The Most Inspiring Autobiography I've Read: Chung Ju-yung Founder of Hyundai

Chung Ju-yung grew up so poor he had to eat tree bark to survive. He founded Hyundai and became the richest person in Korea. When Chung was in his 80s, he wrote an autobiography that tells the devastating reality of growing up in dire poverty, how he escaped through manual labor, and how he founded and grew one of the world's largest conglomerates. Along the way he shares advice like why you should emulate bedbugs, the importance of going where the money is, and why people called him "The Bulldozer." This episode is what I learned from reading Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung. ---- Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00David Senra?

  I first read this book almost five years ago, and it's one of these stories that just sticks with you. Chung's story is unbelievably inspiring. He grew up the son of a poor farmer and had to eat tree bark to survive. And then he dies the richest person in Korea. And almost every week since this episode first came out, someone has sent me a message after listening to it, and we're surprised and inspired by Chung's life story. So I decided to re-listen to it today, which I just did, and then republish it for you in case you haven't had the chance to hear it yet. Something will jump out at you as you listen, and it's Chung's insistence on being the very best. It didn't matter if he was running a small rice shop or a giant conglomerate. Everything that Chung did, he did with the intention of being the very best.

• 0:45David Senra?

  And that is actually something he shares with a lot of history's greatest entrepreneurs. They want to be great at what they do, and they want to work with other people and other companies that are great at what they do. And one of my favorite examples of greatness, a representation of being great, I should say. I just found out this week. In the last year, 12,059 different companies have started using Ramp. These companies are using Ramp to control their spend and optimize all of their financial operations on a single platform. Out of those 12,059 companies, only eight decided Ramp wasn't for them. That means 12,051 out of 12,059 different companies that tried Ramp stayed with Ramp.

• 1:29David Senra?

  The longer you use Ramp, the more efficient your company becomes. And that is because Ramp has built a team of A-plus players. Ramp has the most talented technical team in their industry. Becoming an engineer at Ramp is nearly impossible. Here's another mind-blowing stat for you. In the last 12 months, they've hired only 0.23% of the people that applied. That means when you use Ramp, you now have top-tier technical talent and some of the best AI engineers working on your behalf 24/7 to automate and improve all of your business's financial operations. And they do this on a single platform. Ramp gives you easy-to-use corporate credit cards for your entire team, automated expense reporting, and cost control. I read a Ramp customer review that sums this up perfectly. They said Ramp is like having a teammate

• 2:14David Senra?

  who you never need to check in on because they have it handled. Ramp's website is incredible. Make History's Greatest Entrepreneurs proud by going to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business control your costs. That is ramp.com.

• 2:28David Senra?

  For a long time, I was known as the bulldozer. I don't think this nickname came from my hard-driving work ethic. I imagine that comparing me to a heavy-steel body that drives over piles of rubble was not meant to be flattering. It was meant to depict me as an uneducated upstart who dug up the ground first and thought about it later. It's obvious that I did not receive much schooling, but not receiving formal education does not mean one is lacking in wisdom. It is a mistake to think that broad and deep knowledge can only be obtained through formal schooling. I think harder, work harder, have greater courage, and am more active than others.

• 3:09David Senra?

  Before starting any project, I spent an enormous amount of time and effort thinking, analyzing, and planning every detail. When it's time to implement these plans, it may look like I'm working off the cuff or even being reckless, but if I hadn't first sat down and planned everything out, the Hyundai Group of today could have never existed. When attempting something difficult, people utter the words "wrong" or "impossible." They said we couldn't build a highway so cheaply. They said it was crazy for us to build a shipyard. They said it was impossible to move heavy underwater equipment by barge. It wasn't just once or twice that I received this kind of treatment from people. People who only thought with their common sense and shunned adventure often found my

• 3:52David Senra?

  ways of doing things ridiculous and ignorant. But I am someone who believes that if a person limits themselves to the fixed ideas inherent in common sense, they will not be very creative. People with a strong will to succeed have unlimited potential. By bringing together all of this potential, the collective energy of a people can be unleashed. My motto is "shorten the time." This was the surest way for improvement. If you search for a method, it will come to you. If you can't come up with a method, it's because you didn't think hard enough. The Hyundai of today was built by pushing aside all of our problems like a bulldozer.

• 4:32David Senra?

  My performance as a bulldozer in thought, calculation, and prediction was the product of a modest intellect. But by thinking and trying harder than others, I continued to push ahead in all of my endeavors.

• 4:48David Senra?

  And that was an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Born of This Land: My Life Story. It's the autobiography and it's written by the founder of Hyundai, Chung Ju Young. Okay, so I want to start in the preface. This book was translated into English after Chung passed away. And his son is the one that writes the preface and gives us a good overview of who his father was. My father was a nation builder, figuratively and literally. He built so much of the infrastructure and landmarks in Korea that we still use and see around us today. He was a businessman who built one of the most successful companies in the world. He established schools, hospitals, and one of the largest philanthropic organizations in Korea.

• 5:30David Senra?

  However, for me, he was first and foremost my father, who showered me with love and made me who I am today. In the words that he used to describe his own father, "He was the progenitor of my body and soul, the bestower of my health, my work ethic, frugality, patience, commitment, and my devotion. The one man who taught me the morals that have made me the man I am. My greatest mentor, my father. Reading this book, I felt his presence, as if he was by my side. Knowing all the things that he had to go through to provide me with unparalleled opportunities, I now look back on my own life and wonder whether I've truly lived up to his expectations. My most poignant memories of him are not so much of his accomplishments, as is how

• 6:14David Senra?

  hard he worked day in and day out, how he struggled." Why does one start a business? The usual answer is to provide for one's family and to contribute to the national economy. But we forget just how much of a struggle it is to keep a business afloat. As my father said, "You need to pour all your blood, sweat, and tears into trying to make it succeed." From when he was first starting his first auto repair shop in a small makeshift garage, to when he was building the dry docks for what would become the world's largest shipbuilding company, it was a daily struggle against impending disaster, trying to keep things going when so many things could and did go wrong.

• 6:58David Senra?

  In 1973, when he was driving himself through the shipyard construction site in the early morning in a raging storm, his Jeep fell off the breakwater into the sea. As the water started to pour into the Jeep and he was trying desperately to kick the door open, he remembers thinking to himself, "If I don't make it, people will say that I disappeared because I could not handle the mountain of debt that I was under." His was a lifetime spent making possible the seemingly impossible. When someone said that a proposed project would be impossible, his famous response was, "Did you try?" My father was a self-taught man. All the formal education that he received was three years of traditional Confucian

• 7:40David Senra?

  education at the village school and three years of elementary school. He more than made up for whatever shortfalls through voracious reading. Now here's a direct quote from Chung. He says, "Even though my education stopped after the sixth grade, I've always enjoyed reading great books. If my first mentors were my parents, then my second mentors were books." Now back to his son. His son writes, "He had a wonderfully positive disposition and a rigorous work ethic." If you had to summarize Chung with just one sentence, that's probably the best sentence to summarize him. "He could see the silver lining in even the most dire situation. His recollection of the backbreaking work that he undertook under grandfather's direction on the tiny family plot illustrates this better than anything else." Now back to a direct quote from Chung.

• 8:25David Senra?

  "I was born with the ability to accentuate the positive rather than the negative. Since I was 10 years old, I worked with my father under the scorching sun." His father was a very poor farmer. "I worked all day, never taking the time to stretch my aching back." But in all that time, never once did I complain or slack off. When the time came to take a short break in the shade, those precious moments when I could feel the cool breeze on my face were like heaven. Returning home exhausted, I slept soundly and woke up the next morning, ready to go. Now, back to his son. "He had the ability to remain unperturbed in the face of seemingly insurmountable difficulties. My father lived a full life.

• 9:09David Senra?

  I miss his wisdom, his exuberant optimism, and his ability to rise to any occasion. Most of all, I miss him as only an adoring son can." So I just, the only note I left myself on that page was, that's success. If you can get to the end of your life, and your family members, your children, the people that love you, write about you like that, that's, to me, the definition of success. I want to go directly into the writing of Chung and how he tells his life story. Let's start first with the memories of his own father. In this section, you're going to hear about half a century of struggle, and that's not an understatement. You know Murphy's Law, where it says, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong"?

