#147 Sam Colt

What I learned from reading Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America by Jim Rasenberger. ---- [0:01] Sam Colt embodied the America of his time. He was big brash, voracious, imaginative, and possessed extraordinary drive and energy. He was a classic disruptor who not only invented a world-changing product but produced it and sold it in world-changing ways.  [1:59] He had solved one of the great technological challenges of the early 19th century.  [2:36] He was rich at 21. Poor at 31. Then rich again at 41.  [7:10] Sam Colt solved a 400-year-old problem. The guns of 1830 were essentially what they had been in 1430. [7:53] There's a financial panic in 1819. This is a very important part in the life of Sam Colt. It may explain why he was such a hard worker, ruthless, and determined. The panic of 1819 bankrupts his family.  [10:48] What kind of person would do this voluntarily? He was set to embark on a 17,000-mile voyage across the Atlantic, around the horn of Africa, through the Indian ocean and to the city of Calcutta. Honeymoon was not quite the word to describe a 17,000-mile voyage to Calcutta in 1830.  [13:57] He bridled at being under any authority other than his own. His dogma was the gospel of self-determination. “It is better to be the head of a louse than the tail of a lion.” [14:19] Self-determination took deep root in my heart and to has been the mark that has and shall control my destiny.  [16:14] Every cut of the jackknife an act of quiet vengeance not only against those who had flogged him but against the nameless forces that had snatched away his childhood with financial ruin and death.  [19:58] He saw a nation brimming with industry and ingenuity and hope. And at the same time, anxiety, fear and brutality.  [20:55] Nights went to [selling] nitrous oxide, days to improving his gun.  [22:31] This description of the book sold me on buying it: Brilliantly told, Revolver brings the brazenly ambitious and profoundly innovative industrialist