#266 Henry Ford's Autobiography

What I learned from rereading My Life and Work by Henry Ford. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.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 done; they always know the limitations. That is why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice that I could be sure they would do little work. [38:20] I cannot say that it was hard work. No work with interest is ever hard....