#828: David Senra — How Extreme Winners Think and Win: Lessons from 400+ of History’s Greatest Founders and Investors (Including Buffett, Munger, Rockefeller, Jobs, Ovitz, Zell, and Names You Don’t Know But Should)

David Senra is the host of the Founders podcast. For the past nine years, David has intensely studied the life and work of hundreds of history’s greatest entrepreneurs. His new podcast, David Senra, showcases conversations with the best-of-the-best living founders and extreme winners. This episode is brought to you by: Cresset family office services for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs Our Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro using nonstick technology that’s coating-free and made without PFAS, otherwise known as “Forever Chemicals” AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement Timestamps: [00:00:00] Who is David Senra? [00:01:11] Brad Jacobs: Roll-up king and positive-driven billionaire founder. [00:02:26] Rare positive archetypes: Ed Thorp, Sol Price, Brunello Cucinelli. [00:06:04] Michael Dell as another exception; fear of failure and motivation. [00:06:47] Negative self-talk, excellence, and its ripple effects. [00:08:26] Jensen Huang story: “Why do you suck so much?” [00:08:54] Inspiration from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. [00:10:00] Derek Sivers: unconventional, philosophical entrepreneur. [00:11:04] Learning equals behavior change, not memorization. [00:11:48] Jeremy Giffon insight: biographies as substitute mentors. [00:12:37] Reading biographies as one-sided conversations. [00:13:16] The chain of influence. [00:14:09] Podcasting as “relationships at scale.” [00:14:28] Coping with trauma and breaking cycles. [00:20:18] Note-taking process: books, Post-its, ruler, Readwise. [00:29:27] OCD tendencies and love of doing things the hard way. [00:31:04] Comparing our reading/re-reading workflows. [00:35:04] A family falling out and the randomness of student housing. [00:38:58] David’s introduction to my work during his MySpace-era college years. [00:40:07] Podcasting influences: Jocko Willink, Kevin Rose’s Elon Musk interview. [00:44:14] Five-and-a-half years of obscurity before breakthrough. [00:46:50] Graphtreon and experiments with subscription