Founders Podcast

"At the same time, Demis was inhaling science fiction. He was reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series"

"He actually has one of my all-time favorite quotes. It's in his book Zero to One. It says, 'The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places'"

"He was reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and Ian Banks Culture series. Ian Banks gave him this applied utopian vision of what AI's realization could mean"

"The book is called Gödel, Escher, and Bach. It was a fire hose of a book that inspired a remarkable number of future AI scientists"

"I'm reading an early copy of this book called The Book of Elon. It's written by my friend Eric Jorgenson. It'll be out in a few weeks. It's about 200 pages of just Elon in his own words."

"The name 87 Capital is from Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro."

"Sam read Moneyball in two days. He loved everything about it. He could not stop thinking about it."

"I randomly discovered this talk on YouTube. I think it's one of the best talks on YouTube."

"At Stanford Graduate School of Business, Sam was able to take a sports management class for the first time."

"A few years ago, Sam was interviewed by my friend Patrick on his podcast, Invest Like the Best."

"I think about one of my favorite quotes comes from Brad Jacobs. Brad Jacobs wrote in his book, How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. So much of success in business and life is keeping your head in a good place."

"And then this part reminds me of this idea that's in Rick Rubin's book. The book is called The Creative Act. I just did an episode on it a few weeks ago."

"Kobe Bryant said the exact same thing in that book that he wrote called Mamba Mentality. He talks about the importance of studying the greats."

"Federer also invested in On which is a Swiss running shoe company that's based in Zurich. I actually just spent time with David one of the founders of On. I spent a few days with him. I found him wildly impressive."

"And for Agassi, it was no different. He says tennis is the closest to solitary confinement which inevitably leads to self-talk."

"His friend says, 'Hey, why don't you check out this guy? He's just written a book about tennis. It's called Winning Ugly.' Brad's book contains the kind of practical wisdom I need."

"Brad Jacobs has this great line in the book that he wrote, which is called How to Make a Few Billion. It's episode 335 of Founders."

"So whether you're a fast growing startup like Cursor or an enterprise company like Snowflake, Vanta fits easily into your existing workflows"