#69 Charles Goodyear: An Inventor's Obsession and the Struggle for a Rubber Monopoly

What I learned from reading The Goodyear Story: An Inventor's Obsession and The Struggle For A Rubber Monopoly by Richard Korman. An obsessive quest to find the recipe for rubber (0:01) Charles Goodyear epitomized the spirit of the upstart American technologists (6:15) the early life of Goodyear's family (20:10) coming up with the idea for a domestic made only hardware store (29:00) a crushing failure + debtor's prison (35:20) accidentally finding his life's work (38:18) optimism + positive mental attitude (44:30) Patent #3633 (1:03:30) why Charles did what he did (1:11:30) ---- 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

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• 0:00David Senra?

  Long before America became an international economic powerhouse in the late 19th century, a generation of visionary inventors gambled on innovations they hoped would bring them riches. Chief among them was Charles Goodyear, who in the 1830s began an obsessive quest to find the recipe for rubber, the material he believed would change the world. Chasing his dream exacted a stiff price, plunging Goodyear and his family into an underworld of poverty and litigation. He spent extended periods in debtor's prison and acquired powerful enemies determined to control this miracle substance before he did. His victory in a dramatic lawsuit argued by Daniel Webster made Goodyear into an American

• 0:44David Senra?

  legend, but it never released him from his tragic fixation or relieved the pain it caused those close to him. The Goodyear Story is a fascinating biography that also provides a panoramic view of America at the dawn of its industrial evolution. Drawing on recently discovered archival sources, Richard Korman tells a suspenseful story of scientific experimentation and legal struggle while he vividly portrays one of the godfathers of today's new economy pioneers. Okay, so that is actually from the back cover of the book that I have in my hand and the one I want to talk to you about, the one I read this week, which was "The Goodyear Story

• 1:27David Senra?

  and Inventor's Obsession and the Struggle for a Rubber Monopoly by Richard Korman." Before I jump into the book too, I just want to read some of the blurbs that I felt were helpful. They're on the back cover as well. Here's one, it says, "A case study in psychopathology," remember that word, "a case study in psychopathology and business. It also portrays the waning era of the inventor as tinkerer before science puts such investigation on a systemic footing." Another one is, "Although Korman doesn't emphasize it often, his book serves as an inspiration for entrepreneurs of any age." That's a good description of why it's going to be on the podcast. And finally, "Besides tracing the life of this inspiring entrepreneur, Korman's social

• 2:11David Senra?

  history of factory life and debtor's prison in the early to mid 1800s is exceedingly well drawn."

• 2:21David Senra?

  I'm going to, instead of starting in his early life, I want to start right before he dies, actually. And there's some excerpts on, that take place over a few pages in the prologue that I think give you a good idea, like a good prep to who Charles Goodyear is, or was, rather, before we get into his early life and learn about how he basically created one of the largest, what has become one of the largest industries in the world, if you think about all the different uses that we use today for what's termed vulcanized rubber. And that's basically the process that Charles Goodyear invented and was the basis of his business. Alright, so it says, one, this is actually taking place, let me give you some background

• 3:06David Senra?

  here. This is, there's a huge, I would say like it's a huge convention. It's taking place in 1851. It's called the Great Exhibition of 1851. It is in England and it's where everybody is gathering together to show off like the products they make and the inventions they have. And Samuel, or excuse me, not Samuel, Charles Goodyear is at this convention. So I want to read a little about this. So it says, "One of the most celebrated American exhibitors, notorious was the word his competitors would have used, was a former Philadelphia hardware store owner named Charles Goodyear. He epitomized the spirit of the upstart American technologist."

• 3:47David Senra?

  So I actually started with that sentence, I wanted to include that sentence at the beginning of the podcast because when I read it, and I'm glad it appears towards the beginning of the book, is I, it kind of like smacked me in the face where, you know, when I, when I hear the word technologist today, I, my mind immediately goes to, you know, information technology, the technological revolution that we're, that we're currently living through, one of the internet, computers, basically bits. I don't really think of technology in atoms. And that's my fault, I should. And...

• 4:22David Senra?

  I think it's helpful when we're going back to history and trying to study like the lives of these people that founded great movements, companies, inventions, whatever the case was. It really is like it was the technology of their day. And all the practical applications of vulcanized rubber that came after 1844, which is when Goodyear was granted his patent on it. It was a form of technology. And so I'm bringing this, talking to you about this at the beginning because it kind of calls out my own ignorance where it's like, oh, okay, I've got so used to viewing things in my own mindset based on my own experiences. And yet in just a sentence there, the author kind of brings me out of that perspective.

• 5:07David Senra?

  And it's like, no, you just need to look at like technology is all about doing something new, like something more, doing more with less. We just happen to be focused on, you know, information technology. Yet rubber was a massive technology, vulcanized rubber, I should say, because there was a rubber industry before that, of course, that kind of had a boom and then bust. And I'll talk a little bit about that as well in the podcast. But it was a massive technological revolution. And while I was reading this book, I couldn't help but compare and contrast the great book by David McCullough about the Wright Brothers. And again, like they, now they're coming about, I think, 60 years after Goodyear died, maybe like 40 years after Goodyear died, somewhere in there.

• 5:50David Senra?

  But, you know, the development of airplane, clearly they were technologists. Now, as I'll, I think I'll circle back around to later is they had a lot of pragmatic traits that Goodyear lacked that made them much more successful in their lives than Goodyear was. So you understand what I mean by that in a little bit. Okay, so let's get back to this exhibition that's happening in the 1850s.

• 6:16David Senra?

  Clearly, Charles Goodyear was using his presence at the great exhibition to establish himself once and for all as one of the century's leading men of progress. An identity he'd been chasing much of his life. So 1851, he's about 51, 52 years old. He's gonna die about seven years. He dies at the age of 59. And at this time, he's been struggling, which like the back cover of the book was referencing, for about 25, almost 30 years of his life. Okay, so as the precocious first child of a hard-working Connecticut farmer and button-maker, Goodyear was groomed for a career in business almost from birth. At 17, he entered a hardware store apprenticeship and eventually, in partnership with his father

• 7:00David Senra?

  and brother, set up a shop in Philadelphia that seemed to flourish. Then suddenly, the business plunged into financial ruin and his family returned to the blacksmith's trade, but with Goodyear burdened by a huge debt. So that is, I think Goodyear's life is a warning to all of us about the dangers of debt. Remember, when I opened the podcast, it talks about, hey, he spent a good deal of time in debtor's prison, which we'll obviously get to there. And this is also one of the traits that I feel the Wright brothers mastered. They were industrious, they kept records, they were frugal, they had a profitable bicycle

• 7:45David Senra?

  business, if you remember the podcast I did, that supported their experimentation in flight. Goodyear was a very, very reckless person, so that's, I'm gonna share a lot of that with you today as a warning. You know, like I always say, like, there's a lot of things I've learned from reading these books about what, like, good ideas that I wanna apply in my own life and I should hopefully share with you so you do as well. But in almost every example, there's things I learned, I was like, oh, okay, I wanna learn from this guy's mistake, 'cause I don't wanna live the life he had. Okay, American mechanics became obsessed with ingenuity as much as rugged individualism that was also part of the emerging national identity. Remember, this was only about 20, he was born about 25 years after the foundation of

• 8:28David Senra?

  America as a country, so it's in its infancy. The virtue of industriousness, technology, and prosperity became for many Americans almost providentially linked.

• 8:41David Senra?

