The Nobel Family Dynasty

1. 0:00 – 5:49

   The Nobel Dynasty: Russian Rockefellers and Their Fall

   1. DSDavid Senra0:00

      The name of Nobel usually calls to mind Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and the Nobel Prizes which he endowed. But other members of the Nobel family were no less creative and innovative. In fact, the range of their achievements in building an industrial empire truly qualifies them to be known as the Russian Rockefellers. The founder of this Russian industrial dynasty was an immigrant from Sweden. Immanuel Nobel was an architect, a pioneer producer of steam engines, and a weapons maker. Decades before his son Alfred's dynamite began to alter the character of modern warfare, Immanuel designed, invented, and produced underwater mines. Immanuel's other sons included Robert, who directed the family's activities in the Caspian oil fields. And as you and I will talk about, a spur-of-the-moment decision by Robert actually changes the entire trajectory of the Nobel family from weapon makers into developing, uh, the entire Russian oil industry. And Ludwig, who is gonna be the majority of what I wanna talk to you about today. This, this is my favorite Nobel. And Ludwig, an engineering genius and manufacturing magnate whose boundless energy and fierce determination created the Russian petroleum industry. Ludwig's son, Immanuel, was not only one of the wealthiest men in Europe, but the peer and occasional adversary of some of the most powerful figures in international business circles. He shrewdly bargained with the Rothschilds for control of the Russian markets and did not shrink from head-on competition with Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell for lucrative world markets. Immanuel not only helped modernize the Russian Navy, he also expanded the Russian oil industry, was a pioneer user of the diesel engine, official of the state bank, and a commander of a fleet of 300 ships. Perhaps no family in history has played so decisive a role in building an industrial empire in an undeveloped but resource-rich nation. Yet, the achievements of the Nobel family are almost entirely unknown. Why? The answer can be found in the official Soviet myth that when the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, they inherited an empty cupboard, which they transformed into a cornucopia. The truth was the exact opposite. When the Bolsheviks came to power, Immanuel had to flee the country disguised as a peasant. A reminder of how fast things can change. He was one of the richest people in the country. Has to flee the country disguised as a peasant, and two of his brothers were thrown in jail. The family's holdings were confiscated. The Nobel empire, with its 50,000 workers, lay in ruins. Its fleet of oil tankers were idled, the fires in its foundries were banked, the oil refineries ceased operations, their oil wells were flooded, and Russia's largest engine factory shut down. An empire which had taken the family 80 years to design and build was destroyed, bringing to a sudden and bitter end one of the most remarkable industrial odysseys in world history. That is an excerpt from the inside flap of this remarkable book that I'm gonna talk to you about today, first published all the way back in 1976. It is called The Russian Rockefellers: The Saga of the Nobel Family and the Russian Oil Industry, and it was written by Robert Tolf. So I found this book through my friend Cameron Priest, who continues to be one of the most prolific readers of entrepreneur history that I've ever come across. He's recommended, I don't know, 40, 50, 60 of these books to me. And I spent the last few days rereading my highlights and going through all my notes on the book to try to figure out what I wanna focus on. So I wanna focus on Ludwig Nobel, but to tell the story of Ludwig Nobel, I have to tell you the story of his father, a few of his brothers, and then his son. And so I wanna start in the introduction of the book to give you an overview of what has to be one of the most remarkable families in human history. So we start with Alfred No- Nobel. Everybody knows him because he's the one, he, he dies, in his, in his will, he endows the Nobel Prize, and then o- other people knew him as the inventor of dynamite. So it says, "Alfred Nobel was only one member of history's most inventive family, and the story has never been told of his father Immanuel, and his brothers Ludwig and Robert, and his nephew Immanuel, and their own individual entrepreneurial, technological, and financial achievements in the weapons, petroleum, chemical, and transportation industries." So Ludwig Nobel, the reason the book is called The Russian Rockefellers is because Lud- Ludwig Nobel, Alfred's brother, literally created the Russian oil industry. This is nuts. So I've been going around talking about this book, uh, t- to all my friends, and really anybody who will listen this week as I've been reading it because at the time, to give you an overview, at the time that the, the, the, the book takes place, okay? Russia at this point in history is going to wind up producing over half of all the wo- world's oil. The Nobel family produces 30% of that half. One company, and that company is founded and created by Ludwig. And so here's just a brief overview of some of his achievements. He designed the world's first oil tanker. He installed Europe's first pipelines. He built the world's first full-scale continuous distillation refinery. He forged gigantic infrastructure on water and land. He built a network of storage depots and tank farms, harbors, freight yar- freight yards, and marketing outlets from one end of the vast Russian Empire to the other, and then across the European continent. Ludwig's father before him pioneered development of underwater mines, designed steam engines to power Russian ships, and installed the first central heating systems to warm Russian homes. Ludwig's son after him launched the world's first diesel-driven tugboats and tankers while bargaining with the Rothschilds and struggling against the Royal Dutch Shell company and bartering with Standard Oil.

2. 5:49 – 7:04

   Ludwig's Achievements and the Legacy of Poverty

   1. DSDavid Senra5:49

      Okay, so keep that in mind. This entire conversation's gonna center around Ludwig. I gotta tell you about his father and the fact that they grew up in poverty. I read Alfred Nobel's biography a long time ago. It was probably three, four years ago. It's episode 163. There's a line in there, because you're gonna understand that Immanuel Nobel, the founder of this dynasty, the patriarch of the family, spent essentially decades in poverty. In fact, there's a line... The reason I bring this up is because in Alfred Nobel's biography, it says that he never forgot poverty, and he never forgot poverty even after he was one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Keep in mind, this guy lived in the 1800s, and so there's a line in his biography that's, that's nuts where he asked somebody what they wish as a wedding present, and the young woman replied, "I want, uh, as m- uh, w- my wedding gift should be what you earn in one day." And Nobel, who's usually tight with money, actually agreed, and he wrote her a check. His, his daily earning for himself was $110,000 a day in the 1800s. And so this poverty that his, his dad's really an inventor. We're gonna talk a lot about this today. It's like, it's not enough to just be an inventor. You also have to be a skilled entrepreneur, which his, th- his dad wasn't, but his sons definitely were.