• 9:51David Senra?

  That's a great description of the struggle he had building Hyundai. And when I went into this book, I noted about that, too. So when I picked up the book, I thought, okay, I'm going to learn about, because when I hear the word Hyundai, I only knew that the car manufacturer. I didn't know that he also built a gigantic construction company, a shipbuilding company. And so there's a bunch of hugely successful companies under the Hyundai group, and so I'm going to cover a lot of that today. He's going to talk about the memories that he has of his father right here, and then he's going to tell us specifically why he's writing this book. "When I gaze across the farm, I am overwhelmed with grief that my father passed away before seeing this place. But I console myself in the belief that were he to be looking down from heaven, he would be heartened to behold the vast farm created by the son of a man who lived his entire life as a poor farmer.

• 10:36David Senra?

  He was a farmer from birth to death and head to toe. Though many people may view him as a run-of-the-mill farmer, no different than any other, I venerated and adored him more than anyone else in the world. I am over 80 years old now, and I have lived 20 years longer than my father. This year, 1997, marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Hyundai." During these 50 years, Korea endured Japanese colonialism, national liberation, the Korean War, the Student Revolution, the coup d'etat in 1961, the assassination of President Park, 30 years of military rule, and now five years of so-called civilian rule.

• 11:17David Senra?

  Hardly a day of tranquility existed in these 50 years of turbulence. Looking back to those times, I am very proud that Hyundai has held steadfast through the storms, survived, and matured to this very day. I thought it would be meaningful for me to reflect on my life and better organize my thoughts and experience, so I agreed to write this memoir. The reason I'm writing this memoir is to reinforce my message to the younger generation who will shape the future of this country. With strong conviction and concentrated effort, everyone has an equal chance to succeed. Someone once said that "time is a form of capital, provided equally to everyone." I couldn't agree more.

• 12:00David Senra?

  If I could be considered a successful person in my chosen profession, it is only because I was able to do my very best based on strong convictions and made the best use of this evenly distributed capital. Okay, so now we're going to get more into what he learned from his father and running away from home, which he ran away a total of four times. So it says, "his," meaning his father, "his total assets consisted only of a healthy body and a diligent character. Father never took a day off. Whether or not others were drinking or gambling, father just worked, quietly toiling away in solitude. Father was a man of few words. Even when working beside him all day, I heard him speak at most three or four words.

• 12:44David Senra?

  The longest conversation we ever had was the time he found me after I'd run away from home and he tried to convince me to come back." So this, the part I'm about to read to you now, this is the third time he ran away. So his father finds him in Seoul, and Chung escapes to the city because, not that he loved his family, but he realized he didn't want to wind up a poor farmer his whole life. So he realized the city is where all the opportunity is. So he kept running away, his father would keep finding him. Finally, the fourth time, he just couldn't take it anymore. But I want to talk about this time specifically. So he says, "Father caught me attending the bookkeeping and accounting school in Seoul." This is what his father said. It's pretty harsh here, but there's a reason for it. And so now the direct quote from his father.

• 13:28David Senra?

  Are there any parents in this world who don't want their children to be successful? If you are successful enough to bring your parents and siblings to Seoul and look after them, why would this old man hold you back? But you better not forget what you are. Just a farm boy who only finished the sixth grade. I hear Seoul is crawling with unemployed graduates of vocational schools. But you, what are you? A nobody. And a nobody like you isn't going to make it. You will throw our family out into the streets blindly chasing after this stupid dream. I am old now, so you need to be responsible for looking out for the family.

• 14:10David Senra?

  Since you refuse, we're gonna have to turn to begging. So when I first read that section, I just couldn't imagine ever talking to my son that way. Saying, you know, you're just a poor boy. You don't have an education. But when the longer the story goes on, and when I revisited this section, I realized he's saying that because he's afraid. He loves his son. He wants his son to succeed, even though those words don't seem like that. He just, he's afraid. He lives his entire life. The difference between Chung and his father is Chung believed that he had unlimited potential. He believed that it's a difference really between like a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. His father thought, that's it. This is what our family is supposed to do. This is, I'm a farmer and that's just what my life is.

• 14:55David Senra?

  Chung never believed that. He never put limits on anything. So let me finish this section. He says, "Even today, I get a lump in my throat when I recall my weeping father crouched down as he uttered these words. Later, I brought him to Seoul to live together." This is an example of his father's love. "At the time, my schedule consisted of working late nights, barely sleeping, and returning to work early in the morning. Not once did my father tell me to come home early. By simply staying awake and waiting until I came home, he demonstrated his unspoken love for me."

• 15:28David Senra?

  So the story of, the life story of Chung Ju Young is not complete without understanding that he endured a different level of poverty. Well, as I read this section to you, I want you to keep in mind, this is a different level of poverty and the person writing this book eventually works his way up to becoming the richest man in Korea. So here's an example of that. Back in those days, human feces, they call it night soil, was the primary fertilizer for dry fields. Kids and adults made sure to relieve themselves at home to add to their essential stockpile. We were extremely poor. So let me, let me back up there. Let's say you're at a friend's house or you're at school. You have to go to the bathroom.

• 16:12David Senra?

  You have to come home because you're, in order for your family to survive, they need you to defecate in a bucket. That's a different level of poverty. We were extremely poor, even though my father and mother worked their fingers to the bone to make ends meet. Back in those days, farming families were so poor that words cannot capture their suffering and destitution. After harsh winters, we would completely run out of food by the time spring arrived. From then on, we barely managed to stay alive by eating tree bark, grassroots and wild herbs. As you can imagine, going through this level of struggle is going to, it's going to shape, it shapes his personality. It would shape anybody's personality. And some people would destroy, but the people that succeed

• 16:55David Senra?

  and then don't give up, it's going to make them stronger. We're going to talk more about, I'm going to tell you more about his struggle and then why he's going to have to run away for the final time. I've always been scolded for being impatient. I've always been in a hurry that I would sometimes put shoes on the wrong feet. There was no concept of free time. So I want to pause here. When I'm reading biographies and you kind of build like this model in your mind. If you were able to have a discussion with them, you're able to ask them questions and kind of guess at what their answer would be. And when I was reading through this section, and this is something he talks about all over and over again. He talks about the value of time from the beginning of the book to the very end of the book. And so if he were alive today and you were able to ask him, how many hours a week did he work? His answer would be all of them.

• 17:40David Senra?

  So he talks about that a lot. There's no concept of free time. While toiling on the farm, I would think to myself, will I always be a farmer and never straighten my crooked back? A farmer who will never feel full for even a day? A life like this to suffer like my father? Is this all there is? The sad reality of farming is that no matter how much one struggles, the payoff never equals the amount of work put in. I wanted to leave my hometown and try anything other than farming. I wasn't sure, but I thought, no matter what I did, if I worked as hard as I did at farming, I could make more money. Moving to the city was my only hope. I still, and here's what pushes him over the edge. And when he leaves and doesn't come back.

• 18:24David Senra?

  He moves his family with him, but he never goes back to farming. I still vividly remember my parents' arguments were always about food. Their arguments would become more and more heated until the table was overturned and the food ended up on the floor. I murmured, "I can't take this anymore." Any fleeting resolution to remain on that farm evaporated. I was determined to go to Seoul and succeed. After I turned 19, I ran away from home for the fourth time. The fourth time ended up being the last. Okay, so now he's 19. This next section is going to cover his early twenties. He's on his own.

• 19:04David Senra?

  These are the early jobs that he has to do before the birth of Hyundai. I worked for the harbor master and a moving company. I did any manual labor that a man could do. I was barely able to put food in my mouth. I learned that a farm was looking for workers. They provided meals, a place to stay, and a daily wage. In no time, I was sought out by other people to do various odd jobs as stories of my work ethic spread. For the first time, I was able to save a little bit of money. At every opportunity, I scoured the city for a better job. One lucky day, a rice shop hired me as a delivery boy. It was a stable job with great benefits. And what he's talking about there, the great benefits? He gets one free bag of rice a month.

• 19:49David Senra?