  Goodyear made a conscious decision to become a full-time inventor at a time when the New England tinkerer still had an exalted place in the American imagination. As he searched for the technological handhold that would give him a place in the world of invention, Goodyear discovered what he quickly convinced himself would be a miracle substance. It was rubber, and he believed that if he could unlock its potential, it would change his fortunes and change the world as well. This is an important part. With no background in the developing science of chemistry, he was poorly prepared for the task. He knew nothing of molecular science, so all of the breakthroughs that he was able to make, they came solely from trial and error. He had no formal background or education.

• 9:26David Senra?

  Now, what's interesting is there's a lot of people that were trying to solve this problem simultaneously, that did have a background, and yet Goodyear got there faster. It says something about the benefits of trial and error. Okay, it says, "He never fully understood that what he eventually accomplished by adding chemicals and heat to the pastry raw rubber was one of the auspicious early milestones of the new age of synthetics. All Charles Goodyear knew was that he had a versatile miracle material that he first called," this is his word for vulcanized rubber, "he called it heated metallic gum

• 10:04David Senra?

  composition, and another time lightheartedly described as the mighty elastic substance. In the 1830s and 40s, as he struggled to find a way to change rubber, Goodyear became obsessed with this miracle substance." This is hilarious, it kind of gives you an idea of, he was very much an eccentric. "He dressed in rubber and extolled its virtues to anyone who would listen. He had the mentality of the wildcatters who would soon populate the Pennsylvania oil fields. His spendthrift borrowing and spending," and this is something you don't want to emulate, "and his unwillingness to return to safer means of earning a living exposed his family to terrible hardship and set events in motion that cost some of them their lives."

• 10:51David Senra?

  To justify his family's suffering, he rationalized his economic plight, his embarrassments, as people at the time called it, as a test of his Christian faith. Okay, so the author's picking up something very important there, that throughout the book and throughout the life story, he compared himself to the... First of all, he's an extremely religious man. He basically just invented all day long, and then in his... Any spare time, the only hobbies he had was basically spending time with his family. And in spending time with his family, they would read the Bible and pray and talk about God all the time. So he's a very devout person. And he compared himself to... There's a story in the Bible by, I think you call it, pronounce it Job, or Job, excuse me, Job, rather.

• 11:33David Senra?

  And, you know, it's the story of trials and tribulations, and how to, like, maintain your faith even when everything around your life is kind of going to shit. And that is... There's many times in the book where Charles is talking about, he's like, you know, he was... They called him, he had a manic optimism, where he's like, he had setback after setback, he's like, "This is okay, this is just God testing me. And I know in the future that I will, everything will work out okay, because he's already told me this." So that was a central part of his identity, it's something you should know. All right, "The Goodyear Story, told and retold, held tremendous appeal for Americans who feared his brush with debtors' prison, but admired his self-made success." And there's a... I don't even know if you could ever...

• 12:16David Senra?

  I mean, he was certainly successful in the sense that, that he invented, like, he laid the foundation of an entire new industry where thousands and thousands of people now, you know, tens of billions of dollars a year is transacted, but he didn't really... He never had a... I don't think he ever had a positive net worth. After, he had some financial success with the hardware store, he was in his twenties, but once that failed, I don't think... He was always in debt for the rest of his life, even when he was getting huge payments, license payments for the use of his patent. So...

• 12:55David Senra?

  Again, this is where his story differs from the Wright Brothers where he just was very, he was way less a businessman than he was an inventor. And unfortunately, he didn't have like the financial discipline that could have maybe saved him from a lot of heartache. All right. But this is important. The story inspired inventor Gail Borden, who was also at the Great Exhibition. And he actually meets Goodyear's sons. And I wanted to include this part. He says, this is a direct quote from Gail. "I should have given up in despair if I had not read a sketch of your father's life," he told one of Goodyear's sons. So again, I do think that you could call Charles Goodyear successful, financially successful,

• 13:40David Senra?

  no, but because he just reaped such a small, like, he produced way more value than he was able to capture, right? And that's something as entrepreneurs, like, you have to solve, how are you going to capture just a small percentage of the value that you're creating? Charles never figured that out. But I feel like reading his story inspired, you know, generations of people that came after him, some that met him during his lifetime, just like Gail's saying, it's like, "Listen, I would have given up if I didn't know about the legendary perseverance." That, you know, they were referencing this landmark trial that was argued by Daniel Webster, who's also another famous person in history. In the judge, there's two judges in the trial, and one judge talked about, he referenced

• 14:25David Senra?

  Charles Goodyear, and he said he had "superhuman perseverance." So that's something that I think we should take away. And I think that superhuman perseverance, even in the face of financial disaster and death of loved ones close to him, et cetera, et cetera, is something that is inspiring. I also think that one quote by Gail is a good reason why we're spending so much time, why I'm spending so much time reading these books and you're spending so much time listening to this podcast and hopefully reading some of these books yourself as well.

• 14:59David Senra?

  Okay, so, real quick, I'm gonna end this section here. "The once-desperate man shambling around in the blistered rubber jacket," this is a callback to his appearance years earlier, "had placed himself among the great inventors of his time. His legend would outlive the monopoly that bore his name and his own fluctuating personal fortune. In the end, his name would become synonymous with this heroic solitary inventor who risked everything for his ideas." He definitely did that. "But while almost everyone knew his name and miraculous discovery, few knew the rest of the Goodyear story." And I think that's a good segue into jumping into his life. Now, he says, "While almost everyone knew his name and miraculous discovery, few knew the rest of his Goodyear story."

• 15:44David Senra?

  Include me into that latter group, because I have to confess, I made a rookie mistake here. I ordered this book, I was like, "Oh, this sounds interesting", thinking that I was ordering the book for the person that started the Goodyear... You know, why do I know his name? I know his name because there's a massive American corporation called Goodyear Tires. So clearly, the guy that invented rubber is the same founder of the company. Wrong. Wrong. I was completely wrong about that. The Goodyear Tires was created like, something like 40 years after Charles Goodyear died, and it's in very similar way to how Elon has named Tesla Motors. Like, you know, it's like a dedication to his affinity for Nikola Tesla.

• 16:29David Senra?

  The founder of Goodyear Tires was inspired by Charles Goodyear, so he actually named his company after him. And so, part of me is like, "Oh, man, David, I can't believe you made that mistake." And then the other part of me was like, "Well, after I thought about it for a little bit, I was like, "Well, that might be good, that I'm not too prejudiced against the books." Like, if I find a book that's semi-interesting, I just order it immediately, because I think you should be saving money, and I think there's a benefit to being frugal in a lot of areas in life. I don't think in buying books, that's one area. Like, you can risk $15, $10 or $15, maybe $20 on a book, and contained in that book could be an idea that changes your life.

• 17:14David Senra?

  So, I'm actually glad that I made this mistake, because I wind up ordering the book thinking I was gonna get one story, and I got another story, and I still got value out of it. And I think this point was illustrated, probably the best, by Seth Godin, the author, and he's got one of the most famous blogs on the internet. But he's got this quote that I keep on my phone in my favorites folder, and it says, "A book is a bargain, still, a screaming bargain. You pay fifteen, twenty bucks and you have something that might change your life. You have something that reminds you twenty years later where you were when you read it. I love buying books." So I kind of share that same sentiment with Seth. Okay, so let's get into, and we're gonna go back in time, or wait, we're done with the great exhibition.

• 17:57David Senra?

