellite.

And so eventually, he's going to turn to them. They're going to wind up, uh, acquired to his demands. But before then, he's like, this is a problem I need to prove like essentially his promise.

Like, okay, how can I prove that people all over the country are watching my superstition if I don't have any analysts? And this is where he had that blessing in the sky y's, where he couldn't earlier in the story. He couldn't sell regional nobody by regional advertising. right? Years ago, I ve got to go to direct response.

And he realizes, okay, well, since we were running so much, relying on rect response so much, we know where our customers are because we've sent in personal checks and the postmark tells us where the check come from, check direct response advertizing could be a solution to our problems. Since many of our orders for direct response products came in the form of personal checks mailed directly to our lena offices, we could tell they where they were coming from based on the postMarks on the envelopes. So he has his teams.

So okay, you need I want you to put all the checks from from our customers into one of two piles. You have the atlantic pile, which is the market that Nelson wants to verify, and the none at lana pile. And very quickly he realized, oh my god, the none.

A stack grew to such a size that IT dwarfed the size of the local one. Obviously, I have a lot larger audience outside of lana than I do inside of IT. And so he's doing anything he can to get an advantage and to keep his company alive.

But keep in mind, there's a usually a very slow lag. And he describes as part of human nature, it's like no one wants to be the first person that does something. But once other people do IT, a lot of people fled in IT was nearly uh two four years before we got any meaningful national bias.

What we were doing was so new and so unique that everyone was slow to adapt. But once a few of the biggest player's validity concept, the rest began to follow. And then he's can see looking for these ways to different himself from competence.

I remember, so when I was a kid, there was a thing called TV guy. TV guide was a literally a physical book that would tell you what's on TV eventually got digitized, and actually they copied what was in the book on A T V. But what I couldn't understand that when I would want to watch, like T N T or T B S, which A T turn own, they would start their programs at a different hour.

And I didn't know why. And so teds going to explain why. And IT worked, because this worked on me.

So he says the listening in the TV guide for every other channel started and ended at the top, in the bottom of the hour. So is very common for TV. Everything start seven, everything, and the next show starts at eight.

Everybody does the exact same way. And he is like OK. Well, if we can stand a program to the end of the hour and then we'd start, he pushed his the start time back five minutes. I think this is tbs was five minutes. I thought when I was Younger, one of them was five and fifteen minutes, but maybe he was all five.

So he's describing why did this we're going to extend a program to the end of the hour and start the fallowing one at seven or five I vision, that people watching our competition would start flipping around at the end of the shows. And while the other channels would all be running commercials, we d be showing programming. The other benefit of the strategy was that we got our own little slot in every program guide.

A group of channels would be listed together, the top and bottom of the hour. But we were by ourselves on the o five and thirty five minute mark. We tried this, and immediately our ratings improved.

And so again, this concentrate err, another thing that does that he gets a he gets criticized for later on that I thought was actually really smart, is he did heavy investments. Remember, he's like buying all these old movies, right? He's cindi ating all these old movies.

He's using him a bunch rage of formats and bunched up from the tvs at the own. And there's a new technology comes along that would recolonise them. This is like decades ago, and IT was a very expensive.

He had to pay like two hundred grand per every, every single film you like. You want to take this black and way film and you want to turn color great at that can be two hundred and not always like you're out your mind. It's way too expensive.

People consider IT was like, like, almost like graffiti. Why are you doing this? That was meant to be like and White ted didn't care about any that self.

And what happens? He is like, okay, I could run the black and White version, that movie, and then I can invest two hundred thousand. Then now, now I have the color version, and i'd run that exact same movie.

One is a black and way one is in color. The color one would get six times the amount of viewer. So in other words, I would pay for itself very quickly because they get six times the audience.

Ted is always paying attention. Ted is always adaptable. And that leads him, I think, if most people ask, like, what is ted turn or known for, I think IT would be the invention of the first, the worlds first twenty four, our news station, h.

CNN. And what was fascinating is like that I was rather obvious. And why was IT obvious to him and other people? Because he's paying attention to induction, he's obsess this.

And he said, well, came before CNN. Well, you had HBO, which is a twenty four, our movie network. People love that. Then you had E, S, P, N, which is a training for our sports service, and people love that.

Why wouldn't there should be a tiny for our news channel? And he thought about this idea for five years before he wants up doing that. Because he obviously the big three networks, A, B, C, C, B, S, N, B, C, they have tons of reporters.

They have news burns all over the day. All these assets that I don't have, that I have to build to do, obviously, they see that we should just take those assets, produce more contents. So instead of doing, uh, they did news four hours a day at this time, let's add an extra twenty hours.

We're going to do a twenty four hours a day. And of course, we're going to grow giant audience. And so for five years, ted Turners has the year is just waiting, waiting, waiting and they don't do IT.