3. 7:04 – 11:07

   Immanuel's Bankruptcy and the Role of His Wife

   1. DSDavid Senra7:04

      And so this is... We're gonna go right into Immanuel's life. It says, "Only his marriage brought him some measure of success." And it talks about the role that his wife and then the mother of Ludwig and Alfred, just how important she was to the family's success. "Her patience, endurance, even her faith in her husband were sorely tested during those first years of marriage as one after another of Immanuel's dreams turned into nightmares. They moved from house to house on the outskirts of Stockholm, needing but not being able to afford larger quarters for their growing family. Alfred was born just 10 months after his father had declared bankruptcy." Nobel's wife was the strong, supportive pillar upon which he's gonna build his business. This reminded me of when I read the, uh, the autobiography of the founder of Four Seasons, Isadore Sharp. There is a bunch of times where his wife is kinda comment- adding commentary to the book about what it was like, not Four Seasons now, but when Four Seasons w- was just an idea in her husband's brain. She talks about the fact that she saw him stru- stressed. She saw him lying awake in the middle of the night, and she said, she said th- something that was very f- very, uh, I think profound. She said, "My vos- my most valuable contribution to his success has been my silence." What does that mean? This is what she, she says in his autobiography. "Early on, he made some audacious statements that sounded like pipe dreams. He told me once that his aim was to make the name Four Seasons a worldwide brand synonymous with luxury like Rolls-Royce. Sure, I thought, with only about 10 hotels, hardly likely, but I didn't let on. My most valuable contribution to his success has been my silence." And I think she's picking up on, on a very important idea. Entrepreneurs are gonna get enough doubt from the external world. They can't have it when they come home. They can't have it with the most important relationship they have in their life, and you see that just like Isadore Sharp's wife understood that, Immanuel Nobel's wife also understood that. "The previous year, a fire had destroyed most of their home and possessions. Immanuel, still faced with debts from his abandoned building projects, saw no alternative to the humiliation of declaring himself bankrupt, but he refused to be discouraged or defeated. He was determined to find practical applications for some of those ideas that never stopped swirling in his head." And so not only is he inventive, but he's also very persuasive, so he's able to raise money multiple times even after multiple failures. And so he starts setting up, and he does these exper- experiments with subsurface charges of gunpowder to destroy an enemy under- on land or on sea. What he is thinking about becomes underwater and underground mines. This is really important because it's going to lead directly to some experiments that his son does which builds the empire and the monopoly that he built around dynamite. It says, "It was the beginning of the Nobel family's fascination with explosives." So Immanuel is Swedish. He's trying to sell his invention to the Swedish military. A main theme of the book is the fact that for a very long time, there's been a huge number of Swedish immigrants into Russia, and it is during this next generation of the Nobel family that the Swedish actually build the Russian oil industry. And so here's a little bit about the troubles that he's having. "In Sweden of the 1830s, Immanuel was alone in recognizing the value of this new weapon. Financial security continued to elude him. Creditors continued to hound him." Now they're gonna describe Sweden at this time. "In an agricultural country in which poverty was thought to be a national characteristic, Immanuel was, was beginning to believe that he would not have the chance to make the kinds of success he felt he could with the proper opportunities. His frustration was not a unique phenomenon in Stockholm at the time, but Immanuel was never one to let frustration block his path or force him to resign and accept his fate. When he met a visiting Russian emissary at a party in Stockholm, he was suddenly confronted by a crossroads, another new arena to seek fame and fortune."

4. 11:07 – 14:47

   Immanuel's Gamble: Leaving for Russia

   1. DSDavid Senra11:07

      Now remember that line, "Alfred Nobel never forgot poverty." "The decision was as difficult as any Immanuel would ever make, for he had to leave Andrietta," that's his wife, "and their three sons behind." Can you imagine? Put yourself in his shoes. You are 36 years old. You have a wife. You have three sons. You are bankrupt. You are in debt. You have no track record that, to indicate that you are capable of having, bringing a successful, uh, you, you invent a lot, but you've, you have no track record to show that you can actually bring successfully one of your inventions to market, and you get on a boat, and you wave goodbye to your family, not sure when you're gonna see them again. So he first goes to Finland, then he goes to Russia, and so this idea of Swedes seeking fortune in Russia was not new. This is [laughs] There's a great, uh, paragraph I gotta read to you about the stuff going on during Peter the Great. It says, "From the time of the Vikings to the time of the Nobels, there were thousands of Swedes who in an endless repetition of war and commerce fought plundered, traded, and settled in Russia. Swedish technicians were emplo- plo- employed by the czars. Swedish metalworkers and gunsmiths laid the foundations of a weapons industry. A Swede established the first glassworks. Swedish prisoners of war were used by Peter the Great to cut a three-mile path through the forest for his great boulevard in the heart of his new city. Swedes seeking fortune in Russia was not new. And this massive risk that Immanuel took, which is gonna change the trajectory of his descendants' lives forever, wind up working out because the Swedish military was not interested in Immanuel's undersea mines, but the Russians were enthusiastic. So I'm gonna skip over a, a big part here. Um, he does a demonstration, and this is what I mean about [laughs] how enthusiastic the Russian military was. The mine exploded when it was struck by a small boat. The general was ecstatic. He rushed over to Nobel and kissed him, and then started to dance. The general had been under considerable pressure to find a successful underwater mine, which Nobel's the first person to invent. This is September 1840. He is 39 years old. This is a remarkable description. It was the first sizable subsidy Immanuel had ever received, and he uses that money to establish a factory. Two years later, he's making enough money to actually send for his family. Can you imagine? As... I could not imagine being away from my kids and my wife for this long. It's incredible. For the first time in his life, he enjoyed a certain prosperity, a comforting and encouraging feeling of success. In the summer of 1842, he sent for his family. Now, this is wild. He was gone for five years, okay? During his five-year absence, his wife and her, and his three sons had scraped out a simple existence that at times bordered on poverty. Their only source of income came from a little milk and vegetable store that she operated. The boys... Now check this out. This is wild. The boys, Robert and Ludwig, so Robert's the older brother, Ludwig's the middle, and Alfred's the youngest, okay? Robert and Lugwit- Ludwig, to survive, had to sell matches on the streets of Stockholm. Now, how crazy is that? A couple, uh, episodes ago, on episode 348, I covered the book The Match King, which is about the founder of the Swedish Match Company, which still exists to this day, by the way. And we see in this story the early days of what's gonna turn into the Nobel Family dynasty sustained by their young kids. I mean, these are young kids. They're probably seven, eight years old at the time, selling matches on street corners in Stockholm.