  And we're gonna get into, like, his early life. How did he stumble into this desire to want to be an inventor and to go through all the stuff that he went through? So this is a little bit about Charles' father, and it was just describing the time in which he lived, you know, very provincial, almost no infrastructure at all, very little technology. And it says, "It was a time when hard-working businessmen of humble birth could vault into the class of the newly wealthy, but could also take breathtaking falls." And his father's name was Amasa, and so it's a little bit about him. "Amasa was a typical combination of a farmer, artisan, store owner, neither rich nor poor, shifting restlessly from venture to venture, seeking any advantage in a fast-changing

• 18:42David Senra?

  regional economy." So those two ideas are linked. There's not, you know, there's not a very developed economy, therefore, you may have a venture that's working today and is not working next year, changes rather rapidly, very much more sporadic, and, you know, everybody was basically decentralized and segmented. So he said he spent an inordinate amount of time in his workshop. "It was the place of the most sublime activity in Amasa's life," this is really inspiring to me, "making things, silence the murmurings of discontent caused by the exhausting repetitions of farm life."

• 19:16David Senra?

  And making things was a regional fixation. So we always talk about on the podcast, like it's very bizarre. And I'm gonna say, I don't definitely don't want to go back to this time, but almost everybody this time worked for themselves in some way. Now, a lot of it was subsistence, so they're growing their own food. Maybe you have a, you have a slight surplus, you could sell to your neighbor, whatever the case was. But we went from a time where like almost everybody was, for all intents and purposes, like self-employed, to now, at least in the country I live in, you know, um, it's one of the most distressing statistics I've, I've come across is like, we're at a 40-year low for the start of new businesses. And the percentage of people that are self-employed, um, is at a 40-year low. And I find that extremely distressing. It should be the opposite. Um, and unfortunately, in my opinion, we're going in the opposite direction.

• 20:00David Senra?

  And you see the problems when you kind of outsource, uh, your responsibility of making a living to, to, you know, just, to the whims of a, a large company or a boss, or whatever the case is. Like you're, a lot of people think it's security and I, I really don't think, like I always tell you, one of the, back when I was in college 15 years ago, this is right before Facebook. I had a MySpace profile and on my MySpace profile, there's a, there's a quote that I think of all the time. And it's, uh, there's no, there's no such thing as security, only opportunity. Um, and so these people, like I don't want to live the life they, they had, but they were, they made things. Where a lot of people that just have a normal day job, like they're not making things. They're not creating stuff that's new. They're kind of moving existing things around.

• 20:43David Senra?

  Maybe, eh, eh, I don't, I don't want to like over generalize there. I mean, you are like, you, let's say people that have an, uh, you know, normal job. They, they may be a, a part of a larger thing being made. But I like this idea of just small groups of people, even one person, making something that say, hey, I need to create this. And that of course could be like the, the seed, the beginning of a company that grows. Um, but what I'm most excited about in the age we are in now is like you see that the, the... The optimal size of a company, meaning the amount of employees, that's what I mean by size, is actually decreasing, which that speaks to like the leverage that technology is enabling us to do.

• 21:25David Senra?

  And I love seeing, so people that have left reviews already know this because I covered this book that expounds on this idea. It's called Unscaled. And I forgot the author's name at the moment, but he wrote an entire book about, hey, I think the economies of scale that were a result of the Industrial Revolution lasted like say 150, 200 years of commerce in the Western world. I think that's being reversed, and that's his whole thesis for the book. And it's one that I kind of, I basically agree with as well. So anyways, it's weird how things, the more they change, the more they stay the same. In this case, farm life sucked. He didn't want to do that all the time. But then his hobby, his relief, was creating something, becoming what they said, an artisan, a store owner.

• 22:09David Senra?

  And he says, "Making things silence the murmurings of discontent caused by the exhausting repetitions of farm life. And making things was a regional fixation. Entrepreneurs all around New England reinvented the farmer's tool shop as a site for rapid production rather than handcrafted perfection." So he's already trying to expand. And this is the reason I bring this up is because, one, I found it interesting, and two, this is the beginning of how the family's hardware

• 22:34David Senra?

  hardware business that actually brings them, you know, a good amount of prosperity temporarily. Okay, so this is a little bit about Charles' personality, his father's personality, and then opportunity. "His father lacked some of the worldly knowledge and the never-ending stream of new ideas his son seemed to possess." So how old is Goodyear at this time? I think he's a teenager.

• 22:59David Senra?

  Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's a teenager. Let's see. Yeah, this is in the 18 teens, so he's a teenager because he was born in 1800.

• 23:09David Senra?

  Charles has a bunch of ideas that his father doesn't. And then this is the good, this is Charles' personality as seen through one of his tutor, this guy named De Forest, who actually becomes one of his lifelong friends and larger, largest person that loans Charles money, so he can do his business, the rubber business later on. But says, "De Forest found Goodyear ridiculous, boastful, and unrealistic. But he also was delighted in the boy's precocity and the way he easily mastered his lessons and had so much to say about the world around him. Goodyear had a far more active imagination and the ability to articulate his ideas with passion and humor and wordplay. That was probably his greatest trait. He was extremely charismatic."

• 23:56David Senra?

  Some could say he exaggerated, or some would say he exaggerated, other persons say he would lie, but he could sell you easily. And I think having the ability, having the ability for sales is one of the most important skills, I think, needed moving forward in the economy that we're in and in the world that we're in. And Charles definitely had that. And the unfortunate part, he uses sales to like, to go deeper into debt, because he kept borrowing money from people, as opposed to like, selling his invention. I think one would have made him rich and the other undoubtedly made him poor. Okay, says, "Charles' own ambitions drew him to merchandising and trade and to the larger world of the metropolis." So he's like, "Listen, we live in this tiny little town and what, I don't even know if,

• 24:39David Senra?

  it's in Connecticut now, I don't even know if Connecticut was a thing back then." But he moves to Philadelphia, he does a five-year apprenticeship. So he says, "A five-year apprenticeship at Rogers and Brothers, an importer of English hardware." Says, "Charles worked 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, learning the basics of retailing and importing in a way he never could have in," I think he pronounced it Nagatuck, but Nagatuck's just this tiny town he lived in. "The hard work wore him down and soon he became so sick that by age 21, he had to return home to Connecticut. He would have preferred to remain in Philadelphia to start his own business. He was greatly disappointed." So that just covers the years from 17 to 21.

• 25:19David Senra?

  Okay, so it says, um, this tells you a little about the inner workings of Charles' family at the time. And I have an idea that it's probably the inner workings of a lot of families in the area at the time. It says, "Business was the deeper framework in which everything functioned. It was an obsession that enveloped all the good years, but possessed Charles in particular." Clarissa, this is the wife, he marries her in 1824, when they're relatively young. He says, "Clarissa learned that loving Charles meant loving to hear his ideas, which he discussed obsessively."

• 25:58David Senra?

  Oh, so he actually has, and so he's talking about he's obsessed with his ideas. He comes up with a great idea, so remember, he just did about a four to five-year apprenticeship at a hardware store in Philadelphia. And in this time, this was after the War of 1812. So, the hardware at the time, in the American colonies, or I guess, yeah, they, it was, had to be imported from Britain, right? But they had already fought, Americans had already fought the British on American soil twice by this time. So there was kind of like a xenophobia, like a racism, if you will, or whatever term you want to put on it. We're like, like, no, us versus them, tribalism, streak going through here. We're like, you know, basically screw the British, screw the English, like, we hate these people.

• 26:42David Senra?