And that leads us to one of the most important ideas in the book, the power of belief. Clearly, the company for whom the economics of twenty for our news would have made the most sense with the big three broadcasters. They already had most of what was needed, studios, bureau reporters, anchors.

They had everything but a belief in cable. And this is such an important point, because over and over again, in the early days, his career, they were called, he's like ted Turners. nuts.

This guy is crazy. He's not nuts. He's not crazy.

He's early. He sees something that you don't see. Listen to this. He's thirty eight years old and this is how much he has a belief in cable in cable TV. He's on a plane and he's like, i'm going to be a billionaire he's saying this in october of nineteen seventy six, six thirty eight.

So says the guy is telling the story that next time we manage get seat to get on the plane, he puts out a copy of the delta airlines magazine, and he turns to the map of united states and starts explained to me how he's going to be a billion. Make sure you buy my stock. I'm going to be a billionaire.

And here is why i'm going to put this station up on a satellite and i'm gna get a new stand going sports, movies and news, twenty four hours a day all over the world. He said that in nineteen seventy six, that is incredible. I even mentioned yet the fact that disguise a vacuous reader.

And you already know before I say this to what do you think he's reading? What do you think he's reading? You know what he's reading? He's reading history. He's reading biography.

He's constantly I don't know i'm going there's some highlights on this but he's constant comparing stuff he read in books like from history to what's taking place in in his life and I love this part. He's like i'm often asked if we ever did any former research on the viability of a twenty four, our news twenty for our cable news station. And my answer is no.

I had spent over five years thinking about IT. Henry four did need focus groups to tell him that people would prefer inexpensive, dependable automobile iles over horses. Alexander m. Bell never stopped to worry about whether people would prefer speaking to each other on a phone. If viewers like watching news on television, why would they want the option to do IT any hour of the day? And so when I say that, I think the high order bit is his belief in cable.

And I can prove you that he believed IT because you have always people saying Turner was like literally jumping up on desks and people like literally like screaming that people didn't understand what he saw, but his action show this and he's like, you know what, I don't have enough money or experience. I believe in this idea of CNN so much. I'm going to sell off all my other assets to fund this unproven idea.

And so this is where gets really crazy, what he is willing to do, uh, to make this dream happen. He says us and we're breaking one of the golden rules of startups. We're launching a business and we know we know we do not have sufficient capital.

It's not going to be profitable enough on the money we have. So is that okay? I ve got to figure out what the home doing.

And again, I like I said before, he's always so for ahead, there's no lenders or investors. They don't understand what he's doing. so.

Like he's I okay, my only option like I get to sell assets and i'm going to put all these profile assets that would make me a very rich man if I just did that and i'm going to sell them all, take that money and maybe let IT all on fire if CNN fails. This is pretty wild. So he has to go to these are very difficult, almost like loan sharks.

If they're highly cozy, their very high interest, late rates, he wants to taking money from a factory company. So they actually come in and actually check his books every week before giving a more cash. But the main I want to tell you about what's going on here is really asking your question uh asking yourself the question like what is the most valuable but least strategic asset that I have that I can sell so I can actually make IT to the next fuel station that's going to make more sense because it's going to do another, uh, historical and logy.

And so he's looking around all the of his own things. I go going selling on the billboards, selling a radio station. So we like, well, I own the lena braves and elena hawks, but I can they are very, very valuable.

But they're too important tragically to the actual like all like his his T V stations. I like, I can't sell them. And so he's looking around for the most valuable lestrade gic asset.

He has his local T V station. And surely that eight years before he had bought for a million dollars, first memories is always early. And now that business is valued at twenty million.

So he sells that for twenty million dollars, takes a sixty million dollar profit. And this is why this is excEllent. I ve always been a student of military history.

I thought the CNN launch strategy was similar to romo's desert campaign during world war two. So rama l was a german general. He's fighting the british in where were two? He knew he didn't have enough field to conduct an entire offensive.

He's a tanker. Do they have pants or tanks at this point? What he intended to do was strike when they weren't expecting that mean the british over run their lines and then capture their fuel dumps.

At that point, he could refuel his panzers tanks and continue the offensive. This, this is dead strategy. My vision for finding in CNN was similar.

If we had enough cash to get on the air and could somehow get to our first year of Operation, people would see that this was viable. And then once the concept was proven, we would have easier access to capital. So we kind of has like a burn the boats, no plan be mentality.

There is something that happens over and over. Gan works like how the hell this guy, this little started up going again, some of the biggest companies in the world, some of those profitable companies in the world, he talks about like going to meets to some of people competing with there like this, like shack in atlantic. He goes up to their their company headquarters in new york.

And like they're eating on, like china from verse, they have million dollar artwork, what the holes going on. And he went up winning. And he talks about this, and he says, I always convinced that one of the reasons that i've been successful is that i've almost always competed against people who are bigger and stronger, but who had less commitment and desire than I did.

And so in this case is fighting R C A. R C A was a huge company, but for Turner broadcasting, this dispute meant everything we had to win. And so I just went through and looked at all my note at us that's happening during this time, trying to figure out what is the main theme here.

