The Robber Baron's Art Dealer: Joseph Duveen

1. 0:00 – 3:34

   Duveen's Core Observation and Career Overview

   1. DSDavid Senra0:00

      Joseph Duveen noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that one simple observation. Beginning in 1886, when he was 17, he was perpetually journeying between Europe, where he stocked up on merchandise, and America, where he sold that merchandise. There was almost nothing Duveen wouldn't do for his important clients. These immensely rich Americans were shy and suspicious of casual contacts because of their wealth, and often didn't know where to go or what to do with themselves when they traveled abroad. Duveen provided them with an entrance to the great country homes of the European nobility. It was just a coincidence, a fabricated [chuckles] coincidence, which you and I will talk about a few times today, that Duveen always did. Uh, there's nothing [chuckles] w- as you'll see as we go through this, there's nothing in this guy's life and career that was a coincidence. Uh, so he'd provide rich Americans entrance into these country homes of European nobility. These homes [laughs] were sta- were full of ancestral portraits that were for sale. Uh, Duveen also wrangled hotel accommodations and passage on sold-out ships for his clients. He got his clients houses, and he provided architects to build them houses. And then he saw to it that the architects planned the interiors of these houses with wall space that demanded plenty of pictures. He even selected brides for some of his clients. These selections of potential brides had to meet the same refined standard that governed his choice of houses for his clients, which meant a bride that was receptive to collecting expensive art. Duveen was not a patient man. He had choleric imperialism, and he felt that the world must stop while he got what he wanted. He had a convulsive drive, a boundless and explosive fervor, and a reckless contempt for works of art handled by rival dealers. That's a funny way to say that he was extremely, extremely competitive. Uh, one time in New York, a millionaire collector who was so undisciplined that he was thinking of buying a 16th century Italian painting from another art dealer, asked Duveen to come to his mansion on Fifth Avenue to take a look at it. The prospective buyer watched Duveen's face closely, and he saw his nostrils quiver. "I sniff fresh paint," said Duveen. Duveen's remarks about other people's pictures sometimes resulted in lawsuits that lasted for years, cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and brought him into courts in New York and London and Paris. In his business, Duveen had to bear that the temperaments of the men that he dealt with were the direct opposite of his own. The great American millionaires of the Duveen era were slow-speaking and slow-thinking and cautious and secretive and deliberate. They were the emperors of oil and steel, of department stores and railroads and newspapers, of stocks and bonds, of utilities and banking. And these men had trained themselves to talk slowly and pause before each word. Duveen dealt constantly with cryptic men like J.P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Mellon. That was an excerpt from this long-form, two-part New Yorker profile that I'm gonna talk to you about today. It's called The Days of Duveen: A Legendary Art Dealer and His Clients, and it was written by S.N. Behrman all the way back in 1951.

2. 3:34 – 7:13

   Why Duveen Matters: Gagosian, Robert Greene and Simple Ideas

   1. DSDavid Senra3:34

      And before I jump back into the profile, I wanna tell you how this came on my radar. A few months ago, when I was researching and reading about Larry Gagosian, which is the billionaire art dealer, uh, that was episode 325, I mentioned this theme that seems to appear over and over again, that there's always a blueprint. And so there's somebody doing something now, and they were heavily influenced or got the idea from somebody that lived, uh, a long time before them. And so Larry Gagosian's alive and operating to this day. But almost 100 years ago, Joseph Duveen built a career that Larry used as a blueprint. In fact, in that piece I'm reading from, episode 325, it says, "Gagosian isn't the first to pull this off. He's a big reader, and one of his favorite subjects is the life of Joseph Duveen, the great art dealer who helped assemble the collections of A- Andrew Mellon, J.P. Morgan, and other Gilded Age titans. There are several biographies of Duveen, and Gagosian informed me that he has read them all." And so shortly after that episode came out, uh, Will England, who's the CEO of Walleye Capital, texted me. And he says, "Hey, just so you know, uh, Robert, the author Robert Greene, uh, mentions Joseph Duveen in a bunch of his books, like The 48 Laws of Power and The 33, sh- uh, Strategy of War." And so in addition to this two-part New Yorker profile, uh, there's several highlights, uh, from Robert Greene talking about how Duveen, uh, some strategies that Duveen used to build his business. And by the way, just in case you haven't listened to it yet, one of my favorite episodes, uh, from last year was on Invest Like the Best. It's Invest Like the Best number 342. It's actually Will England. The title is A Primer on Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds, and I just happened to be lucky enough to be there that day that they recorded it, so I got to spend a few hours with Will. And he has two of my favorite tra- traits, uh, intelligence combined with intensity. And so I wanna jump back, right back into Duveen. Uh, main thing that you and I are gonna talk about today is the fact that with, everything is calculated with him, uh, with Duveen. Nothing is accidental. Uh, in many cases, he goes out of his way to disguise his cleverness. So I wanna review just a couple, um, ideas that, that I found fascinating from that introduction, was the fact that, hey, uh, he built his career really on a combination of two ideas, right? It's like this guy just noticed, hey, uh, Europe has plenty of art at the time he's living, this late 1800s, early 1900s, right, when he's building his business. Uh, Europe has plenty of art, no money. America has plenty of money. And I love that line where it's like his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple ob- observation. And so something I thought about as I read that was it's a combination of two of my favorite ideas. One came from Charlie Munger that I've thought about for years, and it's really what I'm trying to do with Founder's Podcast, is, hey, find a simple idea and take that idea Seriously. I found that idea when I read Poor Charlie's Almanac many, many years ago for the first time. Uh, 'cause in that book, Charlie says, "There's an old two-part rule that often works wonders in business, in science, and elsewhere. It is take a simple, basic idea and take it very seriously." And then the second idea that came to mind actually came from the Larry Gagosian profile, and I have n- I've thought about this idea every week in, since I've first discovered it in the Larry Gagosian profile, and it's actually been, uh, on my mind and influencing my decisions constantly, and it's that genius has the fewest moving parts. Joseph Duveen becomes fabulously wealthy, builds an incredible life and business off of that simple idea. His business had very few moving parts. It's like, "Hey, I'm gonna buy all this hard-to-find art in Europe, and I'm going to connect that. I'm going to then take it across the Atlantic Ocean and sell it to the rich robber barons in America." That's his entire business, and everything he does, because genius has the fewest moving parts, it allows him to think about it in ways where if you spread yourself thin or you're working on a million different things, you're not gonna come up with the ideas that he does.