  They've killed, you know, we spilled blood with them twice. So he comes up with a really good idea that gives him an advantage, a temporary advantage, but an advantage nonetheless. And he's like, "What if we just say, we're gonna open a hardware store, and we're gonna say, we're only gonna sell domestic-made hardware." Like, there was no such thing at the time. All the hardware stores, you'd go in and you'd inevitably be giving people you hate, or the people they hate at the time, uh, British more mu- British people more money, or British companies, rather, more money. And so, he had a really good idea, but the problem is, as we've seen, book after book, podcast after podcast, is he over-leverages himself. And, you know, being over-leveraged of debt is not something new in human history.

• 27:23David Senra?

  This has been going on for centuries, and it always leads to the same Same outcome. It's like we have to, we have to constantly relearn the same issue over and over again. And I, the quote I've been saying on a lot of podcasts lately that comes from one of the guys that made a billion, over a billion dollars. He was featured in Michael Lewis's Big Short. Like, you know, a lot of people mistake leverage for genius. They're not the same thing. And so he's over-leveraged and they're gonna do well and then they're gonna be thrown into poverty. All right, so Charles soon expanded operations into several states.

• 27:56David Senra?

  These are the domestic only hardware stores. And according to Goodyear, his family earned a handsome fortune. And like the dry goods businesses, domestic hardware sales soon became a constantly increasing department of trade. "It will be remembered by many hardware men of the present day," Charles wrote two decades later. "That from 1826 to 1830, the inventor was known in our commercial cities to be the pioneer in domestic hardware and occupied a position in business every way desirable." "The fullness of Goodyear's late twenties as an innovative wealthy merchant and a happy husband and father." So that's a description there. Okay, so I need to stop. There's two things. A lot of these quotes that we get from Charles about himself came from like this autobiography that he wrote

• 28:40David Senra?

  later on, about two decades after the events I'm in now. And it's really weird because he wrote it himself, but he refers to himself in the third person. And so that quote where he's like,

• 28:51David Senra?

  "The inventor was known in our commercial cities to be the pioneer in domestic hardware." He's talking about himself, but in the book, this is why I love Misfits, because they're just so weird. They make life interesting. The inventor is himself. So he, that's how he references himself in his own autobiography. And it's quoted a lot in the book I'm, I have in my hand and just, I don't know, I like, it's funny. It makes me laugh. This is, this is kinda funny. This is like the early version of like, like Angel Investing. But this is the version of Angel Investing in the 1800s. "Charles's enterprise in nature was fully engaged. He became a partner in two new inventions patented by some other inventors." So I'll skip what it is, because I don't, like, they both fail. But it says, "Each new idea and each new opportunity cried out to be exploited.

• 29:37David Senra?

  He was grateful for what he had, but also vexed whenever he saw new opportunities slipping away. This effort to seize the main chance, in fact, was to prove the undoing of his first business career." So it says by expanding, okay, so you see what he's doing here? He's inventing, he claims this invention of like the pioneer in domestic hardware is what he's calling himself. It's producing profits. Part of the way he's juicing some of his profits, though, is, um, this is, remember, this is before the Civil War. So he's extending credit to farmers in the South. That have these huge plantations to buy hard, domestic-made hardware, American-made hardware from him.

• 30:18David Senra?

  And the problem is, um, he's extending so much credit and then expanding his businesses at the same time. Now, what's gonna happen when he's over-leveraged himself if there's a, let's say, a financial panic, which happens all the time throughout human history and will happen, has happened in our past and will certainly happen in the future? Well, what do you think's gonna happen when he's counting on these receivables being paid? And expanding at a pace where basically the company has no savings, no buffer? Well, a panic comes along and the Southern farmers stop paying them. And that's it. That's the end of his wealthy twenties. Um, and this is actually the high point of his economic, uh, as far as like net worth.

• 31:01David Senra?

  This is the highest, this is the best he does for the rest of his life. Um, so it says, "By expanding, granting credit to the Southern farmers and investing in real estate inventions, Goodyear tied up the cash generated by his hardware store." No, big mistake there, Charles. When trouble struck, there was no cushion. That's it. It's a Reynolds rap for Charles Goodyear and his entire family. And it's just devastating what happens. But at the same time, it's also like, again, I keep, I wanna compare and contrast Charles Goodyear to the Wright Brothers. Like, they would never do that. They took profit from their bicycle shop. They were extremely industrious, extremely frugal, did everything themselves, and they did not over-extend themselves.

• 31:40David Senra?

  That way, they could actually reap the benefits of their invention, even though, you know, they made, uh, I think when, uh, which, I can't remember which one died first. I think Wilbur, Orville, I think, was the one that survived. Um, but anyways, you know, his net worth at the time was around $10 million. Certainly not like Vanderbilt level, Roosevelt, uh, Rockefeller level, but not poor by any means. Like, very comfortable life, successful financially. Goodyear never even gets anywhere close to that. So again, it's also his own fault. This is a dumb idea. You took your money instead of saving it for bad times that inevitably come. He's, you know, angel investing. Those inventions don't work out. He's speculating in real estate. That real estate bubble pops.

• 32:25David Senra?

  And then he's granting credit and his hardware stores go out of business. So it says, this is the beginning of when he starts getting arrested and they have debtors prisons at the time. This meant they had to pledge to pay debt holders in several states in order to avoid arrest and imprisonment. That's something that he has to deal with for about thirty years of his life. He even goes to debtors prison in Europe a few years before he dies. So it says, this is, so the note I left myself on the next page is a hell of a sentence, which I'm going to read to you in a minute, crushing failure and then debtors prison. And this is a hell of a sentence.

• 33:06David Senra?

  "Step by step creditors dismantled all signs of their earlier prosperity." So that's what happens when you play around with debt, that you think, humans and their unbounded hubris think that they can master something that, you know, ancients have been warning us to avoid for thousands of years. Literally thousands of years, you have humans saying, hey, this is what happens. You get in debt, you start to become essentially like a slave. Oh, what's gonna, like, they basically have control over you. And it's weird to live through a time where, I think, to paper over the paltry economic growth that we've had, at least in the country that I've lived in, you know, we've kind of papered over the fact that the US economy's not growing like it did in the 40s and 50s

• 33:51David Senra?

  after World War II. That kind of sputtered out and now we're just papering it over with debt and we're acting like this is normal. And then we see what happens, you know, ten, twelve, let's see, the time I'm recording this, ten, twelve years ago, when these, inevitably, the amount of debt we rack up has to be paid back. So it's just, again, something that we want to, we want to avoid and we're kind of learning that through all the experiences of these different entrepreneurs, the ones unfortunately that have to deal with this. And it says, So for Amassensithia, that's his parents eldest son, the man who considered his business visionary, the fall may have been hardest of all.

• 34:31David Senra?

  Charles had led his family to disaster and rightfully assumed the remaining unpaid debt of about $12,000. So it's important to know when I throw out numbers. You know, $12,000 means something different to us today than it did in the 1830s.

• 34:46David Senra?

  The way it made sense to me is like the average job at this time would pay about $500 a year. So that kind of puts in the context when we get into how much debt and he has, he winds up having hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt throughout his life. And you know, that's excessive. And then the book gives a great description. It was like starting life at age 30 owing a fortune it would take a lifetime to repay. Cause what would that, that would be about 24 years of the average person's salary. No ordinary trade and then his decision, I mean, again, part of me admires his like, his, the way he,

• 35:28David Senra?

  he had like skin in the game where he would like accept risks, but it's also like, I don't know if I'd do that same thing if you dig that hole that big. So it says, and what I mean by that, here's the sentence, "No ordinary trade or profession could overcome so heavy a debt. So Charles decided he would make a profession of invention. Striking it rich by inventing was a wild form of speculation as any that existed at the time."

• 35:54David Senra?