And there's just a couple things that he has that his opponents don't, even though they have more assets and he shouldn't one, he's fully committed, right? Where they have this is just like one dispute, and they have there a huge conglomerate are not fully focused. He has a stronger desire, a result of that.

He has more belief, by far, by far, he's got more belief about cable, satellite T, V. Than anyone else. More belief about the fact that this makes no sense, that no one else has made a train four hour cable news network yet and he's got the highest level enthusiasm.

This guy is one of the greatest one on one sales people, even when who tes talent they just say over and over again this. And he's very charismatic and his enthusiasm is very infectious. And you will so almost like how people describe Steve jobs, like the reality distortion field, that when you're in his presence, like there's an ora, you cannot understand IT.

And you know that because when you leave IT, you're almost like you snap out of IT, you're stopping, hit the tied and you're like what to help just happen. This can completely turn cable, completely hnidy zing people with his enthusiasm and his sheer belief in what he is doing. And so there's a bunch of times where he there's a bug, anti competitive behavior.

He's threatens all these like anti trust and monopolistic lawsuits. In this case, he launched a CNN and an abc and west house are going to do a joint venture. They're actually going to copy CNN.

But instead of charging the cable networks for they are going to go, you can have our channels for free. Ted Turners like, you know, this is predatory, anti competitive behavior, willing to sue you winds up not backing down. They went to say, okay, they never launched their version, I think was like S, N, C, or something like that.

And they're like, okay, well, back out of this, you have to pay us twenty five million dollars to like, I don't have that money right now, but I have to again, times, as he said, I don't have the money, but I have to do this deal. And so IT says one of my top financial advisor is reason with me that fighting IT out with them with with westing house and A, B, C, was costing me right now four million dollars a month. So for the cost, about six months or more fighting where we could buy them out all together, we decided to settle for the twenty five million.

Now this, that's interesting. That's fine. This is a crazy mind blowing thing that you did. I can't understand. The next sentence blows my mind and obviously gets a large viewer ship.

It's obviously working, even though he's going to bleed a couple million dollars for few years before IT comes wildly profitable. We know that is the twenty four our superstition, because is his T, B, S. Superstition is printing money, right? I think they were making around the time, uh, hundred, I want to say one hundred and sixty.

Let me if I can find a quick hundred sets, hundred and seventy seven million in revenue and sixty six million in profit. So clearly, why went that work with news as well, right? It's twenty four hours satellite station.

And so this is the crazy thing, the crazy sentence after he he settles with A B, C. In west house, they never launched the twenty four, our news network, he says IT would be thirteen years before we faced another twenty for our new channel. Imagine having an unbelievably lucrative brand new opportunity, and you don't even have a competitor for thirteen years.

And again, ted users and historical analogy, gy. Turner broadcasting, defeating A, B, C. And west house in the early one thousand nine hundred eighty was like luxan erg going to war with both the united states and soviet union and winning.

And so there's several examples in the book or it's like, okay, why are they these broadcast networks? Why are they doing a train for our new station, right, if you're a broadcast network? And so when I mean by broadcast network can be clear about this is like the big three, this is A B C, C, B S and N B C, right? And everything he's doing is like, these are cable networks.

And he's like wearing like a breakfast network. And a cable network under the same ownership actually makes a lot of sense. Why is nobody doing this? I think is another example of the fact that he just understood the industry more so than other people.

And you have an ink that you might be able to do that because there's something that's obvious to you and I an opportunity hiding in plane site that's obvious you that no one else sees. So he says to my continued amazing, the network stayed on the sidelines and watched the launch of other cable channels. So not only did you have his tbs of superstition, you have E S P N, you have HBO of all the other, these other experiments, if they seeing things like mtv, nicotian the discovery channel.

And his hypotheses, test hypotheses. Why this is happening is saying that almost like the innovators ma, they were worrying more about the previous nights ratings and the money that comes from that, then the long term future of their business. And so he keeps trying to merge turn a broadcasting with this is is again um just how how something ends ends up when he tries to merge later on with g and he's having this conversation with jack welch.

The note of my self is a highlight there but i'm just like reading about this page after page after page is far like a hundred pages where this is like he's always trying to be a bigger part of a bigger company. And to me, it's like that's not your personality. And so I just wrote to myself, why does he keep trying to sell company and then have a position of the larger company? He's not going to be in charge.

And I didn't know when I wrote, I note to myself what was gonna happen when he kids the time Warner and effectively gets fired, but we're not there at. So at this point, he's still again trying to merge turn of broadcasting with another one of the big three networks. And his whole point, this is just about the news part of IT, which I D S A really smart.

He like, well, you guys have, in this case of cbs, you guys at cbs, you have four hours of news a day, right? Okay, uh, I have CNN and I have headline news. So we have forty eight hours.

