Brad Jacobs, QXO, XPO, United Rentals & United Waste

**Brad Jacobs** (0:02)
I'm ready when you are, man. I'm in the zone, I'm in the zone, man.

**David Senra** (0:07)
I hope we start with this, I love you, energy. This is what I always tell people when I did the episode in your book, and since then, thousands, and this is not an exaggeration, thousands of people have sent me messages. But when I try to explain to people, they're like, well, what's so different about Brad? I was like, first of all, how long do you have? Second of all, he's got the best energy and the most energy of any person I've ever been around. So I really appreciate you taking the time and agreeing to do this. One of my favorite things is your affinity and relationship that you had. You had a bunch of mentors, but one of your most important ones that you mentioned I think four times in the book is Ludwig Jesselson. You have a list of maxims in the very beginning of the book that you learned from other people. The maxim that you listed for him was get the major trend right. So if you could just talk about your relationship with him and what he meant to you, I think that's a perfect place to start.

**Brad Jacobs** (0:56)
He meant a lot. So Mr. Jesselson, I never called him Ludwig. Mr. Jesselson is significantly older than me and much more accomplished than me. So I showed him respect by calling him Mr. Jesselson. Mr. Jesselson was a special guy. This was someone who was deep, very profound and had lived life fully and by principles. And he was a religious guy. I wouldn't say he was like ultra religious. He was more taking the morality of Judaism, the do's and don'ts and ethical behavior and honesty and so forth. And that became the core of his life. That became the core of his personal life and his business life. Relationships, deep relationships, long-term relationships, honest relationships, relationships you can keep coming back to. And sometimes one person has the leverage, sometimes the other person has the leverage. Doesn't matter, you don't take advantage of that. It's long-term relationships. And he had about a few dozen deep principles.
And one of them is one you just mentioned, which is, because he was a trader, ran the largest commodity trading firm in the world, Philip Brothers, it was, you got to get the long-term trend right. You can get a lot of other stuff right. But if you don't get the long-term trend right, you're kind of in trouble. So you got to figure that one out. You got to see what's going on here. You need context. You need to see what's happening, what did happen, what is happening, and what will likely happen in the future. And one of the different future states that could happen, and what's the probabilities for each one of those. And then you have your risk management. So yeah, the converse of that is, if you get the major trend wrong, you can do a thousand things right, you're still going to lose. You're not going to create alpha. You're not going to create value there. So yeah, that was a big lesson from him.

**David Senra** (2:41)
The other thing that I love is you were 23 years old. You're having lunch with him on a very frequent basis. Like you just said, he's much older. He's one of the most successful people in the world. He's taking an interest in you. And yet, you were still comfortable to unload your stresses and your problems. And he would sit there patiently listening. And then I love his response where he's like, yeah, business is problems. One of the most important lessons was problems. There's a line from Henry Kaiser who was, in his day, was as famous as say like an Elon is today or you're becoming. And he started 100 different companies. He built the Hoover Dam. He built Liberty Ships for the Allies in World War II. And I've read a bunch of biographies on him because he was one of Charlie Munger's favorite founders. And he set a line in the biography that's in multiple life stories about him that problems are just opportunities and work clothes. And so I read your recounting in your book of some of your lunches with Mr. Jesselson. And I was like, oh, he had the exact same, he essentially gave you the same advice.

**Brad Jacobs** (3:37)
Yeah. So in the book, I talked about a specific episode when I was having lunch with him and I was kind of down and glum and sort of what's going on. I was talking about this problem and this thing. I was just kind of down. And he said, well, don't stay in the business world if you're going to get down on this stuff. This is the things you should get up from. Yeah. We have problems, we have challenges, you have obstacles. By addressing those, that's how you make money. You make money. So the more problems you have, as long as you can solve them, as long as you figure out how to address them and remove the problem, that's how you're creating value. That's a wonderful way to go through life. Number one, it's a great way to make money.