3. 7:13 – 10:38

   Rehearsal, Enthusiasm and Controlling Scarcity

   1. DSDavid Senra7:13

      So one example of this is like he, he was a big believer in practice. And so what would happen is he, first of all, he built his entire freaking business off of just a handful of clients, whi- which obviously if your, [chuckles] if your clients are the richest people in the world, you don't need that many of them, right? But what would he do is he would study them intently, and he'd get to know, like, their, their tastes, their traits, their personality, what's important to them, and then he would build, like, these little models of how this person acts or thinks, and he would explain that to his secretary. And so the day before, the, h- h- he's got, let's say he's got an appointment tomorrow with Andrew Mellon or Henry Clay Frick or, you know, a ton of these people that you and I have studied. I've done episodes on all these people. It's really cool, uh, how many people that are mentioned in this article, uh, in this profile that I've done multiple episodes on. But let's say he's gonna meet with them tomorrow, right? The day before, he will have literally act out how that interview is likely to go, how that sales process is likely to go. He will map out all the strategic possibilities. He will rehearse it, and then by the time he's in person with the client, it almost seems like second nature, like, "Oh, this is just spur of the moment," when it's... No, everything with this guy is extremely, extremely methodical. Uh, another thing that I noticed which is fa- very fascinating and something I, I believe, uh, whole-heart-heartedly, the, the enthusiasm that you have for your product is transferable to other people. And everybody who talks to him, he's like, he's, he's, he-- They talk over and over again about his enthusiasm, the fact that he was fun to be around, the fact that he was super excited about what he was doing. And so it says, "There was nether, there was never any doubts in his own mind. Each picture..." So remember, this is written back in 1951. They used the word picture. I think today you and I would use the word painting. Uh, so says, "There were never any doubts in his mind. Each painting he had to sell, each piece of sculpture was the greatest since the last one and until the next one." And the reason he was the most successful art dealer of all time until Larry Gagosian, I think now obviously Larry Gagosian has surpassed him. Obviously, you know, standing on the, Gagosian is standing on the shoulders of giants, one of those giants being Duveen, was the fact that he was obsessed. Duveen was obsessed with scarcity and controlling supply. And so what he would say is, he, he would tell his clients, they could replace the money that they have many times over, but they were acquiring the irreplaceable when they bought a Duveen. And so let me give you a little summary of this. I'm gonna put this down. Pick up 48 Laws of Power. This is what is in the book on this idea of s- the importance of scarcity and controlling supply to Duveen's business. The art dealer Joseph Duveen insisted on making the paintings he sold as scarce and as rare as possible. To keep their prices elevated and their status high, he bought up entire collections and stored them in his basement. The paintings that he sold became more than just paintings. They were fetish objects. Their value was increased by their rarity. He was intent. Over and over again, he wanted to control supply. He bought entire collections. He'd pay higher prices than anybody else. And then he would stimulate demand by saying, "Hey, there's only one of these, but there's t- I got 10 clients just like you, and if you don't buy this, I'm gonna pick up the phone, I'm gonna walk down the street, and I'm gonna sell it to somebody else," making his clients conscious that whereas he had unique access to great art, his outlets for it were multiple. He watched their doubts about the prices of the art evolving into more acute doubts about whether he would let them buy it. So remember that idea, the importance of controlling supply. It's, uh, it's an idea you and I are gonna come back to over and over again.

4. 10:38 – 14:09

   The Information Network and Overpaying for Supply

   1. DSDavid Senra10:38

      This was very fascinating. Uh, he built up this, this massive information network, and so this is gonna be repeated throughout, uh, his career as well. So it says, "Duveen received daily reports from his galleries." So he's got galleries in New York and London and Paris, telling them, or telling him what customers had come in, what pictures they had looked at, and for how long, and what they said about those pictures. From other sources, he got reports on any major collections being offered for sale. He also got reports from his, quote-unquote, "runners." These are people that he deployed all over Europe to hunt out noblemen on the verge of settling for solvency and a bit of loose change at the sacrifice of some of their family portraits. These reports might include the gossips, uh, coming from servants who had overheard the head of the state saying to an important dealer that he might consider parting with a lovely piece if the price was right. Now, this is another thing that, uh, I think was unique to the way Duveen built his business. He wanted to control supply. He wanted to say, "Hey, I have literally the best, uh, and rarest pieces of art all over the, the world. They're not available anywhere else." And so to do that, he would routinely pay the highest prices, far exceeding what anyone had paid before. And in this bizarre world of capitalism that we're at at the very, the highest end, this actually made, [chuckles] the fact that he overpaid, uh, made his merchandise more valuable in the eyes of the buyer. So in negotiating with the heads of noble families, Duveen usually won hands down over the other dealers. The brashness of his attacks simply bowled over the dukes and the barons. He didn't waste h- any time. He talked prices, and he talked big prices. He would say, "This is the greatest thing I ever saw. I will pay the biggest price you ever saw." And no surprise here, to this technique, the dukes and the barons responded warmly, and so they sold only to him. And he would continue this later on. He dies, I think, in the 1930s. Uh, so part of his career is, overlaps with the Great Depression. And he said, "Depression or no depression, it was Duveen's principle to pay the highest conceivable prices." Listen to this. "A titled English woman had a family portrait to sell. Duveen asked her what she wanted for it, and she meekly said 18,000 pounds. Duveen was indignant. 'What? 18,000 pounds for a picture of this quality? That is ridiculous, my dear lady. Ridiculous.' He began to extol the virtues of the picture as if he were selling it. And indeed, in his mind," right, instead of buying it, he was already selling it. "A kind of haggle in reverse ensued. Finally, the owner asked him what he thought the picture was worth." And this is a key, a key insight into Duveen's thinking. "Duveen, who had already decided what he would charge some American customer, it would be a price that he could not ask for a picture that had cost him just a mere 18,000 pounds. So he shouted repro- reproachfully at her, 'My dear lady, the very least you should let that picture go for is 25,000 pounds.' Swept off her feet by his enthusiasm," again, that word enthusiasm is going to be repeated over and over again, uh, by people around Duveen. "Swept off her feet by his enthusiasm, the lady capitulated." And so this next story is nuts, and it just goes into this idea that a lot of people view. It's, it, it's part of human nature. We interpret price as a signal for quality, right? A shortcut for quality. So he's like, "Hey, I'm not... You know, you wanna sell this to me for 18,000 pounds. Nope, I'm gonna give you 25,000 pounds." That sounds crazy, but this is why. "Duveen had enormous respect for

