The Best One Yet - ✊ “The Leaders Pod” — Our 3 Best Stories on Legendary Business Leaders

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Nick. This is Jack. And today's leaders pod is the best one yet. Our top three business leader stories of the past year. Yeties, if you're listening to this pod, I am on a flight to France and Jack is swimming down in the Mad River freezing his butt off. For Memorial Day weekend, we curated three stories from the last year on epic business leader profiles because these people changed how we think. Yeah, they really did. So after you finish this episode, send it to a buddy who'd be inspired by one of these business legends. And then go join us. and Margarita Moment by the grill. You earned it. Friday's the real Friday. Jack, what's on today's show? For our first story, we're going back to January 26, 2024. Country singer Dolly Parton just celebrated

Starting point is 00:00:42 a new birthday, a new food brand, and a new album. Not too shabby. So we're looking at the billion-dollar business of Dolly Parton's Dollywood. For our second story, we're going back to July 8th. Bill Gates for a long time was the richest person in the world. But his former assistant at Microsoft is now richer than Bill Gates. it's a lesson for all of us in risk, reward, and money. And our third and final story is from September 24th. Johnny Ive is the greatest industrial designer of our time. He designed the iPhone. And after five years in secrecy, Johnny Ive just unveiled his next big thing. But yet is, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mixes stories, Jack. Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, Sam, All. Okay, we looked at the data. Those are the three most common

Starting point is 00:01:29 business names in news. Last year, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about Elon every single day. We covered Warren Buffett six different times. And Sam Altman is in so many places, he's probably sitting next to you right now. Whoa, Sam, what are you doing there? But you also come to us, this pod, for stories no one else is whipping up. So there are three other names in business that we think you should know. Three business icons who don't get front page news treatment. Honestly, if we could grab brunch with three people in business right now. This, Jack, this is the crew. We'd order eggs Benedict, we'd get sauce on the side, and we would take notes the entire meal. So grab a pen, grab a paper, and take a seat at the table. Basties, these are three top business leader stories

Starting point is 00:02:15 from the last year. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% that's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more.

Starting point is 00:02:37 So just start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, we're going back to January 26th, 2024. Dolly Parton actually has turned one year older, so she's 79 now. But still, this story is fantastic. Dolly Parton dropped a brand new album, launched a new food brand, and celebrated her 78th birthday with a concert.

Starting point is 00:03:12 So we jumped into the business of Dolly Parton's Dollywood. Yet is Dolly Parton. She's got the biggest hair east of the Mississippi. Actually, and the biggest hair west of the Mississippi. Now I think about it. You've wrote her songs, 9 to 5, Jolene, here you come again. There's literally thousands of others. Born in a logwood cabin on the Little Pigeon River in lovely Tennessee.

Starting point is 00:03:34 She's like Will Hunting. Dolly Parton has 11 siblings. Her first public performance was actually at a church where she was singing by age six. But by 13, she was belting out notes at the famous Grand Old Oprah. Now, Yeti's Jack and I told you we jumped in T-Boy style to Dolly Parton, the legendary country singer, and we found some legendary numbers. She's written 3,000 songs. She's sold 100 million albums.

Starting point is 00:03:58 Those are country music records. And that song catalog from Dolly Parton is worth $150 million. Because all of our listeners, listening on Spotify and Apple Music and on the radio. It generates $8 million in annual royalties. Those $8 million are like one big, loud, symphonic dividend check to Dolly Parton. Now, remember that famous song by Whitney Houston from the movie The Bodyguard? I will always love you. Classic Whitney Houston song, Jack. Originally, that was Dolly Parton, and she's made $10 million by letting Whitney Houston cover it.

Starting point is 00:04:32 In fact, yet he's Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton sang a duet. And Elvis asked Dolly if he could have her rights, her half of the song, and what did she say, Jack? No, thank you, Mr. King. Dolly Pardon, love is like a butterfly, but in business, she's like a hornet. Yeah, she is. But what separates Dolly from the rest of the musical moguls out there is her business range. This is what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. Dolly Parton has built a more diversified entertainment conglomerate than Disney.

Starting point is 00:05:02 Dolly co-founded a TV production company called Sand Dollar Productions, which brought us Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Father of the Bride. If you like those movies, yeah, you can thank Dolly Parton for those two movies. She also built a famous theme park called Dollywood, which gets visited by 3 million people every year. It turns out Dollywood is the most visited attraction in the entire state of Tennessee. Like the GDP of Tennessee, Dolly Pardon. And Dollywood's worth $400 million.

Starting point is 00:05:29 If you're a crack or barrel, you can eat a Dolly Parton meal because she partnered with that food chain. Or you can eat on Dolly Parton plates. made by William Sonoma. And just this week, Dolly Parton expanded her partnership with the $15 billion food giant Canagra. She already had Dolly Parton buttermilk pancake mix.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Soon, you can have Dolly Parton frozen fried chicken? Do I have to wear a bolo if I do a check? A bolo? Somebody hasn't been to the grand old opry. No, I haven't. I'll just goadure. It's on my list. Oh, Dolly Parton didn't just write a memoir.

