PODCAST · business
Founders
by David Senra
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
Episodes
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#437 The Tycoons: Carnegie, Rockefeller, Gould & Morgan
What I learned from reading The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Supereconomy by Charles R. Morris. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://applovin.com Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders
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#436 Ari Emanuel's Autobiography
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
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#435 Mark Zuckerberg's Empire
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...
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#434 Sam Walton
What 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…
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#433 How Michael Bloomberg Works
What 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
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#432 The Mind of Napoleon
What 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…
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#431 How Henry Singleton Worked
What 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...
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#430 How to Write Ads That Sell
Claude 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...
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#429 Bob Dylan's Autobiography
What 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
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#428 How Claude Shannon Worked
Claude 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...
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#427 How Raymond Plank Built a $50 Billion Oil Company
Raymond 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...
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#426 How Obsession Built Christopher Nolan
Obsession 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…
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#425 The Merchant Bankers
This 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…
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#424 Peter Thiel on How to Build a Creative Monopoly
What 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
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#423 Soichiro Honda
What 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
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#422 Joseph Pulitzer
What 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
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#421 Jony Ive
What 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
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#420 Steve Jobs In Exile
What 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
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#419 Kelly Johnson: Skunk Works
Kelly 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...
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#418 Phil Knight: Founder of Nike
What 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
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#417 Arnold Schwarzenegger
What 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
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#416 The Relentless Missionary Creating AGI: Demis Hassabis
This episode is about a once-in-a-generation mind working on what may be the most important problem in history. Based on the new book The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby. Made possible by: Ramp: https://ramp.com Axon by…
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#415 How Elon Thinks
My friend Eric Jorgenson spent years—and thousands of hours—studying Elon Musk. Eric read everything Elon has written, read everything written about Elon, and watched every interview Elon's given. He distilled all of Elon's insights into his new book. This episode is all about How Elon Thinks…
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#414 How SpaceX Works
SpaceX is one of the most dominant companies on the planet and their performance gap just keeps getting bigger. In 2025, SpaceX launched more mass to orbit than every other provider on Earth combined. MUCH MORE: every payload from China, Russia, Europe, and all American launchers wasn’t even a...
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#413 How To Run Down A Dream
Running Down A Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley has been one of the most valuable talks I've heard. For years I have been using ideas from that talk to build this podcast. Bill has written a new book based on that talk: Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a...
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#412 How Roger Federer Works
What I learned from reading The Master: The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer by Chris Clarey. Episode sponsors: Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest...
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#411 Tortured Into Greatness: The Life of Andre Agassi
Andre Agassi's autobiography is a brutally honest story about a tennis legend who hated the game that made him famous. Agassi traces his journey from a harsh, obsessive childhood training regimen to superstardom, burnout, rebellion, and eventual redemption—revealing the psychological cost of...
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#410 Excellent Advice for Living
On his 68th birthday, Kevin Kelly began to write down for his young adult children some things he had learned about life that he wished he had known earlier. Kelly’s timeless advice covers an astonishing range, from right living to setting ambitious goals, optimizing generosity, and cultivating...
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The Singular Life of Rick Rubin
There's no one like Rick Rubin. He's a legendary music producer known for his minimalist approach and relentless pursuit of greatness. This episode is what I learned from reading Rick Rubin: In The Studio by Jake Brown. Episode sponsors: Ramp gives you everything you need to control...
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#409 The Creative Genius of Rick Rubin
"I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” —Rick Rubin. This episode is what I learned from reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. Episode sponsors: Ramp gives you everything you need…
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#408 How to Make a Few MORE Billion Dollars: Brad Jacobs
In 2024 Brad Jacobs wrote the book How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. In the book Brad explains how he built 8 separate billion dollar companies and other lessons from his 40+ year career as an elite entrepreneur. In the two years since Brad has made a few MORE billion dollars and so the sequel…
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The Life of Jesus
The Life of Jesus as told in the book Jesus: A Biography of a Believer by Paul Johnson. This episode was originally published on Christmas Eve 2023.
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#407 Bruce Springsteen Repairs the Hole in Himself
A viciously unhappy childhood causes Bruce Springsteen to retreat into work in an extreme way as he searches for success (and control). He channels his pain into focus and drive and gets everything he thought he wanted. He didn’t yet know he was lying to himself. He will find that out soon. He...
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#406 Christian von Koenigsegg
Christian von Koenigsegg is unapologetically in the pursuit of greatness. Koenigsegg builds some of the fastest and most expensive cars on Earth, has a cult-like following, and relentlessly seeks out challenges he can innovate on. After building his company for more than 30 years, his love and...