5. 14:47 – 18:27

   Immanuel's Rise, Education of His Sons, and Second Bankruptcy

   1. DSDavid Senra14:47

      And so once he has his family back together and he has all of his sons in Russia, he does a, a, a brilliant thing. This is the phenomenal education that he sets up for his sons. He says they were instructed solely by tutors, Robert and Ludwig primarily in engineering, Alfred in chemistry, which is hilarious because you could think of Ludwig as an engineer and Alfred's empire is gonna be in chemistry, and all three in Swedish, Russian, German, French, and English. They were also put to work in the factory, moving from one position to another, learning the business of running a business. That is a great line. Learning the business of running a business, acquiring from direct on-the-job exposure practical lessons in the problems and challenges of management, execution, and administration. Now, Immanuel is going to have about a 20-year period of relative prosperity before he goes bankrupt again. How could that possibly happen? There's two issues here. He's much more of an inventor, not an entrepreneur. He has two really big mistakes. One, he's got one customer, which we'll get to in a minute, and two, he doesn't have the financial discipline that his son Alfred will have. He expands too fast. He's not conservative. He's not really paying attention to his costs. Alfred was probably the most gifted entrepreneur of the family, and so his dad didn't have that. But his dad did have a lot of success inventing and producing. And so in addition to the success of his underwater mines, he's also manufacturing marine engines, and then he's steadily expanding the factory until it had about 1,000 employees. His reputation as an inventor and one of Russia's leading engineers and industrialists were all striking indications of Immanuel's success, the ultimate rewards for his diligence, his persistence, and his genius. Despite the achievements and the recognition, Immanuel was not in a secure financial position. His entire business depended on the contracts that he was getting from Nicholas, the tsar at the time. Nicholas is gonna die. The new tsar takes over. This is Alexander II. And suddenly, those contracts, those promises mean nothing. There's a, I think it was the Navy SEALs that said, "Two is one, one is none." You cannot only have one customer. Your business cannot depend on a single customer. The many pledges of contracts made to Immanuel by the ministers of Nicholas were ignored by the ministers of Alexander. His pleas and protests that he had expanded his payroll and factory in order to honor those contracts went unheeded. By 1857, he had a surplus of labor, a surplus of supplies, and no orders. For Immanuel, the decline was a disaster. Without his government contract, he could not keep the factory running. There was also the problem of Immanuel himself. This is what I mentioned earlier. He's less of a businessman and factory director than he was an inventor. He was simply not the man to manage an enterprise that had grown to the si- to the size, and his tremendous talents lay in fields other than management. He was more inventor than entrepreneur. His two sons will be both. And this had to happen. I think this leads directly to their success 'cause they are capable of learning from their father's mistake. Robert, Ludwig, and Alfred would never forget the bitter lessons of their father's failure. For Immanuel, then 58, there would not be another chance. It was all over. 22 years after he'd sailed from Stockholm as a bankrupt man, he returned again bankrupt. But what I love about him is he's relentlessly optimistic, and he has faith in his sons. So he says his dreams are going to have to be realized by the next generation of Nobels, and he was not pessimistic about that next generation. This is what he said "If my sons work harmos- harmon- harmoniously and carry on the work that I have begun, I believe that they will never want for their daily bread, for there is still much to be done here in Russia."

6. 18:27 – 23:44

   Ludwig Learns and Surfs the Wave of Industrialization

   1. DSDavid Senra18:27

      So it is shortly after this where Ludwig opens his own factory. And so something that's been implanted, or I guess a habit that's implanted in my mind from Charlie Munger, is like when you're analyzing somebody's business success, you try to look for waves that they were able to surf. And so Ludwig is actually gonna surf, uh, th- this idea of surfing is in Poor Charlie's Almanac. I think I covered it back on episode 329. But Ludwig's gonna surf a change, and there are gonna be beneficial government policies from the government of Russia, and then this explosion in population growth and new industry development. Essentially, an industrial revolution comes to Russia at the time. And so it says, "Ludwig took full advantage of the recent reversals in government policy. In contrast to Emanuel's last years in Russia, the ministries," the war ministries that is, w- it's insane. I think we're gonna get to it, but I think more than a third of Russia's budget at the time went to military. Uh, "The ministries were once again beginning to encourage domestic manufacturing. The greatest stimulant to this new industrial initiative was the Emancipation Act of 1861," which was the liberation of 40 million Russian peasants that are now flocking from the countryside into these new s- like city centers, and then the, the, the areas that are springing up against these g- around these giant factories. All these people are coming to the cities, and they need jobs. And so within 20 years, there's gonna be 250 new factories that pop up. They said they call this a belated awakening to the opportunities of the Industrial Revolution. So he's going to start making weapons and things that support weapons. So he start makes- making cast iron artillery shells, and then gun carriages, which he gets r- I think he builds the best gun carriage in the world. So a gun carriage plays the same role that like a carriage does for a human. A carriage carries a human. This is a carriage that covers this giant piece of artillery. The thing that would pop to mind is if you think about like a Civil War cannon, they're usually on like two big wheels, and you kind of pick it up and move it to a different spot. That, what, what allows that, uh, cannon to move is a gun carriage. That is what, um, what Ludwig's making. He's also gonna make rifles and rifle stocks for the Russian military, which inadvertently or accidentally leads to his discovery of this giant and brand-new indus- oil industry inside of Russia. We'll get there in one second. But this is the important thing. I always say learning is not just memorizing information. Learning is changing your behavior. He is changing. He's actually learned from his father. He is changing his behavior. More than a third of the state budget went to the military. But Ludwig was careful to avoid total dependence on such contracts and to re- or to rely on the spoken or even written word of government ministries. He had no intention of repeating his father's costly mistake. So Ludwig's factory becomes the country's largest manufacturer of gun carriages, rifles, and here's what happened. He's, he's expanding so rapidly, he cannot find the talent. So this idea that he keeps having to import Swedish talent to build the Russian manufacturing and weapons industry, and then he's gonna do the same to build the oil industry, is something that pops up over and over again in the book. So it says, "The task of finding talent was just as difficult for Ludwig as it had been for his father, and the solution for both men was to recruit as many Swedes and Finns as were willing to work in Petersburg. As factory orders increased, so did the size of the factory and the number of workers. This meant additional Swedes, Finns, and an occasional Norwegian on the payroll." And another phenomenon that he is surfing is the fact that the, the entire continent, the entire European continent, was engaged in a giant arms race. So keep in mind, this is two years after the American Civil War. So he's got this very successful and expanding manufacturing business, and he's got all these factories. Where did he get the money to do this? His dad was bankrupt. They were not a rich family yet. And this is another example of this maxim that I just see over and over again in the biographies, that relationships run the world. So not only the contracts are coming from relationships that he had and friendships that he had, but also the financing. So there's a captain in the artillery, this guy named Bildering. He had been a close friend of Ludwig's. He needs 200,000 rifles, and so he goes to the war ministry and he says, "Hey, Ludwig should be the one that ma- that makes this for us." Another one of his friends, and this guy was also friends with his dads, was one of the people that made this, was influential making this actual decision, like being an actual decision-maker for this. This guy's name is Carl. I'm not even gonna try to pronounce his last name. So it says, "It is undoubtedly to Ludwig's benefit that one of his best, oldest, and truest friends was in a key position to influence the decision. Carl was the liaison officer once assigned to Emanuel, his father. He was also the chief inspector for the rifle and ammunition factories. He had previously had served as the head of armories and lieutenant general." Carl is also the person that arranged the financing for Ludwig. So it says, "In the early 1870s, Carl had loaned Ludwig his securities," his Carl securities, "to use as collateral for bank loans to expand the factory. Ludwig had to pay 5% interest for the securities and 6% on the borrowed cash, but these were bargain rates in a country where bank loans were not easily procured. Such support, relationship, and encouragement was a most valuable asset for Ludwig's industrial enterprises."

