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Founders

Founders

David Senra 444 Episodes Sep 14, 2026

Every week, host David Senra reads a biography of a great entrepreneur and distills the key lessons for listeners. The podcast draws on thousands of years of history to uncover timeless insights on building businesses, inventing technology, and managing teams. It aims to help you learn from the accumulated experience of history's most successful founders.

Episodes

#433 How Michael Bloomberg Works
#433 How Michael Bloomberg Works Sep 14, 2026 2917 What I learned from reading Bloomberg by Michael Bloomberg. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠ AppLovin: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com⁠ Vanta: ⁠⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders⁠ Sage: ⁠https://founderspodcast.com/sage
#432 The Mind of Napoleon
#432 The Mind of Napoleon Sep 5, 2026 3332 What I learned from reading The Mind of Napoleon by Napoleon. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ AppLovin: ⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com Vanta: ⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders Sage: https://founderspodcast.com/sage Some of my favorite quotes: 0:00 — " The book gives you insight into the mind of a man who combined energy of thought and energy of action to an exceptional degree." 0:30
#431 How Henry Singleton Worked
#431 How Henry Singleton Worked Aug 31, 2026 2944 What I learned from reading Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and The Man Who Created It by George Roberts and The Outsiders by William Thorndike. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ Applovin: ⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com Vanta: ⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders Some of my favorite quotes: 0:00 — "He aggressively repurchased his stock, eventually buying o
#430 How to Write Ads That Sell
#430 How to Write Ads That Sell Aug 23, 2026 3810 Claude Hopkins was the greatest copywriter of all time. His ideas were so valuable that when he wrote them down in a book the founder of his advertising firm locked the manuscript in a safe for 20 years. When the book was finally published it sold over 8 million copies. David Ogilvy said that nobody should work in advertising until they had read the book seven times. This episode is what I lea
#429 Bob Dylan's Autobiography
#429 Bob Dylan's Autobiography Aug 16, 2026 3604 What I learned from rereading Bob Dylan's autobiography. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ Applovin: ⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com Vanta: ⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders
#428 How Claude Shannon Worked
#428 How Claude Shannon Worked Aug 9, 2026 3078 Claude Shannon changed your life and you probably don't even know it. Claude is the father of information theory. He transformed information into bits and created the intellectual foundation for computers, the Internet, digital media, high-speed communication, and Artificial Intelligence. The way Claude Shannon worked is what interested me the most. He combined extraordinary abstract reasoning w
#427 How Raymond Plank Built a $50 Billion Oil Company
#427 How Raymond Plank Built a $50 Billion Oil Company Aug 1, 2026 2290 Raymond Plank founded Apache Corporation with just $250,000 in 1954. 50 years later his company was worth $50 billion. This episode examines the life and entrepreneurial philosophy of Raymond Plank through his memoir A Small Difference Rather than presenting a conventional history of Apache, this episode focuses on the lessons, maxims, and beliefs Plank accumulated over seven decades in busine
#426 How Obsession Built Christopher Nolan
#426 How Obsession Built Christopher Nolan Jul 26, 2026 3084 Obsession is the engine of Nolan’s career. This episode examines Christopher Nolan’s life, working methods, and philosophy through The Nolan Variations by Tom Shone. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠ Applovin: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com⁠ Vanta: ⁠⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders⁠ ⁠Add your email here⁠ and I will send you my top 10 quotes from every episode: https://davidsenra.subst
#425 The Merchant Bankers
#425 The Merchant Bankers Jul 19, 2026 2779 This episode discusses Joseph Wechsberg’s 1966 book, The Merchant Bankers. Rather than recounting the histories of families like the Rothschilds, Barings, Hambros, Warburgs, and Lehman Brothers, I wanted to extract the principles they shared. Merchant banking is fascinating. It's a very distinctive form of entrepreneurship. There is an old-school way of doing business that appeals to
#424 Peter Thiel on How to Build a Creative Monopoly
#424 Peter Thiel on How to Build a Creative Monopoly Jul 10, 2026 3238 What I learned from reading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters (for the 3rd or 4th time) Made possible by:  Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠  Applovin: ⁠https://www.applovin.com/⁠  Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders
#423 Soichiro Honda
#423 Soichiro Honda Jun 28, 2026 2899 What I learned from reading Honda: The Man and His Machines by Sol Sanders. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠  Applovin: ⁠https://www.applovin.com/⁠  Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders
#422 Joseph Pulitzer
#422 Joseph Pulitzer Jun 20, 2026 3158 What I learned from reading Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. Made possible by: Ramp: ⁠https://ramp.com⁠ Applovin: ⁠https://www.applovin.com/⁠ Vanta: ⁠https://vanta.com/founders

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