  Later in his life, he would say, that was the first time in his entire life, he felt rich. I felt optimistic about my future. Every day was full of joy and excitement. Yet my heart ached at the thought of my father toiling alone on the farm. Three years passed until I finally wrote him a letter. By then, my annual salary had increased to 20 bags of rice. His immediate response was, "My son, you made it. I couldn't be any happier for you." So there's a lot of things that he's learning during this time of his life. So he's got a lot of good ideas and he talks, so he's going to give us some advice on taking simple tasks seriously. So he said, "Whatever I did, I never slacked off. Compared to farming, the workload at the shop was nothing.

• 20:34David Senra?

  Yet I threw myself into the job just as my father did on his farm. I made sure I was the first to arrive." He's just supposed to be delivering rice, but he would be the first one to show up and he would do all these extra things just to make the shop better. "I would sweep the entrance and sprinkle water on the ground to keep the dust down." Because his son was a lazy bum, the owner began to appreciate my work ethic. Okay, so this word lazy, he talks about this a lot. As you could imagine, remember, he's in his 80s when he's writing this. He struggled for decades, becomes wildly successful. He's also extremely hard and driven person. He talks about in the Korean culture at that time, you know, you don't tell your kids you love them, you don't express, you don't express any kind of emotion.

• 21:16David Senra?

  He will explicitly say over and over again how he detests lazy people. There's a quote that I always think about that comes from Kobe Bryant. And Kobe says, "I can't relate to lazy people. We don't speak the same language. I don't understand you. I don't want to understand you." And so he, in this section of the book, he talks about, you know, the difference between this son who was given a job without having to work for it, works for, you know, a local merchant in a big city. He's like, "This guy's not my competition. Like, he stands no chance." And he just, you know, worked circles around him. So he says, "I realize that even simple tasks require patience. No matter how small the task, such as delivering rice on a bicycle, I pour all my energy into achieving the best possible result, so I need to stop there." He gets the job, like, "Do you know how to ride a bike?"

• 22:00David Senra?

  And Chung, he's never even seen a bike. He's like, "Yeah, I can do that." And so he stays up, he has to teach himself and he does it within like a few days. For hours and hours and hours at night, learning how to ride a bike just so he can keep this job. So he says, "I pour all my energy into achieving the best possible result. Half-measures, compromises, cutting corners, or being realistic," he puts those words in quotation marks, "do not exist in my world. Do it until nothing more can be done. Give it your all until the very end. This thought is the very essence of me as a person and the fundamental principle of my life." The important part here, too, is he's applying this at simple tasks to be a rice-delivery boy.

• 22:43David Senra?

  And yet, he does that same fundamental principle he applies when he's running a giant Fortune 500 multinational corporation. Two years passed, two years of doing this. He's happy as can be. And one day, all of my work paid off. The owner unexpectedly offered to sell me the rice shop. The delivery boy has now become the owner. What I'm about to read you will give you an indication of the levels of ambition and the standards that he sets for himself. "I renamed my shop 'Number One in Seoul' and aimed to make it the best rice shop in all of the country. This was four years after I'd run away from home. I was 24 years old.

• 23:25David Senra?

  I was relentless in my search for new customers. I dreamt that this shop could become the best in the entire country." Now, remember, I referenced Murphy's Law earlier. What I'm about to read to you is, this happens to him over and over and over again. He listed at the beginning of the book, all the different, you know, things are way outside of his control, all the tumultuous experiences that goes on in Korea as it transitions from an underdeveloped country to a developed country. This is not the South Korea that we see today. Chung had a huge role in building that country. So he says, "But the good times did not last. The second Sino-Japanese War started and Japanese authorities instituted a rice rationing system, and all rice shops were requisitioned, I headed home."

• 24:10David Senra?

  So he goes back, he's asking people for opportunity, spends a little bit more time with his family and then goes back to Seoul. And this is where he gets into the auto repair business. Okay, so we're going to see more struggle, more perseverance. The same set of scenarios plays out over and over again, just on a different scale. He'll work really hard, his company eventually succeeds, and then the government takes it away. Something happens. Then he starts another business, works really hard, and that continues and continues and continues. All right, so he says, "A year later, I returned to Seoul and started looking for work." He winds up meeting some people and they become business partners. One of them is a mechanic. And so they combine and they take over, they borrow some money, and they buy this existing auto repair shop, okay?

• 24:53David Senra?

  So he said, "We made good money and I was ecstatic to have chosen the right industry to get into. However, as the saying goes, bad luck comes in threes. Only five days after we paid off our loan, a fire broke out." Not only does the entire shop burn down, but then the customer cars, he's responsible for that. And so now he has to go and go back to the person that lent him money and ask for more money. He says, "I could have easily given up everything under the weight of debt, but I was determined not to give up." He's talking about all that he owes, he has to rebuild the shop and pay back the customers. "But I was determined not to give up. I did not want to end up a failure." This is where he visits the private money lender that loaned him the money to open the shop to begin with. "The fire burned everything down. Now I have nothing but debt.

• 25:38David Senra?

  If I stop now, there's no way I can pay you back. Sir, I beg you, give me another chance to set this right." So this guy gives him another loan, and so he opens up another auto repair shop. But this one, they have to start from the very beginning, like from scratch. And so he runs into an issue is that they're not, there's no way to get a license to do that. When he purchased the other auto repair shop, he could inherit the license. So this is where we see some creativity. Chong talked about at the beginning of the book, you know, if you just stick to common sense, like you're limiting what is possible. And then if you just become determined and relentless, you're going to find a lot of, you're going to come up with creative solutions to the inevitable problems that you're going to experience in life. So he says, "At the time, a license for the auto repair shop was only given to automobile manufacturers.

• 26:22David Senra?

  So it was nearly impossible to get the license for an independent auto repair shop." Running an unlicensed auto repair shop coupled with enormous pile of debt I was treading on thin ice. So this is a unique solution. They could put you in jail for doing this at the time. So it says, "Early each morning, I would visit the home of the chief of police." Just show up and knock on the door every day. "After a month, the chief said, 'You ought to be arrested, but how can I detain someone who comes and pleads at my door every single morning?'" So he's like, "Listen, I'm not gonna arrest you." He makes them put like cardboard up so people can't see the auto repair shop from the street. So this is just another weird obstacle that he's got to overcome. Now, this is Chung reflecting back on his perseverance. "All this was made possible because I put into practice my motto, 'Do your best until

• 27:07David Senra?

  there's nothing more to do.'" Eventually, this service shop was swamped with orders. He was relentless at going out and getting customers. "However, the situation under the Japanese occupation steadily worsened. Japan started an all-out war against China. Then, in December 1941, the Japanese imperialists suffering from megalomania started the Pacific War and issued a reorganization for private companies order." So he refers to it as Pacific War. Us in the United States, we know that as World War II, December 1941. Obviously, that's the bombing of Pearl Harbor. "Struggling to wage a war beyond its means," here we go again, "Japan took everything it could from Korea to make weapons.

• 27:47David Senra?

  They forced us to merge with another workshop, but it was a merger in name only. In reality, it was a hostile takeover. Having neither the will nor the energy to work at a forcibly merged company, I left. I was 29 years old." Okay, so we just followed him from a 19-year-old runaway. And then, for over a decade, he worked extremely hard, but now, at the end of the decade, he's left with nothing again. And a lot of that was outside of his control. There's some people that were gonna go through that and easily, you know, that said, "Okay, I tried. I gave up. Let me just go and, you know, maybe do manual labor, maybe I'll be a farmer." Chung's not that kind of person. I wanted just to describe to you now he's back and his living conditions.

• 28:30David Senra?

  And the reason I want to point this out is because this is right before he starts Hyundai.

• 28:37David Senra?

  I was officially unemployed for the first and only time in my life. At that time, my family of 20 lived in a small 700-square-foot house. So that's the conditions he's enduring before he starts Hyundai. Before I get into the birth of Hyundai, he's got this fantastic story in here. It's about what you can learn from bedbugs. So I want to take a short tangent, because I love the story, and then we'll get into Hyundai. Whenever I tell people that it was bedbugs that taught me nothing is impossible if one puts in one's best effort, they think I'm exaggerating. But this is the truth. So to make ends meet, he's taking any job, as you can imagine, taking any job he can possibly get. And it's all manual labor. He's back to where he started.