That means we combine, we have fifty two hours, forty eight plus four, right, fifty two hours against which to advertise our costs. A, B, C is an MBC has the same. You do there four a day.

Combine with me. We have fifty two now, and we can average tize across across fifty two and we'll leave the compete our competitors in the dust. And there's another benefit because at the antitrust rules at this time prohibited the broadcast networks from vertically integrating. So means that means they cannot produce their own programme.

At this time, they would license most other shows from my hollywood studios and so his whole point was like, okay, well, cbs, you're going and you're going to a studio and you're leasing a show like math mash was like the biggest T V show, uh, at this point in history. So you get the first run of math, but then the actual owner of the show, which in this cases twenty century fox, then goes around and cells, it's reruns to a local station or cable channel. And cbs doesn't make a dime of this off network indication, which you would make a dime if you owned a cable network.

So it's like if cbs in the superstition, which is tbs, we are part of the same company. We can negotiate a comprehensive corporate deal with fox. Cbs can build the show into a hit, right? They get the first run and then tbs would have the option to syndicate the hit episodes in other way.

You make more money. You make money on both the transactions. Right now, you're only making money on one of the transactions. And you could argue that because of to hit on cbs is what gives the value for the the secondary transaction is its test point here, which was like a really smart this guy is just very keen is where I guess, what I think about that, he is a keen understanding how to combine assets to create an advantage that no one else has.

And I think the mistake he makes, which what we're going to get to here now is he just lets his deals get too complex. And so cbs turns him down and says that, okay, why need content? Like what can I do? And he goes and does the deal with M, G, M.

And remember what how his dad killed himself because he thought he over lovers himself and he was racing everything else. Ted Turner actually does that, and he overleveraged themselves in this deal. Kk, korean ah, who I did a long time ago.

I'm going to reread that book. So many people asked me to do another episode on IT think it's like episode sixty five. So probably five or six years ago at the gambler, a lot of people know an exit.

It's the back of her korean so ted Turners actually buying M G M from cork korean and he wants to screw himself and he actually has to um call on john alone. And john alone saves some and as a result then he has like some veto power. So this is like the first step where to turn.

Actually, kena has a boss, not a complete boss, but he overset amount. He can't just going like buy and due deals anymore without like approval from his board. This is really important actually because I think genius has the fewest moving parts.

And I think the biggest weakness that I see in this book and one I want avoid for myself, is like never get into deals that are too complicated. Ted deals are way too complicated. They have way too much debt, and they rely on the future company performance that is impossible to protect.

And so he finds itself in a bad deal, and very a few months away from losing everything. And good thing he is good friends with and and calls john alone. He's really good at situations like this. By the end of nineteen six, he was clear that if I didn't do something soon, i'd be having to transfer my stock to cochin within a couple of months.

John alone understood my situation, and he and I said to work immediately, knowing that if we didn't successfully change the company's s otherness structure within five quarters, I would lose control of Turner broadcasting exactly what his father feared ted did. This is insane. Calling on john alone turn out to be the best thing I could have done.

And so john mellan also describes what's going on. I'm just going to pull out one sentence here. I think you get you understand this. He took his leverage too high and the structure of the leverage was a problem.

And so IT goes into all these deals he's trying to do with these giant companies I mentioned and jack well before, uh, he tries he almost does a deal where he sells to build gates and microsoft and that's when I was like, hey, why is he keep trying to sell the company and then have a position of the larger company that he is not going to be in charge of? And part of this because he's already lost complete autonomy, he does not adhere to jim dace and principle attention of total control, the importance of attention of total control. And bill gates talks about this.

He said, glen ted had these weird control professions relative to the other cable guys who owned pieces of his company. This is the rescue packages that john alone put together to save him from kr koan. Uh IT drove ted kind of crazy.

He never really knew how to deal with having sort of a boss. It's not really boss. It's kind of a boss, you know, uh, you get up, uh, one morning with a wild idea and then you have to think, am I going to get vetoed?

Ted did not like this. And I can I I really think the most import, most prominent instinct, natural instinct, founder and entrepreneurship es, is the control and conquer instinct. I think what we think we want, money or prestige or status, but I really think what we actually want to control.

And so I think there's a lot of wisdom in in James dicenta maximum that you know, retention of total control never relinquish total control. And I think the loss of total control being exhausted in flat out running for three decades, and then also somebody offering you a million dollars, leads to why he sold to time Warner. The final reason I agreed to do the deal was a simple one.

I was tired. IT was now more than thirty years since my father's death, and i'd been running the company on my own ever since. Thirty years of long weeks and eighteen hour days would get to anyone, and by this time I was flat out, exhausted.

I made the official announcement in september of nineteen ninety five. The little billboard company that I struggled to hold together had grown into a diversified entity that was being acquired at the value of more than eight billion dollars. I would now be the largest shareholder of the biggest communication company in the world. I wish my father could have seen what we accomplish with the business as he left. I'm sure he would have been proud.

