Founders - #250 Jacob Fugger (The Richest Man Who Ever Lived)

Starting point is 00:00:00 In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a German banker named Jacob Fugger became the richest man in history. Maybe you've heard of him, but usually his name gets blank stares. His influence rests on what he did for Austria's Hasburg family dynasty. When Fugger made his first loan to the Hasburgs, they didn't even have Vienna. By the time he finished, they had half the known world. While they got the titles, Fugger got the money. His biggest client died penniless, and he died with the biggest fortune the world has ever known.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Most people become rich by spotting opportunities, pioneering new technologies, or besting opponents in negotiations. Fugger did all of that through a mix of gumption and intellect. But he had an extra quality that allowed him to rise even higher. Nerve. In an era when kings had unlimited power, Fugger had the nerve to stare down the heads of state and ask them to pay back their loans with interest. One of his sneaky financing schemes provoked and outraged Martin Luther to start the reformation. In his biggest contribution to finance, he got the Pope to legalize money lending. He financed Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe, and he helped defeat the mobs in the first clash between capitalism and communism.

Starting point is 00:01:30 In The Richest Man Who Ever Lived, the author Greg Steinmetz for the first time gives Fugger his due. It is the ultimate untold story. That is from the inside cover of the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is The Richest Man Who Ever Lived, The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger, and it was written by Greg Steinmetz. Okay, so this book was actually recommended to me by my friend Eric Jorgensen. Eric is the author of the book that I covered on Founders Number 191. It's one of my favorite books. It's The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. I think it's key for anybody trying to build a business in the age of infinite

Starting point is 00:02:05 leverage. There's a ton of great ideas in that book. If you haven't listened to it, obviously read the book, but go ahead and listen to, make sure you go back and listen to episode number 191. And this is what he said about the book that I'm holding in my hand that got me interested in reading it. And it just lists some of the innovations that Jacob, I'm going to call him Jacob instead of Fugger. And you'll see why when I read this message from Eric. So he said, Jacob invented double entry bookkeeping. He had a similar fast information network advantage like the Rothschild. So I'm going to talk a lot about how Jacob reminded me of what I learned about reading the two books on the Rothschild.

Starting point is 00:02:39 And then they call Jacob the German Rockefeller. And you'll see there's a lot of, he had a lot of things in common with both the Rothschilds and Rockefeller. So he had a similar fast network advantage, just like the Rothschild had. He was as powerful as the pope. In fact, he bribes multiple popes throughout the entire book. This book is absolutely insane. The events that take place in the book happened 500 years ago. His financing, Jacob's financing was decisive in a number of wars and he knew it

Starting point is 00:03:05 and he auctioned his influence to essentially win the war. At his death, his net worth was 2% of the GDP of Europe. That's why the author makes the case that he's the richest man that ever lived. There's lots of good nuggets on Germany and European history. And I was just struck by the amount of violence that's in the book. It was just mind blowing. He was generous to some degree, but he did create social housing that is actually still in use to this day, which is really remarkable. And then here's why I want to call him Jacob instead of Fugger. It's very likely that he was the root cause, the etymology behind the word fucker. And so the book opens up with the letter that Jacob is writing to Charles V.

Starting point is 00:03:50 Really, I'm going to pull a couple highlights here at the very beginning, because this is just a very unique time. They consider Jacob probably the first capitalist, at least the first capitalist that ever did it on the scale that he did it. And it's really important because he's rather unlikable. At least that's the feeling I had when I finished the book. But part of this is like it's kind of a struggle to put into context, like the historical context of when he was operating. So I want to just pull out a couple of pieces here, because I think if we do this right at the very beginning, kind of adds the

Starting point is 00:04:18 important historical context that we need to understand his story and maybe why he made some of the decisions that he made. So it says, Jacob wrote collection letters all the time, but the 1523 letter was remarkable because he addressed it not to a struggling fur trader or a cash-strapped spice importer, but to Charles V, the most powerful man on earth. Charles ruled an empire that was the biggest since the days of ancient Rome

Starting point is 00:04:42 and would not be matched until the days of Napoleon. And so this is like his, I would say it's Jacob's most infamous letter sits down. It's like, hey, Charles, I know you're the most powerful man on earth, but you owe me money and you owe me interest and you need to pay me now. So I read the entire letter. It's actually reprinted later on in the book. I think this sentence right here is the one that is probably the most, the most like ballsy that he had to do. He says, it is well known that without me, your majesty might not have acquired the imperial crown. You will order that the money which I have paid out with the interest shall be paid without further delay. And so why did that require so much nerve?

Starting point is 00:05:19 Because these are people that would just chop your head off and kill you at the slightest little insult. Nerve was essential because business was never more dangerous than in the 16th century. Cheats got their hands cut off or a hot poker through their cheek. Deadbeats would rot in prison. Bakers got dragged through the town to the taunt of mobs. And moneylenders faced their cruelest fate. So Jacob was involved in a number of businesses, but the best way to think of him is as a banker. And so at this time, he's the one that actually

Starting point is 00:05:51 gets the law changed. They considered lending money and then collecting interest on money. Like it was something that was frowned upon by God. And so how extreme was this belief? Well, here's an example. To prove that lending money at interest was sinful and everything else, the church members dug up graves of suspected moneylenders and pointed to the pace, going further than you would suspect when the consequences of making some certain mistakes at this time in history was death. Given the consequences of failure, it's a wonder that Jacob strove to rise as high as he did. He could have retired to the country and lived a life of hunting, womanizing, and feasts. Some of his heirs did just that. But this, I double underlined the sentence because this is a really fundamental understanding of who he was as a person. And in fact, this is what he

Starting point is 00:06:50 wanted to put on his gravestone. But he wanted to see how far he could go, even if it meant risking his freedom and his soul. And so what does that mean? He liked Rockefeller. Remember, think about Jacob as the German Rockefeller. He thought that he was it was he was blessed with a talent for money making by God. And so he couldn't retire. He couldn't live a life of leisure because God told him to make as much money as possible. And this is what he said. The Lord must have wanted him to make money. Otherwise, he wouldn't have given him such a talent for it. Many in the world are hostile to me, Jacob said. But I am rich by God's grace. That is exactly what Rockefeller believed. He thought God gave him a talent to making money and that his job

Starting point is 00:07:32 was to make as much money as possible and then give as much of it as way as possible. So Jacob did not give, he's not going to do that second part though. He's going to collect as much as he can. So let me go into a little bit about his early life, his personality, his businesses. Really, this is just more context for the story that I think is extremely helpful to try to understand this very difficult person. This is the reason I want to read stories like the book that I have in my hand is because this personality type is still walks this earth. And these are people that I want to know that exist.

