What I learned from rereading My Life and Work by Henry Ford.

the second time that I've read Henry Ford's autobiography, and it was even better the second time through.

And it's because as the second time through, I finally realized it's less of

an autobiography, and it's more like a manifesto.

It's like 1 of history's greatest entrepreneurs is having a one-sided conversation with you and saying, hey, this is my philosophy on company building, and this is what I think you should do.

And so before we jump into the book, I wanna tell you about the sponsors of this episode, but I also wanna tell you about this experience I had this past weekend.

So I wind up flying out to California for

of the sponsors of this podcast, invited me out there.

I think this might've been on Saturday morning and actually got to meet up with David from the acquired podcast.

And just like I love talking to other founders, I love talking to other podcasters.

So me and David actually did a hike around Stanford and he gave me some really good advice.

So last week was the first time ever that I ever read ads on any podcast.

And what David told me is what he liked about my podcast is that it feels like it's 1 person talking to another, but the only thing he would change is like when you're reading ads, it sounds like you're reading on a script.

And he's like, you should just talk just like you do for the

my response was, damn, that's really good advice.

And then I thought to take it 1 step further, there's a reason why this podcast is called Founders and not Companies, right?

We focus on the people behind the products.

is it's a search engine for business knowledge.

So the same people, like the people that listen to this podcast, they're founders, executives, and investors, right?

Those are the same people that use Tegus to do research on companies.

And if you go to Tegus' website, which is tegus.com, then you'll see all the different products they offer.

And then I was thinking, people aren't here for me

to like go through the website and tell you what the product is about.

It's like the person behind, like my advantage, right, is that I always focus on the people behind the companies.

And so I've actually talked to the CEO and the founder Michael of Tegas multiple times And before I even talked to him the person I was introducing us was describing because Michaels Co-founder is his actually twin brother and I just love this description of him even before I met him I was

like, oh, I know I'm gonna like this guy because they described these twin brothers as ultra competitive, ultra hardworking nutcases that go really fast.

I talked to Michael, we talked for over an hour.

It became immediately obvious that he's got the same kind of relentless dedication to serving his customers and to building a truly great product that all the entrepreneurs that you and I study on this podcast do.

What you're about to hear in this podcast is Henry Ford having that same relentless dedication.

in the podcast, all he talks about is, listen, the entire point of a business is to serve other people.

Michael, I'm like, oh, this guy's got the same laser focus on serving his customer that Henry Ford had on serving his customers.

So if you're interested in supporting this podcast, go to tegus.com.

link below, but it's T-E-G-U-S.com, and you can get a free trial.

And if you wanna learn more about the conversations that I've had with Michael, I did like a 9 minute, I talked about it for like 9 minutes at the end of last week's episode.

This is Sam Hinckley's very unique venture firm.

At the end of today's episode, I'll tell you all about our weekend that we had together.

just go to 87capital.com and just read it.

I've never seen another venture capital firm website like this.

I've talked to Sam a ton over the last year.

I was like I don't even think you understand how other people talk about you.

They just hold them in excessively high regard.

And it's because he'll repeat like over and over again.

He should have the longest view in the room which is obviously beneficial to founders because how many people that you and I said in this podcast when I'm working on the same company for like 4 decades, right?

But once Sam finds somebody that he's interested

in, he's looking for long-term partners, right?

He's not just like, oh, here's money, and then see you later.

He's trying to find like the rarest of the rare people.

And then he'll go to great lengths constantly to just help these people as much as he possibly can.

Like just not only the ideas that he gives me, the people he's introduced me to, I mean he's just relentless with this.

And I definitely don't feel like I deserve that.

And to me the approach he's taking, again it's going to be very similar to this podcast you're about to listen to where Henry Ford was just obsessed with serving other people.

And I think, I really think, especially I just spent 48 hours with him, so does House for God's sake.

I really think Sam's obsessed with helping people win over the extremely long term.