• 29:19David Senra?

  So it says, "The bunkhouse where I slept as a laborer was teeming with so many bedbugs that it was almost impossible to fall asleep. Some of the other workers tried to think of ways to avoid the bedbugs. But even when they slept on top of dining tables, they were still bitten as the parasites could climb up the legs of the tables. We put our heads together and came up with an idea of placing a steel pot filled with water under each of the four legs of the table. It worked, temporarily. Unfortunately, uninterrupted sleep lasted only two days. Then things went back to normal the way they had been before. The bedbugs were biting us again. We wondered how could this be possible, considering that the bedbugs would fall into the pot of water if they attempted to climb up any of the legs?

• 30:04David Senra?

  One night, we decided to stay up to see how on earth they survived the water and managed to bite us. We were completely dumbstruck by what we saw when the lights were turned on. The bedbugs were climbing the walls and dropping from the ceiling onto our bodies. To this day, I cannot forget the shiver down my spine that I felt back then. This made me stop in my tracks and think. Even bedbugs think long and hard and use every bit of energy they have to achieve their goal. And ultimately, they succeed. I'm no bedbug, I'm a man. These bedbugs can surely teach a man a few lessons. If these bedbugs can do it, why can't we men do it?

• 30:49David Senra?

  We just need to stick to it and not quit. We need to emulate bedbugs. Okay, so we're gonna get into the birth of Hyundai, which starts out first with the Hyundai Auto Service Center, and then Hyundai Construction. So like I said before I sat down, I'm thinking I'm gonna read the life story. The person that started was a car manufacturer, right? But from the time we're in the story, he doesn't, Hyundai doesn't manufacture its first car till 19, 30 years later, when they produced their first car. And so that surprised me. Now, we're gonna get into that. He's gonna pivot into construction, because construction at this time is where all the money is. In the beginning, Hyundai Motor Service Center replaced engines at the US Army Depot. We started remodeling Japanese jalopies. I need to pause here.

• 31:34David Senra?

  The note I left myself was, we're gonna see tons of examples of relentless resourcefulness here. So, and you also need to tell you where in history you are. This is after World War II, but before the Korean War. That's why he's working for the, working at the US Army Depot. We started remodeling Japanese jalopies. We welded together two 1.5-ton trucks to make one 2.5-ton truck. We modified gasoline cars to run on charcoal, since fuel was scarce. At the time, most construction projects and automobile repair jobs were controlled by the government and the US Army. One day, when I was dropping off my submission for a contract, I happened to witness some construction company representatives receive their construction fees.

• 32:17David Senra?

  While I was earning about 300,000 or 400,000 won per contract, these construction companies could make up to 10 million won per contract. I was completely shocked to realize how much money was in construction. So as a result of this, he does a logical thing. And maybe people won't think it's logical, because he doesn't have any experience, but he goes and starts a construction company. He just believes that he can learn and figure things out. And you see this over and over again. Don't know how to make a car? I'm gonna make a car. Don't know how to do construction? I'll do construction. Don't know how to build a bridge? I'll build a bridge. Don't know how to build a ship? I'll build a ship. He doesn't, he doesn't care. He's relentless. So he starts a construction, construction company. They're doing basic stuff. Maybe they're paving, paving roads, things like that. Eventually, he builds bridges. His business is going well,

• 33:01David Senra?

  but what's gonna happen? Anytime his business is succeeding, we know what's gonna happen. Disaster's gonna strike again. And this time, it's the Korean War. So, right before the war, he says, "The construction industry was quite profitable." I said to myself, "We're going places." Six months later, North Korea invaded South Korea. Now, here's the crazy thing, and it just speaks to the unpredictability of life. They're hearing rumors in the country that North Korea is evading, like they're running through the army of South Korea. And Chung is very patriotic. He doesn't believe it. So he says, "My brother-in-law suggested, 'Let's buy some rice while we still can.' I outright dismissed his suggestion, saying, 'Do you think our army is sleeping on the job? Stop talking nonsense.'

• 33:45David Senra?

  I naively placed that much faith in government. I thought Seoul's defenses would hold, but seeing everyone fleeing in panic, I realized the gravity of the situation. I regretted having dismissed my brother-in-law's decision to buy rice. We had to flee Seoul with nothing but the clothes on our back." Not only does he have to flee Seoul with nothing but the clothes on his back and without a single penny, but the family separates too. So he has to leave his home and his business. He flees to another city called Busan. In that city, American soldiers arrive, and he sees that they run a job ad. And so he shows up and starts working for the US Army Corps of Engineers. And so he shows up, and they're like, "What can you do?" And he says, "I'll do anything." Starts doing manual labor.

• 34:28David Senra?

  Then he starts building temporary barracks for soldiers. He gets family members jobs as translators. He just does anything he possibly can. Eventually, the US Army is going to push back the North Korean army, and so Seoul is liberated again. So he says, "When Seoul was finally liberated, I rushed home, but no one was there. Like my house, the factory had been stripped bare by the North Korean soldiers." Eventually, he reunites with his family. He's able to save a little bit of money from working with the US Army Corps of Engineers. And he says, "The horrifying stories of their unbearable hardships," meaning his family, "were difficult to swallow. I immediately went back to work for the US Army." So they have him do all these construction and rebuilding projects to rebuild all the destruction from the war.

• 35:12David Senra?

  "I remodeled the Seoul National University College of Labor Arts and the School of Law to serve as the headquarters for the US Army." Here we go. "His relative tranquility did not last long. The Chinese People's Army entered Seoul, and everybody was forced to retreat. This time, my entire family and all of my workers fled to Busan." We bought a house in Busan and built temporary living quarters for my workers in the front yard. We cooked rice and we ate together. There's actually a picture in the book from this time period. We hung the Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company sign up. We did whatever was needed to get the job done. So temporarily Hyundai is now headquartered in Busan. He does construction projects for the US Army and then the Korean government. And then eventually the war is over and he moves back.

• 35:57David Senra?

  He moves the company back to Seoul. We are now in the 1960s. The Hyundai that manufactures cars, and this point to give you an idea of where we're in the time period, we're still 15 years away from him building his own car. So now he gets in, he's doing more work for the Korean government. In the 1960s, there's like a coup d'etat and I think he's a general, if I'm not mistaken, takes over the Korean government. His name is President Park. He is going to play a role in this story. Okay. So first, before I go there, I want to tell you about, he's going to talk more in the book about his management style. And then again, he hits on the value of time over and over again. It's something he repeats to us. So it's clearly something he wants us to, to get into our minds. I think there's nothing more foolish than living a life according to the mantra of

• 36:41David Senra?

  doing enough to get by, not knowing how precious one's time is. In one lifetime, we can be, we can become a revered immortalized politician, a scholar, a revolutionary, a writer, a musician, a painter, or a businessman like we, like those we admire. These remarkable people did not take two or three lifetimes to accomplish what they did. They did it in one. If you make full use of your time by living diligently, there's that word again, you can excel in any field. Such a life would be considered a successful one. It is a harsh reality that bold actions are required to develop and operate a company. This is, this next sentence is not going to be a surprise to you. I was a tough boss for everyone, everywhere.

• 37:27David Senra?

  I know I must have hurt the feelings of many as growling was the only way I knew how to speak to them. I'm truly sorry for that. However, I'm certain that rigorous examination, training and encouragement made Hyundai what it is today. I would also say it's next to impossible to go through what he went through, to survive and thrive like he did and not be an extremely hard-driven person. Obviously, I'm not condoning being mean to the people around you, but he kept pushing his employees. He would say, hey, listen, eventually the construction company, I'm about to get to this part, their own economy has a series of booms and busts as it continues to develop. And so they have to go and start competing with worldwide construction companies. And he's telling these people, we're poor, we have no resources.

• 38:11David Senra?

