Founders

Kelly Johnson’s “14 Points” read like a SpaceX operations manual — 60 years before SpaceX was founded. Kelly Johnson created Skunk Works, which he defined as: “A concentration of a few good people solving problems far in advance—and at a fraction of the cost—of other groups by applying the simplest, most straightforward methods possible to develop and produce new projects. All it is really is the application of common sense to some pretty tough problems.”

Kelly Johnson was a great engineer and system builder with genius for organizational design. His autobiography which he wrote when he was 75 years old is full of hard-earned wisdom from his 44 year career.

This episode is what I learned from reading Kelly: More Than My Share of it All by Kelly Johnson.

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Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders⁠

What I learned from rereading Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike for the 3rd or 4th time.

Made possible by:

Ramp:⁠ https://ramp.com⁠

Axon by Applovin: ⁠https://axon.ai/founders⁠

Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders

What I learned from reading Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Made possible by:

Ramp: https://ramp.com

Axon by Applovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders

This episode is about a once-in-a-generation mind working on what may be the most important problem in history. Based on the new book The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence by Sebastian Mallaby.

Made possible by:

Ramp: https://ramp.com

Axon by AppLovin: https://axon.ai/founders

Vanta: https://vanta.com/founders

My friend Eric Jorgenson spent years—and thousands of hours—studying Elon Musk. Eric read everything Elon has written, read everything written about Elon, and watched every interview Elon's given. He distilled all of Elon's insights into his new book. This episode is all about How Elon Thinks based on The Book of Elon: Elon Musk's Most Useful Ideas in His Own Words.

Episode sponsors:

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