#54 The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

**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. His life spanned a period of breathtaking changes from the days of George Washington to those of John D. Rockefeller. He began his career in a rural, agricultural, essentially colonial society in which the term businessman was unknown. He ended it in a corporate industrial economy. Neither the admirers nor the critics of his later years had witnessed his role during the tumultuous era of the early republic and the antebellum period. They could not see that Vanderbilt had spent most of his career as a radical force. From his beginnings as a teenage boatman before the War of 1812, he had led the rise of competition as a virtue in American culture. He had disrupted the remnants of the 18th century patricians, shaken the conservative merchant elite, and destroyed monopolies at every step. His infuriated opponents had not shared his enthusiasm for competition. Rather, the wealthy establishment in that young and limited economy saw his attacks as destructive. In 1859, one had written that he has always proved himself the enemy of every American maritime enterprise, and the New York Times condemned Vanderbilt for pursuing competition for competition's sake. Those on the other end of the spectrum had celebrated the way he had expanded transportation, slashed fairs, and punished opponents who relied on government monopolies or subsidies.
To Jacksonian Democrats who championed laissez-faire as an egalitarian creed, he had epitomized the entrepreneur as champion of the people, the businessman as revolutionary.
And that was an excerpt from the first chapter of the book that I want to talk to you about today, which is The First Tycoon, The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Before I jump into the rest of the book, if this is your first time listening to Founders, the premise of this podcast, the concept of this podcast is very straightforward. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur, somebody that's built a company, and I pull out interesting parts. These are basically my notes, the parts that I highlighted, notes I left myself. Not meant to be a summary, not meant to be a review of the book. Just things I learned that I thought were interesting that I figured I'd share with you.
So before I jump back into the book though, as long time listeners know, once we get going, I'm not going to interrupt our time with any ads. So I do have one ask of you though. If you are interested in supporting this podcast, I just ask that you join my email list. You can go to foundersnotes.co. And what Founders Notes are, they're basically my personal podcast notes. When Founders appear on podcasts, I take note of their key ideas, and I email them to you every Sunday. So if you want to support this podcast, join that email list. You can go to foundersnotes.co, or you can just look for the link directly in show notes on your podcast player. Actually, if you can do that now while I'm talking, enter in your email, and that's literally all you have to do. It's the best way for you to know what other entrepreneurs are thinking. So there's a lot of useful information in there that will be helpful in your own work. Okay, so I'm going to start at the very beginning and just work my way chronologically through my notes.
And this book is a monster. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and as most books that win the Pulitzer Prize, it's probably a little longer than it needs to be. So it's like a 20 or 25-hour read. And for the point of our time together today, I'm going to focus on this time that they were just described. The time that he was... Let's see, what's the way they put it? That he'd spent most of his career as a radical force. And I love that term, that he had epitomized the entrepreneur as a champion of the people, as a revolutionary. So I'm going to focus on, like I normally do, his early life and then how he started his company, and then his philosophies on business, which is very much intertwined with his personality.