5. 14:09 – 17:40

   The Rockefeller Busts and Pricing Psychology

   1. DSDavid Senra14:09

      the prices he set on the objects he bought and sold. Often, his clients tried to maneuver him into a position where he might relax his high standards, but he always managed to keep them. There was an instance of this kind of maneuvering in 1934." So he is selling three statues, right? Three busts. He wants to sell them, all three of them, to Rockefeller's son. So this is John D. Rockefeller Jr., okay? So he's like, "Hey," uh, who's a, who's a massive collector and a huge customer of, uh, Duveen. And so he's like, "Hey, I'll sell you..." Duveen says, "I will sell you these three busts for a million and a half dollars." Rockefeller's, "Oh, that prices might be too high." So what does Duveen do? When he's, he's presented with that, he does not negotiate down. He's like, "Oh, uh, I want a million and a half." Rockefeller's like, "I'll give you a million." Like, Duveen's like, "No, I'm going to give you the busts. Put them up in your house." And I think it, he gives him an, a, a year, right? So it says... It is a year. So it says, "He allowed Rockefeller a year's options on the busts," right? So they are going to remain for a year in the Rockefeller mansion as non-paying guests. That's hilarious. Uh, during that time, uh, Duveen hoped that the attraction between Rockefeller Jr. and the busts would ripen into emotion that was more intense. And so keep in mind, this is 1934. Look at this, like, psychological jujitsu that Duveen is gonna do on Rockefeller Jr., right? So a few months later, where, you know, he's got a year. A few months later, Rockefeller writes him a, a letter. He's like, "Hey, I have a counterproposal. I'll buy the busts for a million dollars," right? Because the Depression is on, and most people are feeling the effects of it. And Rockefeller said, "Hey, you know, you might w- Because of the Depression, you might welcome a million in cash." Duveen's response was that, "I am not in the stock market, and therefore I am immune and not the least bit affected by the Depression." Isn't that interesting? I always love the idea of, like, the order in which you read things can change your interpretation of it. And so last week, you and I talked about Texas oil billionaires, and Monie Moncrief was very rich through the Depression. A lot of the Texas oil billionaires, 'cause they had no money in the stock market. And so in the Northeast at the time, everybody's getting destroyed. All of Texas's wealth is in, you know, coming from the ground. And so they were d- essentially immune to the effects of the Great Depression. We see something very similar here. He's like, "Listen, I'm not in... My entire business is selling pictures," right? [laughs] "I'm taking European art and selling it to you rich Americans. I'm not worried about the stock market." And so Duveen actually turns around, he's like, "Oh, since, since you're trying to negotiate with me, you're hard up on money, and so I will come to your assistance." Duveen managed to convey the sugge- suggestion that if Rockefeller was in temporary financial di- difficulty, he, Duveen, was ready to come to his assistance. And so what happens, okay? So he says, "I want, I wanna sell these things to you for these three statues for a million and a half dollars. You think that's too high, take them, let them in your house for a year," right? "That's going to expire on the 30- The option's going to expire on the 31st of December. You can either buy them, and I've made it very clear I'm not budging on the price," right? "You can either buy them on December 31st, or I have to take them back." So that's, again, a very advanced understanding, setting a deadline of, uh, human psychology. And so what happens is the day before the option expires, Rockefeller writes Duveen, informs him that he's buying all three of them for a million and a half dollars. And it's this fundamental ability to understand and really focus in on his customers, um, because he essentially says the 8 or 10 clients. So they're ta- uh, in this part of the story, they're talking about the fact that he put a lot of money into

6. 17:40 – 23:24

   Selling Status: The Gallery, the Hotel Suites and Charisma

   1. DSDavid Senra17:40

      building... He built, like, a gallery/like house, very similar to what Gagosian did. Uh, this is on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. And he hired great architects, and he had to make it beautiful because his point was, like, well, I have 8 or 10 big clients, right? These are the ones, most of them are in New York. These are the ones that are going to w- enter into this building. The handful of men with whom Duveen did the major part of his business, uh, these 8 or 10 clients, would come into this building to look at the garnered possessions of kings and emperors. And so therefore, they must be provided with an environment that would tend to make them conscious of their right to inherit these possessions. So one, the interesting thing is you don't need many customers if the few customers that you have are the richest people in the world, right? [laughs] He built his entire business around 8 to 10 people. And two, he understood that they were very wealthy. Most of them came from, you know, nothing. Or i- i- if not they did, their father came from nothing, in John D. Rockefeller's, uh, Jr.'s case, right? But what they lacked is they didn't have prestige, they didn't have titles, they didn't have nobility, all the things that Europe w- had in abundance, but no cash. And so it's like, well, if you buy this, right, you are essentially... If you really think about what, um, what, what, uh, Duveen's doing, he's, he's teaching his market, he's teaching his customers that buying art was also buying upper class status, and maybe the, the, the highest class possible because these are the former possessions of kings and emperors. And so multiple times it's talked about the fact that this guy, first of all, insane levels of high agency, insane levels of high, high levels of disagreeableness, although he was very nice and, and, and liked, but he, you know, wouldn't budge on pricing in whatever case is. But he's also highly competitive, and it makes perfect sense because he, he wanted to not just be the best in the world, but literally the only person that these people were- would ever even think about buying art from. And to constantly teach, you know, repetition is persuasive, and so to constantly teach them that, that's why he would say, "Hey, you know, you're- you have plenty of money. You can replace that money many, many times over, but the, you are acquiring something that is irreplaceable." Another way he would describe that later on is that you are trading the, uh, infinite, which is money, right, with the finite, which is there's only one of these in the world. And what is also interesting, which Duveen also shares in common with Gagosian, is the fact that he would essentially, he was the business, right? He would travel all over the world. He'd go rotate between Paris, New York, and London, and his entire business travels with him. And so when he goes to London, uh, he winds up s- staying i- in the same, like if he's in Paris, he stays at The Ritz. If he's in London, he stays at Claridge's. And he sets up his suite there as like miniature, uh, art galleries is the way to think about this. This is very [chuckles] this is funny. So he sets up his suite there, right? All of his accommodations at all points on any itinerary anywhere is in the world, right? The, it's going to be transformed into a small scale art gallery. He invites you over. He may be staying there, but it looks like an art gallery. He arranges the paintings, sculptures, and the objects so that his clients and friends could visit him in a proper setting and possibly take home some of his furnishings. I'm telling you, this is the most mo- one of the most motivating things for me, is the fact that there is always a blueprint that I s- you get to study these people like, "Wow, these, these people are so ruthlessly efficient and brilliant." And then you're like, "Wait a minute. He got that idea from this other person that lived 50 years before. I can do the same thing." And so this is literally happening, right? Where he's like inviting people over to his hotel room in London. "Oh, I love this chair. I love this art." "Okay, do you want it?" In the Gago's, this is like, let's see, this is happening, let's say 1920s. So let's say 60, 70 years later in New York City, Gagosian invites Bernard Arnault. Arnault, uh, obviously the founder of LVMH. I'm actually working on... I'll give you a sneak peek. I'm working on another episode of him, uh, on Bernard Arnault. I've been practicing pronouncing his name. [laughs] Um, but he invites, Gagosian invites Arnault over, and Arnault just happens to come. He's like, "I like these chairs." And Gagosian's like, this is at his, uh, his, uh, home in Fifth, on Fifth Avenue, I'm pretty sure. And he's like, "Bernard," is like, "I like these chairs." And like Gagosian's like, "Do you wanna buy them?" [laughs] And I think they wind up doing a deal right there. But I just love the fact that, you know, this just repeats over and over again. So let's go back to this idea that your enthusiasm, uh, your charisma is transferable to other people. All the people around him, his clients describe Duveen as an exhilarating companion, right? They said his enthusiasm, how many times? I'm like, what is this, 20 pages into this thing? How many times have we already heard the word enthusiasm? His enthusiasm was irrepressible. He engaged in a kind of buffoonery that was irresistible. Most of his friends were older men, and they enjoyed his company partly because he made them feel young. And so Andrew Mellon's much older than him, and he, he, he, he summarizes the, the gift that Duveen's personality was to his business, where he told Duveen to his face, "The pictures that you sell me always look better when you are here." Think about how powerful his charisma had to be that he could take his aura, right, and transfer it to the picture that you bought from him, and you're like, in his presence, you're like, "This is amazing." This is a reality distortion field. This is Steve Jobs, right? Same exact idea behind this. And then he leaves, and he's like, "Wait a minute. The picture doesn't look as good when Duveen is not here." And this is not... This is the thing. I think I have notes later on, uh, 'cause I, I, I kept thinking about, you know, Charlie Munger's psychology of human misjudgment that he went over and over again. People think this is like some willy foofoo stuff. These are, these are some of the most sophisticated entrepreneurs to ever live, and it works on them. That should tell you that it's deeply embedded in our human nature, which I'll get to, uh, later on.

