#163 Alfred Nobel

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. Alfred Nobel honestly felt that his life was so commonplace as to not deserve profound reflection, much less publication.
Trying to sum up his life in one terse sentence, he offered the following, I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose, yet am a super idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food. Given Nobel's strong distaste for blowing his own horn, when he was confronted with spontaneous expressions of admiration, he actually experienced a sense of shame, as if a feeling of unworthiness had taken possession of him.
His reflections might then take on a tone of sarcasm. He wrote, How pitiful to strive to be someone, or something, in the motley crew of 1.4 billion two-legged tailless apes running around on our revolving earth projectile.
But Nobel did strive to be someone. His work days were absurdly long. He would frequently work for fifteen, even twenty hours without rest. It was as if he wanted to exhaust himself in order to ward off melancholy.
Since he detested meetings, he often put his orders in writing. He could write twenty to thirty letters a day, and he seldom went to bed before midnight.
He had an aversion to publicity. When the publisher of an illustrated book listing famous and outstanding Swedes wrote him, Nobel replied courteously but firmly, I will with pleasure subscribe to this interesting and worthwhile project, but I request that my portrait be omitted from this collection. So far as I know, I have not earned any renown.
Nobel found it impossible to maintain his self-esteem if he had to seek the esteem of others.
His letters are particularly invaluable to our understanding and appreciation of him.
The private correspondence allows readers to locate the undercurrents in his life, his self-absorption, his loneliness, and his belief in the absurdity of existence.
Many of the private letters seem to have been written during those moments when the demons of melancholy were on the offensive.
When they attacked, work was his only escape.
Its soothing effect was immediate. Chest pains, difficulty breathing, and the headaches that haunted him his whole life would disappear as if by magic.
Actions are the yardstick by which values can be measured, and Alfred Nobel left a legacy of lasting importance. Through his prizes, this restless, eternal wanderer, whom the writer Victor Hugo termed Europe's richest vagabond, has forever etched his name in human memory.
That was an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Alfred Nobel, A Biography, and it was written by Ken, maybe Kenne, Kenne Fant. Okay, so before I jump into the rest of the book, I want to tell you why I'm reading this book. So ever since there's a series of last names that are just so famous that I want to investigate who the people were behind the names. So the first demonstration of this is all the way back on Founders number 135 I read the biography or a biography of Joseph Pulitzer.
And obviously, the Pulitzer Prize and I think the Nobel Prize might be the two most famous prizes that I could think of in modern day, right? And Pulitzer's story is one of the most inspiring stories I've ever come across. By the time I think he was 17 years old, seven, I want to say seven of his siblings and his dad are dead. The only people left in his family were his mother and his younger brother, if I'm not mistaken. He winds up emigrating to the United States because there's a group of businessmen and investors in Boston that realized, hey, the American Civil War is going on at this time. They said, hey, the Union needs a lot more fighters. Let's see if we can pay, basically offer rewards, financial rewards for young Europeans to come and fight in this war. And so Pulitzer's, that's how he gets to America. He arrives, I think he's 17, maybe 18 years old when he gets to America.