Starting point is 00:06:00 She also has a line of fiction books. This is amazing. She wrote a thriller series, along with James Patterson, based on the stories from one of her albums. Dolly Parton even runs a dog apparel company called Doggy Pardon. Because every beagle needs a blonde wig. But yet he's at all this up and this business empire is worth over half a billion dollars and we're not even talking about the charity part, Jack.

Starting point is 00:06:23 Dolly Parton is like the Princess Diana of our time. She is philanthropic and loved by everyone for it. Her charity just got $100 million in funding from Jeff Bezos of Amazon. In November of 2020, early pandemic, when we invented the MRNA COVID vaccine, the New England Journal of Medicine thanked Dolly Parton's COVID-19 research fund, which she established at Vanderbilt University. Oh, and by the way, she's also the godmother of Miley Cyrus. Party that in the USA. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy, Dolly Parton, Inc? Humor transcends all. Yet he's the biggest business takeaway that Jack and I have gotten from

Starting point is 00:07:03 Dolly Parton, it's how she reaches such a wide audience. Dolly Parton manages to reach a range of fans who are culturally quite opposites. Because Dolly Parton, she's a red state, patriotic, deep south, working class icon. But she's also a top ally of the LGBTQ community. And a key reason why she's so relatable to everyone, it's because she's funny. She uses humor. Oftentimes, Dolly sounds more like a comedian than a singer or a businesswoman. Yeah, like she makes fun of her own plastic.

Starting point is 00:07:33 Like she once told Oprah, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap. She once said, I'm the first woman to burn my bra. It took the fire department four days to put it out. Jack, that's like a feminist thing to say, but like also not a feminist thing to say. One thing we've learned in life is that humor can transcend cultural lines like politics, race, and income. And Dolly Parton's billion dollar, Dollywood Empire proves it. For our second story, we're going back to July 8th, 2024. Wild story about Bill Gates and his assistant.

Starting point is 00:08:06 Bill Gates is no longer the richest person at Microsoft. His former assistant is. The way that Steve Balmer surpassed Bill Gates is a lesson on risk and reward. Yes, it is, but in order for us to tell this story, Jack, can we travel back to 1980, please? A startup of techie nerds in Seattle put out a job posting. Assistant founder. Assistant to the founder. Ah, good point, Jack.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Yet he's Bill Gates, the future richest man on earth. He needed a personal assistant, ASAP. And one man answered the call. His name was Steve Balmer. Steve Bomber, bald man, big personality. This was actually a Harvard classmate who lived down the hall from Bill Gates back in the day. He didn't have much hair, but he had a whole lot of energy back then. Steve was at Stanford Business School, a few years after Harvard, when Bill convinced him to drop out of grad school.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Bill was like, come join my software startup. I can't code without my computer. coffee. That software startup was called Microsoft, by the way. Yes, it was. And he needed a personal assistant. So, Jack, what was the first contract like for Steve when he joined Microsoft? He got $50,000 as a salary and 10% of the profit growth that he could generate. They basically treated Steve like a sales guy. He was Microsoft's first non-technical employee. So he was paid a salary plus a commission. Sounds simple, straightforward, a nice standard job. But Steve moved on from a nice standard job because of this news.

Starting point is 00:09:35 Here's the news! 44 years later, Steve Bomber is now worth more than Bill Gates. As of last week, Steve Bomber is now worth $157 billion. The assistant has become the master. Steve Bomber is now the sixth richest person in the world. He's even wealthier than Clippy. Nick, I'm actually looking at the Forbes list of the 10 richest people in the world. I like it. What do you see in, Jack?

Starting point is 00:09:59 Steve Bomber's on that list. Okay. And he's the only one who did not found his company. Whoa. So like all 10 of the 10 richest people on Earth, they founded a company except for this one guy. How did Steve Bomber go from assistant CEO? Assistant to the CEO. Good point.

Starting point is 00:10:17 Too richer than anyone at Microsoft with one strategic salary decision. And here it is. When Microsoft turned six years old, the company decided to restructure. And Steve Bomber spoke up. Microsoft revenue had recently doubled. So Steve led the company in a reorganization and a restructuring. And Jack, what was Steve's one request as part of this? That he get equity.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Equity. Specifically, Steve asked for 8% of the stock in the company. In exchange, he was willing to give up that nice 10% commission. What Jack and I are saying is that Steve gave up the cold, hard, nearly certain cash in exchange for uncertain stock in Microsoft. In fact, six years later, Steve made another huge bet wanting to get even more deep with Microsoft. stock. In 1987, Microsoft stock dips. Employees get worried, investors get worried, management gets worried. But Steve didn't. He took the little cash he had on the side to buy even more stock in Microsoft. Fast forward and Steve Bomber eventually becomes the CEO of Microsoft for 14 years, retiring in 2014.