7. 23:24 – 26:35

   Free Advertising Through Record Prices

   1. DSDavid Senra23:24

      I want to give you an example of one of my favorite maxims, comes from Ted Turner. Actually, it came from Ted Turner's dad. Uh, "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise." And so what would happen is because Duveen, there was all these unintended, um, positive externalities that came from Duveen constantly outbidding everybody and, and, you know, he was hell-bent on controlling supply. One way you have to do that is sometimes you have to pay more than you think it's worth. And so he was paying crazy prices. They were so crazy that they were covered, they were newsworthy. So he's got essentially unlimited free advertising 'cause he buys, let's say he spends, I'm gonna give you like three examples that spread throughout the 1920s that are covered in the Herald Tribune, which essentially, uh, they're, they s- they function as free advertising for him. And so this is like a example. "Sir Joseph Duveen, the art dealer, has bought a Rembrandt for $410,000." That's $410,000 in 1926 dollars. "One of the highest prices ever paid." And then listen to this next line. I interrupted the sentence for you. Listen to this. So highest price ever paid, and this pr- this Rembrandt had been in the possession of the family for 200 years. Highest price ever paid and unbelievably scarce. The opportunity to buy this comes up only once every 200 years. Do you wanna act? And if you act, you have to act now. Um, another example. Uh, Sir Joseph Duveen, the international art dealer, bought in London yesterday the entire collection. He does this all the time. Like, he d- he'll buy, you know, one-off pieces if they're the best or whatever. He'll buy entire collections, and [chuckles] then he'll just store them. Uh, again, controlling supply. The entire collection of 120 Italian of the old masters, uh, belonging to this very wealthy, uh, European or noble European. This entire collection will be brought to New York. The purchase price was $3 million in 1927 dollars, and then not only did his... When he bought, uh, merchandise, right, and supply, it was covered, but when he sold, it was also covered. This is, again, early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise. Andrew Mellon, right? This is the, the son of Judge Mellon, who is the patriarch of the Mellon family dynasty. But at this time, not only is he very wealthy, he's also the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. And so now you have Duveen's name associated with literally the best people in the world. Not only are they richest, in some cases, they held the highest, uh, like some of the highest, uh, government positions. So it says, "Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of Treasury of the United States, has purchased from Duveen for $970,000." A painting, doesn't even matter what the painting is. Here's again, the scarcity, the time a- aspect of it, right? The painting bears Raphael's signature and the date 1508. And so to other people, it felt like he was overpaying. He understood that his entire business only fu- it only works if he has, if you can control supply, and he has access to literally the best and the most desired art of all the world. And so this is, uh, an example of what he would do to make sure that he didn't miss out, right? It's not like, "Oh, if I don't win this auction," you know, there's a second thing that's kinda like this. It's like either, it's zero sum. One winner, everybody else loses.

8. 26:35 – 30:06

   Monopoly as Method: The Pinkie, FOMO and Mellon's Collection

   1. DSDavid Senra26:35

      The circumstances attending Duveen's purchase of this painting called The Pinkie in 1926 illustrate his tenacity and the fight he made to establish he, his preeminence among the art dealers of the world. From the beginning, Duveen felt that his educational mission was twofold. Number one, to teach millionaire American collectors what the great works of art were, and two, to teach them that they could only get those works of art through him. So number one, I sell the best, and I'm the only one that has them, right? And so he, there's this other rival dealer that's like, "Hey, I'm gonna bid on Pinkie too." And so what does Duveen do? Duveen goes to, uh, this, this is an art auction that is being run by Christie's, and he goes to the manager of Christie's, and he doesn't even show up. He doesn't even have to show up for the bidding. He just tells the guy, he's like, "I have an unlimited bid. Whatever your highest bid is, I will pay more." So by default, he has to be the winner, and this is what he said about this. "Duveen, Duveen admitted that the price he had paid was steep, but he repeated his cardinal dictum, 'When you pay high for the priceless, you're getting it cheap.' Another saying of his, endlessly repeated to his American clients, was, 'You can get all the paintings you want at $50,000 a piece. That is easy. But to get paintings at a quarter of a million dollars a piece, that takes doing.'" And then he would go out of his way to stroke and to encourage FOMO, the fear of missing out. He offers this deal to Andrew Mellon. Andrew's like, "Oh, I'm not interested." The next day, he calls up H.E. Huntington. Huntington built a bunch of railroads. He offers it to him. Huntington buys, and then once it's, w- uh, many cases, once they sell, or excuse me, once the, like, the Huntingtons or Robber Barons buy, they rarely sell. And so even many decades later, when this piece is being, uh, written, it's still hanging, that, that, that painting was still hang- hanging in the Huntington Mansion in California. And even that worked in Duveen's favor because Mellon heard that, "Oh, the next day, somebody else bought what I said I wasn't interested in. What if I had changed my mind? Now I can't get it." It stuck, so then the next time that Duveen has something that he thinks Mellon is interested in, it causes Mellon to act faster. Mellon did not make the same mistake again. Duveen offers him a painting by Romney. It is the highest price ever paid for a Romney. Duveen offered it to him, and Mellon immediately bought it. Multiple times, it talks about that Duveen was aiming for a monopoly on purpose. Uh, there's a great line where it says, uh, monopoly by Peter Thiel in Zero to One, where he says, "Monopoly businesses capture more value than millions of undifferentiated competitors." This is what it sounds like if you have a monopoly. There had never before been anyone like Duveen, the exalted middleman, and he practically monopolized his field. 95 of the 115, uh, paintings in the Mellon collection, right, which gets donated to the public, which I'll talk about why he did this, was also a genius move, in a little bit, came to Mellon through Duveen. Mellon, see, think about that. At this point, Andrew Mellon, one of the largest art collectors in the United States. There, he might not be the largest, but there, you know, he's on the shortlist. He might be the fifth, might be the second, might be the tenth. He certainly, sure as hell, is not the hundredth, right? So one of the largest art collectors in America at the time. 95 of the 115 paintings in his collection came from Duveen. That is, he aimed f- for monopoly, and he hit his target.