7. 23:44 – 28:21

   Ludwig as Employer and Quality-Obsessed Controller

   1. DSDavid Senra23:44

      So I already said Ludwig is the most fascinating character in this entire book, and there's a ton of interesting characters in the book. And not only is, you know, he's a great, uh, manufacturing genius, he's a great entrepreneur, but he also, it always is capable of like thinking for himself and making his own decisions. And he, he was one of the, uh, had the best reputation, I think in all of Russia, for actually giving a shit about the well-being of his employees at a time when that was just unheard of. In many cases, I'm gonna get to this, th- they talked about, well, I guess Ludwig is the first person, or one of the first peop- people to realize increased care of your employees actually in- leads to increased productivity. And it's describing, like, the, the, you know, all these people are coming in from the countryside. Sometimes they're emigrating from other countries. They're working in, you know, inhospitable, uh, factory environments. And they said that cattle, in many cases, would've resisted the cramped quarters that they put humans in. And so Ludwig innovates in every single aspect of his business. I, I don't think I've brought this up yet, and I should have from the very beginning, so I apologize. What's fascinating to me is, is Ludwig and Alfred, they're gonna have this dual success at almost the exact same time, different industries. They have wildly different approaches. Alfred is like a delegator. He has essentially a monopoly. Ludwig is operating in an intense, uh, intensely competitive industry, and he does everything himself. But again, I think this is just one of the greatest things that you, you learn from reading all these biographies of entrepreneurs is, like, there's not one path. And now reading about both of them and their personalities is, like, it's very obvious that they built businesses authentic to their true selves. So, uh, I should've said at the beginning, but keep that in mind. I'm gonna go into what he did for his employees, and at this time, there's- nobody was doing this. "Ludwig made certain that his workers' accommodations were adequate and well-maintained. He built new housing. He encouraged them to save a portion of their wages and established savings banks for his employees. He regularly added substantial sums from his own profits into the employee bank. He refused to employ children. He reduced the workday from the usual 14 hours to 10 and a half hours, and instituted the first profit-sharing plan in Russia. He also started a series of free educational courses for his workers. Decades before the business world discovered that overall efficiency and productivity are promoted by a generous and concerned attitude towards employees, Ludwig Nobel was doing it." And then the description of just this remarkable inventor and entrepreneur and genius that Ludwig was, there's a million things that he's gonna, different things that he's gonna work on. But I wanna go back to this idea. It's really important. Learning from mistakes is changing your behavior, right? So he realizes, "We need a bunch of just consumer products. We can't just rely on the military." And so at the time, you have carriage drivers. You know, these are horse-drawn carriages. The roads in Russia shouldn't even be called roads. It was hilarious. They said that the coach... The, the roads were so bad in this area where they are that the coach drivers would sit sideways with their laying, legs hanging off the carriage so they could jump off easily when they were get, when they hit the inevitable, like, giant hole in the roll, in the road. So Ludwig makes the Nobel wheel, this carriage wheel that can actually withstand and not break, and the result was a monopoly on the market. This is also gonna tie to this idea that the Nobel family had excessively high standards, and as a result, over time, they were able to build this incredible brand based on quality. The Nobel name may, meant something. They're, in fact, later on, as they dominate the, the Russian oil industry, you know, they talk about their employees were proud. They wore the fact that they were Nobelites, that they worked for the Nobel family as a badge of honor 'cause that meant they were the best. Now, I need to... The reason I'm also telling you this is because, one, he's learning from his father, but two, this is, like, Ludwig's MO for everything. He wants to control everything from the invention, to the manufacturing, to the sales, to everything. And so they invent the wheel, they manufacture it, then they set up all the sales organizations all over, like all over Russia. "Recruitment of the sales force, establishment of the sales districts, the administrative and financial direction all were planned and implemented in Ludwig's office." This goes back to he's much more of, like, a micromanager involved in every single detail like a, more like a Steve Jobs and a Walt Disney than his brother Alfred Nobel, which I'll get to. "He was interested in these administrative details as he was in engineering, design, and processes of manufacturing. A fanatic for work, he was constantly in the plant to check on the operation of some machine he had designed, to supervise installation, to oversee repair. There was no facet of production or distribution or direction that escaped his attention. He had demonstrated that whatever was produced in the Nobel factory was worthy of comparison with any competing product from abroad."