  So he starts trying to invent, he was really good with like metals since they made hardware. He just accidentally stumbles into what becomes his life work and says, "The rubber business had pretty much ruined anyone who had hitched its hopes to it. But Charles Goodyear knew little of this when he stumbled upon his new fixation. Years later, he would consider himself blessed by ignorance." So that, that has definitely happened where a lot of people will make innovations in fields, not because they're experts, but because they're ignorant. They don't know what they can't do. Roxbury, India Rubber Company shop in New York is where he discovers this, he's visiting it. That's where he discovers what's happening with rubber. So let me, let me stop here and tell you what's going on. So there was like a massive bubble in rubber about, I think 10 years before the time in the book, somewhere around there.

• 36:39David Senra?

  And they're like, "Oh my God, this is a miracle." It's a miracle substance, it can be used for all, manufactured all kinds of different products. It's elastic, it's waterproof, it doesn't break, it has, you know, all the benefits. At the time, though, before they, Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber, they didn't know that it wouldn't last. So, what happened was, the outside would be fine, but then, slowly but surely, there'd be like this odor that'd come from it, right? People were like, "Oh, what is that smell?" And then the end, what happens was the inside was decaying. And so, the outside would look strong, and then the things that were supposed to be unbreakable would start to break, because they didn't, what Charles Goodyear, what he discovered

• 37:22David Senra?

  was, they were trying to heat rubber with other materials, like sulfur and lead and all this other stuff, but they were doing it like 200, 215 degrees, you'd have to get up to like 275. So that is the, the foundation of what he discovered by accident, that it's counterintuitive, that, "Oh, if you go, let's say you go above 215, 220, whatever the actual temperature was, it's starting to fall apart." But if you kept it in there for, and the, the heat increased, it would actually bond and make the bond stronger, so then it wouldn't decay from the inside, it would actually last longer. So, when, the reason I bring that up is because, when Goodyear gets started in this, he's on the, what is it, the tro, trough of sorrow?

• 38:04David Senra?

  You ever see that, that, like, describes how some, this phenomenon that's apparent throughout history with regard to hu, humanity, that is? It was like, there's like these bubbles, like, we, we all get really excited about something, then it pops, then it goes down, and then you have like a long period to actually, of like experimentation and struggle before you have, it rises again to some level of utility. I think that's what it's called. But, in any case, that's where Goodyear is, um... is introduced to the rubber industry. Now, what I found interesting was, I'm always interested by these ideas that, um, that humans discover, even though they're separated by geography, thousands of miles, and in some cases centuries.

• 38:47David Senra?

  So, Goodyear developed vulcanization of rubber in 1839. But, there's been like, uh, like, they call them Mesoamericans, so people, the cultures in South America, there's also some in the Native Americans, they had stabilized rubber for other objects as early as like 1600. Um, so this was an idea that humans kept discovering that, hey, this, this substance, this natural rubber substance that comes from the bark of this tree, has some kind of utility. And so, you know, across a couple centuries and different, um, and different cultures, you had people doing experimentations with it. It wasn't until Goodyear, like, had the final, um, like, figured out the final piece of

• 39:31David Senra?

  the puzzle that was missing, which is heating it at a higher temperature, that it was actually like, the, the modern rubber industry was born. And just look around, like, how much of, uh, your life is affected by the, the work of Goodyear and others. Like, the tires in your car came from that. The bottom of your shoes are probably rubber. Um, there's, uh, one of the main, one of the, um, main reasons that, that Goodyear kept persevering is because he was convinced that he would save thousands of souls, is how he called it. Because, at the time, a lot of, any time like a ship would sink, remember this, 1800s, how people were getting to and fro, um, and they would drown. And he's like, and he'd work himself to a state of exhaustion, he had lead poisoning,

• 40:16David Senra?

  which is another story, um, but he, he kept yelling, not yelling, but he kept telling his wife, like, "I can't rest, because these souls are dying and I could save them." Um, so, you know, rubber life preservers. Uh, so anyways. Uh, so now he's, he's, he's visiting this, this company in New York, and he says, "The agent in the store told Goodyear that he should try to improve the rubber itself, and that all the rubber companies that had sprung up were doomed to failure soon." Goodyear was surprised that this wonder substance had baffled all the efforts of chemists and manufacturers. Although he did not know it, he had discovered his life's work. He immediately began to experiment applying substances to the rubber, searching for a way to cure it and make it insensible to climatic extremes. He even worked on his experiments during the time he spent in debtor's prison.

• 41:00David Senra?

  So that the climate experience, so if it's too hot outside, it would melt. And if the climate was too cold and rubber was left outside, it would crack. So there's something I repeat so much in my personal life that's become kind of like a running joke between me and some friends. And like when we're, when you're presented with an obstacle in life, I'm like, I say this as, I say it like tongue in cheek and kind of in jest, but it is really true. Like you, you just need the twin attributes of a positive mental attitude and perseverance. And as long as you have those two, you're kind of solve that. And it doesn't even have to be a big problem. It can be like you can't beat a stage in a video game like.

• 41:40David Senra?

  But I do think that there is something superhuman about Goodyear's perseverance and his optimism. So here's a little bit about that. Now there's about six years have passed in the book. So it says, "He was now nearly thirty-six and had aged dramatically from his days of success in Philadelphia." So now William Deforest, the guy that was his tutor, is a successful person, comes to visit him. It says, "William Deforest came to see his friend and was surprised at Goodyear's worn appearance and shabby clothing. On reaching the room where Goodyear lived and worked, Deforest found a space littered with kettles, gum, shellac, and rubber. Goodyear chirped optimistically, 'William, here is something that will pay all my debts and make us comfortable.'"

• 42:23David Senra?

  It says, "The India rubber business is below par," answered Deforest. And then this is a reply from Goodyear, "And I am the man to bring it back again." And one of the things that's so devastating about his life story is that he would make, so the notes I would leave myself, it's like one, he'd make one step forward, two steps back. He'd make little progress and then inevitably just kind of find ways to kind of screw it up. Some, some of those, you know, within his control, some without. I would argue that also being prepared, unprepared for things outside of your control. It's something like he should have known, given his past experiences. So he's made progress with rubber. He still has not vulcanized it. We're about, um, let's see, eleven year, about three years before he, he discovers a process and about.

• 43:07David Senra?

  Nine years before he's granted the patent. So he's, he's, he's, he's got a business going. Um, he thinks he solved the issue of rubber rotting away. Um, but he's still heavily in debt. The company's making a little bit of money, but it's not enough to service his debts. And then, um, well, I'll go right to the book. "Just as the little business was, was getting on its feet, in 1836, another panic and financial depression, deeper and longer lasting than its predecessors, once again brought the US economy to its knees. The national economy unraveled and 618 banks failed. Thirty-nine thousand people became insolvent debtors, which means they could be put in prison. Hunger was rampant.

• 43:51David Senra?

  Uh, the person funding all of, so this guy named Ballard was funding, uh, Charles's business and Charles's living expenses for his family. Says Ballard sustained significant losses and not only withdrew further funding from Goodyear, but also asked him to pay back some of the money that he already advanced him. Of course, he wasn't able to. The Goodyears once again lapsed into wretched subsistence. Charles would take the ferry trip to Manhattan with cups or spoons or other family possessions in his pockets, hoping to pawn them in a city." And this, this pawning of personal items is something that he does now and he does constantly throughout his life. Um, "His brother Robert and Robert's wife and four children moved in so that both families could share Robert's furniture.

• 44:32David Senra?