9. 30:06 – 34:23

   Hiding Cleverness and Deep Focus

   1. DSDavid Senra30:06

      Another fascinating thing that I've already mentioned, but is very obvious when you read about and you start studying Joseph Duveen, it's like, okay, this guy is super clever. And what makes him even more clever, right? So it talks about that he enjoyed having the stupid side of his character emphasized in public dinner parties. He'd bring up his mistakes. Uh, like, most people, you know, they're kind of embarrassed by their failures, embarrassed by their mistakes. They would, like, hide it. They're being ashamed of it. He wouldn't hide his mistakes. He'd bring them up himself, and this is the line why. It says, "He enjoyed having the stupid side of his character emphasized. It constituted a disguise-" For his cleverness. That's how you know somebody's even more clever, the fact that they understand that it's clever to conceal your cleverness. And another thing that clever founders do is they're focused. Listen to this line that comes a couple pages later. "He was interested in practically nothing except his business." If you think about the layers in which this guy goes, it's impossible to arrive at the conclusions and come up with the ideas that Duveen had, right? I'm a huge believer that it is not what you do, but it is how you do it. There is a ton of art dealers that don't make any money, and there's a handful, one or two or three, that became billionaires. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. And this idea of crazy focus and just thinking about your business longer and harder than anybody else does, you're gonna get so deep down that curve that you're gonna come up with ideas that s- other people in your same field that remain permanently superficial will never have. "Certain men are endowed with the faculty of concentrating on their own affairs to the exclusion of what's going on elsewhere. Duveen was that kind of man." Going back to this idea of how important it was, this information network that he built up slowly over time, right? Compounds in value, becomes one of his greatest assets, uh, later in his life. How valuable it is, is that Henry Clay Frick is one of his biggest clients, right? And one of the richest people on the planet now. And yet Duveen is the expert in his field, so he hears about all the great assets before anybody else does. And so he's having, like, a lunch and a conversation with Henry Clay Frick, and Frick brings up, he's like, "Man, I lost that painting. I was on the trail of a very great painting." It's this thing called, uh, St. John James Park or something like that. And Frick's respo- or Duveen's response to Frick was excellent. He goes, "Oh, my, Mr. Frick, I bought that painting. When you want a great painting, you must come to me because you know I get the first chance at all of them." Remember, he repeats this over and over again. "You can only get the best through me. Ignore these competitors. Come straight to me. You will get the best every time." And the greatest way to condense and clarify that idea, in my opinion, is the line, "Monopoly was his method." Monopoly was his method. And I think all these ideas work together to help him build his monopoly, the fact that he was focused on it, he was only interested in his business. There's this line about the amount of detail that he paid attention to, and I think there's a great story that'll illustrate. You know, monopoly was his method. Duveen displayed that scrupulous attention to detail that has distinguished the careers of others, other celebrated generals. So obviously something you and I have talked about multiple times, uh, with the most recent on the, uh, two weeks ago on the episode of Napoleon's, uh, strategies and maxims. And so an example of that, it goes back to this information network, right? He knew every... He built relationships and, and paid people to give him information. And the reason, and I'm gonna actually explain, uh, I'm gonna r- explain the story first, and then we'll go into how and, like, who are the people that he paid, but this is the reason why. So he would, uh, the way that most people are getting back and forth between Europe and America at this point, right, it's on these transatlantic ships. So he becomes friends with all the deckhands on the ships, and he pays them a lot of money. In many cases, hundreds of dollars. Like, he'll tip them, you know, hundreds of dollars, and it's way more than they make. And in return, they make sure, 'cause they're setting up and they're deciding where everybody's gonna sit on the deck, and they dep- they, what they do, because Duveen, Duveen has built relationships with them, finds out they have valuable information, pays them for that information, pays them for their service in, in, in, like, an excessive amount, more so than anybody else is paying them, right? In return, he gets seated and set up next to a bunch of American millionaires that are going, you know, back and forth through Europe. This

10. 34:23 – 37:24

    Engineered Coincidences: Deckhands and the Cochran Sale

    1. DSDavid Senra34:23

       is another example of what I meant. He has all these, like, fabricated, fabricated, uh, coincidences, and so here's an example of that. And so it says, "Among the American millionaires that Duveen met through the deckhands, the deck stewards, was Alexander Smith Cochran, who was a, like, a carpet baron." So they meet on a boat that's sailing to Europe, uh, and they just start chatting. "Cochran happened to mention that he would like someday to see the Buckingham Palace and all these other European palaces. Duveen said casually that he would be delighted to take him through both places. When they got to England, Cochran found himself strolling through the two palaces. They seemed as accessible to Duveen as the lobby of a hotel. While he was showing Cochran the royal art, Duveen spoke warmly of Queen Mary and told Cochran what a high regard he had for her and her taste in art. He never mentioned that he had things he considered as good as hers in his own galleries. In fact, he never mentioned his galleries at all. When they parted, Cochran felt a certain obligation to Duveen, a healthy respect for his connections, and a sharp curiosity about why a stranger should be so kind. They met again in New York, and Duveen took him to see the wonderful Duveens hanging in the private houses of some of his clients, but he did not tell them that they were Duveens. Again, he neglected to mention his great New York gallery. This display of benevolence went on for three years until finally Cochran could not stand it any longer and broke down. 'Lord Duveen, I would like to see some of your things.' His back to the wall," that's hilarious. "His back to the wall, Duveen took Cochran to his gallery. He could not spare any paintings. They were all on reserve." See what he just did there? Sorry, they're scarce, they're rare, they're, I have, you know, listen, I'm the only one that has these, but they're spoken for. Uh, you know, there's a line. This is like Enzo Ferrari, right? [chuckles] We talked about this multiple times on the three episodes I did on Enzo Ferrari. Uh, people like he, Americans who come to Italy, rich Americans come to Italy, they tour the Ferrari factory. It's like, "I must have one." And Enzo's like, "Yeah, of course. You know, maybe next year, maybe six sh- months from now," whatever the case is. And then the American would leave, and Enzo Ferrari's employees would come up to him like, "W- we have an un- we have a parking lot full of unsold Ferraris. Why'd you do that?" And he's like, "'Cause Ferraris must never, they must be desired. They must be desired." Duveen's doing the exact same thing. He's like, "Okay, listen, I can't spare any paintings. They're all on reserve. But you know what? I do have these other art objects, these other sculptures. You can buy that." Cochran spent $5 million. So- From developing this information network, right? Playing that long game to, might have cost him a couple hundred dollars in tips. Three years later, that turns into a $5 million sale. That is absolutely nuts. So let's go back. Let's go back to what he was building, 'cause I jumped ahead in the story. Um, so this is what he does. It says that he had an unusual spirit of friendliness, and he let it shine by building relationships, uh, with some- sometimes people are directly involved in the art world, sometimes they're very indirectly. And so this is, like, all the people that are work- like, all the staff that work for a lot of these art collectors.

11. 37:24 – 39:58

    Staff, Servants and Overpaying for Talent

    1. DSDavid Senra37:24

       So he'd build relationships with critics, with museum directors, with restorers. He's gonna make one guy very wealthy. You know, you have very old art, you need somebody that's very delicate, very talented, they restore it. Uh, architects, d- decorators, and servants. He becomes very generous with the staff and the servants, and in turn, they would give Duveen all the gossip that they hear when people visit their home. And so in one case, right, there's a butler that is working in the Fifth Avenue house of this, one of Duveen's most important clients. Over the course of their relationship, Duveen gives him $100,000. What is the result, right? It said, "Not only this butler, but all these other servants, they developed a feeling that it was only fair to transmit to their generous nobleman," that's Duveen, "any information that might interest him." And this is nuts. So not only is this gonna lead to more sales, he has an understanding of, a deeper, so he has a deeper understanding of the person, what's interesting to them, what's going on in their life, right? It's gonna lead to more sales. But again, Duveen's one of the most competitive people you're ever gonna come across. He, he wants monopoly, so that means therefore you cannot buy from other people. So he winds up getting [chuckles] winds up, uh, knowing when rival dealers are going to make appointments with some of his people, like, uh, Henry Clay Frick or Mellon or anybody else, right? And he just happens to show up. So it says, "Rival deal- when rival [chuckles] when..." This is hilarious. "When rival dealers would show up to offer works, uh, of art, they found that they could never see the client alone. Whenever they dropped in, Duveen was already there." And so here's another example of this idea that you and I talked about a few weeks ago on episode 335 on Brad Jacobs' book, "How to Make a Few Billion Dollars." Overpay for talent, because it's nearly impossible to overpay for talent. And so Duveen had a conviction that anyone who worked for him, high or low, should be compensated in a manner commiserate with the dignity of the association with him, right? "I am the best in the world. Everybody associated with me has to be the best, and they should be paid like the best." He finds, uh, his main restorer. So this, the people that have to, you know, take these very old paintings, you know, spruce them up, for lack of a better word. There is this guy named Steven Pichetto. Pichetto was Duveen's main restorer, right? He's moving so much product. As Duveen's business grows, so does Pichetto's, and this is the end result. When Pichetto died in 1949 at the age of 61, he was himself a wealthy man. Such was the trade as Duveen practiced it, that even a restorer who worked for Duveen could leave a fortune.