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Red Bull's Billionaire Maniac Founder
I'm reposting one of my favorite founder stories. If you listened to this first time I recommend listening again. If you missed this before, you're about to hear one of the wildest founder stories of all time. A few surprising things I learned from reading about Dietrich Mateschitz, founder of…
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#405 How Rockefeller Worked
This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of John D. Rockefeller—and nothing else. I spent over 40 hours reading (and rereading) this obscure biography of Rockefeller that costs $1,000 I then spent several days editing down 25 pages of notes from the book. I deleted...
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My conversation with Todd Graves
Todd Graves is one of my favorite living founders. He owns over 90% of Raising Canes — a business that is worth at least $20 billion. Todd's maxim is "Do one thing and do it better than anyone else." It is impossible not to be inspired by his terminator levels of determination. I hope you enjoy…
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#404 How Larry Ellison Thinks
This episode covers the unique way Larry Ellison thinks. I spent over 40 hours reading (and rereading) this book on Ellison written by Matthew Symonds. I then spent several days editing down 40 pages of notes into a one-hour nonstop stream of Larry Ellison's ideas. Episode sponsors…
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My Conversation with Brad Jacobs
I’ve started a new show where I have conversations with the greatest living Founders. The show is called David Senra. It will be on a separate podcast feed from Founders. So it is very important that you follow David Senra on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you're listening…
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#403 How Jensen Works
This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of Jensen Huang—and nothing else. I spent over 40 hours reading (and rereading) this book on Jensen and Nvidia written by Tae Kim I then spent several days editing down 30 pages of notes from the book. I deleted everything that...
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My Conversation with Michael Dell
I’ve started a new show where I have conversations with the greatest living Founders. The show is called David Senra. It will be on a separate podcast feed from Founders. So it is very important that you follow David Senra on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you're listening to this…
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#402 Thomas Peterffy: The $80 Billion Founder Who Automates Everything
I didn’t know who Thomas Peterffy was. I was shocked to learn that he is 81 years old, worth $80 billion dollars, and has built his $120 billion company, Interactive Brokers, into one of the most efficient companies in the world. I discovered Peterffy by reading this incredible profile about him.…
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My conversation with Daniel Ek: Founder of Spotify
I started a new show so I can have long-form conversations with the greatest living founders. You can watch on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, X, or the web. The new show is on a separate feed so don't forget to follow David Senra so you don't miss future episodes. Nothing is changing with...
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#401 How Bill Gates Works
This episode is about Bill Gates' obsessive drive and hardcore work ethic. Bill Gates had the rarest entrepreneurial talent—the ability to see the leverage point in a new industry, seize it with relentless intensity, and *will* Microsoft into one of the most successful companies in human history....
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#400 The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson
This episode covers the extreme perseverance and the stubborn genius of James Dyson. Dyson has a business philosophy which is very different from anything you might have encountered before. A philosophy which demands difference from what exists and retention of total control. For almost four...
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#399 How Elon Works
This episode covers the insanely valuable company-building principles of Elon Musk—and nothing else. I spent well over 60 hours reading (and rereading) the biography of Elon Musk written by Walter Isaacson. I then spent several days editing down 40 pages of notes from the book. I deleted…
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#398 Steve Jobs In His Own Words (Make Something Wonderful)
A curated collection of Steve’s speeches, interviews, and correspondence, Make Something Wonderful offers a window into how one of the world’s most creative entrepreneurs approached his life and work. In these pages, Steve shares his perspective on his childhood, on launching and being pushed out...
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#397 Jiro Ono: Simplicity Is The Ultimate Advantage
Jiro Ono is the greatest living sushi chef. He was kicked out his house when he was 9. He started working in a restaurant so he wouldn't have to sleep under a bridge. He never stopped. Over his 75 year career he rose to the very top of his profession. People travel from all over the world to eat…
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#396 The Obsession of Enzo Ferrari
I've read hundreds of thousands of words about Enzo Ferrari. For this episode I distilled down his most important ideas into 1 hour. Ferrari was truly one of history's greatest obsessives. Episode sponsors: Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize...
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#395 How Geniuses and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport
Those on the margins often come to control the center. That maxim ties together the three remarkable people profiled in this episode: Colin Chapman, known as “the mad scientist of F1”, did more to influence F1 design than any other person in history. Bernie Ecclestone, known as “Supremo”, Bernie...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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
HOSTED BY
David Senra
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Founders have?
Founders currently has 461 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Founders about?
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 often does Founders release new episodes?
Founders publishes regularly with 461 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Founders?
You can listen to Founders on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Founders?
Founders is created and hosted by David Senra.
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