8. 28:21 – 31:16

   Alfred's Dynamite and Financial Discipline

   1. DSDavid Senra28:21

      So that is an overview and an introduction into Ludwig. We will return to him in a second. I need to get to Alfred 'cause the brothers are constantly involved in each other's businesses. There's so many letters between the brothers. I wish there was some kind of book where you could just see their correspondence back and forth. Considering that the Bolsheviks invade and kind of take over everything, um, I bet you a lot of that correspondence was, uh, destroyed, but it's, it's just fascinating. So let's get to Alfred. This is such a fascinating family. There, there's twin success. The s- twin success of Ludwig and Alfred are happening at the exact same time. So by the time that Ludwig's gonna start building in the oil industry, by that time, Alfred already had a dozen dynamite factories all over the globe. And how that came to be was fascinating because he got the idea from his former chemistry tutor. Remember going back to what I said about what his father did that was so brilliant for his sons? That he's like, "We're gonna hire tutors. You know, that you guys are gonna study engineering. You're gonna do chemistry. You're gonna learn all these languages." So his former chemistry tutor, tutor had told Immanuel, his father, okay, about these Italian experiments with nitroglycerin. That's gonna be the active ingredient in dynamite when, when Alfred, uh, tames this. And had recommended it for use in making more powerful land and sea mines. Immanuel had no time for such research, but his son Alfred did. And this is what I mean about how the family's constantly supporting them. When Alfred is doing his demonstrations, the first time he successfully detonates what's gonna turn into dynamite, his brothers Robert and Ludwig are there observing. And then this next sentence is something that's really important. It's not the first person to invent something that gets rich. It's the first person to match that invention and build a phenomenal business around that invention. "Alfred was not the first to experiment with nitroglycerin, but he was the first to combine successful experimentation with a genius for business organization and financial management." I double underline financial management. He is probably the shrewdest person in his entire family when it comes to managing the money, watching the costs of the business. He was Very conservative. He did not want to expand faster if it meant putting the s- survival of his business at risk. What did Steve Jobs tell us a few weeks ago? Victory in our industry is spelled survival. All the money is in the future. Do not interrupt the compounding, and the way to interrupt the compounding is if you over-optimize for growth at the expense of durability. The other book that I'm reading this week starts out, I'll give you a, a little sneak peek, 1,000 square foot store into a $40 billion company. It starts 60 years ago. They did, like, $8 billion of revenue last year. The inability to build a durable business would have foreclosed that opportunity, that $8 billion a year opportunity that's 60 years into the future, that opportunity that most humans are incapable of seizing.

9. 31:16 – 34:48

   Robert's Pivot to Baku Oil

   1. DSDavid Senra31:16

      So now I'm gonna introduce the third brother, Robert. Robert is the older brother. He is, in this family, like the underachiever. Yet a single spur of the moment decision changes the trajectory of the entire family. It could've been easy to be the older brother because the standard set by... He's got two younger brothers that are complete overachievers. It says, "The standard set by two such overachieving brothers would be hard for anyone to match." And so Robert is working for Ludwig. Ludwig is making all these rifles and rifle stocks for the Russian military. He's like, "Hey, can you travel to this section over here?" Because they're known to have phenomenal, uh, supplies of, like, walnut wood. And Ludwig gives Robert 25,000 rubles to buy up the whole stock of walnut wood. Robert is going to travel to this place called Baku. Baku is gonna be where they build the g- their giant oil company. So we can call this section Robert's Pivot. In all his travels, he had never seen anything like Baku, and in all his dreams for personal enrichment, he had never seen greater potential. There were parcels of oil-rich land in Baku, along with a small refinery. So he goes, he's like, "I'm not buying your walnut wood. I want your refinery." His offer was the walnut money, all 25,000 rubles of it. A sudden decision taken without consultation with either Ludwig, after all, it was Ludwig's money, or Alfred, the family expert, expert in matters of finance and investment. When he returned to Petersburg, he would have to convince his brother that he had found a much better investment for the money than rifle stocks. And this is the remarkable thing about business. You only have to be right once. Up until this point, Robert had failed repeatedly. He just needed to wait until he found the right opportunity. So it says, "His two brothers looked upon this scheme with as much enthusiasm as they had viewed Robert's other projects. First it was fireproof bricks, then kerosene, iron, glycerin, and now petroleum. What next?" But here is one of the most important things in this book. Robert had an innate talent for this opportunity, and they're gonna target a market full of second-rate talent, second-rate competition. And what he realized is, like, these refineries, these are y- yokels. They don't know what they're doing. And we're at the very beginning of a giant oil industry. So Robert is also a very good chemist. In fa- in f- in fact, Alfred, who's, uh, who hired some of the best chemists in the world, said that his brother was a very good chemist. And so in a short time, Robert was able to suggest improved methods of refining the crude oil that's coming out of this Baku, Baku re- region in Russia, to produce higher grade kerosene than was the norm for his, for the competitive refineries. And they can combine the f- the talents that the family had, the fact that they w- could build very sophisticated manufacturing facilities. And so very sh- very quickly, Robert's modernized refinery produced the highest quality kerosene that had ever come out of Russia, where the usual product was then known as Baku sludge. It was unquestionably one of the be- w- was the best of the 140 refineries crammed in this town of Baku. Listen to this, going back to this main theme. It was an all Swedish operation. The main chemist was Swedish. The engineer and production ch- chief was Swedish. The machine shop foreman was Swedish. And in two short years, they were achieving what in later years would be expected of anyone associated with the Nobel company. Producing the most reliable product, establishing new standards, setting a pace which others had to follow, providing goals and guidelines in all phases of a new industry.