And I think if you read 87 capital.com, there's also some fantastic podcasts he did.

he did that I listened to over and over again, they're on invest like the best, you'll get a good idea of who Sam is and how he thinks if I was raising money, I would go to Sam first.

So if you're 1 of these like kind of alien level 10 people, and you're looking for a long term partner, go to 87 Capital and get in touch with Sam.

And finally 1 more thing before we get into today's episode I had the craziest week so I've been doing this podcast non-stop like every day for like 4 years I started at 6 years ago but full-time I've went full-time 4 times 4 years ago right I went on so I just joined founders is now part of the Colossus family of podcasts, so the Colossus Podcast Network.

There's 2 episodes from other shows in the network that I want you to listen to, or I would recommend, you don't have to do anything, obviously, I was on Invest Like the Best.

Make sure you're following that show in your podcast player.

I don't know what the hell happened, but that show went viral

Like the spike in growth of founders downloads the amount of messages I have no idea what had took place when me and Patrick talked all I know is people seem to really like it and I Am both extremely happy that that happened and I was completely unprepared.

listen to Founders for a while, you'll see it's like a lot of review of the ideas that you and I talk about.

And then there's another show that I think is fantastic.

And they did an episode on the company Rolex.

I had to listen to it the second time with my wife.

the best episodes I've ever heard because Rolex is a super secretive business and The other person on the show.

He's the founder of Hodin key He got to tour parts of Rolex then Very few if I think maybe nobody else in media has ever and you're going to note immediately notice that the founder of Rolex is just like the people that you and I study.

In fact, I've been searching everywhere for a biography on him.

If you come across something, please let me know.

An able man is a man who can do things, and his ability to do things is dependent on what he has in him.

What he has in him depends on what he started with and what he has done to increase and discipline it.

An educated man is not 1 whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history.

A man who cannot think is not an educated man however many college degrees he may have acquired.

Thinking is the hardest work anyone can do, which is probably the reason why we have so few thinkers.

1 is the attitude of contempt towards education.

The other is the tragic snobbery of assuming that marching through an education system is a sure cure for ignorance and mediocrity.

You cannot learn in any school what the world is going to do next year, But

the things which the world has tried to do in former years and where it failed and where it succeeded.

If education consisted in warning the young student away from some of the false theories on which men have tried to build so that he may be saved the loss of the time in finding out by his own bitter experience, it's good would be unquestioned.

A man's real education begins after he has left school.

The true education is gained through the discipline of life.

That is an excerpt from the book that I'm gonna talk to you about today, which was published 100 years ago.

And it's My Life and Work, the autobiography of Henry Ford.

So back on episode 263 in that biography of Edwin Land called Land's Polaroid, a company and the man

who invented it, in chapter 3 it goes through all the different heroes and people that Edwin Land was studying, like the great people that came before him that influenced his approach to building all of his work, really his scientific work and the building of Polaroid.

And so it's like people, there'll be like 1 or 2 paragraphs, maybe like a page or 2 on the people that he was studying as

And it's like people like Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford is 1 of the people, which I'll get to in a minute why I'm rereading his autobiography and George Eastman.

what I've been trying to do the last few weeks is like set up, okay, if you had to ask, who's the most influential entrepreneurs

And I think the top 2 are blatantly obvious.

And you and I are living in the world that jobs change.

So I don't have to tell you what the introduction of smartphone change, you just live through it.

But I think a lot of people miss how fundamentally innovative the Model T was.

Henry Ford's Model T was the first mass-produced car in history.

Before that, humans were getting around on foot, horse, maybe horse-driven carriage, or maybe a bicycle.

Henry Ford was the first person in history to figure out how to produce a car at a price that everybody could buy 1.

But I like this idea of studying the 2 most important entrepreneurs of

the last hundred years, Steve Jobs and Henry Ford back to back.

Now, this is technically called an autobiography, but that's not really the way it's set up.

