What I learned from reading Ari Emanuel's incredible autobiography Roll The Calls . Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
5 Oct 2026 · 1 h 9 minLearn 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
Latest episodes
What I learned from reading Mark: A journey to the heart of history's largest nonterritorial empire by Jeremy Stern. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders 0:00 — "For these, I set no bounds in space or time. I have given empire without end." — Latin verse from the Aeneid, recalled by Mark Zuckerberg 2:55 — "Carthage must
28 Sep 2026 · 41 minWhat I learned from reading Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man by Vance Trimble. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders 0:00 — "To him, making money was only a game, a test of his imagination and expertise to see how far he could drive a business concept." 1:35 — "Sam's idea was absurdly simple: buy cheap, sell l
21 Sep 2026 · 49 minWhat I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders Sage: https://founderspodcast.com/sage
14 Sep 2026 · 48 minWhat I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon by Napoleon. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders Sage: https://founderspodcast.com/sage Some of my favorite quotes: 0:00 — " The book gives you insight into the mind of a man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree." 0:30 — "Work
5 Sep 2026 · 55 minWhat I learned from reading Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and The Man Who Created It by George Roberts and The Outsiders by William Thorndike. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders Some of my favorite quotes: 0:00 — "He aggressively repurchased his stock, eventually buying over ninety percent o
31 Aug 2026 · 49 minClaude Hopkins was the greatest copywriter of all time. His ideas were so valuable that when he wrote them down in a book the founder of his advertising firm locked the manuscript in a safe for 20 years. When the book was finally published it sold over 8 million copies. David Ogilvy said that nobody should work in advertising until they had read the book seven times. This episode is what I learned
23 Aug 2026 · 1 h 3 minWhat I learned from rereading Bob Dylan's autobiography . Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
16 Aug 2026 · 1 h 0 minClaude Shannon changed your life and you probably don't even know it. Claude is the father of information theory. He transformed information into bits and created the intellectual foundation for computers, the Internet, digital media, high-speed communication, and Artificial Intelligence. The way Claude Shannon worked is what interested me the most. He combined extraordinary abstract reasoning wit
9 Aug 2026 · 51 minRaymond Plank founded Apache Corporation with just $250,000 in 1954. 50 years later his company was worth $50 billion. This episode examines the life and entrepreneurial philosophy of Raymond Plank through his memoir A Small Difference Rather than presenting a conventional history of Apache, this episode focuses on the lessons, maxims, and beliefs Plank accumulated over seven decades in business.
1 Aug 2026 · 38 minObsession is the engine of Nolan’s career. This episode examines Christopher Nolan’s life, working methods, and philosophy through The Nolan Variations by Tom Shone. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders Add your email here and I will send you my top 10 quotes from every episode: https://davidsenra.substack.co
26 Jul 2026 · 51 minThis episode discusses Joseph Wechsberg’s 1966 book, The Merchant Bankers . Rather than recounting the histories of families like the Rothschilds, Barings, Hambros, Warburgs, and Lehman Brothers, I wanted to extract the principles they shared. Merchant banking is fascinating. It's a very distinctive form of entrepreneurship. There is an old-school way of doing business that appeals to me. The merc
19 Jul 2026 · 46 minWhat I learned from reading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters (for the 3rd or 4th time) Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com/ Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
10 Jul 2026 · 53 minWhat I learned from reading Honda: The Man and His Machines by Sol Sanders. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com/ Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
28 Jun 2026 · 48 minWhat I learned from reading Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Applovin: https://www.applovin.com/ Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
20 Jun 2026 · 52 minWhat I learned from reading Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products by Leander Kahney. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
10 Jun 2026 · 52 minWhat I learned from reading Steve Jobs in Exile: The Untold Story of NeXT and the Remaking of an American Visionary by Geoffrey Cain. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
4 Jun 2026 · 53 minKelly Johnson’s “14 Points” read like a SpaceX operations manual — 60 years before SpaceX was founded. Kelly Johnson created Skunk Works, which he defined as: “A concentration of a few good people solving problems far in advance—and at a fraction of the cost—of other groups by applying the simplest, most straightforward methods possible to develop and produce new projects. All it is really is the
16 May 2026 · 49 minWhat I learned from rereading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike for the 3rd or 4th time. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
7 May 2026 · 1 h 3 minWhat I learned from reading Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
19 Apr 2026 · 43 min