And that is, well, if I highly recommend reading the book, if you're interested in building a media company, there is a lot of ideas actually here that are transferable outside of media, including this is a really smart way to combine assets in a way, a that your competitors can't IT is unbelievably dense. IT is easy to read, but they're so much going on in every page. What I would do is, one, take your time with you.

And two, I would go and highlight and do a lot of notes. And then when I would do as I would read, there was so much going on, even like a single page, maybe two, three pages, I have to read, write out what actually happening to understand. So I would definitely take your time with that if you want to buy the book and support the pokey the same time they'll be a linked down below that is three hundred and thirty seven books down one thousand ago, and i'll touch you again soon.

okay. So what you're about to hear is this question was just a few months ago, actually recorded a few months ago. They asked, how did history great think about hiring at all? The answer, people think I have a Better memory than I then actually do.

You know, if people say, David, a great memory, my wife would laugh at that. I forget things all the time. It's not to have a good memory. It's I reread things over, over, over again. Every single answer, every single reference about to hear in the twenty nine minute minute episode, came from me searching all of my notes and highlights.

That option is now available to you, if you like, with you hear, if you think it's valuable, if you're already running a successful company and you want an easy way to reference the ideas of history s great entrepreneurs in a searchable database that you can go through at your convenience anytime you want. Do you go to founders notes dot com and sign up? I want to start out first with why this is so important.

There's actually this book that came out in like one thousand nine hundred ninety seven. It's called in the company giants. I think it's up to two or eight of founders.

It's two stanford N, B, A. Students are, remember correctly, and their interviewing a bunch of technology company founders and in the see jobs, one of them this is, you know, right? I think even before he came back to apple and they were talking about, well, yeah, we know, important, higher. But in a typical start up, a manager or founder may not always have time to spend recruiting other people. And I I first read this, this Steve answer to this, I don't know, two years ago and I never forgot that I think it's excEllent.

I think that sets up why, uh, this question so important and you should really be spending existing early is like based of all your time doing this in a typical start of manager, we may not always have the time to spend recruiting other people then Steve jamison, I disagree totally, I think is the most important job. Assume you're by your self in the startup and you want a partner, you take a lot time finding a partner, right? He would be half of your company and a positive.

This idea of looking at each new higher as a percentage of the company is genius. Why should you take any less time finding a third or fourth of your company or a fifth of your company? When your N A start up, the first ten people will determine whether the succeeds or not. Each is ten percent of the company.

So why would you take as much time as necessary to find all a players? If three, three other ten h we're not so great, why would you start a company where thirty percent of your people are not so great? A small company depends on great people much more than a big company does. okay. So to answer this question, the advantage that um that I have making founders and that you have a big part of listen to founders is not only that I had you know three hundreds of biography, much funny now, but I have all of my notes and highlights stored in my read wise APP.

And that means I can search for any topic, I can look at the past highlighted books, I can search for keywords so what I did is first of all, like what i've started do with these may um questions as I read them, decide which one i'm going to do next and then think about IT for a few days. I don't put me that just literally that that I know that the next question just let my brain work on IT in the background for a few days and then i'll go through in searching all minutes. And so that's what I did here.

And so there's a bunch of unit on I may have like ten or fifteen different founders talking about hiring. The first idea is the most obvious, but I think probably works best when you're already established. So Steve jobs are talking about, hey, you know, the great weight of to higher is just find great work and find the people that did that and then try to hire them when your Steve jobs, that's a lot easier right then if you're just somebody does that reputation maybe don't have resources make your companies rather new or not as well? No, David ogly, I just did confessions of an advertising man.

Couple episodes, a three o six or something like that through seven and he did the same thing, but he's David og vy at that point. So he would find he'd go through magazines, find great advertising, great copyright, and he write a personal letter and then set up a phone call. And he says he went he was so well known and you know is one of the best in his field that he wouldn't even have to offer a job.

Just the conversation then the person would the he would want to hire the person never mention IT and the person would apply to him um and so again, I think if you can do that, then of course style d find for somebody is great work usually can do this. I actually have a friend. I can't say who he is.

He's doing the start. Actually, every friend that's really good at doing this, he finding people that do great time on union and then just called called, dieing them and then getting convinced to welcome things. And that usually work. Successful people like Younger people, are earlier in the career. There's a bunch of different ways to think about this in a bunch of different ways to priority.

So the first thing that that that came to mind, but I found surprising, is you read any biography on and he had a couple ideas where he felt the optimization you know tables stakes at your intelligent, your drive and in your hardworking, like living to this. You really know that, but he prioritized hiring people with social skills. And so this is what he said.

The ability to deal with people is as purchase for a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay for, I pay more for that ability than any other under the sun. There's the two.

The second part of this though, and this is also worth wealth. You have access to our resources. He, he rockfalls would hire people as he found, as he found out to people, not as he needed them.