  Goodyear's parents also joined them, crowding the little salt box cottage near the factory." So he has a factory in Staten Island, was making all this rubber. On the grounds is this tiny little house and now he's living there. Um, Charles has got a bunch of kids, a wife. So let's say there's probably 10 to 12 people in this little house. Um, "Clarissa," this is Charles's wife, "reminded the children to be grateful for what they had and to trust the future would be better. The discipline the family was suffering, she told them, was probably because they'd been, because they'd been uncharitable toward the poor. And now they knew what that, what poverty was like." So a lot of this was like, oh, you know, they, they, they filtered a lot of what was happening through religious, um, like their religious beliefs. So, okay, well, we must've done something wrong in the past and we're being punished.

• 45:17David Senra?

  Let's, uh, you know, uh, what's the word? Attain for our sins, I think is the phrase they use. And it'll, it'll be better in the future. Um, okay. At one point, and this is a great one sentence summary of where they're at. At one point, the family said to have counted its only asset as a set of teacups that were worth 50 cents.

• 45:40David Senra?

  So, what I'm describing to you here, I mean, you're talking about the majority of his life is how he lived through this. After he wins the...

• 45:50David Senra?

  That trial where Daniel Webster

• 45:54David Senra?

  Basically defended his patent in US court. He was able to at least have like a room of your house and like a doctor because he suffered from From gout and he had basically Goodyear basically gave his life for this industry if you really think about it because he was one of the few people That were mixing lead In with sulfur and rubber and he thought lead was a key. Turns out, I don't even think it was necessary for the process. Well, as you probably know by now, like if you If you would like, he's touching lead all day. It would absorb into his His body and got in his bloodstream. So, he suffered from lead poisoning. Remember, he dies at 59 years old. He had gout. He had all kinds of issues. He'd have his

• 46:39David Senra?

  The lead poisoning would lead to aches and pains in his joints where he would, he wouldn't be able to get out of bed for five or six days. So, it's just a A tortuous existence and yet through everything. You know, that's obviously a negative, but what I found so inspiring is he was refused to give up. So, this is an example of Of one step forward. A few years later, he has another benefactor, this guy named Eli. And they open an actual shop and it says, "Sales at Goodyear and Eli's, it's called Fancy Rubber Establishment, Picked up. In addition to the, and this is some of the stuff they were selling, "In addition to the rubber coated fabric goods such as coats, carpets and capes." Who's wearing capes, by the way?

• 47:21David Senra?

  "Goodyear and Eli sold rubber or rubber coated bathtubs, life preservers and mailbags." And it says, this is Goodyear, again, in his autobiography where he's referring to himself, "The prejudices of the public gave away." Goodyear later wrote, "And he described his fortunes at this time as altogether in the ascendant." So, they were talking about is that boom and bust cycle I was describing earlier. The people would spend all this money on rubber goods and then eventually they would like decay or start smelling, so you'd have people that would go in their backyard and have to burn all the stuff they paid for because the smell was so odious.

• 48:00David Senra?

  So it took a while for people like, "Okay, I'll give this another try."

• 48:05David Senra?

  And then this is a description of his business. "But patent licenses still paid more bills in the Goodyear home than did retail sales." Now, he had a series of patents. I don't even know how many in his life, probably 100 or something like that. Maybe less, but the only really important patent was, the one that made all the difference was the one that he's granted in 1844. So we're still, this is not, that's not the patent they're referencing. But that is, gives you, the reason I include that sentence is that gives you an idea of what his business was centered around. Yeah, he would manufacture some of these. The store really didn't make too much money, but most of the revenue his business came from, came from licensing the patents for other businesses to make rubber goods and sell those rubber goods.

• 48:49David Senra?

  And then he also set up another business that would, with attorneys where they would just go after people infringing his patents. So they had basically two businesses for the bulk of his life. Well, I guess, not the bulk of his life, the last few remaining years of his life, I should say. Okay, so that's one step forward. He's got this little business going on. He's making a little bit in patent licenses, licensing, rather, and inevitably, a few pages later, two steps back.

• 49:19David Senra?

  So it says, "So what had been represented to the public as a revolutionary discovery was actually a continuation of a previous failure." So what's happening is, he realized, "Oh no, like I did not actually solve." He had not solved the vulcanization problem yet. So he's saying, "Yeah, remember back when we had this, all these problems with rubber? I have now have this new process. I've patented and I've now have solved it. All that did was delay the decay and the odor and all that other stuff." So it says, It was just a continuation of the previous failure. So he shut down his factory. He tried to get money from his acid. It was, um, the process that he patented was acid gas. He thought, it's called the acid gas process.

• 50:02David Senra?

  Uh, so he tried to get money from his licensees, but they were disgusted by his failed mailbags and felt that he had, that they had already, that they had already licensed a useless process, which is an accurate description. Failed mailbags, what he's talking about is, um, he won, Goodyear won a contract with the US Postal Service to replace their leather, I think leather and cloth mailbags with ones that were waterproof and that would last forever. Um, and he thought he could do that and then realized, oh wait, this process that I thought I invented was just delaying the inevitable. It says, "Friends implored, implored, implored Goodyear to give up." Dural, this is an important part, actually. "Durable rubber," they said, "was a thing no more to be realized than perpetual motion."

• 50:47David Senra?

  "There was no reason to believe he would ever succeed." "His renewed income now cut off. Goodyear once again pawned his belongings and watched in dismay as those close to him suffered from the, from their connection to his obsessive quest." So, again, that's, that's the, the dichotomy between manic optimism, right? Like, he wound up being right, it just took 20 years to realize that it was right. So, the critic, his critics at this time were actually incorrect, but they were correct at that time, which is even harder to press on. When you think you're right, but there's no evidence that you're right. I don't even know how to reconcile that. Um, other than just to bring it to your attention that, you know, there's, in his case, like, he was correct.

• 51:29David Senra?

  So quitting, I don't even know if this is the right sentence, but, or thought, but quitting, you know, I, no, I guess it is. Quitting would have been the wrong move. Um, maybe I try, I try to think of like, what would I have done in this situation? You know, um, without using just the benefit of hindsight, but maybe like continue your experimentation at night and work, like, he has a trade, he's a blacksmith. He, he can, he can manufacture, you won't be rich, wealthy, but he, he could pay the bills, his, his... He would owe a lot more, he would own a lot more things than not having a house and just having teacups, you know? So, I don't know, maybe that's what I would have done. Maybe I would say, "Hey, do your trade during the day, and maybe, uh, do your experimentation at night."

• 52:13David Senra?

  But he was not that, he wasn't wired like that. Um, he had no hobbies. He would, the book talks about how he'd constantly be doing experimentation where he would just experiment throughout the night and just fall asleep at the factory. Um, and so he'd, he'd spend like more than half nights away from his family, just because he was just such an obsessive personality. So, maybe, you know, as an obsessive person like that couldn't do it part-time. Alright, so it says, um, "But now, Charles' father and his wife," so Clarissa, Charles' wife, and then his father, Massa, are pissed, and they rise up in rebellion, and it says, "They demand that Charles stop spending money on rubber and return to hardware in the blacksmith's trade. They had had enough of the privations and humiliations that rubber had brought them.

• 52:57David Senra?

  Charles' quest seemed less like the God-given mission he implied it was, than an ungodly elevation of self, a van glorious striving swaddled in half-hearted promises about the responsibility to take care of family and pay debts." It's a great sentence there. Great writing by the author.

• 53:21David Senra?

  So, he doesn't listen to them. He continues on.

• 53:26David Senra?