10. 34:48 – 42:21

    Ludwig Builds the Oil Industry: Tankers, Pipelines and Struggle

    1. DSDavid Senra34:48

       So Ludwig is about to move his attention into this brand new, uh, oil industry that's springing up in Baku. I need to tell you what Baku was like at the beginning, and w- the, the contrast of what Ludwig's gonna impose. Very similar to what, you know, Rockefeller did. There's a reason they're called the Russian Rockefellers. He's, you know, he essentially found this very chaotic, uh, brand new industry, and he imposed order and his, his will and order on it. So it says, "It was a raw, merciless, and often barbaric society ruled by an adventurous frontier spirit and dominated by greed and the insatiable search for riches, typical of a gold rush mentality. There was a proverb among Russian businessmen that whoever lives a year among the oil owners of Baku can never again be civilized." Which is the perfect opportunity for someone like Ludwig. The time, the place, the setting were ideal for Ludwig's particular genius. When Ludwig Nobel entered Baku in the spring of 1876, a man with vision had arrived. It was the real beginning of the oil industry. Every phase of the business would have to be examined. Every area rationalized, improved, and modernized. So there's a ton of detail, but I just wanna pull out two sentences because this is one of the best things if you can find yourself in a situation where you're j- you've, you're attacking a market full of second-rate competition and second-rate talent, which is exactly what Ludwig is doing. He has these ideas for oth- He shares ideas with all the, quote-unquote, "competitors" in his field. Obviously, you're gonna have to have some kind of organization in the early oil. He realized, just like Rockefeller did. And they're just like, "Nope." Like, they're at the very beginning. They don't know what the hell they're doing. They're lo- they're producing a low-quality product, and they're just not interested in change. Says, "Others were simply not interested in any new idea. They had a complete lack of enterprise." So what, what he would do is obviously he's not looking around. Like, "Oh, I wonder if this is a good idea. No one else is doing it. I guess I won't do it." He's like, "No, I believe the idea is rational. It should happen." So he'll just go and build it, and then people try to imitate him, and they, they're just not as talented as he is. The competition then started to build their own pipelines, frequently failing to match Nobel's standards and erecting a maze of jerry-built, leaking, and ill-fitting pipes. And then one thing that Ludwig does is he's constantly inventing. He's leading the way in his industry. He's the first... Th- think about how crazy, how much f- how many other fortunes after this are built off of oil tankers and supertankers, like Daniel Ludwig, like Aristotle Onassis. Ludwig is the one that invented the oil tanker, and it's, it was just very common sense. Listen to his approach. If it could be transported in bulk, meaning oil, carried from one harbor to another in large tank, Ludwig believed that the product would com- could compete with more traditional sources of fuel. There had to be a fast, reliable economic means of moving lakes of oil. The size of this industry is nuts, which I'll get to. That, that, that description, lakes of oil, is not hyperbolic. This is Ludwig's thinking, right? He's like, "There has to be a fast, reliable economic mean, means of moving lakes of oil from the isolated regions where it's readily available to the heavily populated centers where it's in demand." This invention is going to be later described as the most important fact in the entire history of the petroleum industry. That is nuts. When you think about it, the petroleum industry may be the world's most valuable industry that's ever been created. So Ludwig argues the facts of his case. Very rational person. The standard oil barrel weighs 64 pounds. That's 20% of the oil that it can hold, which means that a fifth of any cargo of a barrel of oil consisted of wood that could only be shipped one way, 'cause you're not shipping empty oil barrels back the other way. Ludwig's arguments were as logical and persuasive as they seemed to him, failed to sway the opposition. This is what I mean. This is just second-rate competition. Why? Because they're just mimic- they're just copying. They can, they're in- they're incapable of independent thought. There was absolutely no support for the scheme. It was too great a risk because it had never been done before. And then his personality, very different than Alfred's, who's gonna essentially have a technical monopoly. It says, "Ludwig made no effort to keep secret any part of his designs, and he rejected the pleas of his associates and shareholders that he take out patents. He did not wish to profit in that manner to restrict dissemination of ideas that could benefit the entire industry." This is incredible. Okay? So, you know, they're, they're small when he starts doing this, and then, th- keep in mind, this book is from 1976. Okay? So it's even bigger and more developed now. But the main theme of what I'm about to tell you is a good idea, this is a note I left myself, a good idea not abandoned will always grow larger than expected. And so they talk about the fact that, you know, he, his first oil tanker's smaller, and then he just realizes, like, "Oh, we can keep getting these bigger and bigger and bigger," until the size of tankers increased to levels never dreamed of, with captains of the ship having to use bicycles to move from one end of the ship to the other. A good idea not abandoned will always grow larger than expected. And so when I'm gonna read this overview of this phenomenal business that Ludwig built, and a description of Ludwig himself, you'll see why he was my favorite character in this entire book. Ludwig Nobel's tanker fleet was the most dramatic innovation in the Russian petroleum industry of the 1870s. But it was only part of the general transportation and distribution system which he conceived and organized. Pipelines to carry the raw oil from field to refinery, and the finished product to dockside. Tankers to carry that product 600 miles north. Smaller tank barges for transshipment. Barges for moving the oil up the mighty river. Railroad tank cars and barges carrying the oil from all corn- or to all corners of the empire. Retail distribution centers in every major area of population. A labor force of thousands from field to consumer, drilling for oil, building barges, fitting pipe, refining kerosene, repairing tank cars and ships, peddling the products. This was Ludwig Nobel's empire within the Russian Empire. He created it in 10 years. From well to wick, it was all Nobel. It was the achievement of an individual who thoroughly dominated all aspects of an industry which he was literally creating as he went along. He was president, chief engineer, sales manager, an entire research and development department, chairman of the board, and market analyst. An incomparable, insatiable overachiever. His deeds in Russia were without parallel. Absolutely incredible. You know what also is incredible? Human nature. Human nature is just funny to me. Even after he's done all this, he, he sh- tries to share ideas throughout his industry, and he always receives, not always, a, a alarmingly number amount of times, negative responses. And he said the best thing. He's like, "Well, the only thing you do when you receive a negative response is you take out a pen and paper, and you do it yourself." This guy's optimism, this, his mentality, I've just, I absolutely loved it. This is a great quote of his on struggle. Opposition never really bothered Ludwig, never really impeded his progress or diminished his determination. This is what he said. "An industrial undertaking, properly managed and well-organized, involves constant struggle. Its success is dependent upon foresight, perseverance, industry, and economy. Struggle is to be expected." Ludwig was accustomed to making his own decisions, traveling his own road, and he was certainly used to opposition.

