Founders
Key Takeaways
- “You’ve got to think extraordinarily big from day one. Nobody achieves massive success by thinking small and hoping to become big.” – Brad Jacobs
- Negative and goal-based fuel sources can be depleted, you didn’t want to be poor, then you made X amount of money, and the tank is empty
- A generative fuel source compounds instead: the drive creates more energy, more ideas, more momentum the more it’s used
- The act of creation becomes its own feedback loop instead of needing constant external validation from money, praise, or status
- Brad and his teams have raised roughly $50 billion in total capital to fund M&A and organic growth, and in a matter of days or even hours he can raise hundreds of millions or even billions
- Two of QXO’s current top 20 shareholders had never heard of Brad until he was profiled on Founders, and they have since put $750 million into the company
- David’s favorite sentence in the entire book: “The most consequential decision you’ll make in business and in life is who you surround yourself with”
- “If you’re not substantially improving the companies you buy, you’re just moving capital around”
- He negotiates unrestricted access to the company from the moment the agreement is signed, not the day the deal closes, and that is not commonplace in M&A
- Every position gets categorized three ways: must have, nice to have, or what the hell, and they take a broom to that third category
- He started Transcendental Meditation at 16 and has meditated twice a day for decades without missing a single day
- “When I stopped expecting flawlessness from myself and others, I could let go of frustration and put that energy to good use”
Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org
In 2024 Brad Jacobs wrote the book How to Make a Few Billion Dollars.
In the book Brad explains how he built 8 separate billion dollar companies and other lessons from his 40+ year career as an elite entrepreneur.
In the two years since Brad has made a few MORE billion dollars and so the sequel to his first book is: How to Make a Few MORE Billion Dollars.
In this episode I share some of Brad's ideas on raising tons of money (Brad has raised over $50 billion), mastering his integration playbook, ideas for organizational integration, org chart design, and how Brad keeps his mind centered and in a positive place to handle the inevitable ups and downs of building great companies.
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