Starting point is 00:08:00 And then I want to avoid them. He is reminds me of what Charlie Munger said when he said that wise people want to avoid other people who are just total rat poison. And there's a lot of those such people. And you'll see what I mean as we go through this story. It's wild. Okay, so Jacob was the first anywhere to consolidate the returns of multiple operations in a single financial statement, a breakthrough that let him survey his financial empire with a single glance and always know where his finances stood. So it's really important that a lot of the stuff that he innovated on, like this is just the world that we live in. It's like normal to us. There's a blurb

Starting point is 00:08:34 on the front of the book that is from the author of this book called The Barbarians at the Gate, which has also been recommended to me and I might read for the podcast. But he said, Jacob wrote the playbook for everyone who keeps score with money. This is a must for anyone interested in history and the history of wealth creation. And so this idea to consolidate all my different businesses, all the different offices I have all over the world into one single financial statement that I can just glance and know exactly where I stand financially. He was the first person in recorded history that did that. Then he created one of the world's first news services that gave him an information edge over his rivals and customers. It is fair to call Jacob the most influential businessman of all time. Jacob changed history because he lived in an age when,

Starting point is 00:09:15 for the first time, money made all the difference in war and hence politics. And Jacob had money. He lived in palaces and owned a collection of castles. His fortune came to just under 2% of European economic output at the time of his death. Not even Rockefeller could claim that kind of wealth. Jacob was the first documented millionaire in history. So what did he do to get that money? He made his fortune in mining and banking, but also sold textiles, spices, jewels, and holy relics, such as the bones of martyrs. He held a monopoly on a Brazilian tree bark that was believed at the time to cure syphilis. Jacob's father died when he was 10, and if it was not for his strong and resourceful mother, he might not have gotten anywhere. Jacob was headstrong, selfish.

Starting point is 00:10:08 I'm going to read this whole thing. I should emphasize every single one of these words. He was headstrong. Yes. Selfish, deceitful, and sometimes cruel. But he turned at least one of those flaws, a tendency to trumpet his own achievements into an asset. His boasts were good advertising. And then this is the sad part. This is why, again, I want to study him. If he's got good ideas, I'll grab them. But most of it's like, okay, I'm going to avoid this guy's fate. Did success make him happy? Probably not. He had few friends, only business associates. His only child was illegitimate. While in his deathbed, with no one at his other side than paid assistants, his wife was with her lover. His objective was neither comfort nor happiness. It was to stack up money until the end. Before he died, he composed his own epitaph.

Starting point is 00:10:52 It was an unabashed statement of ego. And this is what I meant. This guy is wild. This is what he wrote about himself. He's writing in third person. Jacob Fugger was second to none. This is him writing about himself. I want to be very clear. This is like, this is what I want to be remembered for as I'm dying. Jacob Fugger was second to none in the acquisition of extraordinary wealth, in purity of life, and in greatness of soul, as he was comparable to none in life. So after death is not to be numbered among the mortal. So that's the end of his own description of himself. This is back to the author. His methods blazed the path for five centuries of capitalists. He was at his core, an aggressive businessman doing whatever it took to achieve

Starting point is 00:11:38 his ends. To understand our financial system and how we got here, it pays to understand him. So the author already made a reference of how important his mother was, right? And the reason is, is because they're in Germany, they're German, so they're in Germany, right? She sends him to apprentice at the absolute best place that he could possibly apprentice because he's going to get a start just like Rockefeller as a bookkeeper, okay? So she sends him to Venice And that is important because Venice puts commerce above religion. And Germany at the time did not. So it says, Jacob looked up to his brothers and envied them and their adventures on the road.

Starting point is 00:12:12 His own chance for adventure soon came enough when his mother secured him an apprenticeship in Venice. And why is that important? Because Venice was the most commercially minded city on earth at the time. I wonder what's the most commercially minded city on earth today? I don't know the answer. If you have an answer, let me know. Venice was founded on commerce and business. Businessmen ran the place. Money was all anyone ever talked about. And this is important because this is where he finds his life trade. It was during this time that he learned about banking. Jacob was to become many things in these two years. He's an industrialist, a trader, and at times a speculator.

Starting point is 00:12:47 But he was foremost a banker. Venice also exposed him to the craft of accounting. Most of the merchants back in Germany were still jotting down numbers on paper scraps that were never organized. Italians developed double-entry bookkeeping. It would let them understand a complex business in a quick glance by summarizing the highlights and condensing the value of the enterprise to a single figure, which is the net worth of the company. Right now, this is he took that innovation that they had and he wound up taking it one step further. He's like, oh, that's a good idea. I'm going to combine. I'm going to do this.

Starting point is 00:13:18 So all of my disparate businesses, my entire financial empire, if you will, is condensed down to a single number. And then we're going to see another thing he had in common with Rockefeller. businesses, my entire financial empire, if you will, is condensed down to a single number. And then we're going to see another thing he had in common with Rockefeller. Remember, I think it was the last episode, maybe the episode before that, 248, when I just spent 40 hours rereading Titan and trying to do an entire podcast just about Rockefeller's climb. And so if you listen to that already, if you read the book, you already know this part. It was a fact that Jacob, as a teenager, already understood the importance of bookkeeping and how it gave him an edge. It says something about his intuitive grasp of business. He knew that those who kept sloppy books and overlooked details left money on the table. That was something he considered unconscionable. That's

Starting point is 00:14:02 something Rockefeller also knew at a very early age. You know, he's 21, 22 at the time, and he's just admonishing Rockefeller that his older businessmen, they're 10, 20 years older than him about how sloppy their books are, how they go over. They're like, they're too quick to pay the bills. Even he's like, even if you could save a couple pennies, like he was just absolutely relentless. And that's also why he was recruited by older businessmen to go into partnership. They're like, OK, there's nobody else. Even though Rockefeller is younger than us, there's nobody else that's as good at bookkeeping and just the overall keeping a handle on the overall financial performance of a business and making sure that we're not wasting a penny than this guy. So then the author does a great job of explaining, like, why would how could a banker become so powerful at this point in history so says but

Starting point is 00:14:45 to make sense of his life it helps to understand how he could exploit this odd creation and why an emperor needed a banker so they're going to talk about this later on i don't know if i have a highlight or not but you can think about the role that jacob plays as an individual is now a role that's played by institutions like governments central banks i uh the international monetary fund pensions he goes into more detail later on but at his point in history it's a role that's played by institutions like governments, central banks, the International Monetary Fund, pensions. He goes into more detail later on. But at his point in history, it's a dude. It's just him. And that's why he's able to make so much money. And so at this point in European history, the leaders are building wealth through war and conquering. This is a very zero-sum game.