  Um, this is something about his personality that I thought, found interesting. It's kind of a manifestation of what the author calls his manic optimism. "And, uh, 'From the moment he believed the, the breakthrough that had eluded him so long was now a real probability, he brought the whole power of his mind to bear on it. He talked of little, but he did rubber." This is the beginning of realizing, "Oh, I've actually made a breakthrough here." "He was still penniless and borrowing from friends, but more than ever, he felt rich in prospect." I include that part because in the book, it talks about, he says over and over again, "Listen, I'm meant to be a wealthy person. I'm just temporarily poor." So this, this, that's again, one of the attributes I think like is worth emulating.

• 54:10David Senra?

  This, this, this belief in yourself that you'll figure it out. You know, that like, I'm operating without a safety net. That's looks like it's dangerous to other people, but I know I'll do it. Now, does he ever reach that goal? No, but I think to reach that goal, you must have a belief first. So it's not like you can have, you might not be able to have one without the other.

• 54:34David Senra?

  I mean, I guess you could, but there's just something about. I, the one thing that sustained, I guess, let me rephrase that. The one thing that sustains Charles throughout his life is this, this rabid and unrelenting belief in himself. And maybe that in, in, in his case, he thought it was God given. Maybe it was just his way of saying, hey, like I, I, I want to live the life that I have. Like pictured in my mind and I'm willing to go about and put things in motion to, to, to capture. And to make that vision an actual reality. Um, so this is the state of the Goodyear family in 1940.

• 55:12David Senra?

  Goodyear's manic optimism evaporated. All the money had, all the money had gone into experiments. That meant the adults and children in his family had to scrounge for food and fuel again. Gathering wood whenever they, wherever they could. Goodyear himself hunted the local streams for turtles and bullfrogs for Clarissa to cook. And he borrowed small amounts anywhere he could. How he subsisted at this period, he later wrote of himself in the third person. Charity alone can tell.

• 55:47David Senra?

  So that a family friend, this guy named William Beers, uh, is, is, is giving us a, uh, an insight into the family at this time. Beers remembers seeing tears in the eyes of Amasa. This is Charles's dad. When the old man explained that the Goodyears had once been rich. And so this, this depth of poverty they're in is in between, that's in 1940. He discovers the process in 1938 to 1939. But in between the time he discovers it and the time he's actually able to patent it. Is some of the toughest times in his life and that's about a five to six year period. And that's where we're at, uh, in the story right now.

• 56:30David Senra?

  Now it says, the author references like his manic optimism evaporated. Evaporated temporarily. It never evaporates till he dies. But during this period, like he wasn't, yes, he had superhuman perseverance, but he

• 56:48David Senra?

  he wasn't able to sustain that optimism forever. He had periods of doubt. Now, what's weird about that is that he never actually went and like tried to get another job or anything. He just carried, like, kept going.

• 57:03David Senra?

  And this is an example of the level of perseverance he had that I think makes him abnormal. And a little bit about his personality. So it says, "Goodyear's perseverance in the face of disaster had a mesmerizing effect on those around him. While some laughed at him or pitied him, others clearly were drawn to his vision of riches from rubber and his dead certainty that he would triumph. He demanded to be listened to, and in an age when face-to-face communication remained the most electrifying source of ideas and feelings, he won enough confidence to convince his neighbors to work for him for free or for very uncertain deferred wages." He also, he's also able to, to basically have, find, he was constantly in debt, but

• 57:48David Senra?

  he constantly found new investors. And so that charisma, that persuasion that he had, was one of his superpowers.

• 58:00David Senra?

  I mean, it's devastating, because what they're talking about, he's still persevered. They're talking about the fact that he was in poverty at the time.

• 58:13David Senra?

  His father, brother and brother's wife, and then his brother's wife and child got so mad at him about leading, because they all followed him, like, they followed kind of his lead. And they, one day, they're like, "Forget it, we're done with the rubber industry, we're gonna go into business, we're going to, we're going into the pineapple trade, okay? And we're gonna charter a boat, we're gonna go down to Florida from New England, we're gonna collect pineapples, we're gonna bring them back, and in one trip, we'll make enough money to take the entire family out of poverty." What happens is, his father goes down there, his brother, his brother's wife, and his brother's three-year-old child down there. They go to Florida at the time, it's just swampland, and they catch malaria and they all die.

• 58:58David Senra?

  And then he's left to take care of his mother, who just lost her husband and her son, and her daughter-in-law and her grandchild. And then, um, his other, his other brother dies and he has to take care of his kids too. And then, something I like, there's talk, it says Goodyear's perseverance in the face of disaster had a mesmerizing effect. Goodyear law, he outlived like, four of his kids. Um, at the time is very common for, they talk about in the book how like, they wouldn't develop, um, emotional attachments to infants because they didn't trust that they'd survive childhood. And, you know, sometimes he had like a newborn die after a month or two, his son died at three, three years old.

• 59:41David Senra?

  And I, there's no way I could read that part because I would start crying. Uh, just because, you know, you immediately start thinking about your own child. Um, but, I mean, I, the trials and tribulations this guy dealt with is just, it's unfathomable to have to deal with this. And then he winds up outliving four or five of his kids, his wife, his father, and two of his brothers. And he only dies at 59, so that kinda tells you the, the circumstances, uh, at the time.

• 1:00:17David Senra?

  Okay, so here we go. This is more about his debt.

• 1:00:23David Senra?

  He says his avalanche of debt had grown to $59,000, many times the average laborer's lifetime earning capacity. A laborer's salary was below $500 per year at the time. Um, he keeps getting, at this time, he keeps getting put into prison. And so they, they're actually, the invention of, or the passage of the bankruptcy law happens around this time. So he takes advantage of that. He claims bankruptcy, um, for around that amount. And he says he later wrote on that he never had cause to regret his decision to file for bankruptcy protection because soon his adventure began to be appreciated. So, through all, all the, the heartache that he's going through.

• 1:01:06David Senra?

  He actually gets, finally gets, secures the patent that he's been working for, for nearly all his life. And he wasn't able to do that unless he claimed bankruptcy and kind of stopped being put in jail. And so that's, it's one of the most famous patents of all time. It's patent number 3,633. And it says, this is how he looked at patents. He says, "As with others of his time, he understood that patents, like ideas, were a species of speculation, rather than the culmination of proven design." I never thought about it like that before. "A patent was just another milestone in a sharp-elbowed marathon heading toward the ultimate goal, the creation of a sellable process.

• 1:01:47David Senra?

  Once a process was discovered, the idea was to build a high-legal barbed-wire fence around it, as the government would allow." So that's basically describing the business strategy that Charles was pursuing. And it says, "Goodyear felt some relief that patent number 3,633 was now safely in hand. He named the new substance 'Metallic Gum Elastic Composition', and he touted its durability." Eventually, there's another guy in this story

• 1:02:21David Senra?

  that is, in some ways, is like a more advanced Goodyear in the rubber industry. He's in England. His name's Hancock. And there's actually a book, I think it's titled like "Goodyear, Hancock and the Fight for the Rubber Monopoly," or something like that. I actually have it on my, like, I saved it on Amazon just in case I do get the book later on. Because it's another way to learn about Goodyear, but I think Hancock was a much more successful entrepreneur. So I think if I do read that book, I would do it through the lens of trying to learn about the strategies that Hancock... utilized to build a much more successful business in the rubber industry than Goodyear did.

• 1:03:03David Senra?