Starting point is 00:11:20 And today, with Microsoft worth $3 trillion, the value of that stock that he bought back in 1987 has gained by 1,500 X. So each $1.00 of stock he bought in 1987 is worth $1,500 today. Not too shabby. Yet he's Bill Gates sold most of his Microsoft stock, and he's given a lot of it away to charity. So Steve Balmer is now the biggest shareholder at Microsoft owning 4% of the company.

Starting point is 00:11:48 That's a lot of equity. And as of last week, it's richer than his old boss Bill. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies in the U.S. Taking equity instead of cash is risky, but it's how people get rich. Now, yeties, Jack and I know, not everyone is in a position to get equity in a company or in a startup. But Steve Balmer's money story is a valuable lesson on wealth generation. And here's why. Because each step of his career is a reminder that reward comes with risk, and equity was his risk.

Starting point is 00:12:19 His ownership in Microsoft could have tanked, like so many tech companies during the dot-com bubble. His wealth could have gone to zero. But it didn't tank. In fact, his risk paid off and he ended up as the sixth richest man on earth. Major leaps in wealth typically don't come through a salary. They come through equity. Could be huge amounts of stock that you accept as pay, like Steve Bomber did. Or it could be a little bit put in the stock market year over year, compounded over 30 years.

Starting point is 00:12:47 Stocks are risky. Cash isn't. Savings can grow, but stock can grow faster. Owning things like stocks and equity, that's how people. people get wealthy. Now a quick word from our sponsor. This story is from September 24th, 2024. Wow, Yeti's breaking news happened this week. Johnny Ives' new company, which you're about to learn about in this story, is now part of OpenAI. Sam Altman and Johnny Ive are building the AI hardware product that could replace the iPhone.

Starting point is 00:13:23 Now, before we share our profile on Johnny, here's what he said, his words this week about his design firm's merger with OpenAI. Push and play. I am absolutely certain that we are literally on the brink of a new generation of technology that can make us our better selves. Okay. Now, to quote Jack Nicholson, here's Johnny. Johnny Ive is the most important designer of our lives. He's the guy behind the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, just to name a few.

Starting point is 00:13:59 And Johnny Ive finally just unveiled here. his secret project of the last five years. It's called Love From. Now, Jack, you and I don't have full access to the Apple Orchchard. But if there was one person at Apple who's the most like Steve Jobs, who'd you say it was? It was Johnny Ive, hands down. Johnny Ive, he was British. He was knighted by the Queen of England. And odds are he designed something that you're holding or touching or using right now. Apple is known for its revolutionary tech design. We're talking about the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch, and Johnny Ive, this man, he did all of them. He even architected Apple's spaceship-like headquarters building in Cupertino, California. Like Steve Jobs,

Starting point is 00:14:41 Johnny Ive believed in simplicity, in minimalism, in doing less to do more. This was during a time that people were doing more to do more. Like, picture a 2005 German luxury car. It was a hundred buttons around you. So many buttons. Yeah, you remember the Blackberries. That was a whole whole lot of tapping. Johnny Ive did the opposite at Apple. He had no tolerance for an extra button, and if you saw one, he was not going to be happy about it. Fun side note, though, when he was a student in university, do you know what Johnny Ives' senior dissertation was about? The first thing Johnny Ive designed before the iPhone? What was it, Jack? He reimagined the loo. Yeah, it was a toilet. He actually redesigned the toilet. Ironically, toilets only have one button, the flush. Did he eliminate

Starting point is 00:15:25 that one button? That's a story for another pot. But yeties, there are celebrity chefs. There are star architects, star architects, but Johnny is the first ever celebrity industrial designer. Thanks to him at tech companies, engineers, and designers are the people with power. But in 2019, this iPhone designer left Apple at the top of his game to work on a secret project. And he hasn't talked to anybody about it in five years. No joke, that's a quote he said. Well, five years later, we finally found out in a New York Times interview last weekend, what exactly Johnny Ive has been up to?

Starting point is 00:16:00 He's been working on a company called Love From. Love From. A company whose name was inspired by a Steve Jobs quote in a meeting with Johnny Ive. Steve Jobs told him to create from what you love. And apparently Johnny I loves one neighborhood in San Francisco, Jack. For the last five years, he's bought up $90 million worth of real estate in one block of downtown San Francisco. It's actually a flu box from our recording studio. It's called Jackson Square.