Starting point is 00:15:21 And so if you're going to wage war and you want to essentially go in and attack other people and steal their property and enslave their people, you need a lot of soldiers. And to get soldiers, you need money. And so that is the role that Jacob's going to play. And so there's a bunch of characters in European history in here. I'm not going to go into too much detail because I don't want to distract us from the main story of of focusing on jacob but he's going to to team up with his first like no noble person he's gonna like discard them and you'll see how just ruthless he is but it says the emperor received no funding except from his own estates and thus could only field a small army this made him easy to ignore so this guy named frederick decided hey i need to i need to raise money i need to have a large army and that's

Starting point is 00:16:04 do that that this conquering, I'm going to produce wealth, right? So it says the great game of this era was to expand the family power base. The winner, how do you win that game? In other words, whoever grabbed the most titles and territories. It was a bloody business. Frederick, the guy that is going to team up with Jacob, had the fantastic notion that the imperial crown could make his family the most powerful in Europe. He believed in it so much that he stamped the initials A-E-I-O-U on his tableware. That stands for all earth is under Austria. So that's the size of Frederick's ambition.

Starting point is 00:16:41 He's like, I'm going to control the earth, right? Here's the problem. The problem was that Frederick was unable to fund an imperial lifestyle and was broke. And not only is he broke, but he's stiffed a bunch of other people that have lent him money in the past. So other merchants would refuse him credit. He needs, this is where he actually is introduced into the Fugger family. Because before banking, the Fugger family business was in textiles.

Starting point is 00:17:03 So like cloth and fabrics and everything else. So he's going to wind up meeting Jacob's older brother. He didn't have any money. So he says that led Frederick to Ulrich, the oldest of the Fugger brothers. He needed his help. Jacob's older brother gave Frederick silk and wool for his robes and all this like fancy stuff that he needs. And in return, Frederick gives him a royal endorsement. The royal endorsement was well worth a few cloths from the Fugers. And so essentially

Starting point is 00:17:31 what just went down there is like a barter between the emperor and Jacob's older brother. And the reason I'm bringing this to your attention is because of the lesson that Jacob learns from this story. The spectacle of the emperor begging for help must have startled Jacob. Any belief he had, he may have had, in the emperor's superhuman qualities could not have survived the fact that mere shopkeepers, which is what they are at this point, right? Ordinary people that he saw on the street every day had denied credit to the supposedly most powerful figure in Europe.

Starting point is 00:18:06 And so there's more detail in the book. But again, we live in a very different world where the people that have power usually have money too. In this time, you might have power in land, you might have power in titles, you might be born into the right family. But a lot of these people didn't have a lot of money. And so people like Jacob in the 1500s, the Rothschilds a couple hundred years later, they're the ones that take advantage of the fact that the nobility or the elite or whatever you want to call them of their day were cash poor. We live in a time where that would be just absolutely ridiculous. So I'm fast forwarding the story a little bit. Jacob's 26 years old. He's like, all right, up until this point, the family had concentrated on buying and selling textiles.

Starting point is 00:18:43 Right. But the profit margins are small. He's like, I need to expand. He has gigantic ambition. Right. So he's like, all right, up until this point, the family had concentrated on buying and selling textiles, right? But the profit margins are small. He's like, I need to expand. He has gigantic ambition, right? So he's like, hey, a lot of these other elites or nobles are making a lot of money in mining, right? And he's like, there's definitely a lot more profits in there. How can I get into a new business line that had better profit margins? And so he winds up hooking up with Frederick's cousin. And this is a weird thing. I've heard, actually, Dan Carlin of Hardcore History is the one that's taught me the most about this. Because a lot of his, especially his great series on World War I, about how many of like European powers were like related to each other. They'd be like cousins or sometimes like intermarried or whatever the case is. So similar things happening here.

Starting point is 00:19:27 Frederick has a cousin. It's this guy named Sigmund. Sigmund is a terrible leader, very selfish, just essentially takes all the finances, acts as if it's his own personal bank, constantly overextends himself. And this is the end that Jacob's going to figure out. He's like, oh, if I borrow, if I lend this guy money, I can actually, it's like a, almost like a side, like a flanking maneuver to get into mining. Let me read this and it'll make more sense there. Sigmund only spent on himself. When money ran out, he borrowed against the output of his mines by selling silver to a group of bankers at a discount. So eventually

Starting point is 00:19:58 one of those bankers is going to be Jacob. He gets the discount of like, let's say 50% off from Sigmund and then immediately do geographical arbitrage. We gets the discount of like, let's say 50% off from Sigmund and then immediately do geographical arbitrage. We'll send it to like Venice and other places and sell, you know, 100% return or whatever the case is. He's like, oh, I have no money. I have this thing that essentially just prints money, my silver mine, and I'll just sell it to you at a discount. Jacob wanted to be one of the bankers and remarkably he got in on a deal. The amount was small, but it made him a banker, the profession that over the next 40 years he would take to new heights.

Starting point is 00:20:29 Jacob worked until the day he died. He dies, I think he's like 66, 65, something like that. But there is no retirement for this guy. He's absolutely obsessed. So he gets in when he's 26, but he's having no luck. It takes four more years before he gets another deal. And the reason that's important is because the Venetian bankers had this on lock and they wound up getting into a beef with Sigmund later on. So now they're not going to loan him any more money. And this is

Starting point is 00:20:55 where Jacob, I'm fast forwarding in the story, obviously, is where Jacob's going to see his opening. He assumed his bankers would support him, but when he asked for more money, they offered only excuses. Sigmund tried his bankers one more time, but by now Sigmund's years of unchecked spending and mounting debt had caught up with them. The bankers refused to help. Jacob came forward with an offer. Remember, he's been trying to work with this guy for four years. He's like, you gave me a little bit, then you left me out into the wilderness. Let's do a deal together. And this is where we really see that Jacob just had this gifted mind for business. So Jacob combined his family's money with money raised from friends and agreed to loan Sigmund the full amount. It was a whale of a deal for Jacob. It was more than 10 times the size of his earlier loan. The other bankers

