Quotes from Founder's Podcast

đŸȘŽ TransplantLast updated Sunday, March 1, 2026.
  1. Money comes naturally as a result of service.
  2. Ordinary things, done with extraordinary focus, over an extraordinary period of time.
  3. Find an earned secret and exploit it for two or three decades.
  4. Be a professional opportunist.
  5. Opportunity arrives after a loss.
  6. The best financial decisions are not financial decisions.
  7. You don't need to be a genius; you just need to collect more information.
  8. Reading is not hard—pick up a book and stare at it. If you're not doing that, you're not serious.
  9. Wise people don't solve problems; they avoid them.
  10. Genius has the fewest moving parts.
  11. Those at the margins often come to control the center.
  12. Mute the world, build your own.
  13. Don't do anything that someone else can do.
  14. A natural monopoly is ideal, but if not, take an oligopoly.
  15. Invest heavily in the technologies of the day.
  16. Ideas that are easy to understand are easy to spread.
  17. Make yourself easy to interface with.
  18. Relationships run the world.
  19. History doesn’t repeat; human nature does.
  20. Quality of your life is the direct result of the quality of your decisions.
  21. Don't learn to deal with stress; learn to enjoy it.
  22. Belief comes before ability.
  23. Problems are opportunities in work clothes.
  24. Books are made out of books.
  25. Bad boys move in silence.
  26. Learning from history is a form of leverage.
  27. Designing in constraints is powerful.
  28. The world is your classroom.
  29. "Always more audacity." — Winston Churchill
  30. Excellence is the capacity to take pain.
  31. Actions express priorities.
  32. The public praises people for what they practice in private.
  33. There are ideas worth billions in a $30 history book.
  34. Successful people listen. Those that don’t, don’t last long.
  35. If you know your business from A to Z, no problem is unsolvable.
  36. Business is problems; the best companies are problem-solving machines.
  37. Gentlemen, watch your costs.
  38. You aren't advertising to a standing army; you're advertising to a moving parade.
  39. Self-pity has no utility.
  40. Always more audacious.
  41. Wisdom is prevention.
  42. Go for great (Munger).
  43. Go for freedom (Zell).
  44. Making mistakes is the privilege of the active.
  45. Time carries most of the weight.
  46. Incentives rule everything around you.
  47. Find a simple idea and take it seriously.
  48. Good ideas are rare; when you find one, bet heavily.
  49. Genius lies in ignoring the unimportant.
  50. Intensity is the price of excellence.
  51. You can’t save souls in an empty church.
  52. Scale and fanaticism combined are powerful.
  53. If you’re not working on your best idea, you're doing it wrong.
  54. Ease isn’t the goal; excellence is.
  55. Become friends with the eminent dead. (read histories and biographies)
  56. People are power law; the best ones change everything.
  57. By endurance, we conquer.
  58. Keep things simple and remember what you set out to do.
  59. The founder is the guardian of the company’s soul.
  60. In business, the winning system maximizes or minimizes one or a few variables.
  61. Imitation precedes creation.
  62. Focus is saying no.
  63. Optimism is a moral duty.
  64. Intense concentration can bring out hidden resources in people.
  65. If anything is worth doing, it's worth doing to excess.
  66. Obsess over customers.
  67. Being extreme in your craft is essential in the age of leverage.
  68. Learning is not memorizing; it’s changing behavior.
  69. Repeat, repeat, repeat; volume and consistency win.
  70. If you love what you do, the only exit strategy is death.
  71. The story of the father is embedded in the son.
  72. The hard way is the right way.
  73. Be intolerant of slowness.
  74. Hire a professional critic.
  75. Experts don’t know sh-t.
  76. I love the climb; I don’t care where the summit is.
  77. "If you do everything, you will win."
  78. "Reading is forced meditation."
  79. "Action solves everything."
  80. A great product has to be better than it has to be.
  81. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it.
  82. "I'm not a businessman; I'm a business, man."
  83. "Forever on the attack."
  84. Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself.
  85. Plan B should be to make Plan A work.
  86. The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.
  87. The good ones know more.
  88. Avoid boring people.
  89. The best thing I did was choose the right heroes.
  90. All good things in life come from compounding.
  91. A players hire A players; B players hire C players.
  92. "Search all the parks in all your cities; you'll find no statues of committees."
  93. Have pride in creation, not consumption.
  94. Pay peanuts, get monkeys. 95. Once you find something that works, shut up about it.
  95. If you know the basics, you have an advantage over others (Kobe).
  96. Apply specific knowledge with leverage, and you’ll get what you deserve (Naval).
  97. There’s no substitute for hard work.
  98. Collect a handful of ideas, then hammer them home repeatedly.
  99. It’s slothful not to compress your thoughts.
  100. A novice is easily spotted because they do too much.
  101. "Repetition is persuasive."
  102. Keep the main thing the main thing.
đŸȘŽ

This is a transplant — someone else's idea, poem, or words that resonated with me.

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