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Founders: #211 Aristotle Onassis: An Extravagant Life

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What I learned from reading Onassis: An Extravagant Life by Frank Brady. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- He became one of the richest men in U.S. history ever to be arrested.The epic life of Aristotle Onassis is as mysterious as a tale from ancient Greek mythology and is a study of paradoxes, altogether gripping because of their seeming inconsistencies.Onassis had long since begun to formulate a personal business philosophy. The key to success was boldness, boldness, and more boldness.He was constantly visiting and inspecting ships, talking to ship owners and other importers and quietly absorbing everything, making a very conscious attempt to learn as much as he could before going into ship-owning seriously.He was quite observant about what, to others, were trifles but, to him, were important details. He often quoted Napoleon: “The pursuit of detail is the religion of success.”Onassis was a man of the pier, but with the cocksureness of a king.She simply never knew anyone quite as free or exoti

[00:00:00] The city of Smyrna was in flames. The Holocaust, one of the biggest in the world's history, was larger than the Great Fire of London in 1666 or the blaze that wrecked San Francisco in 1906. 200,000 refugees jammed the city. Many had not eaten in days. There was an outbreak of typhoid. The harbor was packed with ships from many nations. [00:00:26] Aggressive escapees of the flames swam to a nearby ship and attempted to climb aboard. They were beaten and shot. A mile out to sea, the cries of the dying could be heard, intermixed with the frequent roar and clash of exploding…

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