Starting point is 00:21:33 laughed. They couldn't believe that Jacob was willing to give Sigmund anything, let alone a bigger loan, a bigger loan than any of them had ever made. If Sigmund repaid, Jacob would make a fortune. Remember, he's about 30 years old at the time. But if Sigmund welched and given his record, it seemed likely Jacob would be finished. To prevent ruin, this is where you see that Jacob, he's listening, he's somebody I want to avoid, but he's got it. He's smart. He's very clever. He's got a gifted mind, especially for this kind of stuff. To prevent ruin, Jacob filled the loan agreement with safeguards. He barred Sigmund from touching the silver. He made the mine operators co-sign the loan, and he insisted on forwarding the money to Sigmund in installments rather than as a lump

Starting point is 00:22:15 sum. Jacob also insisted on control over the state treasury. Jacob wanted stability, and by controlling this country, or this like little town what he said like empire by controlling their purse strings he could act as a one-man international monetary fund and the only reason this worked is because Sigmund had no other options it was this or nothing Sigmund agreed to all of Jacob's terms he had no choice but the agreement was only words on paper Sigmund was the law of the's terms. He had no choice, but the agreement was only words on paper. Sigmund was the law of the land. Debtor's prison was for little people, not archdukes.

Starting point is 00:22:50 The only thing that kept him honest were his honor, which could be fleeting, right? But this is really what kept him honest. His desire to borrow again in the future. The loan marked a pivotal moment in the ascent of Jacob. There was, and this is, so this carries on to the next page. It's like a sentence or two, but really, really important. I double underlined all of this here.

Starting point is 00:23:11 This is really remarkable if you think about this. Because this is the turning point in Jacob's life, right? There was nothing pioneering or innovative about the loan. And his competitors could have made it as easily as Jacob did. All Jacob did was put up his money when no one else had the guts. Such out of favor investments became a hallmark of his investing career. That sentence, I just re-listened to episode 103 about Hedy Green because I know Hedy Green had made the majority of her money or her wealth. She went through all these financial

Starting point is 00:23:43 panics in her life, like maybe like a half a dozen. I lost count how many. And so we have no idea what's taking place in the economy right now. And I was like, hey, you know what? It's probably a good idea for me to go back and reread my highlights from Hedy Green's book and then re-listen to that podcast. It's episode 103, if you don't know what I'm talking about. I think the book is called The Richest Woman in America. But that sentence about Jacob could describe her as well. Such out of favor investments became a hallmark of his investing career. By this time, Jacob had made friends with Sigmund. And this is what I mean about rat poison, because he's so deceitful.

Starting point is 00:24:15 Like, you just can't keep these people around you. They're just so, they don't actually care about you. They just care what you could do for them. Jacob's a perfect example of that. By this time, Jacob had made friends with Sigmund. Knowing that Duke was vulnerable to flattery, Jacob had won a spot in Sigmund's heart by celebrating the greatest achievement in the Duke's otherwise disastrous reign. So it's this silver coin that celebrates Sigmund himself. He puts like, it's essentially like if you print somebody's face that you're trying to flatter on a currency and you spread it around. And, you know, this guy's extremely egotistical as it is. So he's like falling to the flattery.

Starting point is 00:24:51 The popularity of the coin attracted imitators across Europe. And this was fascinating. So, again, I feel like Jacob's almost like historical, like finance history is like Forrest Gump. He's had all these really important events. And so this idea that they're doing together, it was actually copied by the Danish. And it says that the Danes called their version of Sigmund's coin, the dollar.

Starting point is 00:25:17 Three centuries later, Americans gave a nod to the Danes and ran with it. I didn't know that. That was remarkable. Sigmund appreciated Jacob's thoughtfulness. He stayed true to his banker, but his loyalty was one-sided. Soon enough, Jacob would return the Duke's loyalty by turning on him. And so this is where we see that Jacob was really only loyal to himself and his money. There's another guy, Maximilian, that he's going to back and eventually he's going to overthrow sigmund uh maximilling uh maximilian

Starting point is 00:25:46 had a winning collection of personal attributes he was charming and athletic admirers called him the last knight he was never happier than when he was in his armor jousting in a tournament or fighting an enemy remember this is how you made money back in the day you if you were really good at killing people and and overtaking empires like you're that's how you got rich uh he was a hard worker. After a day in the field, when his captains would relax with beer around a campfire, Maximilian retired to his tent to address official correspondence. He had plenty of faults. He was moody, easily distracted, and prone to get ahead of himself. But he had intelligence, determination, physical courage,

Starting point is 00:26:20 and a desire to do whatever it took to advance his family. And so think about Jacob seeing Sigmund. He's gotten close to him, understands who he is as a person. He's now studying Maximilian. He's like, oh, I'm back in the wrong horse here. Jacob correctly grasped that Maximilian would outmaneuver the dull-witted Sigmund. Maximilian did it with a ploy that Jacob himself could have devised given its ingenuity. Maximilian loaned money to Sigmund backed by a mortgage on his property. If Sigmund failed to repay in three years, Maximilian would take over. Sure enough, Sigmund defaulted. He could have repaid if Jacob had loaned him the money, right? You figured that your main banker, he's going to bail me out. And this is where Jacob

Starting point is 00:27:04 switched sides. But Jacob, who preferred the ambitious Maximilian as a customer to Sigmund, did nothing. Okay, so let's go into how Jacob worked. Entrepreneurs, investors obviously know knowledge is profit. Jacob knew it 500 years ago. I'm going to read this section to you, and then I want to read this later on in the book. I'm going to skip ahead and I'll come back where they compare and contrast Nathan Rothschild and Jacob Fugger, which is very fascinating. So this is this information advantage that he sought out. Jacob craved market sensitive information so much that he created a system to get it first, a news service, which was the world's first. He set up a network of couriers who raced across Europe with market information, political updates and the latest gossip, anything that would give him an edge. In the years ahead, he set up a network of couriers who raced across Europe with market information, political updates, and the latest gossip, anything that would give him an edge.

Starting point is 00:27:47 In the years ahead, he learned about important deaths and battle outcomes before the emperor and his competitors. Eventually, Jacob's heirs turned this information network into the world's first newspaper. These dispatches, this information eventually looked more like newspapers than anything else. Jacob's letters preceded the first newspaper by half a century. And so what was remarkable to me is that all throughout, like if you could see the book that I have on my hand, I'm like writing down, oh man, this is just like Rockefeller. Oh, this is just like Nathan Rothschild. And at the end, in the very epilogue, the author puts it all together for us. So I just want to read you, it's about like two paragraphs here, which is just really fascinating about just how similar.

