Steven Spielberg

**David Senra** (0:00)
I just re-listened to this entire episode, and it's remarkable, not only like the filmmaking genius that Spielberg is, but the way that he built a business, and the way he thought about building the business around his life's work. And the reason I went back and re-listened to this, and the reason I originally did this episode almost three years ago, the reason I'm re-publishing it now, in case you missed it the first time, or even if you'd listened to it the first time, I highly encourage you to re-listen to it, you'd be surprised how much you're gonna forget. But because I was working on a Tarantino episode last week, and he kept talking about multiple times in Tarantino's book, he's talking about the fact that he thought that Spielberg's natural born filmmaker genius, that he's made some of the greatest movies in film history, Tarantino would talk about Spielberg's gift of taking an idea they had in his mind and then making it real. And the other reason that I wanted to go back and study Spielberg is because in this episode, I talk about one of my favorite biographies of all time, which I covered seven years ago on episode 35 And it was George Lucas, A Life by Brian Jane Jones. And I have spent the whole week, I'm still in the processes of re-reading and really diving deep into George Lucas' life and work again. And so while I'm working on that, I think Spielberg is the perfect bridge from Tarantino to Lucas. Because if you study Spielberg, Lucas is going to play a role in his life, and if you study Lucas, Spielberg plays a role in his life. And what is fascinating is when you study all three, they have an idea that they have in common, right? And it's the fact that it talks about in this episode, it's talked about in Tarantino episode, it'll be talked about in the Lucas episode. Spielberg in particular, he would watch and rewatch movies he loved. And then decades later, entire scenes from those movies would appear in Spielberg's own movies. That's the exact same thing as Edwin Land's ideas showing up in Steve Jobs' companies and products. It's the same thing as Sam Walton's ideas showing up in Jeff Bezos' companies and products. And a main theme that reappears for anybody gets to the top of their profession, anybody becomes great at what they do, is they are seeped in the industry, the history of their industry. They talk about over and over again, they don't just read a book one time, they don't just watch a movie one time, they don't just have one conversation, they do it over and over and over again. That is why if you have not done so already, I'm going to highly recommend that you subscribe to Founders Notes. That's foundersnotes.com, you go to foundersnotes.com, that's founders with an S. For six years, I have been cataloging all my notes, my highlights, transcripts for every single episode, notes and highlights in every single book that I've done for the podcast. And now by signing up for a subscription to Founders Notes, you get access to all my notes and highlights. You can search by keyword, by person, by subject. It's just a giant database on the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs. You can also read all my highlights and notes by book. You can have all my notes and highlights presented to you in random order on the highlights feed feature. I've been searching by keyword, I've been rereading by highlights, and I've been rereading in random order on the highlights feed for years. I literally could not make the podcast without this tool. Now I've added a new feature that I'm super excited about, I can't stop talking about. It's actually called Sage. It is Founders Notes AI. And the name actually came from a Founders Notes subscriber because he heard all these names that I was trying to figure out what the name of this feature. He's like, no, that doesn't describe what this feature actually does. And he's like, you should call it Sage because Sage is a profoundly wise person that is often looked to for guidance and advice. And so what Sage does, it's like search on steroids. You can ask it a question, it'll search every single note, every single highlight, every single transcript, and it'll start making connections. It's been making connections that I've even missed. And so as I was re-listening to this episode, I went to Founders Notes and I asked it, I was like, what are the most, I asked Sage, what are the most important ideas to learn from Steven Spielberg? And then it gives an outline of the top nine, what it feels the top nine ideas are most important to learn from Steven Spielberg. And the interesting part is if you press on expand, it actually tells you what it searched to come up with the answer. And obviously it's gonna search, you know, the episode I did on Steven Spielberg. But then it searched when I mentioned Spielberg in a Steve Jobs episode, when I mentioned Spielberg in a Christopher Nolan and James Cameron episode, when I mentioned Spielberg in an episode on the creation of Pixar. And so I really believe a subscription to Founders Notes is the perfect companion if you're going to invest, you know, tens, dozens of hours, hundreds of hours of listening to Founders Podcast. It is the tool that will help you condense and clarify the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders, so then you can use their ideas in your work. Highly recommend getting a subscription going to foundersnotes.com. That's Founders with an S, foundersnotes.com. I appreciate the support, and I hope you enjoy this episode on Steven Spielberg.