#68 Daniel Ludwig: The Invisible Billionaire

**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 cameraman was excited and more than a little nervous. In a matter of moments, he would enjoy a unique opportunity, the chance to snap the first un-posed picture ever taken of the richest man in the world.
The strange thing was that most Americans had never even heard of Daniel Keith Ludwig. It was hard to figure, how could a man, any man, in these days of mass media coverage and public obsession with world records, manage to accumulate a $3 billion fortune with hardly anyone becoming aware of it.
As the old man drew close, the photographer raised his camera and aimed. Ludwig, surprised, turned his head and looked up. The shutter clicked. The next instant, the world's richest man, 80 years old but still fit and trim from daily swims, charged the startled newsman and grabbed him in a half Nelson, presumably to wrestle him to the sidewalk and take the camera. But the photographer, recovering from this unexpected tack, twisted out of Ludwig's grasp and ran down the street with his prized picture, leaving Daniel glaring angrily at his retreating back.
Okay, so that's an excerpt from the book that I wanna talk to you about today, which is The Invisible Billionaire, Daniel Ludwig by Jerry Shields.
And this is another old book, somewhat old book, I should say. It was actually first published in 1986 when Daniel Ludwig was still alive.
And this is another example of this idea that you and I had to always talk about, which is books are the original links. I had no idea who Daniel Ludwig was. It wasn't until I was reading a book about Malcolm McLean, and you remember I did a podcast on him a few months ago, and in it, Malcolm is competing with Daniel's company, trying to become the first company that sets the standards for shipping containers and basically takes the lead in this new revolution. And Daniel quickly realizes it's better to work with Malcolm than against him. So he winds up investing in Malcolm's company. And the $8.5 million investment he makes in Malcolm's company a few years later turns into a $50 million profit for Daniel. And so that intrigued me. I was like, who is this guy that just makes almost $50 million by accident? And so I searched for books, and this is the only book I could find on him. And surprisingly enough, a lot of information, even on the internet, like there's not a lot that's known about him, and we're gonna see why. Well, here's, and let me just go to the book, so we'll get right into this. This is something about his personality, and it says, obsessed with privacy, he reportedly pays a major public relations firm fat fees to keep his names out of the papers. So Daniel did not give many interviews throughout his life. I think the book references about two. I wanna read some parts that stuck out to me in the introduction, where you have a writer from Businessweek that is trying unsuccessfully to get an interview with him. So he shows up at his company headquarters in Manhattan. It's on Madison Avenue. And it says, he got no farther than what he described as an unadorned and nameless reception room before being turned away by a polite but distinctly unhelpful employee. So he can't get an interview, so he starts doing research for the article that he's gonna write on Daniel. And it says, undaunted, the writer kept digging, reading shipping records and talking to people in the industry. Out of the research, he began to form a picture of this invisible magnet. And this is some of the writing that he wrote. He says, limelight shy Daniel K. Ludwig, it began, is a man nobody knows. Yet his tanker fleet rivals those of the fabulous Greeks whose names are symbols of wealth. His empire began with shipping, grew big with shipbuilding, and is now branching out into other fields. Okay, so that is one hell of an understatement. There's this great visual in the back of the front cover of the book, inside in the back. And it shows, I'm just gonna, I guess I should start there so I can give you a scope of the size of the empire that Ludwig built throughout his life. So it has a map of the globe. This is something that he published later on in his life when he was seeking an outside investment. And it just goes into all the different countries he has companies operating in. So he's got, I don't know, hundreds of different companies spread throughout the world. And so to say stuff like this, the United States and within the United States it lists all the different businesses he has, like not the names per se, but what they do like financial services, mining, hotels, office towers, housing, shipping. In Canada, he's got agriculture. In the Bahamas, he does financial services, hotels and real estate. Mexico, he's got hotels and housing. Panama, agriculture. Brazil, agriculture, mining and housing. Yugoslavia, shipping. South Africa, mining and housing. Singapore, shipping. Hong Kong, financial services, manufacturing, refining. Indonesia, refining, petroleum and gas exploration. It just goes on and on and on. Financial services in Switzerland, shipping in Germany. The size and scope of this organization, a few weeks ago, I said I'd never come across somebody else that had such an intricate web of companies like Henry Kaiser. The only reason I said this is because I hadn't read this book yet, because he's right up there, if not surpassed Kaiser in the complexity of the conglomerate that this guy's built.