Starting point is 00:28:30 Again, didn't know each other. Maybe the Rothschilds had heard about Fugger. I'm not entirely sure. But it's just always fascinating to me how people didn't know each other, lived at different points in history, and usually in different geographic locations, arrived at the same conclusion about what is a what is like a useful idea for their business and what's not and then of course if you haven't listened to i got a ton of messages when i did i did a two-part series on the rothschilds it's episode 197 and 198 uh starts with the very the founder of rothschilds like the dad and then the second book is about how the family expands but really the family like the the the the son

Starting point is 00:29:04 nathan rothschild who was like the third or fourth born i can't remember at the moment, like the son, Nathan Rothschild, who was like the third or fourth born. I can't remember at the moment. He's the one that really pushed the pace. He's the one that reminds me most of Jacob. And we're going to see that here. Of all the businessmen in history, Nathan Rothschild came closest to matching Jacob's influence and his life and career echoed Jacob's own.

Starting point is 00:29:20 Like Jacob, Rothschild came from a family of 10 children. He worked in a partnership with his brothers, and although not the oldest, rose to lead the family's business because of his intelligence and daring. Rothschild began as a wholesaler of textiles, and like Jacob, left the textile trade for banking. His customers, like Jacob's, borrowed to fight the French. Rothschild loaned to the Hasburgs. They ennobled him with the title baron. Rothschild, like Jacob, never used the title, but his heirs did.

Starting point is 00:29:49 In another coincidence, Nathan Rothschild had the lease for mercury mines in Spain. I think the most profitable single business that Jacob ever had was his mine. The mine still dominated global mercury production in the 18th century. Nathan Rothschild, like Jacob, exploited an informational edge. So he had that network I just described to you. The Rothschilds were famous for having a very similar, one of their greatest edges was the fact that they had this countrywide, almost worldwide information advantage over everybody else. So I want to go into why Jacob was a misfit. And then this gives us again, great historical context on why he really, this view was important because he actually saw the truth,

Starting point is 00:30:35 even though it wasn't accepted by everybody else. And so it says, Jacob went to church on Sunday, endorsed family values and loved his king and country. But make no mistake, he was a radical. He refused to believe that noble birth made someone better than anyone else, which everybody in society believed, or at least professed to believe at the time, right? For him, intelligence, talent, and effort made the man. This is the world that we live in, right? His view is now mainstream, but it was subversive at the time. Jacob's worldview

Starting point is 00:31:05 let him recognize his relationship with the emperor in its true form. This is what I mean about he saw the truth before anybody else did. It's very fascinating. It wasn't one of master and servant. It wasn't one of lord and serf. It was a relationship of creditor and debtor. He, as the creditor, had the power. So one quick sentence for you, like a standard MO of Jacob was the fact that he bribed everybody. He would bribe emperors, people that worked for the emperors. He would bribe, because you have two power structures. You essentially have like the nobility and then you have the church. And he would bribe everybody. I mean, he bribed the Pope. One of Jacob's tricks was keeping public officials on his payroll.

Starting point is 00:31:45 So at this point in the story, he's already accumulating a lot of political power, a lot of money. I want to read something because I've heard this before and I always found this fact shocking. The average German in Jacob's day drank eight glasses a day of beer. Why did he do this? This is wild to me. The beer was tough on the liver, but it was safer than the water from the sewage filled streams inside the tavern. The men sat at long tables and swapped stories. And this is really jumped out at me because even though he's, you know, kind of a jerk and somebody I wouldn't want to hang out with.

Starting point is 00:32:18 He lived a very fascinating life. His story, his life stories. Like it's just it's unbelievable. Those stories are in this book. And so I really thought about it. I was like, well, how is this applicable to you and I? It's like, okay, all of us are writing a story. Maybe it's published in a book one day. Maybe it's just the people that are reading your story or people like your family, friends, people that know you. But to write the best story, the best life story, the only way to do that is to live an interesting life. And Jacob lived an interesting life so much that it was obvious to other people around him that this guy had experiences that were very rare. Others may have been better storytellers than Jacob, but it's hard to imagine anyone had

Starting point is 00:32:54 better material. Only Jacob could describe the emperor as a friend. The men in the room at the tavern, most wanted to know the secrets of his success. But his secrets weren't all that mysterious. They were just hard to duplicate. And so now it's going into his edge, right? Jacob had a remarkable talent for investing. He knew better than anyone how to size up an opportunity. He knew how to run a business and make it grow and how to get the most out of his people. He knew how to exploit weaknesses and negotiate for favorable terms. But perhaps his greatest talent was an ability to borrow the money he needed to invest. He convinced cardinals, bishops, dukes, and counts to loan him oceans of money. Without their support, Jacob would have been rich, but no richer than others at his club.

Starting point is 00:33:41 The fundraising, and with it the courage to risk debtor's prison if he couldn't repay, explains why he went down in history by the name Jacob the Rich. Financial leverage catapulted him to the top. He borrowed in the most mundane way imaginable. He offered savings account. Now this is wild. At one point in human history, savings account at a bank was new technology. And Jacob's one of the pioneers of that. He borrowed in the most mundane way imaginable. He offered savings accounts. Banks litter every street corner today, and they open accounts for anyone who walks in.

Starting point is 00:34:18 But savings accounts were new in Jacob's time. But if you think about it, it also made the game he's playing very dangerous because he avoided, he had a, there was a few attempts, I think two or three, maybe two, throughout where he almost

Starting point is 00:34:31 had a run on his bank. And he does a series of like bribing and all kinds of things to get out of that, things that would be illegal today. But it would be different like a bank run,

Starting point is 00:34:39 you know, you have FDIC insurance, you have all these, these like, these things, these like safety measures in place. If he would have had a run on his bank and he couldn't fulfill it, they would have killed him. And so there's an entire chapter dedicated to this run, this potential run on his bank and how he got out of it.

Starting point is 00:34:54 I'm just going to read you the summary of how this happened. And what I wrote, this is my note. This dude bribed the Pope to avoid a run on his bank. That's not hyperbole. That is a fact. He offered Julius, which is the Pope at the time, $36,000 to drop his claim. He promised to deposit the money in the Pope's personal account rather than a church account. Julius accepted.