12. 39:58 – 43:46

    Creating the National Gallery of Art and Meeting Mellon

    1. DSDavid Senra39:58

       Now, a large part of this profile is the founding of something that still is available actually to us today. It's the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which was established in 1937. We, you can go there to, to this day and visit it for free. Over three million people a year do just that. That is an idea from Joseph Duveen. So I'm actually going to read the summary about the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. that came, that is, uh, in the book "48 Laws of Power," because essentially it, it describes like, okay, he, later in his career, Duveen is running into a problem, right? He's gotta solve a problem. All the problems that come up in his life, he, he figures like, "Okay, this is just an opportunity that will help me sor- sell more art." And so if you really analyze the career of Duveen, everything he did was an answer to this question or to this problem. Like, how can I solve this problem so I can sell more art? And what he did was genius, and it's the creation of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The art dealer Joseph Duveen was once confronted with a terrible problem. The millionaires who had paid so dearly for Duveen's paintings were running out of wall space, and with inheritance taxes getting even higher, it seemed unlikely that they would keep buying. The solution was the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which Duveen helped create in 1937 by getting Andrew Mellon to donate his collection to it. The National Gallery was the perfect front for Duveen. In one gesture, his clients avoided taxes, cleared wall space for new purchases, and reduced the numbers of paintings on the market, maintaining the upward pressure on their prices. All this while the donors created the appearance of being public benefactors. That happened in 1937. It goes back to this, these prefabricated coincidences that you see throughout, 'cause they weren't coincidences, right? They were very intentional and deliberate, of how, w- the one that Duveen did throughout his entire career, but also in how he met, uh, Andrew Mellon, and then Andrew Mellon becomes one of his biggest clients, right? That happened, uh, what would be like 16 years earlier in 1921. Listen to this from the same book. In 1921, Andrew Mellon was visiting London and staying in a suite at the Claridge Hotel. Duveen, Duveen had been targeting him for a while. He wanted him as a client, right? Duveen booked himself into the suite just below Mellon's. He had arranged, Duveen had also arranged for his valet to befriend Mellon's valet. Mellon's valet told Duveen's valet, who then told Duveen that Mellon was about to go downstairs and ring for the lift, so the, the elevator, right? Seconds later, Duveen entered the lift, and behold, there was Mellon. "How do you do, Mr. Mellon?" Said Duveen. Remember how he was just striking up these conversations on the deck of the boat going back and forth between Europe and America. He's doing the exact same thing here, but now he's doing it in an elevator in a very nice hotel in London. So he says, "How do you do, Mr. Mellon?" Uh, Duveen said, introducing himself, "I'm on my way to the National Gallery to look at some pictures," to look at some paintings, right? How uncanny. That was precisely where Mellon was headed, and Duveen knew it. And so Duveen was able to accompany him. He knew Mellon's tastes inside and out because he studies everybody. And while the two men wandered through the museum, he dazzled Mellon with his knowledge. Once again, uh, quite uncannily, they seemed to have remarkably similar tastes. Mellon was pleasantly surprised. Duveen was charming and agreeable and clearly had exquisite taste. That is the beginning of their relationship, right? It lasts for 20 years until, uh, Duveen's death contributes untold revenue to Duveen's business, and then also cul- culminates with the opening and the founding of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Absolutely incredible. This guy was absolutely incredible.

13. 43:46 – 50:06

    Brand Power: The Goldman Collection and Price as Quality

    1. DSDavid Senra43:46

       I wanna go back to this idea, which I mentioned earlier, and now I found my note. Uh, so human nature is constant. Studying history is like watching game tape on human nature. These examples are why Charlie Munger spent so much time speaking about and teaching about the psychology of human misjudgment. And so why did I write that to myself? I get to this. This is what I meant earlier. Like, these guy- it's not like these, these, these tendencies in human nature, right, only work on dullards, right? These are some of the most smartest and most sophisticated people on the planet, uh, much smarter and more sophisticated than me by far, and yet it works on them. So that's why I wanna know about them. And what am I talking about? So there is this, one of the richest people in America at the time, is this guy named A- uh, S.H. Kress. So he, uh, owned a chain. He, he, he built a giant retail fortune. So retail department stores, you know, a century before Sam Walton. Think about him like that, okay? And, uh, there's another guy that you and I have talked about in the past, which is Henry Goldman of Goldman Sachs, right? And so Go- um, he's, Henry Goldman actually loses his sight and becomes partially or maybe completely blind. And he decides to sell off his entire collection of art. And so he goes and offers it first to his contemporary and his, I don't know if they were friends, but, you know, peer or something like that, colleague, uh, Kress. But Goldman loves to move fast, and so he offers it to Kress, and the guy brokering the deal between them says, "Hey, uh, if Kress wants this, tell him that he's gotta do it in a hurry. It's gotta be decided this afternoon." And Kress is like, "Oh, is it like, it has to be done today? Like, is he having liquidity pro- problems? Is he broke? What's going on?" He, and he's like, "No, he just wants to get... It has nothing to do with insolvency. He just wants to sell this. He wants to do this fast. He doesn't wanna waste any time." And so he tells him, "Hold Goldman off. Like, I'm gonna think about it. Hold him off." He keeps repeating, "Hold him off, hold him off." But as you already know by now, Duveen does not wait around for anything. And so once he hears about this, he's like, "Forget that. I'm not waiting," and he buys the entire collection immediately. And then this is where what I meant about the psychology of human misjudgment, right? So he, he got, Kress gets the offer, says, "No, wait, wait, let me think about it." Duveen doesn't. He acts, buys it. Now, it's the exact same collection. It's the exact same collection. But a collection that belongs to Duveen was not a collection that belonged to Goldman, even when it's the same collection. So when you think about this, this is just same thing happened with Gagosian. Same thing happens, you know, every day. You and I are influenced by brands. Brand is like magic. Duveen is a brand and therefore can increase the price. It's the same exact thing. I could be offered the same product. It could be the exact same product. One of them's, you know, uh, random brand name. The other one's, say, like, an Apple or something like that. And we, it's been proven over and again. We will pay more for the brand even if it's the exact same thing. And that's exactly what happens here because Duveen buys the same collection. Doesn't change anything about it. Pr- uh, he actually changes, like, the, the way it's presented, then goes and shows it to Kress, and he goes around. Remember what Mellon said. "These pictures look better when you're here." He's enthusiastic. He's saying, "This is the best this, and this is the greatest that, and look what this is. It's so rare." And something Duveen knew, he says, "Once a collector had his heart set on a picture, it irritates him to have other people discourage him from buying it," 'cause Kress has a professional advisor saying, you know, "This is the exact same thing." Like, this is how crazy these psychological tendencies are, right? These are, like, very smart, accomplished people. They have people saying, "You're not, you're acting irrationally." Then instead of them saying, "You're right," they get mad at the person that's telling them they act irrationally. And so what he does, Kress bought the picture and all the others. Had he bought the pictures directly from Goldman, he would've saved millions of dollars. That's insane. He would've saved millions of dollars, but he wouldn't have had the warm feelings of owning a lot of Duveen's. Duveen was a brand. The exact same collection in Goldman's hands, transferred to Duveen. That same exact collection is now worth millions and millions of dollars more, where you have one of the most advanced entrepreneurs of that time willing to pay millions and millions of dollars more because it's now no longer the Goldman collection. It is a Duveen collection. And this happened over and over again in Duveen's business, and it still happens today. How did it come about that the great money men of this era gradually came to accept Duveen's simple, unworldly view that art was more important than money? Duveen had taught them the idea that art was priceless, and when you pay for the infinite with the finite, you are indeed getting a bargain. His clients felt better when they paid a lot. That's something that Munger repeats over and over again in Poor Charlie's Almanack, the fact that price is a signal, high price is a signal for high quality. They felt better. They felt better when they paid a lot. It gave them the assurance of acquiring rarity. A rival dealer of Duveen, so a lesser dealer, had bought a bust for $22,000. The dealer needed money and offered it for 25,000, thinking that it would tempt his customer into a quick purchase. The customer was turned off. The moderateness of the price was fatal. The moderateness of the price was fatal. "Find me a better one," he said. Duveen would've asked a quarter of a million dollars and got it. The same thing happened when another dealer offered a room, so an entire room, all the furniture, all the busts, all the, the paintings, right? A dealer offered a room to William Randolph Hearst for $50,000. Hearst spurned it. Duveen offered it to him later. Duveen offered it to Hearst later for $200,000, and Hearst bought it with gratitude. A dealer tried to sell him a rug for $15,000. He was used to paying $60,000 for a clock and $100,000 for necklaces, and was suspicious of anything that you could get for a mere 15,000. "Get me something better," was his response. And Duveen didn't just get his client something better. He got them the best. Duveen built his entire business around the best. And that is where I'll leave it. Highly recommend reading both pieces, and I'll also link to the "48 Laws of Power." You'll find all those links down below, and they're all available at founderspodcast.com.