  But anyways, he came up with the idea of vulcanization, that term. So Goodyear is calling it metallic gum elastic composition. Eventually, he just sees like all vulcanization is better. So then he starts referring it to as vulcanized rubber. And he constantly updates this patent, which is actually upheld through several, like several different trials. But Hancock does beat him in England where he tried, Goodyear tries to force his patent. Hancock wins and makes sure that Goodyear never sees a cent from his rubber patent in England. Which is actually interesting. It's in the book too, but I skipped over that part. Okay, so finally, now he is 1944. Let's see, he's 44 years old.

• 1:03:48David Senra?

  He's gonna die in about, was that less than 16 years from here? But I want to get into his new way to make money. This is how he makes money, but again, he's racked up so much debt that he makes a lot of money, but he never works himself out of the debt. So it says, "In his first few years after winning his patent, Goodyear sold licenses as digitally, I don't know how to pronounce that word, as he signed IOUs. One of his earliest licenses for sheared rubber to be used in suspenders went to a New Haven manufacturer, who paid Goodyear $15,000 for the right to make rubber products,

• 1:04:30David Senra?

  including sheared fabric, under Goodyear's four rubber-related patents." I'm just going through all the different ways he sold it. So $15,000, that's obviously a lot of money. But I think when he dies, his estate says he has debt, I think around like $200,000, something like that. Cause he makes, he has cash flow, but then he just reinvests it. Cause he's just like, "Oh, I'm not gonna stop there." Like rubber can be, he thought it could be used for, I think he wrote something like 300 different pages of all kinds of inventions that he planned to apply rubber to. So it says, "Goodyear sold a license for shoemaking. He also licensed the use..." of his patent to make rubber clothing. Altogether, nine companies had licensed his patents by 1845. Although Goodyear took in considerable sums of money.

• 1:05:16David Senra?

  Oh, so I just kind of ran over my own, uh, where I was going. Although Goodyear took in considerable sums of money, he spent heavily on experiments and on servicing existing debts. His wealth was theoretical. His debt was real. Patent number 3, 3,633 had put him into a new field of operation. Now he was not only able to license his technology protected by his patent, but he also could tap another potential source of income by pursuing infringers. Attorney Judson, that's the guy's last name, stepped in to fill the need for legal services that Goodyear now required on an ongoing basis. Still living on and spending borrowed money, Goodyear had no immediate way to pay for Judson's services. So he, this is another mistake he makes.

• 1:05:56David Senra?

  So he did what he'd become accustomed to do, stripping off a layer of equity in his invention and patent and using it as a payment. So Judson makes a small fortune that Goodyear never does because Goodyear is just a really good inventor, just a terrible business person. He just did terrible deals like this over and over again. Thus, Goodyear executed the first of a series of agreements with Judson, making him, making the attorney a 5% partner in patent number 3,633, and any and all rubber inventions and a 10% partner in any future inventions. Come on, man, you just gave away the farm. And then slowly but surely Judson, I think, saw Goodyear as a mark. And he winds up getting, I think, like 40, something up to like 40% of the patent. Do more deals like this.

• 1:06:40David Senra?

  At any time that Goodyear ran out of money, which was all the time, he kept just selling the most valuable thing he owned, which was equity. That's the frustrating part about reading the book. It's like, Goodyear, come on, man. What are you doing? It's very frustrating. He also did some weird things, like he never kept a record at all. So like when he died, his, uh, his son had to try to settle his estate, which took like 10 years or something like that. And it's like, he didn't even know who he owed money to. He'd forget. He was just, I mean, okay, so let's look at that. It's like a weird thing to do, right? Like, how do you keep records of nothing except for like your inventions?

• 1:07:14David Senra?

  He had like a, the good part is he was solely focused on making inventions that he thought was for the betterment of the world. The bad thing was, because of his carelessness, it impoverished himself and his family and caused heartache and trouble for himself and those around him. So you have to take the good parts of his personality without the bad parts. Because if you have a combination like that, you're gonna have a miserable life, which I definitely think Goodyear had, even though he might not have thought it like that. So this is an example of the devastatingness of his work on his health. So it says, "In the mornings and evenings his joint ached. Doctors told him he had gout, but more likely he suffered from lead poisoning.

• 1:07:55David Senra?

  His feet and toes hurt so much that he often used a cane or crutches to move around, giving him the appearance of being older than his 52 years. His face had a yellow, unhealthy color. His eyes seemed to have retreated into his head. The inventor's career, Goodyear had learned, was a melancholy pursuit. A volume might be written in explanation of the peculiar difficulties and embarrassments to which inventors are subject. As a general rule, their labors begin, continue, and end in necessity," Goodyear wrote." So again, that's from his autobiography. And even with all these health difficulties, this sentence is a good description of him,

• 1:08:37David Senra?

  "Goodyear resolved to carry on." And finally, I just wanna close on one part, because, and I almost, I was tempted to start the podcast with this, this one, but this is why he did what he did. And I think like, it's, understanding why, or explaining to other people why you're doing what you're doing, is fundamental for them understanding, like, the importance of it. I think like, in general, it's like a good leadership principle to like, not just give instructions, or not just give tasks, expect them to be completed, but explain to the people that you're working with, like, why is it important that this happens? And to that end, I think it's important for us to be able to understand who, why, and

• 1:09:20David Senra?

  who Goodyear was, when you understand like, why, how he approached this. Like, why do this? 'Cause you know, you got a book that's 200 and some pages of just torture. And it says, "All the licensees urged Goodyear to put some money in his pocket while he could by sticking to line extensions of existing products." So, you know, be pragmatic, right? "As he later wrote in third person, 'With kind intentions, no doubt, they, together with his other friends, earnestly depreciated his devoting more time or money to experiments, and constantly urged him to turn his attention to obtaining compensation from the branches already established. Instead, he imagined a world of rubber bag claps, rubber swords, rubber pistol covers,

• 1:10:05David Senra?

  rubber pontoons, and pontoon boats, rubber breast pumps, and urine bags. This world was taking shape in an eight-inch by six-inch hardcover journal on whose gold-edged pages he sketched in delicate, sure-handed pencil lines." His vi- of his visions, so he's sketching out his visions in this notebook. "Rubber inflatable invalid cushions, baby jumpers, and swings, fetlock fenders," I don't even know what that is, "for horses and footback tubs." "Goodyear kept his journal and pencil at his bedside, and he rose frequently during the night to record his latest epiphany. His experience had put him in possession, he believed,

• 1:10:48David Senra?

  of much information that would otherwise be lost in the event of his death. If he died any time soon, hospital patients and invalids might never lie down to rest in a rubber air or water bed. The heart of hearing could never benefit from a rubber ear trumpet, and hernia sufferers would never be soothed by the abdominal supporters and tussles he had designed. He worked to record his vision, so that these benefits would outlive him."

• 1:11:20David Senra?

  And I think the framing of his life's work and making it bigger than just himself, at least to my understanding from reading the book, was a very important part of how he could continue on and suffer poverty, ill health, the death of those around him, and not give up and not just collapse and quit. And when I'm sitting here thinking about like, what are my final takeaways from this book? It's that. It's of, you know, having a larger mission in life that helps you get through the inevitable ups and downs that you're gonna have. All right, and that's where I'll end it. If you want to read the full story and support the podcast at the same time, look at the

• 1:12:05David Senra?

  link that's in the show notes. Oh, they just started doing construction right next to my apartment, so you might be hearing that. My apologies. If not, go to amazon.com/shop/founderspodcast and you can see every single book that I've done so far for the podcast. If you buy it through that link, the podcast gets a small percentage of the sale, no additional cost to you. It's a great way to get a book that you'll love and support the podcast at the same time. And if you go to Amazon... Whoa. Super loud. All right, I guess that ends it. Just look for the link and I'll talk to you next week.