Starting point is 00:35:19 Jacob was saved. As Jacob knew, every Pope had its price. Okay, so I want to give you a great overview that I found in the book of his life up until this point. Jacob spent the first half of his career making money. He spent the second half fighting to keep it. In the first phase, he had his greatest commercial victories. He won a silver contract, created a mining giant, like this giant mining business, and put together a distribution network to sell his output to a diverse group of customers across the continent. He invested the profits and new opportunities, and by doing so, he created a formidable cash generation machine that, year in and year out, added to his net worth. This was all he ever wanted. Jacob was happiest

Starting point is 00:35:58 when striking deals or scrutinizing his ledgers. Nothing gave him greater joy than the chores required to make him richer. The chores that most people would avoid, right? But he also spent much of this period warding off attacks from a resentful general public and those who claimed to be its champions. So he got so rich, there was a ton of people that wanted to kill him. And in many cases, people that some of his partners or people that he had done business with were captured by the mob and brutally murdered. And the book goes into grotesque detail about some of this stuff. He had a remarkable conviction in the justness of his actions. Again, think German Rockefeller, right? This is this is Johnny Rockefeller here. And just like Rockefeller,

Starting point is 00:36:39 this is the way he viewed himself, the way he saw it. God put him on earth to make money. He let nothing block what he perceived as God's will. And so why is that important? Because at this point, the story is when Jacob is going to petition the Holy Church to lift their ban on usury, which is essentially loaning money at high interest rates, which was illegal by decree. They thought the Bible like forbade it. And before I get there, I just want to pull out one paragraph. I think it's really important. It talks about like,

Starting point is 00:37:08 it really describes why he had an advantage because he saw the world that we live in today, then it was not at all obvious to the society he lived in. So he was capable of independent thought. So it says, it now seems inevitable that as trade and technology develop, feudalism with its lords, serfs, and manor farms would give way to a market-based model. That is an economy that So it says, intellectuals in Jacob's time weren't buying it. They only saw clever men like Jacob grabbing all they could. That is going to lead to a ton of violence that's in the book. And so this is where part of this is where Jacob is saying, hey, I got to get this ban lifted. One of Jacob's strengths was an absolute conviction in everything he did, and nothing seemed fairer to him than receiving compensation for the risks he took. Jacob could not ignore the usury ban.

Starting point is 00:38:07 So I don't know why, but when I read that sentence, it reminded me of something I heard Jeff Bezos talk about one time, this idea that he's like this absolute conviction. And Jeff Bezos is like, I'm not a fan of plan B, right? He says plan B should be to make plan A work. That's a way to think about what Jacob's doing here. He's like, no, you can't do this. Like everybody's like, no, this is impossible. He's like, no, I don't have a plan B. My plan B is to make plan A work. We're going to overturn this ban. I've already proven that I could bribe everybody and put people in situations where I make myself

Starting point is 00:38:38 indispensable. So I need to find a way in to do that here and get the church to overturn this ban. And so his stated goal was very clear. and get the church to overturn this ban. And so his stated goal was very clear. He wanted the church to expressly legalized collecting interest. And so now the pope is this guy named Leo. We've seen this before. I just did the podcast on Henry Flagler, which was Rockefeller's partner in Standard Oil. Like, you don't like the law, they just get it changed. Jacob's doing the same thing here. There was the fact that Leo was a member of the Medici banking family. This is the Pope at the time. Legalization would serve his personal interests too.

Starting point is 00:39:12 Even better was that Leo himself was a borrower of Jacob, so a client, right? It goes without saying that Leo would be favorably inclined towards someone who gave him money. Jacob's letter to Pope Leo had gotten through and made an impact. Leo went to the heart of the matter and signed a papal bill that in direct contradiction of other ancient commentators, so Aristotle and other people, essentially people would use the opinions of people in the past as to why we can't do this. And Aristotle is one that was quoted heavily. And so Leo and Jacob are like, no, no, we're going, we actually have a different view on the matter. And so we're going to get this

Starting point is 00:39:49 overturned. So winds up paying off the Pope, the Pope winds up saying, like issuing this decree, and he acknowledged the legitimacy of charging interest. And so this is a description of what Leo did. According to this new doctrine, charging interest was no longer strictly about what Jesus said about charging interest. It was about charging interest without labor, cost, or risk. And what loan didn't involve one of the three. So they're essentially just parsing the words in the written text, like the Bible, and saying, oh, that's one Aristotle's interpretation or somebody else's interpretation, but we have a different one. And so that's not really what Jesus meant. What Jesus meant is like, oh, there has to be, if you're going to charge interest, it has to be like some kind of labor cost or risk. Of course, every loan has a cost

Starting point is 00:40:33 or risk to it. Jacob's lobbying had paid off in spectacular fashion. He and others were now free to charge borrowers and pay depositors interest with the full blessing of the church. Leo's decree was a breakthrough for capitalism. Debt financing accelerated and the modern economy was underway. And so when I got to this section, now keep in mind, there's an entire chapter about all the machinations and all the stuff that Jacob's doing here. When I got to the punchline, which I just read to you, I read this fantastic book by Will and Ariel Durant, who spent, you know, 50 years of their lives documenting their, you know, probably some of the most famous historians that ever lived, documenting human civilization. They wrote this fantastic book. I think I did a podcast on it. I have to go back and look where it's at, but it's like a hundred page book called

Starting point is 00:41:20 The Lessons of History. There's a line in that book that I never forgot because not only did they spend, you know, so much of their time studying and learning this stuff, but their writing is just beautiful, just beautiful, grassy language. And so this is a great description of what they remember. They summarized, you know, I forgot 10,000 years of human history. I forgot the exact numbers, maybe 3,000 years. And they said, in every age, men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt. And we just saw an illustration of that fact. So now we go to the fact that Jacob's like this historical finance history's Forrest Gump.

Starting point is 00:41:55 And so he's going to make a loan and the church can't figure out how to pay him back. So then they do some stuff, some shady stuff that winds up setting off Martin Luther. Then Martin Luther in turn sets off the Protestant Reformation. It's just, this book is crazy. Jacob made a loan to some guy, let's ignore who he is. He was a scion of a family that ruled an area around present-day Berlin, okay? The scheme to repay the loan triggered one of the most important events in history, which is the Protestant Reformation. Jacob loaned the money to finance yet another sale of a clerical office. This is just more bribing. It's not important to the story, really. What is important is the fact that the way the church

Starting point is 00:42:29 came up with the idea to repay Jacob, they suggested a church financing device called an indulgence. So an indulgence is saying, hey, give us money and we'll absolve you of all your sins. We can get your dead relatives out of purgatory. They say all kinds of crazy stuff, right? And Martin Luther goes buck. He completely sends him over the edge. And then he's going to actually use the latest technology of his day, which is the printing press, to get his message out. At the time, Martin Luther was just a 33-year-old scholar.

