My Conversation with Brad Jacobs

**David Senra** (0:00)
I've started a new show where I have conversations with the greatest living founders. That show is called David Senra, and it will be on a separate podcast feed from Founders. So it's very important that you follow David Senra on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you're listening to this, so you don't miss future episodes. The first two episodes were with Daniel Eck, the founder of Spotify, and Michael Dell. This episode is with Brad Jacobs. I find Brad Jacobs very fascinating, not only because he started eight separate billion dollar companies, but also because of his infectious energy and enthusiasm for business building and money making. He was kind enough to invite me to his house, and that is where we recorded this conversation. I'm going to post our entire conversation on this feed, so you know what the new show is like. I hope you enjoy the conversation, and please don't forget to follow the new show, David Senra, now, so you don't miss future episodes. And by the way, nothing is changing with Founders. I'm still doing episodes every week, and will work on Founders until I die.

**Brad Jacobs** (0:56)
I'm ready when you are, man. I'm in the zone. I'm in the zone, man.

**David Senra** (1:01)
I hope we start with this. I love your energy. This is what I always tell people when, you know, I did the episode in your book, right? 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, well, 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 one 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** (1:50)
He meant a lot. So Mr. Jesselson, I never called him Ludwig. Mr. Jesselson, he was 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 what are 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** (3:35)
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. Like 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.