It's only okay, standard oil has six open spots. Let's go find six canada, right? He come across what he considered a counter person. He didn't even matter. Or if he didn't know what they're going to do, he's like i'm just going to stack his team.

And if you really think about the his partner's senate oil, he essentially built a company, an executive team of founders, of course, because he was buying up all our company. That's very rare. But um there are line from tight.

Now want to be to taking for granted the growth of his empire. He hire down to people as found, not as needed. And then I found another idea in the hiring, like the actual interview.

So there's this kind of any for bush. I did two episodes know. I think it's two seventy and two seventy one.

He is the most important american ever h in history in in terms of connecting the scientific field, private equities and the government. The most important person keep alive for the american war effort was F D. R.

The second one was vanny robust vanna. bush. H is like the force gump of this historical period. He is involved everything from the manhandling ject to discovering, like a Young codge shane, to building a mechanical computer like this guy literally has done. Just, he pops up in these box over over again.

If you were reading about american business history during world war two and post world war two, you are going to come across the nav of bush over and over. Gon ah I read his fantastic autobiographical LED pieces of the action, and I came across this weird highlight. And so this is his brilliant and unusual job interview process.

And so he talked about the organza he's running called amma at ammirati hurried 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 on an artificial basis in 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 they need solution, and I hired him at once. Here's another idea.

This is from no ambition, no ambitions. The founder of a tari founder, trucker eis, and Steve jobs mentor, he hired Steve jobs. When Steve jobs was like, nineteen ata ata, he would ask people their 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 the foundation of creative people. So that's what he's looking for.

You like, I need creative people, one of the best ways to find creative people, 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 question about reading habits. Actually, which books people read is not as important as a simple fact that they read at all.

I have known many talented engineers who hated science fiction but loved, say, books on bird watching, a blind but often accurate generalization. People who are curious and passionate read, people who are apathetic in a different don't I remember that that's such a great line, and I always agree with bit. I remember one.

I'm going to read IT. Again, a blind but often accurate generalization. People who are curious impassionate read people who are apathetic and indifferent.

Don't I remember one particular woman who during an interview, told me that cheered red every book that I had read? So I started watching books I hadn't read, and SHE had read those two. I didn't know how someone in her late one is found that this much time to read so much.

But I was impressed. I was impressed that I hire her right there and assigned to international marketing, which is having problems. This is why, this is why i'm reading. So second to you, a job with a lot of moving parts benefits from a brain that has a lot of moving parts. IT wouldn't be possible to have read that many books without such a brain.

So you see what you mean, like we start with, see job saying, this is the most important thing that your roles, that leader the company, the do right and you are in, is so important to study. This is one glad this this question exists and why i'm glad that I I took the time and I had like the first sight to, okay, I should really organized my thoughts and notes because there's no way I would have remembred all this without being being able to touch my read wise, right? But you have rockfish ing.

This is what's important to me. You have bush saying, this is how I have now you have known bushel saying, well, here's another weird thing that I learned um let me go through what warm buffer t is about this so this is about the quality. One thing that is consistent, where is jobs buffet BIOS a Peter tio, there's just posible from over gan.

They talk about the importance of trying to find people that, that are Better than you. The hiring bar constantly has to increase. Now obviously, the large of the company gets that's impossible.

Uh, Steve job has a great quote, where is like, you know, pixar was the first time I see I saw an entire team, entire company of a players. But they had four hundred players. They had four hundred team members.

He's like at the time, apple three thousand, that is impossible to have three thousand a player. So there is some number that your company may grow to or just you're just not you're not going to have thousands of a players in my argument. I know know if you get a four hundred of issue, I mean, it'll take steeves word for IT on there.

And picks are definitely produce create products, but it's probably a little matter as well. So warm buffer would tell you to use David ogle's hiring philosopher. And so warnings at charan, I know that the right players will make almost any team manager look good again.

That is why it's the most important function of the founder, maybe directly next to the product, right? Of all the product, actually those of people building your product, we subscribe to the philosophy of orgasm and founding genius. David, this will all will be said, if each of us higher people who are smaller than we are, we should become a company of jars.

But if each of us higher people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants. David a. Jeff basel's rather use the variation of organ's idea too. Jeff used to say in amazon, every time we hire someone, he or SHE should raise the bar for the next higher so that the overall talent pool is always improving.

And talk about the idea amazon, where the the the future hires that we do should be so good that if you had applied for the job you are, you have an amazon you will get in. That's a very interesting idea. Take your time with recruiting.

Take your time with hiring. There's a great book on the history of paypal actually recently become friends with the author s name jm SONY um and this is in his book. The the most fascinating thing that I found was that paypal prioritize.

So from the time they they're founded to the time they sell to ebay, like four years, Jimmy spent more time researching the book than he spent six years researching book. And I was teasing because like you don't took a long on a book and they took to start and sell their company. IT just speaks select the quality he's trying to do, but that as a by product of that, like obviously, they move fast, but they prior to a speed over everything else, except in one area, were crude.