Starting point is 00:43:05 This campaign, the combination of what the church is doing with Jacob, outraged Luther and the consequences of his outrage shook Europe to its foundation. This is Luther's interpretation of what's happening. He says indulgences were a scam that Rome invented to cash in on popular fears of damnation. Martin Luther composed 95 arguments against indulgences, which would in turn be his famous 95 theses. That's the message that he like nails to the front of the church door that sets off this crazy, almost like war, I guess is the way to think about it. Because if you really think about how many people die as a result of this, they don't call it a war, but that's kind of my interpretation of it. And then there's one paragraph in here I thought was really interesting, because if you really think about what Luther did, as a result of this. They don't call it a war, but that's kind of my interpretation of it. And then there's one paragraph in here I thought was really interesting, because if you really think about what Luther did, he combined technology with an extremely strong work ethic, which I think is a smart idea. Luther had Jacob's attention by now because of his enthusiastic use

Starting point is 00:43:56 of a fairly new technological device, the printing press. So Gutenberg, which was interesting, is like the lag between the invention of a device and its widespread use. Gutenberg made the first printing press in 1450, but it didn't really gain popularity where we are in Europe at this point to the 1520s. So in 1520, the printing presses printed 208 different documents, right? 133 out of the 208 were written by Luther. And so as a result, as Luther's sermons, rants, and musings found their way to the presses, he developed a huge following. And so there's a ton of violence.

Starting point is 00:44:34 I'll get to some of that. I'm not going to read too much of it because it's obviously rather disturbing. I do want to give an inside look at how Jacob practiced his craft, though. He winds up hiring this 19-year-old, this guy named Shartz. So Schwartz is going to stay with Jacob his entire career. And I think he continues to work with Jacob's heirs, if I'm not mistaken. So the author says that Schwartz is less interesting for his own accomplishments than for the glimpses he left of Jacob. So this guy writes this book. He's writing a textbook about everything that he's learning working under Jacob, and he intended his work to be a textbook for like young Germans interested in business. But because of that, he wrote and documented so much of the stuff. We actually see this is like the

Starting point is 00:45:13 only insight into how Jacob practiced his craft. So it says Schwartz's shows the emphasis Jacob put on accurate records. Again, German Rockefeller. I don't have to repeat that. Yeah, I think you had it by now. After spending time with Jacob, he recognized the folly of Jacob's competitors who believed they could live without detailed figures. Jacob, in contrast, monitored every transaction and let nothing sneak through. Jacob's offices had to update the figures every week and close the books at year end, no exceptions. Once they did, in another first, Jacob combined statements from all the branches into a single statement. The Italian banks had statements for each branch, but never bothered with consolidation. So Jacob does one step further, right? Jacob could

Starting point is 00:45:56 see the big picture like no one else. That's why that's important. Knowing exactly where he stood at every moment, he always knew how much he had to lend or whether he needed to cut back. He knew if he was carrying too much inventory or too little cash, and he knew exactly how much he was worth. Swartz noted with disdain how others lost track of their numbers and how they expressed shock when they went bankrupt.

Starting point is 00:46:18 They deserve their fate, Jacob said. They were idiots. So let's go back to Luther. So Luther's on the attack right now. He's going against the church. He's going against people like Jacob. There's another guy. You'll see another Rockefeller parallel here. This guy is a writer named Hutton. Hutton wrote a series of pamphlets that targeted Jacob. Hutton was to Jacob what Ida Tarbell was to John D. Rockefeller. He was the one who made Jacob a public enemy. Ida Tarbell is one of the sources

Starting point is 00:46:46 that Ron Chernow used in Titan. He thought she was too negative. And then the other people that had written about John D. Rockefeller at that point were too positive. So Chernow basically used both sources to try to give us like a more comprehensive look at who Rockefeller actually was. He was both saint and sinner, which is Cher's, I would say, like, takeaway. He's like, not, you know, he did terrible things, and he did great things. But this idea is like, okay, you have one person that's just really beating the drum, one that's putting all the writing out there and distributing this information, and this turns Jacob and all of his partners and people he's working with, people, leaders like the Archduke, and also people in the church,

Starting point is 00:47:26 into enemies of the common people. And the reason I want to bring that up is because the response to the people in power and Jacob are, it's completely predictable. They're in charge, they're the elite, they're going to suppress speech. So at this point, it says private individuals owned all of the printing presses

Starting point is 00:47:44 in this little town they're in. Recognizing the danger of free speech, Charles, the emperor, took them over and assigned Jacob to run them. How crazy is that? The emperor hoped to censor Luther, Hutton, and anyone else opposed to him or the pope by putting Jacob at the controls. But as they discovered, control of the presses could not still the opposition. But as they discovered, controlled oppressors could not steal the opposition. And that is where we get into this like widespread violence. And, you know, they're outnumbered, you know, nine to one. And if they catch these people, like they catch people they think are greedy or, you know, essentially like taking advantage of the common people when they catch them, you know, they're not, let's have a conversation. There's none of that. They will

Starting point is 00:48:24 catch them and they will kill them. And so now we get to the point in the story where this is the first war between capitalists and communists. And there's going to be a couple different players in here. Really, it's just Jacob's got a ton of enemies. And so it says, there's this one guy named Engels, and I just want to compare and contrast the two. And I think it gives context to like what's happening in the book. Jacob and Engels would have had little to talk about. Jacob, as events will show, defended private ownership to the last. Engels would have taken anything that Jacob had and given it to the people.

Starting point is 00:48:58 Jacob respected anybody who put in a full day's work, but the rebellious peasants failed to qualify. To him, they were lazy parasites looking for handouts. They want to be rich without working, Jacob wrote in a letter. Jacob was more than an observer in the war. He was a catalyst. To peasant leaders, he was an oppressor. Many would have been happy to kill him. Forced to take a side to preserve order, Jacob became an agent in their annihilation. So he's going to raise money to hire mercenaries, to hire soldiers, to fight this. They call it the Peasants' War. Really, the way to think about it is like it's the first physical war between capitalists and communists in history. And so these skirmishes are setting off all over Europe and they just they grab property. They'll do whatever they can. It

Starting point is 00:49:41 says the peasants drain the wine cellars and pantries. When there was no more loot, they set fire to the buildings. They stole tapestries, paintings, and libraries and set them up in flames in the name of social justice. At the height of the conflict, much of the country was burning and most of the peasants were drunk. Jacob might not have wanted execution. So when these, so it went both ways. When the peasants caught like the nobility or anybody that they thought were, you know, greedy, essentially, they would kill them. But when the government and the church and some mercenaries caught them, they would murder them as well. Jacob might not have wanted the executions, but he could justly claim self-defense. There were plenty of men who would love to slit his throat. Blood was spilling everywhere.