  All we have is the management of our time and how hard we're willing to work. So he gives examples to employees where they would fly in, other like Western countries would fly in. And he gives an example of one company where if you were over 55, they'd send the person three days before the meeting so they could be fresh and get over their jet lag. And if they're under 55, they'd fly them in two days. He's like, we can't do that. We have to work 10 and 20 times harder than them. So as soon as you land, whether you're jet lagged or not, it doesn't matter, you have to go straight to the meeting. And then you have to come straight back. What he's talking about there, he's like, you know, I am certain that rigorous examination, training and encouragement made Hyundai what it is today. Like, he's setting extremely high standards. You see the high standards he sets for himself, 20 years old, saying, I'm gonna have the

• 38:52David Senra?

  best rice shop, but not in that street, not in the town, but in the entire country. And so he kept pushing that his whole life. Okay, so this is another advice that he has for us, that we should go where the money is. So this is where Hyundai Construction Company must go abroad because the Korean domestic economy is really, really bad at this time. And he says, after two regime changes and ensuing fallout from both, imagine having to run businesses the entire time. Just keep in your mind, like, what is...

• 39:20David Senra?

  This is remarkable that he was able to manage through all these ups and downs. And I mean, these are extreme outlier events, and yet they're compressed in five decades, and he has to deal with them all constantly. I became convinced that we had to go abroad to find a way out. I began to seriously consider entering foreign construction markets. So it's like, OK, well, it's a lot of money in Europe, a lot of money in the United States, but I can't start there. He's like, we have primitive technology. We don't even know really what we're doing. So he's like, I'm gonna do an intermediary step here. He says, I dispatched some of our company's executives to Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, so they could seek contracts. Nobody could get in the way of my determination to utilize the Southeast Asian market as a pivot to the rest of the world.

• 40:04David Senra?

  That's just a smart move here. Eventually, he gets a contract working in Thailand. Now, how, again, doesn't have a lot of experience. He's done construction for a few years, but they don't have the specialized equipment. They don't have the engineering knowledge. They don't have anything that their competitors do. So how are they winning bids? They're winning bids because they're submitting bids at the cheapest prices. The problem is, he's submitting bids at prices he doesn't even know he's gonna make money on. And so, as you can imagine, he's gonna lose a lot of money. That's why they're giving him the bids. So this is an example of him doing this in Thailand. Expanding abroad was very difficult for their company, and it cost them a lot of money. But again, we see his unyielding optimism. He's one of the most optimistic people that I've ever met.

• 40:47David Senra?

  And there's parts in this book, when I got to the end, like, I felt like he empowered me so much, I could run through a wall. So he says, because of our outdated technology, our lack of expertise in managing construction work, huge rainfall, poor soil, we spent vast amounts of cash trying to make things work. We incurred a massive loss. And now, we're gonna see an example of that unyielding optimism. If a loss yields experience, then it's truly not a loss. If you can learn from a loss, then you could turn it into a gain. Sometimes you get more from losing money than you do from making it. We lost money on the highway construction project in Thailand, but we also gained something in return. While we quickly tried to understand our failures, we gained experience and valuable knowledge which helped us modernize. On top of that, as Korea's first

• 41:32David Senra?

  construction company to build a highway, we later became a domestic leader in the field. And they built one of the largest highways in the country in Korea from this experience. We were able to use this experience as a stepping stone to quickly become an international construction company. Life without hard work and a sense of duty is a life wasted. I believe it is my duty to make the most of what I am given. Now I am a chairman of a multinational corporation, a Fortune 500 company this time. I have been called chairman, or businessman, but I think of myself as a builder. I have never lost my sense of pride and confidence as a builder. Okay, so I'm going to fast forward through a lot of the parts on building Hyundai Construction Company. He eventually gets like the largest construction contract in the world at the time.

• 42:17David Senra?

  It was in, I think it's Saudi Arabia. He does work in Korea, does work everywhere. Starts teaming up with British engineers and all kinds of stuff. So he's definitely learning over multiple decades. But I want to get into where he starts manufacturing cars. And so now we're right in the 1970s. He says, "There were two different points of view about Hyundai's decision to enter the automotive industry as a latecomer. There were bullish voices and naysayers." And I love his response to that. "These perspectives didn't concern me. I was sure that in the near future, the Korean automobile sector would grow rapidly. I told my brother, who was in the US on a different assignment, he was trying to secure financing for another construction project, to stop what he was doing and negotiate an automobile assembly contract with Ford.

• 43:02David Senra?

  He was surprised. He asked me how he could possibly sign a contract with a major foreign car company so quickly. I have a blunt response in such situations to deter excuses. I asked him, have you even tried? So as you can imagine, Chung had only one speed, and that was go. That's not always a good thing. And this is an example of when it's not always a good thing." So they secure this joint venture with Ford temporarily. I'll get there in a minute. Hyundai turned out its first car in just six months. Remember, his motto is like, we need to shorten the time, shorten the time. We need to move fast. Hyundai turned out its first car just after six months after breaking ground on the factory. "There were no words that could describe how proud I was. All I could muster were the words, 'good job.'

• 43:45David Senra?

  Not being able to say words or praise of encouragement is one of my many flaws." The car was called the Cortina. Here's the problem. The Cortina soon became a laughing stock. There were several reasons among them, including bad marketing, bad road conditions. What he means there is Korea at this time had, the majority of the roads were unpaved. And yet, the advice they got and the vehicle they built with Ford's help was something that would have maybe succeeded in the United States. So that's an important failure that he learns. He's like, I'm not building a car for the United States. I need to build a car for the conditions that exist now in Korea. And then here we go again. Murphy's Law. Our bad luck continued as an unprecedented flood hit the country. We received the heaviest rainfall recorded in 120 years. His factory becomes flooded.

• 44:29David Senra?

  The cars start floating down the road. And then it gets even worse. On top of our poor sales, the flood and the Cortina shattered reputation. We were almost bankrupt. Our plans for a partnership deal were going nowhere. What he's talking about there is the president, just by decree, remember, this is a military dictator for all intents and purposes, decides, hey, you know what? I don't like the fact that all these, there's a bunch of other Korean manufacturers at this time. They have partnerships with all these other countries. And so he says, the president wanted to make one single Korean model car, which is, why would you only have one? It doesn't make any sense, with only Korean parts. Well, that's going to put him out of business. Eventually, the president relaxes some of these conditions when he realizes this is impossible. It doesn't make any sense. Like, why are you going to have one? You have four or five major manufacturers.

• 45:13David Senra?

  Chung goes to him and is like, competition is going to make us better. And so in the middle of all this, he starts having major problems with Ford. And he realizes that this is not, they had a 50-50 joint venture, but it's not, it's equal in name only. So it says Ford was planning on using Hyundai as a subcontractor. Their real intention was to maintain our prior technical agreement and sell their products without taking risks, which would effectively turn us into a subcontractor that made parts for Ford with cheap labor. I couldn't allow Ford to do this. So now he tells his partner, I want you to immediately draw up a plan to build cars with 100% Korean-made parts. At this time, they're still trying to fulfill the change that the president of Park wants to make. Eventually, they realize, hey, we can't do this. They have to get the engine from Japan. They get the design work from Italy.

• 45:58David Senra?

  But the important part here is what they realized. And essentially, what they realized is you need to maintain control. He's like, listen, let's not undertake any more joint ventures. Instead, we should make compact cars that would be suited to Korea's landscape and road conditions. Anything they don't know how to do, they're going to contract out and get, essentially, they're going to buy expertise that they lack, but they're going to maintain control. And that wound up being a really, really good idea. And this was the fundamental change they made to build Hyundai Motors. In 1974, we spent $100 million to build a factory to produce cars domestically. A year and a half later, we had our first model, the pony. This part made me laugh. I didn't like the car.

• 46:42David Senra?

  It looked like a chicken that had lost its tail. But what do I know? Even before it came off the assembly line, its popularity had gone through the roof. Building Korea's first domestically-produced car was one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced. I endured indescribable hardships and unrelenting pressure. Hyundai Motors is now 30 years old. It has a bright future. I know there are many who question whether Hyundai could carve a place for itself in the competitive global car market. The obstacles were daunting. It was bold, bordering on reckless, but we survived and we prospered. Through such searing experiences, we grew stronger and wiser. True knowledge can only be acquired through direct experience.

• 47:23David Senra?

