Founders: #336 How To Lose A Few Billion Dollars: Samuel Insull

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What I learned from reading Insull: The Rise and Fall of A Billionaire Utility Tycoon by Forrest McDonald. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders by investing in a subscription to Founders Notes ---- Come and build in-person relationships at the Founders Only conference ---- (0:01) Insull had been in the electric business as long as there had been an electric business. (4:00) He awoke early, abruptly, completely, bursting with energy; yet he gained momentum as the day wore on, and long into the night. Sam had near-demonic energy. (5:00) Sam's most obvious attribute was a capacity for racing through large quantities of reading material, effortlessly perceiving its important assumptions and generalizations, and thoroughly assimilating its salient details. (7:00) He eagerly embraced platitudes: • Idle hands are the devil's workshop • Time is money • Things are simply "done" or "not done" • One reveres one's family • Only that which is useful is good • Survival of the fittest (8:00) Opportunity handled well leads to more opportunity. (12:00) He developed an ability to concentrate on a single subject and to completely shut out everything else, no matter how p

[00:00:00] Do you remember Sam Insull, the billionaire utility tycoon from Chicago? Do you remember how his empire collapsed and how he lost $2 or $3 billion? How the newspapers at the time called it the biggest business failure in the history of the world? You may remember the battle that the United States government had to extradite Insull from Greece. But chances are you don't remember that Insull had been in the electric business as long as there had been an electric business. That he had started as Thomas Edison's private secretary in 1881. That he, more than any other man, was…

Founders: #336 How To Lose A Few Billion Dollars: Samuel Insull

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