Starting point is 00:16:26 It's the one neighborhood in San Francisco that was not destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, and it's gorgeous. A lot of barrier attackies left San Francisco during the pandemic for low-tax, low-regulation states. Johnny doubled down on his home city of San Francisco. And now he's got 70,000 square feet of office space in lovely Jackson Square, San Francisco. And he's not just testing out new toilets in that 70,000 square feet off his space. Over the last five years, he has built up a wildly awesome list of clients. Get this secretly. Johnny Ive designed the windows on the new space shuttle for his new company.

Starting point is 00:17:02 He helped JJ Ambrubs design the new lightsaber for the new Star Wars films. Oh, and Jack, what about the first ever electric Ferrari that's about to come out? The interior and the screen were designed by Johnny Ives' love from. And his next move might be the biggest tech move in the history of hardware. He is designing a physical hardware product for OpenAI, a virtual assistant that will physically be with you. Add it all up, Yetis, and Johnny Ives' secret company

Starting point is 00:17:30 has been generating $200 million in revenue a year already on those clients. If you hire Love From to design your next product, you have the best designer in the world. Minimalist design, maximalist price. What's the takeaway for our buddy, Johnny Ive and the Love From team? It all comes down to the buttons. the buttons.

Starting point is 00:17:54 Yeah, it is our favorite part about this Johnny Ives story was when we discovered his obsession with buttons. Johnny Ives' favorite book is a five-volume series on the history of buttons on clothing and in fashion. And Jack, why is Johnny Ive obsessed with buttons? It's the part of the clothing that you touch the most. And buttons are the visual highlight. He's obsessed with buttons because it's the perfect blend of fashion and function.

Starting point is 00:18:18 Do you remember the first iPod you ever had? it only had one button and it had that wheel around it, remember? That was Johnny Ive. And then the first iPhone, only one button. Like you said, in an era that the BlackBerry had 100 buttons, the iPhone had one. Johnny Ive did that one button. Both of those were revolutionary for tech design. So our big takeaway about Johnny Ive is really about his fascination with buttons.

Starting point is 00:18:45 One small, seemingly insignificant detail can influence the outlook of the whole. product. Now time for the best fact, yeah, this one whipped up by Jack and me. It's a wild story about one of the great business leaders, Steve Jobs. Okay, Steve Jobs' most famous presentation ever. What was it, Jack? The iPhone unveiled in 2007. But the iPhone that Steve unveiled on stage, a funny thing about that iPhone. It barely worked. Yeah, Steve Jobs forced the team to unveil the product before it was ready. It actually had so many bugs in that first iPhone. The engineering team had to create a golden path. A golden path is a tech term for creating a specific sequence that won't make the product crash. So while Steve was like on stage, pushing buttons on the iPhone,

Starting point is 00:19:35 if he had done anything off script or press the wrong button, everything would have fallen apart on stage in front of the entire world. But Steve didn't go off script. He followed the golden path and the iPhone didn't crash. And that unveil goes down as the best product unveil of all time. That was a leadership move. He caused his teams to lose sleep and their hair probably to meet that deadline. Yeah. But it got us the iPhone and now Apple's worth $3 trillion. A complicated leader, but still a leadership move. Yiddies, you look fantastic for the Friday before Memorial Day. And if you've got a friend who'd be inspired by one of these business legends, send it to him. We'll be inspired if you do. Our buddy Timmy, he's definitely getting this episode, Jack.

Starting point is 00:20:18 So enjoy this long weekend. Happy Memorial Day. And Nick and I will see you Monday. Can't wait. And before we go, congratulations to legendary Yeti, Ryan Morrow, who's got a new job and is moving to New York City from Naperville, Illinois. Congratulations to Tack and Kate Yamamoto, who are getting married in San Francisco. These are Nick's neighbors. I think I can see him from here. You look fantastic, guys. Have fun at the wedding. Can't wait to see some picks.

Starting point is 00:20:45 Congratulations to Lucas from Madrid, who is a fantastic boyfriend. And Zachary Schaefer and Gigi Kinney are getting married in green. Green Bay, Wisconsin, congratulations. Enjoy some cheese. Congrats to Grace Billingsley for getting a PR in the half marathon from Grace Valley, California. Haley Rock, happy third birthday over there in Boston, just outside Boston. Haley, this is your big day. And John Osborne is retiring in Grass Valley, California. Congratulations to John. And happy birthday to Ria Chandra in South Brunswick, New Jersey.

Starting point is 00:21:16 And Zihung You is celebrating the best birthday yet over in lovely Los Angeles. Happy birthday to Travis A in the great state of Maine. And Emma Lou Stein Beldering has got a wonderful birthday up in Vistan, Norway. And happy Memorial Day, everybody. And thank you to all the servicemen and women and to their families for keeping Nick and me safe. We've got so many besties and yetis in the service out there. Thank you to all. Celebrate the win.

The Best One Yet - ✊ “The Leaders Pod” — Our 3 Best Stories on Legendary Business Leaders

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