14. 50:06 – 1:02:57

    Closing Reflection: Studying History as Leverage

    1. DSDavid Senra50:06

       That is 339 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon. If you think about it, the episode that you just heard is a great illustration of this, this quote that is in this book on Charlie Munger, "Poor Charlie's Almanack," where it says that there's ideas worth billions in a $30 history book. Because just like Charlie Munger and, and Warren Buffett talk about, uh, in that book actually, how much they read biographies, how much time they spend reading history and, uh, using history, learning from history as a form of leverage. You know, Larry Gagosian, who starts his career, you know, 40 years after Joseph Duveen dies, by his own admission, reads every single biography that he could get his hands on, uh, about Joseph Duveen, and essentially patterns his career. They are remarkably similar when you read about both of them, and Gagosian's privately held company is rumored to be doing over a billion dollars a year in revenue. And so a few weeks ago, when Napoleon told you and I that it is profitable [chuckles] to study the campaigns of the great masters, I think Gagosian would agree. Obviously, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett would agree, and most of the people that you and, you and I talk about on this podcast, they, they talk over and over again. [laughs] I've, I've given you 1,000 examples like that. But I really liked what Napoleon said, that he thought it was important to read over and over and over again. Not just read once, not just listen to one podcast episode, but read over and over again the campaigns of the greats. And so what I'm trying to build with Founders Notes is really an echo of this idea that, that Napoleon talked about, that, that history must be critically analyzed to discover why successes were obtained and why defeats were inflicted, and that the teaching of strategy is built around history. So I'm going to s-something that, uh... Well, first of all, the i- the, the entire idea from Founders Notes came from making Founders podcast, right? For years, uh, since 2018, I've been putting every single n- uh, highlight of the books I read and every single note on the highlights into this app called Readwise. I've been obsessed with it. I talk about it over, over again. I use it to make the podcast. I c- I've said before I couldn't, I couldn't make the podcast without it. That's not true. I could make the podcast without it. The podcast would be half as good, I don't know, three-quarters, uh, as good as it is because of this constant repetition of these ideas. When you hear me in this, in all these episodes like, "Oh, that is like this," and, "This person thought like this," and, "Oh, this is very similar to episode 127," or whatever that is, that comes from this constant rereading what Napoleon said, read over and over again the campaigns of the great masters. And so the very idea to even build a product around this came because so many people for years were saying, "Hey, I would love to have access to your notes and highlights. I want access to your notes and highlights. How can we do that? H-how can we do that?" And f- I didn't know... And for years, I said, "No, no, no, no." Finally reached out to the founders of Readwise, uh, they're both fans of the podcast, and I was like, "Hey, I wanna build a product where people can see exactly what I see." So if you sign up at foundersnotes.com, you will see my entire notebook. I really do truly believe with every bone in my body it is the most valuable notebook in the world for founders because I don't think anyone else has been as psychopathically obsessed with this idea. I've been sitting in a room essentially for my, by myself for eight years, you know, reading hundreds of thousands of pages and trying to document everything I learn. Take that personal curriculum and externalize it to the world, and that is Founders Podcast. And what I consider Founders Podcast is, Founders Podcast is, uh, essentially a free trial, right, for Founders Notes. Founders Notes takes everything that you and I are learning on the podcast and just takes it to another level. And so as I'm still in the early days of developing this, I've only been developing for a few months, I've purposely kept the price lower. If you really think about it, because it's built only for people that are already running successful companies. You know, I, I say this over and over again. Do not invest in subscription unless you're already running a successful company. The price should be immaterial to you. As far as the value that you get, the price is missing a couple zeros. Now, as I continue to build out different features, obviously the price will go up in the future. But for now, and if you, obviously, if you sign up now, you're locked in. The price stays the same. You essentially get all the future f- you get all the future features, there we go, future features for free. I am also doing something for the first time ever, which I mentioned at the beginning, because I, I'm just a big believer, like, uh, Michael Jordan said, that successful people listen. Those that don't listen don't last long. And I have a bunch of people saying, "Hey, I would love, uh, a one-time option." So for a limited time, I'm going to test this out. My plan is to make heavy, heavy investments. I think Founders Notes can be this giant platform. The way I view it, over time, I think it'll be an ever-increasing giant valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders. I think it's the platform and the business that will continue to allow me to make and distribute the podcast for free for the rest of my life. And so I'm not just stopping where it is now, you know, even though I will continue to add my notes and highlights to it forever because it's embedded in my workflow. Like, if you w- if you already have a subscription to Founders Notes, and you already know this, you have, you've had all my notes and highlights on this b- on, on the, the episode I just did bef- way before the episode comes out because I have to use it to make the episode. It is embedded in my workflow, so that'll never stop as long as I'm doing the podcast, right? And so the ability to read all of my notes, all of my highlights, to search by keyword, uh, to go to the actual books. You can read it, uh, and some people are doing this every day. I'm getting a bunch of messages where they're almost like reading it like the morning newspaper. They'll go and pick a different book every day. They'll read the notes and highlights. Some cases they, they wind up buying the book 'cause they want more context. They go back and re-listen to the episodes. It's really fascinating what-- how people are using it so far. 'Cause again, the way to think about it, it's just an ever-increasing, giant, valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders. The podcast tries to do that, and the, the magic of the podcast is it does that when your eyes are busy, right? When you're driving, when you're commuting, when you're working out, when you're walking, whatever the case is. Founder's Notes is for when your eyes are not busy. It's this continuation of this, again, ever-increasing, giant, valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders. And so I've already been building out other features. So what I wanna try to do is, 'cause I wanna maintain-- I wanna keep investing more and more time and money into this thing, um, I'm going to test out something that was requested by a lot of people, right? So for a limited time, a one-time payment option, then I'm gonna use that money that comes in and then reinvest into more features because... So right now I have two screens up. Uh, I know you can't see this, but I have two screens. So I have Founder's Notes as is right now, right, where you can search your highlights. Uh, when you sign up, y- you have this big box at the top, says search highlights. Anything that you can think of, a name, an idea, a keyword, it goes in