  It is much harder for a poor man to become a rich man than for a rich man to become richer. South Korea had no resources that would help us catch up to advanced nations. We only had strength and determination of our people. So he's telling us this, but this is also what he tells his company. The poor man has to work 10 to 20 times harder than the rich man. With sheer force of will, we made it. Hyundai is a living testimony of what hard work can do. And I also say, from this example, it's also a testament to what you can learn by failing. Remember, the Cortina failed miserably, but he didn't give up. He's like, okay, well, I made a series of bad decisions. Of course, I made some bad decisions because I didn't know what I was doing. Never manufactured a car before.

• 48:05David Senra?

  And then he identified where he made mistakes, solved each problem one by one. And then he releases a pony and that launches Hyundai to be successful. And they just keep building on that. I'm going to pivot myself here and want to talk about this guy's like, not only is he super hardworking, super determined, super diligent and super optimistic, but he also has ADHD. He just cannot stop building companies for the life of him. So he gets this insane idea. He's like, well, I never did construction before. I made a construction company. Never made a car before, I created a car. Let me just see if I can build ships. And so now this is him talking about the beginning of this idea. It's like, hey, maybe I can be a shipbuilder too. A great idea starts with one single thought.

• 48:46David Senra?

  When a small idea, the size of a grain of rice is implanted in my mind, I nurture it until it grows into a major project that I can visualize in my head. He's really big on visualizing what is going to happen in your life first. Planning it out in detail as much as you can and seeing it happen and then going and doing it. It was in the early 1960s that this dream of a shipyard to be built was planted in my mind. I had ambitious plans to build Korea's first shipyard. So we see, we see a pattern here. He wants to be the first Korean construction company to be international, right? Does that. Then he says, okay, I'm going to be the first person to manufacture cars domestically in Korea for Koreans. Does that. And I was like, all right, well, let's, let's build Korea's first shipyard.

• 49:30David Senra?

  And not only is it going to be the first shipyard, it's going to be the biggest one anywhere. So the government loves this idea and encourages him to do this. But now we see something weird that surprised me when I got to this section. So he runs into obstacles securing financing. He has this idea, goes to the government, and he has their full support, right? Then he goes off to America and Japan, but he can't secure the financing. So he gives up, which is weird, based on what he's told us, right? He goes and meets with the president, and the president gives Chung a taste of his own medicine. And that was a reminder to me that we all need to push sometimes. We're all going to veer off the path sometimes, and Chung is doing that here.

• 50:11David Senra?

  So he said, "I told President Park, I've gone everywhere, but the Japanese and Americans wouldn't even lift a finger. They mocked us. They belittled our primitive technology. It just can't be done, sir." The president turned away from me and looked at his vice prime minister and said, "Reject all of Chung's business proposals going forward. Make sure the government never does any business with him again." Then he clamped his mouth shut and sat there without saying another word. I sat there for a long time when he finally broke his silence. Chung, a country's president and vice prime minister, promised you their full support, and you're just rolling over and giving up? Did you think it was going to be easy? You knew it was going to be difficult.

• 50:53David Senra?

  If you already considered all of this and still went forward, then you need to do it, no matter what. You've only tried once, and you're telling me you can't do it? This must be done. You've been to Japan and the US? Now go to Europe. We need to do it, no matter what." His strong reaction gave me no other choice. I told him, "Yes, sir," and I left. I told myself that building the shipyard was a solemn duty that I couldn't escape or be lax about. President Park had only one desire, and that was our country's development. His passion and determination to build the shipyard moved me deeply. And this is what happens when sometimes we need other people. Chung would tell us, "Hey, hold yourself to high standards," right?

• 51:38David Senra?

  And then sometimes, I think he would also say, "It's good to let other people hold you to high standards," because this is a result. I vowed, no matter what, that I will do this. From that day on, I found new strength, ready to run again with renewed determination. I truly believed that the construction of the shipyard would become a powerful driving force for Hyundai. Once I set my mind to a task, no matter no amount of naysaying will hold me back. The more people say, I can't do it, the more determined I am to prove them wrong. My desire to succeed becomes that much more intense.

• 52:14David Senra?

  So when I got to this part in the book, this made me think of an idea. There's a podcast I listened to one time with Paul Graham, and he said something in that podcast that I've never forgotten. And it's about what is more important to succeed in life? Intelligence or determination? Okay, because we just got done, Chung just got done telling us, hey, once I set my mind to my task, no amount of naysaying will hold me back. The more people say I can't do it, the more determined I become. So he's talking about determination. Is this what Paul said? I'm just going to read you the quote real quick. "It turns out it is much more important to be determined than smart. If you imagine this hypothetical person that is 100 out of 100 for smart and 100 out of 100 for determination, and then you start taking away determination, it doesn't

• 52:58David Senra?

  take very long until you have this ineffectual but brilliant person. Whereas if you take someone who is super determined and you take away smartness, eventually you get a guy who owns a lot of taxi medallions or a trash hauling business, but he's still rich." So at the very beginning, Chung says, you know, everything I accomplished in my life, I accomplished with a modest intellect. Now, after reading this book, I think that's a bit of false modesty. He's obviously a brilliant person. He's just trying to be modest. He's got a giant ego. You don't get to become the richest person in Korea without a giant ego. So I don't believe that he believes that he has a modest intellect. Even if he's not book smart or classically trained, he is definitely 100 out of 100 in determination.

• 53:42David Senra?

  Now, before moving on, I need to tell you something surprising about President Park, because he plays a large role in this story. A few years after, where we are in the story, he gets assassinated by the head of their version of the CIA.

• 53:58David Senra?

  Okay, so in addition to wanting to challenge himself to try to build the largest shipbuilding company in the world, he's doing it not only because he wants to challenge himself, but it's also because it will benefit his existing construction business. So I found this part interesting. So he says, "Another reason I jumped of building a shipyard was because shipbuilding and construction were related industries." So he's studying other construction and shipbuilding companies throughout the world, and he discovers that they can make a good deal of money by selling the byproducts of the materials they're using for shipbuilding. So it says, "For instance, a Japanese shipbuilding company with annual sales of $200 million was making an additional $200 million by selling its excess steel.

• 54:40David Senra?

  We would be able to sell steel beams, build power lines, steel towers, bridges, and further develop Hyundai's plant construction business." And while he's doing this, he discovers that the shipping industry is filled with con artists and shady dealings, and they have a distinct information advantage. So he comes across this guy, Merito. So he says, "Merito would arrange numerous loans for us and secure buyers for every ship. All he wanted in return was 10% of the profits. However, we found out that Merito would write a $10 million contract that was only worth $5 million and pocket the remaining $5 million." So they have a falling out. Chung would always stick to his guns. So like when he was signing joint venture partnerships with like Ford or whatever, he'd say, "You know, we're gonna have managed error control." They'd say, "No, we're not doing it." He's like, "Okay,

• 55:22David Senra?

  well, I'm not signing the document." When he's signing the document for Merito, he insists on a clause where he's like, "Listen, if we have a falling out, we have to agree that we can't sue each other." And Merito's like, "Oh, no, life's too short for lawsuits. We're not gonna, we're not gonna do that. Let's just leave that out." And Chung's like, "No, I'm not, like, I'm not budging. I won't sign." And that wound up saving him a lot of money because the guy tries to sue him after this because they canceled the contract. But here's the point. He uses everything as a lesson, which is extremely smart. "I drew a valuable lesson from dealing with him. He was a well-connected insider in the shipbuilding industry. I learned he worked hand-in-hand with world-class loan brokers. These men had thorough knowledge of the shipbuilding industry." In other words, they had a huge advantage over newcomers like Chung.

• 56:04David Senra?