11. 42:21 – 45:48

    Ludwig Versus Alfred: Two Authentic Approaches

    1. DSDavid Senra42:21

       Okay, so now I wanna go back to this idea I mentioned earlier that I think is really beneficial, the idea that y- the, the twin successes of Ludwig and Alfred are happening at the exact same times. They are operating different industries. They have different personalities. They have different ways of approaching their business, yet at the time this is taking place, they're two of the most successful and richest entrepreneurs on the planet. And so this goes on for a few pages. I just wanna compare and contrast them. 'cause I love this idea. Again, there's no formula. Just do whatever is, uh, authentic to you. "Self-sufficient, independent, with a devotion to work and a reliance on its routine, the Swedes demand a high level of order in that work." So they both share this, okay? "A sense of purpose and perspective in their own rational civilization. For the Nobels, their boyhood of poverty strengthened that motivation. 'He who does not work need not eat,' declared Ludwig." And so their father is going to weigh in on what he thought were the, the difference between his sons. "Emanuel believed that it was Alfred who demonstrated the greatest industry, but Ludwig the greatest genius. For Alfred, his rule was never to do myself what another could do better, or at any rate as well." He wanted to delegate everything possible. "Alfred Nobel was certain that if you do everything yourself in a very large concern," which concern at this time in history, it's just a business, okay? In a very large business, "the result will be that nothing will be done properly, and whoever tries to do it all himself will be worn out in body and soul and ruined." That is Alfred's perspective. Let's go to Ludwig. And Alfred, Alfred was a very, like, s- morose man. I don't know if you'd wanna be, like, friends with him. Ludwig drew people in. He was very charismatic. "Ludwig was not a person easily forgotten, even after the briefest encounter. He was, in the words of his closest collaborators, a personality in the fullest sense of the word. He dominated every audience. He revealed at once an inner clarity of purpose and deep concentration of power. Alfred preferred to be aloof from his employees. Ludwig's home was in front of his factory. Ludwig spent many hours with his engineers and draftsmen, his factory foremen, and his section chiefs." I don't think Alfred ever had kids. Ludwig had 18. 11 of the 18 survived infancy. Ludwig was at heart an optimist and hopeful about mankind, as hopeful about mankind as he was about his own capabilities and career. Alfred, more pessimistic and definitely had a cynical view of his fellow man. What they had in common was that Ludwig and Alfred both pushed themselves at such a pace that physical exhaustion probably would have overcome far heartier types. Alfred was more interested in the financial aspects of business. Ludwig regarded financial speculation as a refuge for those who were too lazy to work. Ludwig competed in a heavily competitive market. Alfred essentially had a monopoly. "These were alien considerations to the man whose own industrial empire was based on a product that he alone controlled. He alone determined the quant- quantity of dynamite to release onto the market. He alone decided which plants in which country should ch- uh, should charge what price. Competition was of little to no concern to him, and he could run his business from a hotel room in any country he chose." Alfred delegated. Ludwig was an entrepreneur who was never content to delegate, to merely invest, but who always insisted on becoming personally and totally committed.

12. 45:48 – 50:32

    Standard Oil, the Rothschilds, and the Scale of Baku Oil

    1. DSDavid Senra45:48

       So Ludwig is going to die relatively early. He's going to die at 57. We're not there yet. There is going to be this, like, triarchy is the way I described it, and maybe I've just been watching too much Game of Thrones. But the triarchy of the Russian oil industry at this time, once they see the success that the Nobel family had, is Standard Oil comes in, and then the Rothschilds are also financing and trying to break. The Rothschilds actually finance and develop, uh, the second-largest, what's gonna wind up being the second-largest, uh, Russian oil company. And so they're gonna be a major headache for the Nobels for the next two generations. And so this war between them is gonna be known as Europe's second 30 Year War between Standard, it's gonna be Dutch Royal Shell, the Rothschilds, and then the Nobel family. But I do wanna point out a very fascinating idea where it's like, well, outside success attracts a lot of attention, and in, as in turn is gonna atta- uh, attract a lot of competition. And so the one place on the planet at which Rockefeller and Standard Oil are not dominating is in Russia. And so they have... They, th- there's a series of attacks, but this is a great description of what was happening, 'cause the, the Nobel family is producing just so much oil at this point. "In late November, Standard Oil cut prices. Rockefeller already controlled more than 90% of all American oil exports and was the domineering force in all world markets except Russia." But the pr- this is such a great line. This is why I'm reading this section to you. "But the price of monopoly is eternal aggression. The price of monopoly is eternal aggression, and when the Americans saw Nobel's sudden and successful invasion of their markets, they quickly counterattacked." And then once you understand the scale, just mind-boggling, brain-breaking scale of the Russian oil industry at this time, it makes sense why, you know, Standard Oil and Rockefeller were not gonna ignore them, and they were gonna try to fight. This is insane, okay? One Nobel oil well, a single one, gushed over 11,000 tons of oil a day. That is more than the total oil flowing from all 25,000 wells in the United States at that time. These gushers would come out sometimes so fast and unexpectedly that they would shoot a stream of oil that's 225 feet straight up into the sky. That stream of oil would then be carried by, uh, winds. A mile and a half away, you'd have entire towns which would, their, the outside of their houses would be drenched in oil from these gushers. And just like you and I have talked about in the past of, like, the t- I've done a few episodes. Uh, I, I did this book called The Big Rich and another book called Wildcatters about the, the s- the first and second oil revolutions in Texas. And what I love about reading about oil is it, it just, it draws the craziest characters. So there's a guy, this 6'3" giant of a peasant, okay? He worked as a servant in the Baku office of one of the tsar's local military representatives. He saved some of his meager earnings from his paycheck. He buys a small vineyard on the outskirts of town. Under the grapes that he thought he was buying just happened to be lakes of oil. By the turn of the century, that peasant, that giant peasant, became a, became a man of fabulous wealth and fabulous extravagances. His son inherits the wealth, and he becomes Russia's greatest gambler, a collector of paintings, racehorses, and beautiful women. He would throw parties that look like from out of the pages of Arabian Nights. He would swagger across Europe, keeping a large entourage, and then growing enormously fat with his movable feast and his permanent luxuries. One of these people that turn from peasant to unbelievably rich, they spend their money on hilarious things, and one of them built this giant palace. In the beginning, it's, it's shaped like a dragon, and to get into the palace, you have to actually go through the entrance. [laughs] It's the dragon's jaws. I wish they had a picture of it, 'cause it sounded amazing. But Ludwig was very different from this. They were obviously very wealthy, but they didn't waste their time, you know, just throwing parties. He liked to work. Ludwig liked to work, and he was very proud that he was considered one of the very few. Uh, they, they considered, like, the, the Baku oil industry completely dishonest. And so it says, "Ludwig was proud of his own particular guarantee th- and that of his company. 'If you can find in Baku any man who can prove that we've been dishonest, that we cheat or refuse to redress any substantial grievances, we will face inquiry in your presence, and if guilty, make amends.'" From every report in this book, Ludwig was a great man, and unfortunately, he had severe health issues. He had, uh, issues with his lungs. He had heart disease, and at the early age of 57 years old, his heart fails, and he dies.