there. Highlight feed, which is this, what Morgan Housel of, uh, [chuckles] this, a friend of mine and also the, the author of "Psychology of Money" calls the smart Twitter feed, right? Actually, he heard me say that, and then he started using it, and he said it's a, that is what it is. So the highlight feed is essentially like a smart Twitter feed 'cause it gives you a random-- It presents highlights and notes from all o- all of, uh, everything that I have in the database, but in a random order. So I just hit, I just press on it, and it shows me the first thing is, uh, a, a highlight note from the autobiography of Christian Dior. The next one is the autobiography of Sam Zell. Then you have Ed Catmull's autobiography, the f- the founder of Pixar. Then you have the book I did on Christopher Nolan. Then you have, uh, Mark Twain, uh, James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Walt Disney, uh, the dy- the f- the dynasty book, "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the World's Greatest Families" I did a few, uh, months ago. Tiger Woods, uh, James Dyson, Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren again. This is, uh, Warren Buffett. That, that's Munger. This is a guy that sold his company to Buffett. This is Van Ever Bush. It goes on and on. Uh, I think you get the idea. Um, and so what that does is like the, I feel the highlights feed is like a prompt for your own thinking, right? It's like, "Okay, I, I... There's nothing I really wanna search today. I don't really wanna, uh, there's not a specific book I have in mind. Let me see if I can just prompt my own thinking and just scroll through there and see what comes to mind." You can also do the books. You click on books. That's pretty obvious. Like it's, I think, self-explanatory. It's gonna have all the books by the title. Some of them have, you know, a handful of highlights, some have a bunch. You can usually take five, 10 minutes at the most, uh, to read all the, my notes and highlights on a specific book. Now, the other screen I have up is... Well, like I just said, I'm not stopping there. And so the other screen I have up is a feature that I've been testing for a while where it's a chat interface. So instead of searching by keywords, you just say, like today what I was searching, it's like, 'cause I've been testing it nonstop, "Tell me about Edmund Land. Why was he important, and what did, what did, what did he do?" And the connections that it makes, it pulled 50 different highlights. Oh, I forgot to mention that the transcripts for every single episode, it's, uh, it's also, you can search through that as well, which is incredible. But it pulled 50 different highlights, right, uh, to answer this question. Then it gives me like 10, nine to 10 bullet points. And then, so I'm using it to, as I do research for the podcast, constantly testing it, but I'm also like asking questions like, "Hey, I'm having trouble deciding if I should sell my company or not. What advice do you have that'll help me make this decision?" Then it gives you, it pull, gives you a bunch of interesting ideas. And then I say, "Hey, have any of history's greatest founders regretted selling their company?" And then it continues on, pulling and then synthesizing dozens of highlights, and gives you an idea of the different perspectives. So in this case, it was g- gives me an idea from Michael Bloomberg, from Ted Turner, uh, from the founder of Trader Joe's, from Henry Singleton, fr- from Jack Ma, from Warren Buffett. All that from me just asking, "Hey, have any of history's greatest founders regretted selling their company?" And if you use any of these new AI platforms, you know it's like an idiot savant. You know, maybe half the time it's an idiot, and the other half the time it's a savant. But this is only gonna get better and better. And even right, right now in its current incarnation, it's already making connections that I even missed. So I'm testing this every day. It'll be out to every single person that has a subscription for to Founders Notes relatively soon, you know, maybe a few weeks, something like that. But I'm not stopping there. I really wanna organize around this idea that this is an ever-increasing, giant, valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders. And so I'm already building out resources where maybe you don't wanna search at all. This is something I want, so everything I'm describing is something I want. So like I was like, "Hey, I want a collection of ideas organized by theme across every book and episode." So instead of learning by person, right, or me searching for something, or even having a, a chat interface, g- give me one page, two page, three pages of how all of history's greatest founders thought about topics like marketing, recruiting, distribution, management. How did they hire? How did they fire? This is going to take an unbelievably long time to do. It's gonna require a lot of investment. I'm obviously going to hire several people to help me with this. But I wanted to give you a little sneak peek, because again, I always think about, one, [chuckles] I've already demo- it's already demonstrated over and over again, like the, the collective intelligence that is in for like the audience of the people listening to Founders is, is incredible. And so that advantage that I have of being able to tap into that becomes your advantage because then it's this like positive feedback loop. I get great ideas, and then I apply them to Founders Notes, and you benefit as well. So hopefully that made sense. I swear, I was like, "I'm gonna sit down. Instead of talking about this for like 30 minutes [chuckles] or whatever, uh, I don't even know how long I've been talking." Uh, I know sometimes I at the, at the end of episodes, I go, you know, I kinda [laughs] go off the rails a little bit. I swear, I was like, "I'm gonna sit down and, you know, two minutes just tell them, 'Hey, you have a lifetime option now or a one-time option now, uh, if you want this, uh, you know, here's how to get it.' Really simple." [laughs] And then I wind up going... I just, I, I'm fascinated by this stuff. I'm just fascinated. I was kind of like a skeptic a little bit, and then I start, I start the, like an AI skeptic, and then I realized, oh, no. Like the connections that, the benefit that I have, I have this weird thing where, you know, where it's like because I'm so em- em- enmeshed in all of this, and I read and reread every day, and I have for almost eight years, these connections just come tumbling out of my mouth. You hear it if I go on other people's podcasts. You hear it on this podcast. You hear it if you've ever spoken to me in person. And it's like, oh, everybody's gonna have this. And it makes me excited because it only makes my ability to make the podcast better. And again, just organizes like, hey, I wanna be really easy to interface with. If you follow me on social media, by the way, please, if you don't already, David Senra on LinkedIn, @founderspodcast everywhere else. Uh, everything like I'm gonna be easy to interface with. It's like you're gonna follow these accounts, or you're gonna listen, uh, to this podcast 'cause you wanna learn from history's greatest entrepreneurs. That's it. And you, you know, I don't have to belabor that point. You're smart enough to understand why that's, [chuckles] that's so important to do. And all I can think about is like this is gonna be a giant platform. Right now, founders and co-founders and some executives and a bunch of investors are using it. I think entire companies are gonna use this. And so if that mission sounds interesting to you and you wanna help, really easy way to help. Sign up either for an annual subscription or a one-time, and you can do that at foundersnotes.com. That is founders with an S, foundersnotes.com. Obviously, everything I've talked about is at founderspodcast.com too, so you can go through there. But foundersnotes.com, thank you very much. I've been talking too much. [chuckles] I'll talk to you very soon.

Episode duration: 1:02:58