So when he, The reason I opened the podcast that way, where it says, hey, you know, true education is actually gained through the discipline of life.

I think that's how Henry Ford thought about this book as well.

We'll learn like a little bit about his early life, but mostly, it is like, reading this book is like having a one-sided conversation

the greatest entrepreneurs ever lived, just speaks directly to you and tells you, hey, this is my philosophy on company building.

And so let's go to the first chapter and it just opens up in a very odd way for an autobiography to open up.

Power and machinery, money and goods are useful only as they set us free to live.

They are buddy means to an end the fact that the 4 that the commercial success of the Ford Motor Company has been most unusual is important only because it serves to demonstrate That the theory in other words history to date is right.

He publishes this book in 1922 in 1919 he has he has bought out all of his Investors he owns the Ford Motor Company He owns a hundred percent of the Ford Motor Company.

And this is at a time in history when he is making like half, I think something like half of all cars in the world.

like today is if you own like, let's say a 10 or 20 billion, something like that, 10 or $20 billion company, a hundred percent.

have a lot of criticisms about the way other businesses are built, and I think my criticisms are valid and there are more people will be more open to hearing them because I have benefited immensely financially from the system as is, and I still want

So that is what he's talking about in these 2 paragraphs.

Considered solely in the light, I can criticize the prevailing system of industry and the organization of money and society from the standpoint of 1 who has not been beaten by them.

There, and something's gonna be apparent, Henry Ford had a giant ego.

And this is like a key thing to think about because it's why it's so important for founders to learn from other founders because a lot of this a lot of the assets to a successful founder and a lot of the things they do are almost in direct opposition of what polite society would tell you to do.

And so far after reading about 100, 000 pages of these biographies of entrepreneurs or less for years, something jumps out like small egos don't build giant companies.

The only difference is some of the founders are better at hiding it, which was the advice Sam Walton had.

He's like, listen, I knew you have an ego, hide it, don't use it to drive you, but don't let people see it.

It's an internal driven thing not an extra not something to like strut about externally

But that is just the first line and there's gonna be several them today where he's just like okay I can criticize this most time people criticizing the way Businesses are built and how money shapes society.

They're usually the ones that have been beaten by

it And he's like listen I can criticize because I'm have not been beaten by them at the time this is being written He is 1 of

the richest people on the planet So he continues as things are now organized I could were I thinking only selfishly ask for no change If I merely want money the present system is alright It gives money in plenty to me.

The present system does not permit of the best service because it encourages every kind of waste.

It keeps many men from getting the full return from service.

And I wanted to bring that up right at the beginning because I'm going to give you an opportunity to jump out.

I don't know how long you and I are going to talk right now, maybe an hour, maybe 2 hours depends on how long it takes me to get through this.

I'm essentially just going to repeat his main thing.

His main idea is that business exists for 1 reason and 1 reason only and that is to provide service for other people.

The note I left myself when I reread that paragraph is everything I do is serving my true end which is to make a product that makes other people's lives better.

I have both the paperback version and the Kindle version of this book.

And then he's going to echo an idea from his hero.

So I just went through the fact that at the beginning, Edwin Land was setting all these other people, a lot of so Henry Ford, Edwin Land, Steve Jobs, they share a

And so Henry Ford idolizes Thomas Edison Thomas Edison's like a few maybe like a generation older than Henry Ford they want to becoming really good friends like Henry Ford considered Edison like his maybe even his best friend, But what he's about to say here is very Edisonian.

Ideas are themselves extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea.

The thing that counts is developing in it into a practical product.

So Edison was famous for saying hey, I make a lot of inventions I'm only interested in venting things that people want to buy because a sale is a proof of Utility and then Ford says hey These are the ideas I used to build 1 of the most valuable companies in the world.

That company just happens to produce our mass-manufactured cars.

But these ideas can be used in any business.

And later on, he gets so frustrated with the inefficiency of a railroad that he winds up buying it and showing.

