#208 Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Bill Hewlett

**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. The professor asked with a wide grin, so you want to write a book on high-tech CEOs? Well, gentlemen, it's a long shot, a huge long shot. And besides, no CEO knows why he's successful. It's all just luck.
Coming from a well-known strategic management professor, a comment such as this seems somewhat ridiculous.
For a successful management, we're all luck, then why are we taking his class?
Why for that matter, were we in business school at all?
Surely successful management was not entirely due to luck. There had to be some successful strategy and ideas at play too.
Louis Pasteur once said that chance favors the prepared mind.
If chance is a major factor in a company's success, as our professor believed, then we really wanted to know what successful entrepreneurs do to prepare their minds.
What are the crucial skills needed to run a successful company, to hire great people, to ship a great product?
What skills should a potential manager try to develop? Why was one manager successful where another wasn't?
Answers to these questions, in the words of the very people who have started successful technology companies, comprise this book. We chose to focus on the computer industry for two reasons. First and foremost, computers are dynamically changing the way people exist. They are causing generational change. Compared to our parents who use computers for word processing or technical applications at best, many of us use the power of computers for surfing the internet, communicating with friends and colleagues and balancing a checkbook.
Second, going to Stanford's business school put us in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Steve Jobs candidly told us one night, well, if you're at Heaven's Gate, you might as well walk inside and take a peek.
That is an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is In the Company of Giants, Candid Conversations with the Visionaries of the Digital World. And it was written by Rama Dev Jager and Rafael Ortiz. So just a few things before we jump back into the rest of the book. Just want to tell you how the book is structured. So it's a series of interviews by two Stanford MBA students with 16 technology founders.
And in each interview, they give the philosophy, their philosophy on company building, managing, developing new technology, and then advice to people, to future entrepreneurs. Some of the people, so this book, I guess I should tell you, it's a very old book. It's about 25 years old.
And so several of the people that were interviewed in the book are no longer with us. So this book serves as a way for them to pass on their information and their useful information to us long after they passed away. And then some of the book, a few of the founders in the book are actually still operating to this day. So the very first interview is with Steve Jobs. That's probably where I have the most highlights. And I actually wasn't expecting to read this book right now. I have two other biographies that I'm reading at the same time. And I just picked this up one day and I started reading. I read the introduction. I thought that quote from Steve was very fascinating. Well, if you're at Heaven's Gate, why aren't you peeking in and taking a look, right? And then I started reading the introduction and then I read his interview. I was like, okay, this is amazing. I just decided I'm just gonna go through and finish this entire book. So I just wanna pull out one thing from the introduction or two things from the introduction before we get into Steve's interview, which is just mind blowing.