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#266 Henry Ford's Autobiography

#266 Henry Ford's Autobiography

FromFounders


#266 Henry Ford's Autobiography

FromFounders

ratings:
Length:
74 minutes
Released:
Sep 8, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

What I learned from rereading My Life and Work by Henry Ford.--Support Founders sponsors: Tegus is a search engine for business knowledge that's used by founders, investors, and executives. It's incredible what they're building. Try it for free by visiting Tegus.and Sam Hinkie's unique venture capital firm 87 Capital. If i was raising money and looking for a long term partner Sam is the first person I would call. If you are the kind of founder that we study on this podcast and you are looking for a long term partner go to 87capital.com--[7:45] True education is gained through the discipline of life.[8:00] Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. (Founders #263)[9:40] Reading this book is like having a one-sided conversation with one of the greatest entrepreneurs to ever live who just speaks directly to you and tells you, “Hey this is my philosophy on company building.”[12:40] His main idea is that business exists for one reason and one reason only —to provide service for other people.[12:50] Everything I do is serving my true end — which is to make a product that makes other people's lives better.[13:47] A sale is proof of utility.[15:00] The sense of accomplishment from overcoming difficulty is satisfying in a way that a life of leisure and ease will never be.[16:00] I think Amazon's culture is largely based on one thing. It's not based on 14. It's based on customer obsession. That is what Bezos would die on the hill for.  —Invest Like The Best: Ravi Gupta[20:04] Later Bezos recalled speaking at an all-hands meeting called to address the assault by Barnes & Noble. “Look, you should wake up worried, terrified every morning,” he told his employees. “But don’t be worried about our competitors because they`re never going to send us any money anyway. Let’s be worried about our customers and stay heads-down focused.” — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone (Founders #179)[20:40] Henry Fords philosophy: Get rid of waste, increase efficiency through thinking and technology, drop your prices and make more money with less profit per car, watch your costs religiously, when needed bring that business process in house, and always focus on service.[21:15] Money comes naturally as the result of service.  —Henry Ford[21:56] Churchill by Paul Johnson. (Founders #225)[22:10] Churchill tells his son “Your idle and lazy life is very offensive to me. You appear to be leading a perfectly useless existence.”[23:45] 3 part series on the founder of General Motors Billy Durant and Alfred Sloan:Billy Durant Creator of General Motors: The Story of the Flamboyant Genius Who Helped Lead America into the Automobile Age by Lawrence Gustin. (Founders #120)Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, A Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey. (Founders #121)My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan. (Founders #122)[24:16] Henry Ford's ONE idea that was different from every other automobile manufacturer:He was determined to concentrate on the low end of the market, where he believed that high volume would drive costs down and at the same time feed even more demand for the product. It was a fundamental difference in philosophy.  — Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, A Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History by William Pelfrey. (Founders #121)[25:50] There must be a better way of doing that. And so through a thousand processes.[27:59] The only way to truly understand what you're doing is to do it for a long time and focus on it.[28:30] It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game that you've been playing all your life. — Mickey Mantle[32:25] One idea at a time is about as much as anyone can handle.[35:45] Picking up horse shit used to be a job.[37:30] That is the way with wise people — they are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be
Released:
Sep 8, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and find ideas you can use in your work. This quote explains why: "There are thousands of years of history in which lots and lots of very smart people worked very hard and ran all types of experiments on how to create new businesses, invent new technology, new ways to manage etc. They ran these experiments throughout their entire lives. At some point, somebody put these lessons down in a book. For very little money and a few hours of time, you can learn from someone’s accumulated experience. There is so much more to learn from the past than we often realize. You could productively spend your time reading experiences of great people who have come before and you learn every time." —Marc Andreessen