Brad Jacobs: How To Build a Billion Dollar Company

**Brad Jacobs** (0:00)
A lot of people have a rigid business plan that's spelled out for many years, and that's it, and it's very non-flexible. That doesn't usually work.
Because life changes, markets change, economies change. So you need to improvise, you need to capitalize on that, and to make money from that. And if you're rigid, if you're just rigid thinking, you're gonna lose opportunities.

**Shane Parrish** (0:43)
Welcome to The Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out so you can apply their insights to your life.
I'm your host, Shane Parrish.
A quick favor to ask before we start. Most people listening on Apple podcasts or Spotify right now haven't yet hit the follow button. If you can hit the follow button now, I would appreciate it. The more people who follow the show, the better the guests we can get. Thank you and enjoy the conversation. If you'd like access to the podcast before everyone else, special episodes just for you, hand edited transcripts, or you just want to support the show you love, join at fs.blogslashmembership. Check out the show notes for a link. Today, my guest is Brad Jacobs, Executive Chairman at XPO. Brad is a career CEO and serial entrepreneur with a unique track record of starting multi-billion dollar companies. I think he's up to seven of them by now, which have created tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value. His goal with all of his ventures is to generate outsized value for shareholders by hiring talented people committed to thinking big. He recently wrote a book called How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, which is a playbook for creating outsized value. Now, all of that sounds really simple, so I wanted to sit down with Brad for a wide-ranging conversation. How exactly does he do it? Let's get into the weeds. We talk about AI, trends, human nature, mergers and acquisitions, running meetings, what he looks for when hiring and so much more. Whether you're running a business or working in one, you'll walk away from this conversation with clarity around how to improve your results. It's time to listen and learn.
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Some of my favorite brands are on Shopify, including Gymshark, Allbirds, Outway Socks and Aeropress.
Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. It doesn't matter if you just have an idea or already operate a multi-million dollar company, Shopify is there to help you grow every step of the way because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. What I love about Shopify is that it's like you have a multi-billion dollar tech team working just for you from day one. If you're just starting, this means you can go from idea to store in a few minutes, but it also means if you're an existing company, you can save money and time. If you've ever checked out from a store and thought that was so easy, chances are it was Shoppe, which is the internet's best converting checkout, up to 36% better compared to other leading commerce platforms. Go to shopify.com/shane now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in.
Ray Kurzweil who wrote The Singularity is one of your heroes. And you recently met him. I'm curious what you took away from that conversation and what it was like.

**Brad Jacobs** (4:48)
Well, I did recently meet him and it was like meeting Albert Einstein or meeting someone on Michelangelo or Leonard DeFranco. He's looking at the history of the universe going back 13 point something billion years and how we got here. And then looking at those trends and where we're going.
He identifies the most important trend of all which is homo sapiens have created technology, created tools, starting with stone pebbles and over a couple million years ago and then fire and then settlements. And over the last couple of hundred years, so much, so much more, so much more. In the last 20 years, accelerating, accelerating. And now with AI, it's accelerating even more.