Max ledin kept the bar for talent exceeding the high. Even if that came at the expensive, speedy staffing, max kept repeating a higher A, S, B, higher seas. So the first b you hire takes the whole company down.

Let's read that again. A players higher S, A players. B players higher S, C players. So the first b player you higher takes the whole company down.

H additionally, the team, the company leaders, Mandated that all prospects is another idea of you. All prospects must meet every single number of the team. Now, the next one is the most bizarre.

Makes sense if you study. I did the three part in realism, three part series on the realism. I should to read those books again because the party is like fifty times bigger than then when I, uh, publish episodes.

And he's just it's crazy. So he would he hire based on the coin, the self confidence level? Of the canada, listen to this. I have tea mines. I don't like living.

Okay, this just okay because this is you read about the area and he's one of these people like a really easy interface with because you just know exactly who we what's import to, not why I think it's so funny. Ellison insisted that his recruiters hire only the finest and caught ist new college graduates. When they were recruiting from universities, they asked people, are you the smart st.

Person, you know? And if they said yes, they would pair them. If they said no, they would say, who is and they would go higher. That guy and said, I don't know if you've got to smart these people that way, but you have definite got the most elegant elements. And this is why, what the personality the founder is, largely the culture of the company.

Apple is Steve jobs, apple stegall ten lives, right? I just texting founder friend of mine ah he lost the podcast actually about to the podcast and he's going to dislike uh, processor discovery like he's already start a bunch of the companies are really ccea ful. But he like I think i'm more of this type of founder than the other type of founder and that's good that he's doing that because he he's hopefully next mission is like his life mission, you know and you can get realized mission should you to figure who you are.

Ellison knew who he was. Ellison, swinging combat of style, became a part of the company's identity. This argan culture had a lot to do with oracle's success. Here's another odd idea for you. Is he sharp, the founder four seasons, actually could figure out that in his business, which was hotels, right, that hiring, could hiring the right person, could actually be a form of distribution for his hotel.

He gave me the idea because of what? What do we know? What do you? And I know in our bones that history's greatest founders, all red biography, they all read by graphs of people that came before them and took ideas from them.

Is he sharp was trying to build four seasons. What do you think he did? He picked up a biography of seizure ritts, the guy that rice called his name after the great, arguably great, hotel year of all time.

And when he realized, oh, shit, ritz. He, he says, remembering that these are ritz made his, who's world famous by herring. Some of the formal chefs, we decided, do something similar.

So what does he starting about? Sees or rit, when now important with August a what season or rich was to hotel, to building hotels, August coffy was to french cooking. And to what happened is your partner with world famous ships.

People come into your restaurant that's in the hotel because the whole famous shift, and now they know about your hotel, that leads to more get that, that leads to more activating your restaurant to your own, but also leads to more brand recognition of your hotel. And then as a byproduct that more people staying at the so hiring as a form of distribution, this is fascinating as a fascinating idea. Okay, here's a problem.

You can identify great people, right? Maybe they even want to come work like you identify them. You've sold them.

Hey, this is what, this is our mission. This is what we we're doing. And yet humans have complicated lives.

They have spouses, they have kids. They have our reason. Maybe they can move across the country to work for you even though they want you.

So there is a problem solving element that you see these books on. You have to solve like you already identify the person. You've recruit them.

They can go for some other okay. Well the great founders are not going to take no for answer. I read in um in this book called lift off, which is about the first six years of spaces.

S this is what elon musard they had anticipated ted, his friends issue, having convinced, must they need to bring this, bring Young engineer from turkey on board? IT became a matter of solving the problem. His wife had a job in sanford.

Cisco SHE would need one in los Angeles, right? As for space sexes, that time, these are solvable problems and island's Better or solving problems, and almost anyone else must therefore came into his job interview, prepared about halfway through, mus. Told the guy that he wants to hear.

So I heard you don't want to move to L. A. And one of the reasons is that your wife force for google.

Well, I just talk to Larry, and you're gonna transfer your wife down to L. A. So what are you gonna? Now, to solve this problem, must could called his friendship page the cofounder of google, the engineer.

Sattled stunned silence for mama. But then he replied, given all that, he would come to work at space sex. That's really smart. There is another idea when you're promote, are you going na promote one with in or from without? You know that's dependent on you depending on what what's going on.

I do think this is interesting though this is ghanian lesh wab who built this this really uh valuable chain of uh like tire companies in the acidic northwest actually found out about because charlie mongers okay, you should read the biography. He said that he didn't say to me personally. He said IT to uh in like one of the bircher meetings that to study lesh rob had one of the both uh one of the smartest financial incentive structures, any company that that try mugger come across so this is what lesh wab did.

He did not want to hire from. He did want to hire other people from other companies because they might come with bad habits. He liked to train his own executives.