  And we learned a little bit about this when I, on that podcast I did with Aristotle Onassis, about how complex, you have a, one of the most complex global businesses in the world, if you study it. All kinds of weird tax shelters and ships registered here in one place, but really like hiding who the real owner is. And so we're going to be introduced to somebody right now that we learned about all the way back when we were dealing with Aristotle Onassis. I eventually have got to get around to reading this guy's biography, but this section, I know that myself, is someone crazier than me, meaning crazier than Chung, or, another way to put this, how to sell a ship that doesn't exist yet. I don't even know how he did this. The problem that Chung has, that he has to solve, he says, "Who in their right mind

• 56:47David Senra?

  would purchase a $50 million ship built by a poor country that has no experience in building large ships? I started looking for buyers to purchase ships from a shipyard that didn't even exist." I would tell whoever I met, "If you agree to purchase our ships, I can get a loan, build a shipyard, and then I'll get you your ship." This crazy man that was willing to purchase our ship was a Greek named Livinos. He was Aristotle Onassis's brother-in-law, and we learned in that podcast on Aristotle Onassis, brother-in-law and fierce rival. He was convinced that he would buy a Hyundai ship for a dirt-cheap price. He signed a contract with us after merely looking at a picture of a sandy beach where I said the shipyard was to be built. So with this purchase order, he has this agreement in place, they sign a deal.

• 57:33David Senra?

  He says, "Hey, I have a buyer of two ships." He goes to this bank in England and he's able to get the loan. Then he goes from England back to his country. He's got to talk to President Park, still alive at this point. And so he says, "When we, when informed that not only did we get the loan, but also received two purchase orders, the president was overwhelmed with joy." Now, here's a crazy thing to wrap up the story. Chung did not yet own the land that was used in the marketing materials. "We purchased the land as fast as we could grab it as if our lives depended on it." Now, we got to the part in the story, the last chapter is called Philosophy. He sits down and tells you the lessons he learned in his life and what his philosophy has been to, he's had one of the most unique life experiences of any human that's ever lived, if you think about it.

• 58:16David Senra?

  There's a lot of knowledge in this book and every other book that we analyze and talk about. And so I want to run over, run through some, some of these ideas here, and I'll just give you some summaries of how I interpret this. So this is find something you love to do and do it until you die. The years have come and gone, and now I'm in my mid 80s. But age was never important to me. To this day, I remain completely engulfed in my work with no spare time. What has always been important to me is how I use my time for work. Other than thinking about how to develop and grow my business, I'm actually not very interested in anything else. Time is the capital that must be managed most wisely. I make a plan, jump headfirst into it,

• 58:59David Senra?

  and finish a project in a shorter amount of time than most people. When others hesitate, I've already begun working. My life was defined by time rather than age. That is how I lived, and that is how I succeeded. Thinking that anything is possible is the first rule of a successful person. If you doubt yourself, then you will only be able to accomplish as much as your doubts let you. If you think you can't do something, then you won't be able to do it. And so on the other side of that, in other words, you don't mistakenly become great at something. You first believe you can be great at it, and then you work to fulfill that belief. He's got another story for us, and I think the summary of this is don't covet luxury.

• 59:43David Senra?

  I began as a laborer. I still see myself as a laborer. I just happen to have a little money now. Because I knew hunger, I was particularly sympathetic to the workers who couldn't afford to bring lunch to work. I know and understand the difficulties they face. I like and respect the simplicity and honesty of the average worker. Some time ago, someone proposed installing a separate elevator for executives at the company headquarters. I rejected the idea right on the spot. I truly despise the inflated sense of superiority held by executives who expect different treatment from their workers. Why on earth would you need a separate elevator? Interesting enough, at the very beginning,

• 1:00:28David Senra?

  when his son was talking about that near-death experience he had, where he's driving, he drove the Jeep and he fell into the sea at the construction site. He'd be the first one to arrive at work. It was like four in the morning. He'd get there so early that nobody else was even allowed to access the, the construction site. And so he didn't hang out in his office. He went and he, he talked to the workers. He would travel all over the world and inspect the construction sites. He thought of himself very much as a laborer. He didn't want to do, this is completely opposite. When I was reading, um, when I did that multiple part series on Enzo Ferrari, based on the, the, it's just a movie that just came out, Ford vs Ferrari. And you have, you know, Enzo, poor kid, growing up, completely obsessed with building and manufacturing race cars. And then you have him going up against Henry Ford the second, who I found to be

• 1:01:14David Senra?

  very like arrogant on, you know, he'd, he'd walk around, Henry Ford the second would be like, look whose name's on, uh, when he was trying to prove a point to workers. He'd be like, whose name is on the building? And when I'm reading the book, I'm like, uh, not yours? Your grandfather's? That's not your name. Wait, you didn't start this company? What are you talking about? But what I found truly disgusting about a lot of his behavior compared to, to Enzo, Henry Ford the second, like coveted, uh, luxury. I mean, he grew up in a 60,000 square foot house, if I remember correctly, but he, he built, the reason I'm comparing and contrasting this now is because now we have, you know, Chung Ju Young, who's like, I'm not, I don't want a separate elevator. Henry Ford the second spent some of Ford, Ford Motor Company's money building this lavish, uh, headquarters for, uh, company executives.

• 1:01:56David Senra?

  And they would have this, this huge dining room, just for executives, not for workers, right? Not for the people actually making the products, where they'd have like white glove service. And I remember how ridiculous it was when you're reading the story, because he's having, he's eating like hamburgers on like fine china or something like, come on. All right. So anyways, why on earth would anyone need a separate elevator? When I drop by a construction site one day, the workers were busy laying a new car, were laying a new carpet. So think of like a red carpet when you see like, uh, you know, dignitaries or, or other politicians, they fly to like a place, they land and they put out like a red carpet form. They're trying to do this for, for Chung, but he just got done saying, I think of myself as a laborer, I'm a builder. You call me businessman and chairman, that's not how I think of myself. When I drop by a construction site one day, the workers were busy laying a new carpet,

• 1:02:41David Senra?

  believing this was a formality that they should observe for their boss. Such formality is meaningless. With our company motto, diligence, frugality, affection, hanging right there on the wall, they should have spared a second to think about the workers laying rails in the deadly, scorching heat. This is in Iraq, if I'm not mistaken. I asked them, is laying this carpet practicing frugality? What would our workers think about us if they saw this nonsense? A carpet was a luxury I despise. After luxury comes corruption. I have never seen a country prosper with a leader who enjoys luxury.

• 1:03:21David Senra?

  I have never come across a company that thrives under a luxury-loving wasteful owner. So I've done, what, I think, four podcasts on Henry Ford by now? All that we've learned about him. Do you think he would have made that same decision that his grandson did? There's no way he would have made that same decision. And I think Chung is putting that up. Again, it's amazing to me how these themes, you start to see these patterns emerge. These people are separated by different countries, different cultures, different time periods. And yet they keep hitting on that. They have a distaste for waste. And think about how special these people are. I'm about to go and do a multiple-part series on the very beginning of the automobile industry in the United States. I'm going to cover the founders of GM, Dodge.

• 1:04:06David Senra?

  I'm going to do another podcast on Henry Ford. These are special people, very special people. The businesses that they created are still around over 100 years later. There is a lot we can learn from them. But what's interesting is the people in the, and a lot of times, the people in the company today and running the company today, they are not even learning the lessons from the people that started the company that they work at. That's bizarre to me. There's a ton of information and knowledge that if we keep applying and don't forget. And there's something in human nature. You know, last week, when we were talking about Sam Bronfman, you know, he was hell-bent on building a dynasty. When he was talking to his family and his company, he kept referring to that old axiom or maxim, shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations.

• 1:04:51David Senra?

  Not this family is what he would say over and over again. He talks about, you know, you have somebody who's extremely poor. They, in one generation, they build, there are these generational election points. They change the course of their family and their company. The second generation builds onto it like his, his sons did. And the third generation spends and wastes it away. And that's at that cycle of life that we see over and over again. The reason that there's a maxim for it is because obviously there's something in our nature that, that that's going to occur over and over again. And by going back to the fundamentals, going back to the founders of these companies. Why is this podcast called founders and not CEOs? Because founders are special people. They build things from nothing, from scratch. I just really like, like his, his idea here. You know, I've never come across a company that thrives under a luxury-loving, wasteful

• 1:05:36David Senra?

  owner, but you've come across tons of companies that have been ruined by luxury-loving, wasteful management. So to that degree, his next point to us, be diligent. And here he says, "There are those who live their entire lives without doing one tenth or one one-hundredth of the amount of work they are capable of. I've found that those who complain of being tired and bored are the lazy ones. I strongly believe that people must work to live a full life. If you are diligent for a day, you will sleep comfortably for a night. If you are diligent for a month, the quality of your life will noticeably improve. If you are diligent for two years, 10 years, your whole life, your accomplishments will be recognized by all.