Starting point is 00:50:25 And they give an example why Jacob was so concerned with his safety because there was a count and the peasants wind up scaling the walls of his castle, capturing him and his wife. And I'm just going to read one sentence to you so you get an idea of what's happening. They made the countess watch as the men skewered her husband with spears. And so then Jacob's going to war with this guy named Munzer. Most likely these are all German names. I can barely pronounce English. You know, I'm not pronouncing this correctly, but I just want to get compare and contrast because

Starting point is 00:50:56 Jacob, you know, winds up winning this in this case, but this is who he's fighting. Munzer was a self-proclaimed mystic who believed in communal property and that only the abolition of private ownership would clear the path for grace. His followers cheered when he promised God would come to kill the rich. The contrast between Jacob and Munzer could not have been greater.

Starting point is 00:51:18 One was the arch-capitalist and the other was the arch-communist. They became heroes of the competing systems during the Cold War. West Germany heroes of the competing systems during the Cold War. West Germany put Jacob on a postage stamp and East Germany put Munzer on a five-mark bill. So this dude wanted to kill the rich and they put him on their currency. And something to keep in mind, it's both sides, everybody in the story, all of these people are nuts. Munzer declared that God spoke directly to select individuals, including himself.

Starting point is 00:51:46 So eventually Munzer and his like this congregation, these people that he's leading, they wind up getting surrounded. And so there's religious people on both sides. Right. And the religious people on Munzer's side, one guy, there's a priest in his camp. He's like, hey, we're surrounded. You should give up. So it says a priest in the camp suggested that Munzer surrender. Munzer ordered that he be beheaded. So he tries to flee. The other side, which is Jacob's side, they catch him. They grab him and they shove splinters under

Starting point is 00:52:16 Munzer's fingernails and locked him in a tower as they pondered how to kill him. They decided to cut his head off. After beheading Munzer, the executioner put his head on a pole and impaled And so the second half of the book is almost all, this is where I've been reading from, it's almost all just these people finding different ways to attack Jacob. He was detested by the majority of people. And so one of the, his biggest business was this hung this mine in hungary and they wound up confiscating it and so it says uh the hungarian throne had committed an all-too-common error and the reason i'm reading the section too is because it's fascinating how inflation causes him to lose his best business because people couldn't afford food

Starting point is 00:53:03 and and and shelter and everything else. And so they decide, hey, they're making all this money in the mine. What if we just take it? And so this is a little bit of background on what's happening at the time. The Hungarian throne had committed an all too common error of watering down its currency to balance their budget. The ensuing inflation was more than people could take. Food and other essentials doubled in price while wages stayed put. So Jacob's in Germany, but his number two guy is this guy named Hans Alber, which is his top lieutenant, the one running the business. So they decide they're going to grab the guy that's in charge of Jacob's mine

Starting point is 00:53:40 and force him to sign a document under the threat of murder that it's now ours. And that's exactly what happens. The crisis came to a head when mobs swarmed the elite district and arrested Hans Abler, which was Jacob's top lieutenant in Hungary. They hauled him to the city's castle and made him sign an agreement, handing over the Hungarian mines,

Starting point is 00:54:00 which is the crown jewel of Jacob's empire. Jacob had spent a lifetime creating his Hungarian business. More than anything he ever did, it embodied his organizational, financial, and political genius. It created his fortune. And at the point of death, Albert gave it away. It's remarkable that inflation caused him to lose his best business 500 years ago. So then what Jacob does, obviously he's not going to just submit to you taking his best business or any of his businesses for that matter. So he winds up, a lot of the leaders at this point are

Starting point is 00:54:33 his clients, right? So he might be the most powerful man, even though he doesn't have the title. And so he gets them to organize. And this is another fascinating thing, that they essentially use as their weapon of war, economic sanctions. And then the author makes the point, he's like, this is nothing new. Economic sanctions as weapons of war go back at least 2,400 years. And the first time on recorded history, it was used by Athens against one of its neighbors. But the boycott against Hungary was on a scale rarely witnessed. All of those bringing pressure were Jacob's customers to return the mine.

Starting point is 00:55:11 And so this is a back and forth, but this is unresolved by the time that Jacob dies. In fact, he knows he's dying. So he rewrites his will. And the most important thing he says, listen, there's two issues that I have to discuss with you. And the first one was Hungary. And so he's telling Anton, which was his nephew and the person like he chose, he's like, listen, there's two issues that I have to discuss with you. And the first one was hungry. And so he's telling Anton, which was his nephew, and the person like he chose, he's like, okay, this guy's the guy that's going to be running my businesses. Or at least like the main person. And he's telling me, he's like, listen, under no circumstances, Jacob urged Anton. Should he accept anything but full restitution? He says, and then Jacob's trying to predict what's going to happen.

Starting point is 00:55:44 He says, listen, Louis will eventually be desperate. He told him, you just have to be patient. And then something he also wanted to discuss and pass on to his nephew was the fact that there needs to be a single decision maker. Jacob believed that businesses could more easily function with fewer, not more decision makers. And then the book ends with a cautionary tale. Jacob died very rich

Starting point is 00:56:07 and very alone. When the end came, Jacob's nephews and wife were elsewhere. Jacob died at 4 a.m. on December 30th, 1525, at the age of 66. The only people with him were a nurse and a priest. The exact cause of death is unknown. And then I'll close with the craziest sentence in the entire book. The Fugger family, 17 generations after Jacob lived, still enjoy income on land Jacob acquired centuries earlier. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Buy the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes, your podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. The very best way to support the podcast is to give a gift subscription to a friend, family member, or coworker. There's a link down below to do that. And also at founderspodcast.com

Starting point is 00:56:58 that is 250 books down, 1000 to go. And I'll talk to you again soon.

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Founders - #250 Jacob Fugger (The Richest Man Who Ever Lived)

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