13. 50:32 – 52:27

    Emanuel Saves the Nobel Prize

    1. DSDavid Senra50:32

       Now, the business turns over to his son, Emanuel. A few years later, after Ludwig's death, both other brothers, Robert and then Alfred Nobel, also die. Now, Emanuel's life story is also incredib- incredible, because he's gonna be one of the wealthiest people in Russia, and he's the one that has to dress up as a peasant and leave, okay? That's gonna happen about 15 years into the future. But he's also remarkable because if it wasn't for Emanuel, there'd be no Nobel Prize. He's the one, Emanuel's the one, so this is Ludwig's son, Alfred Nobel's nephew. He is the one that saves the Nobel Prize, because other people in the Nobel family wanted Alfred Nobel's will overturned. They wanted their, his gigantic fortune. And so you have kids of the other brothers that are doing everything in their power to try to void Alfred's will and keep that fortune in the family. And so one of the lines in here, uh, is kind of humorous, 'cause one side of the family does not have the financial security that the other Nobels did. These are Robert's kids. And it says, "It could not have been easy to stand by and let all that money go to strange people in distant lands because they'd written books or devised some new formula." [laughs] So, so that obviously made me chuckle. But it is Emanuel alone that is fighting the entire family. He's like, "No, we have to honor what Alfred Nobel wanted." And so he says, "He had made his position clear. He would not fight the will. He was interested in preservation of the family name and honor in strict adherence to the wishes of Alfred." He told his, the other relatives of his, "Let the last will and testament speak for the soul." And this also speaks to the ethics and the morals that was passed down in the family, because not only is his other family doing this, th- th- they're, they're all S- they're all Swedes, right? The Swedish king calls Emanuel before him. He's like, "Hey, even the king opposed this idea." And Emanuel refused to back down even from the king. This was the result. The will was validated, and the Nobel Foundation was established. It took courage to oppose popular sentiment, to fight his own family, and to brook arguments with the king.

14. 52:27 – 58:44

    The Bolshevik Revolution and the Nobels' End

    1. DSDavid Senra52:27

       And then I think we need to move on to one of the main lessons of the book. Um, I think I've understood this because I'm the son of Cuban immigrants, and I just cannot fathom how my grandfather, who was 38 years old, uneducated, didn't have any money, didn't speak English, worked in a shoe factory and at a butcher shop, understood the danger that his family was in when Castro took over, and moved to a country where he didn't know anybody and didn't speak the language. And so growing up with these stories that you hear over and over again, this is something I talked to Sam Zell about when I had lunch with him, too, because, you know, his family escaped the Holocaust. They got out. I think they were on the last train in Poland. As somebody that's grown up in America, I think you can have the assumption that, you know, the way things are now is the way things will be forever, and you d- it's, it's r- human, history just shows, it's like how fast things can change. Emanuel is the third generation of one of the wealthiest and most respected families in Russia, and he escapes hidden as a peasant. People come into the factories and murder their employees. And so, well, now we have an account of what it was like to experience the Bolshevik Revolution not knowing what was going on. And so there's an executive in the Nobel company that kept a diary, and it goes, it's remarkable how fast things change. The diary lasts for less than two weeks, and I just wanna pull out a couple lines that are spread across several days. They're, they are in order. So it starts, "Thursday. Streetcars stop running. Strikes in several factories. The police clear the streets of demonstrators shouting, 'Bread.' Friday. Strikes are spreading. Confrontations between police and the people. Streets cleared and closed off from crowds. Saturday. Police, often disguised as soldiers, and Cossacks hold the crowd in check. Dead and wounded lying on the streets. Sunday. Stores have boarded up their windows. The police are shooting. Cossacks are using whips. In the evening, a lot of shooting. Drivers who are carting off the corpses talk about hundreds. Monday. All offices and workshops are closed. We let anyone go home who wants to. An employee's nephew was killed by a stray bullet. Hit him right in the forehead as he was standing in a window watching the activities on the street. Tuesday. As we were walking to the office, we came under fire, shooting at us from both sides of the street. In the evening, we do not use any rooms facing the street." And this is why. "Between 9:00 and 10:00 at night, I opened the door to my study just slightly, lighting the front window for a second. Machine gun fire sprayed the entire facade of the building. Wednesday, more house searches. The person who lives on the floor below us is arrested and taken away." And what's remarkable is even after all that, he ends the journal, "The worst is probably over." The anarchy in Petersburg soon spread to other cities, the collapse of the imperial government, and the abdication of the tsar. The wives and children of Nobel's Swedish employees moved back to the safe shores of their neutral country. Lenin and his Bolsheviks seized power. They wasted no time showing the nation the meaning of totalitarian revolution. All newspapers but their own were suppressed. Editors were imprisoned, and the only printed or spoken word permitted was that of the Bolsheviks. Their avalanche of decrees covered every phase of economic, political, spiritual, and intellectual life. The workers and soldiers demanded great sums of money from the industrialists. Nobel factories succumbed to the chaos and closed down. Transport was nationalized. Factories were nationalized. Owners and managers dismissed. Bank deposits seized. Prices skyrocketed. The tsar and his family were murdered. The petroleum industry was nationalized. This is the craziest sentence in the book. "A former insane asylum inmate was named Minister of War and promptly proposed the election of a donkey to the council to represent oppressed animals. An illiterate sailor was placed in charge of the schools, and a well-known pimp was given control of public welfare. Discipline and routine were replaced by endless series of meetings, decrees, and denunciations. None of the Nobel chiefs really believed that the danger was more than a passing phenomenon and that the Bolsheviks could continue very long in power." This idea that this won't last, things will go back to normal, is a very common reoccurring belief in history around both wars and revolution. These are not stupid people, and yet they couldn't have been more incorrect. And they realize this is when they have to get out or they're gonna be killed. The last Nobels d- had departed. After three-quarters of a century, the Swedish saga of a family in Russia came to a bitter end. All of their assets are seized, all their factories. Emanuel, the son of Ludwig, goes back to Sweden, and this is, goes back to his, even his grandfather and his father, this relentless optimism that they had in their blood. Emanuel had found great pleasure in life, even in exile. He refused to be consumed by anger and bitterness. His few remaining years were not going to be wasted worrying or falling victim to a paralyzing pestilence of hate and frustration. In Baku, all visual proof of the Nobel name was removed. The pre-Soviet slate wiped clean, wrenched from a place in history, reduced to the category of non-person. Emanuel the father, Ludwig, Robert, and Emanuel the grandson, and all those Nobels who struggled and strained to build and create disappeared into the mist. Their glory, power, and honor obliterated by those who seized what they had created. Their acts long forgotten by those secure from such a miserable fate. This book is amazing. There's so many stories that I couldn't get to. It, I could do a podcast on, you know, entire chapters, multiple podcasts, because there's just so much detail in this book. But I really wanted to focus on Ludwig 'cause that's the person that resonated with me the most. So for the full story, highly recommend you buy the book. If you buy the book using the links that's in the show notes on your podcast player or by going to founderspodcast.com, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is 359 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.

Episode duration: 58:44