He's like, listen, that playbook I just ran on the Ford Motor Company, I'm gonna run on this railroad, and I'm gonna demonstrate that the principles, they actually work.

And he says, I am now most interested in fully demonstrating that the ideas we have put into practice are capable of the largest application,

that they have nothing particularly to do with motor cars.

And so there's a maxim that you and I have talked about over and over and over again.

The way I would compress that idea so you

can always remember and take it with you is

that you don't copy the what you copy the how.

In addition to his main theme of service, Henry Ford detests lazy people.

And he's going to bring this up over and over again.

Humans are made to work the way I'm going to read this to

you first and then I'll tell you what I wrote down right

So he says, the natural thing to do is work, to recognize that prosperity and happiness can be obtained only through honest effort.

Human ills flow Largely from attempting to escape from this natural course so the way I think about that is humans are made to work the sense of accomplishment from overcoming difficulty is satisfying in a way that a life of leisure and ease will never be and Then he's gonna compare and contrast his philosophy

which which he sees like the prevailing philosophy of his day.

And then I'll have a way to summarize this and break it down a little bit more because he goes on for quite a bit here.

Business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets.

mind, he grew up on a farm, so that's why

Business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets or what it eats, right?

There was a letdown of the principle that an honest relation ought to be attained between value and prices.

The public no longer had to be catered to.

There was even a public be damned attitude in many places.

So he's saying a public be damned attitude by business owners.

Henry Ford, like Jeff Bezos, was extremely customer obsessed.

At the same time I was reading this book, I listened

to an episode of Invest Like the Best podcast with this guy named Ravi Gupta.

that was really interesting, and so interesting that I took a note and saved it in my phone, and he says, I think Amazon's culture is largely based on 1 thing.

That is what Bezos would die on the hill for.

And I think this this almost maniacal obsession and dedication to providing customers the best service at the lowest cost is a way to think about Henry Ford.

Because to me, it's like every single once you once you really put it into your brain every single decision he's gonna make

in the building companies all gonna flow for that 1 thing

and if he sees a business that doesn't this is like the big eagle part if he does if he sees a business that doesn't have a thing like he's gonna talk shit about it And so that's exactly what he's doing here.

He's always going to try to cater to them.

Some men called this abnormal condition prosperity.

So he's coming right off of like this big financial boom.

And so this is what he thinks business should be it is the function of business to produce for consumption and not for money or speculation Producing for consumption to the consumer right implies that the quality of the article, I need

Anytime you read books in like this age from like 19 hundreds, 19 10/19/2019 30, for some bizarre reason.

They use the word article when he says the word article.

how we think of the word article today, like something like

So when you hear article, I will try to, before I even say

to change it into product, but in case I don't, if you hear Henry Ford say, the article produced, he's not talking about writing something, He's talking about his product, the Model T.

So let me start this sentence over again.

Producing for consumption implies that the quality of the article, the quality of the product produced will be high and that the price will be low.

That the article, there I go again, that the product be 1 which serves the people and not merely the producer.

And so I have the Kindle version up right now.

I told you that the word service appears in this book 129 times.

He's just gonna repeat this over and over and over again for 200 pages.

So let me wrap up this section I'll tell you how to think about Henry Ford's philosophy and like something that fits into like a tweet size like maybe a paragraph size.

Okay the producer depends for his prosperity upon serving the people.

I hope you don't get annoyed at me, I promise.

This book is, I think, a must-read for any entrepreneur.

But it's just funny that he just pounds on this thing over and over again.

The producer depends for his prosperity upon serving the people.

He may get by for a while serving himself, but if he does, it will be purely accidental.

And when the people wake up to the fact that they are not being served, the end of that producer is in sight.

So I probably read that paragraph, you know, maybe I don't know, 5 times in the preparation to talk

So I'm reading that, I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

There is like some weird thought that just popped into my mind that I forgot.

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#266 Henry Ford's Autobiography