And so he says, in our thirty four years of business, we have never hired a manager from the outside. Every single one of our more than two hundred and fifty managers and assistant managers started at the bottom changing tires. They have all earned their management job by working up.

And in another thing, if you're gna hire the best of the best in a players there, a players don't like to be very manage um and so this came in Larry Miller automotive phy called driven. He owns like he owned like ninety three companies, although utah cordial ships movie theaters, all kinds of crazy, he also owned the the abt nut. And what was fascinating, he's trying to recruit Jerry sloan as a coach at at the point.

And Jerry sloan had only take the job on one condition. And I really like IT. I really like this idea.

If you hire me, let me run the team and business, right? That would help me. For one of the best things we had ever done was higher.

Jerry song is coach at the time. He said, i'm only going to ask you for one thing. If I get fired, let me get fired for my own decisions. If you hire me, let me run the team slash business.

Here's another idea from Thomas Edison that I think is faster really I the way I think about the founders, like you're developing skills that you can't hired for you, you're going to hire for everything else, but you shouldn't be horrible and Edison wasn't Edison expressing his views on the prominent role of lied scientists, which what he considered himself, coin the expression, I can hire mathematicians, but they can't hire me. And so when I read that paragraph for the first time, I note I left myself was developed skills that you can hire for capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. S, A ladder will give you your advice that you'd need to hire people, line with your thinking and values, hire the best people, this is vital.

Hire people who think as you do and treat them well in our business, they are top priority. So this ideas that seems kind of weird, like hire people who think like you, this is obvious ly that one right way to build a business. I think that your business should be an expression, your person out in who or as a person at the core.

And so I think there is an art to the building of your business. And the reason you use the word art, I don't mean like a hot toy ty, pretentious manner, that's me at all. I don't give me care about no are right at all really.

I mean that you're making decisions not just based on economics, like there are none namic important decisions based on how you're building your business. Like you could probably make more money doing a decision a but decision aid goes against who you are as a person or you just don't like IT or it's just not as elegant or beautiful. And so therefore you don't do IT so that's what I mean about you know hire people who think you you do and would have for whatever reason.

When I read S A lot say that I was like, okay, that there's like this art to what she's doing. One thing that's going to have be helpful recruiting ah this comes Peter. T O.

I think this is the book zero to one understand that most companies don't even differentiate their pitches to potential recruits and to hiring. So therefore, like they're just going to buy as a that you're gonna wind up with a lower overall tent base. And so he says, what's wrong with valuable stocks? Smart people are pressing problems.

nothing. But every company makes us these claims, so they won't hope you stand out. General and undifferentiated pitches to join your company. Don't see anything about why your crush join your company instead of money of instead of many others so that idea like your pitch, you're actual, he will tell you you you shall be building on difference in the commodity business but even above beyond like you the the mission that you're trying to engage everybody to join you in that pitch, that sail, sail you're trying to make to potential recruit, should be differentiated, should not.

If that person's playing to five real jobs there should not be like, like, they may not like your mission, they may not like your bitch, but there ouldn't be able to compare anything else. Uh, another quote from no ambush, no higher for passion and intensity. That's what he would do, or that's what he did when he found Steve jobs.

If there was a single characteristic to separate Steve jobs from the massive employees, IT was his passionate enthusiasm. Steve had one for one speed four blast. This was the primary reason we hire him.

And one thing all these fun to have in common is that you know how important hiring is. And when someone is important, you do IT yourself. This is, again, elon moscow hiring.

He interviewed the first three thousand employees at space. That one point that was one of musk's most valuable skills. With his ability determined whether someone would fit his mold.

His people had to be brilliant. They had to be hardworking. And there could be no nonsense. There are a tony phonies out there and not money, who are the real deal must set of his approach to interviewer engineers.

I can usually tell within fifty minutes, and I can sure, I can for sure tell within a few days of working with them must made hiring a priority. He personally met with every single person in the company hired through the first three thousand employees. He required late nights and weekends, but he felt he was important to get the right people for his company.

And then the close on this, we started with see jobs telling us why IT was so important and why should be a large part of how you find time. And now will close with what you do after what you do after you have the person. This what he says, it's not just recruiting.

After recruiting is building environment that makes people feel they're surrounded by equally talented people and their work is bigger than they are, the feeling that their work will have a tremendous influence and is part of a strong, clear vision. So that is the end to that twenty minute many episode. I just relist n to the holding and IT IT really does.

I think it's a perfect explanation and illustration of why I think founders notice so valuable because some of those books I have read in five, six years and just the really to have a hertug database of all these, these ideas like this, collected knowledge of some of the issues, greatest entrepreneurs to reference and then contextually applied to our own businesses. It's nothing short of like it's magic. It's a really the way think about that.

I think it's a massive super power, gives me a massive superpower. I couldn't make the power without. I also think if you have access to IT to make your business Better. And so if you ready running a successful business, I highly recommend you invest in description. And you can do that by going to founder notes dot com.