• 1:06:19David Senra?

  The diligent lead lives 100 times more productive than the lazy. Their lives are thus more fulfilling. Unless your life goal is wasting time, then the first thing I recommend is to be diligent. Being diligent forces you to move a lot, to think a lot, and to work a lot. Diligence mirrors your sincerity about living a full life. I don't trust anyone who is lazy."

• 1:06:45David Senra?

  And this next section is that positive thinking is the road to happiness. In all of my years, I never thought of myself as underprivileged, even when I was working on the farm with an empty stomach and no hope for my future. I'm a naturally positive person. I was born with the ability to accentuate the positive rather than the negative. Since I was 10 years old, I worked with my father under the scorching sun. In all that time, never once did I complain or slack off. When I went to the market to sell wood, it was difficult to take my eyes off of the rice cakes, noodles, and other delicious treats. I still remember how my shrunken belly growled with pangs of hunger. Moving to the city was not an easy decision.

• 1:07:29David Senra?

  After all, I didn't have a proper education. I didn't have any friends or anyone to rely on. I had to do hard labor. But despite all of this, I never once regretted leaving home and never complained. If you inherit good health from your parents and learn the value of diligence and hard work, nothing can stop you. Tomorrow will be better than today, and the day after tomorrow will be even better. Knowing this, I've always been happy and full of life. Throughout my 80 years, there have been hard times of frustration and harder times of humiliation and defeat, when all I could do was clench my teeth and bear it. But if we set those times aside, I believe 90% of my life has been full of joy and meaning.

• 1:08:13David Senra?

  I have truly lived well. What does it mean to say someone lives well? What circumstances a person was born into, what position he is in, or what he does for a living does not matter. Only when he gives his best and lives fully in the present is a man truly happy. A man who lives fully in the present while dreaming of a brighter future, a man who enjoys his work and who finds happiness in the smallest of things, that man will find success in whatever he does. Such a man is one who lives well, whether a mid-level or highly skilled engineer, a Chinese food delivery boy, a student, or an executive. It's the same.

• 1:08:56David Senra?

  Those who live with an open heart and positive mind are respected by society and play an important role. On the other hand, there are people born with healthy bodies, but who live useless lives because their perspective towards life is negative. Everyone has the ability to solve his or her own problems. But to do this, positive thinking is critical. We should always remember that every major achievement was led by people with positive attitudes. A life without daily self-improvement has no meaning. We live in order to make ourselves better. No one can control where they're born or what kind of family they're born into. These conditions are naturally unique.

• 1:09:39David Senra?

  But there is one thing we have in common. Our future will be determined by our effort. Thus, our future is our own responsibility. No matter how hard things seem today, with a positive attitude, we can all find joy in the midst of our troubles. I will leave the story there. If you buy the book using the link in the show notes, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. 117 books down, 1,000 to go. I'll talk to you again soon. Okay, so I have to give you a big update. It was actually interesting, listening to me, or listening to an episode that I made almost five years ago, because at the time, I was only 117 biographies into this crazy project.

• 1:10:23David Senra?

  The idea was to read hundreds of biographies, hopefully thousands of biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs. I want to collect and distill the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders to ever live. And what was interesting that I heard, when I re-listened to this episode that you just heard, was in that section where I was talking about Chung, where he was saying he has a distaste for waste. I said, "It's amazing to me to see how these themes, you start to see these patterns emerge. These people are separated by different countries, different cultures, different time periods, and yet they keep hitting on the same themes." So I was talking about the ideas that Chung had in common with Henry Ford and a lot of the great early automobile founders as well.

• 1:11:06David Senra?

  And I couldn't have imagined back then, but now that I'm, you know, eight years into this project and I'm approaching 400, I'll pass over 400 biographies in the next year, like it's impossible to remember everything that you and I are learning. And which is why I've built this tool that has allowed me to tap into Hish's Greatest Founders on Demand. I use it every day. I use it to make every single episode. And that tool I've told you about in the past year, it's called Founder's Notes. And I guess I need to make a couple of points here. One, Founder's Notes is the tool that I use. So if you sign up and subscribe to Founder's Notes, what you see is what I see. And the big update I have for you is I've been working with the team at Readwise, who is the company and the founders that have helped me

• 1:11:50David Senra?

  build this tool. For the past few months, we've been working on this major redesign of Founder's Notes. That redesign is done and available right now. And so the main theme behind the redesign, okay, so I've been using this app called Readwise. Let me give you the complete history real quick. I've been using this app called Readwise since 2018, and I store all my notes and highlights for every single book that I've read for the podcast in there. Okay. Then I partnered with them over the last year because so many people were sending me messages saying, hey, I'd love to be able to access and read all your notes and highlights. And so we built this tool called Founder's Notes that allows you to do that. But over time, what we realized is the, you can still do that. You can still read all my notes, all my highlights. I keep adding to them every week. In fact, you can see the books that I'm working on now that I haven't done episodes on

• 1:12:35David Senra?

  yet, that I'm about to record on. The notes and highlights are already in there. But here's the crazy thing. What we realized is that the AI assistant called Sage that sits inside of Founder's Notes, what Sage does is it has near perfect recall. So when I ask a question to Sage, which I use it for nearly every single day, or actually every single day, and I use it for every single episode. So when I ask Sage a question, it reads not only my, all my notes, my highlights, all of my transcripts. Its memory is way better than mine. And so now, when you log into Founder's Notes, the first thing that you see is a prompt. You can prompt or ask Sage a question. And there's two big updates here, or there's a bunch of- Big updates, but what we're doing is also you can toggle between models.

• 1:13:20David Senra?

  I've been, you can still use chat GPT's models well if you want, but I've been using Claude 3.5 Sonnet. And it is spooky how much, when I ask Sage a question, it sounds like me, except me with a much better memory. And so another cool thing that we did is when you log in, you see all these like suggested questions. Like right now, I just logged in and says, you know, what did Charlie Munger say about building durable companies that last? What was Rockefeller's greatest contribution to society? Have any of history's greatest founders regretted selling their company? If Rockefeller was running a business today, what advice would he give? All of those prompts are things I have asked Sage. And so now I'm continuing to add to those prompts so you can see what I'm searching for. So even when you don't have questions of your own, and again, these are questions that you're, that you, like any question you have in your business,

• 1:14:03David Senra?

  you should just be prompting Sage, because then what happens is it becomes like, is if you can prompt all of the history's greatest entrepreneurs to help you solve the problem that you're dealing with inside of your business. And then the added benefit, you can also see, well, I think I probably am able to use this tool since I built it for myself, right? Better than anybody else in the world, you can also get ideas to see what I'm searching. So if you have not already subscribed to Founder's Note, I heavily recommend doing so. I do think this is a tool, I know it's a tool, that'll allow you to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. I'm using it to supplement my own thinking, except I find that their thinking, like the thinking of Munger and Ford and Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, all the founders that you and I've covered, it turns out that it's much better than my own thinking.

• 1:14:47David Senra?

  And I think you'll find it's the same for you. So in addition to having access to the AI system, which is called Sage, you can also go through the library. The library is separated by books. You can read book, all my notes and highlights for each book that I've covered on the podcast. And then I have another feature called Highlights Feed, which is, which I consider is like a smart Twitter feed. So it presents all my highlights in a random order. And then in addition to that, there is also a private podcast feed called Sage Advice that is included with every single subscription, that currently has 51 short episodes that you can listen to as well. I absolutely love this update. I think the design is fantastic. I think it's getting scary good. And I'm continuing because I need this tool for myself. I literally cannot make the podcast without it.

• 1:15:32David Senra?

  I'm constantly adding to it and improving it over time. So if you want a way to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand, I highly recommend you go to foundersnotes.com. That's founders of the nest, just like the podcast, foundersnotes.com and sign up today. Thank you for the extra support. Thank you for listening and I'll talk to you again soon.