#240 Mozart: A Life

What I learned from reading Mozart: A Life by Paul Johnson. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [1:52] Churchill by Paul Johnson (Founders #225) [2:15] A life of constant hard work, lived at the highest possible level of creative concentration. [3:05] Mozart worked relentlessly. [3:56] He started earlier than anyone else and was still composing on his deathbed. [5:34] He soon came to the conclusion that he had fathered a genius— and being a highly religious man, that he was responsible for a gift of God to music. [7:05] I think the idea here is if you truly believe that what you're doing is good for the world— and you approach it with the same kind of religious zeal— you have a massive advantage over a competitor that doesn't have the same missionary mindset. [8:09] My Turn: A Life of Total Football by Johan Cruyff (Founders #218) [8:42] Leading By Design: The Ikea Story (Founders #104) [9:09] He loved humor, and laughter was never far away in Mozart's life, together with beauty—and the unrelenting industry needed to produce it. [13:36] Decoded by Jay Z (Founders #238) [15:36] Russ ON: Delusional Self-Confidence & How To Start Manifesting Your Dream Life and Steve Stoute & Russ Explain Why Every Creator Should Consider Themselves A Business [19:46] You don't tell Babe Ruth how to hold a bat. [20:43] I will take your demand and I'll use it as a constraint to increase my creativity. [21:27] The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King (Founders #37) [22:37] You need to tell potential customers what work and effort goes into the product that you produce because they will have a deeper appreciation for what you do. [24:52] Inside Steve’s Brain (Founders #204) [25:06] He's made and remade Apple in his own image. Apple is Steve Jobs with 10,000 lives. [25:30] Mozart wanted to talk to A players. [26:32] The Pmarca Blog Archive Ebook by Marc Andreessen (Founders #50) [26:57] You should only work in industries where— for the important companies of that industry —the founders are still in charge at those companies. [31:13] As a child and teenager Mozart was the most hardworking and productive composer in musical history. [34:17] Find something that is being done on a basic level and then realize its potential by re-imagining it. [36:13] It was all hard, intense application of huge knowledge and experience, sometimes illuminated by flashes of pure genius. [36:40] Imagine being so good at what you do that the ruler of your country has to pass a law to get people to stop clapping. [40:15] It is no use asking what if Mozart had had an ordinary, normal father. Mozart without his father is inconceivable, and there is no point in considering it. Just as Mozart himself was a unique phenomenon, so Leopold was a unique father, and the two created each other. [41:00] There's a sense in which Mozart's entire life is a gigantic improvisation. [41:21] From the age of twenty Mozart never went a month without producing something immortal-something not merely good, but which the musical repertoire would be really impoverished without. [43:03] Designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain, and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. —Steve Jobs [43:39] Mozart's beauty prevents one from grasping his power. [43:39] Sam Walton: The Inside Story of America's Richest Man (Founders #150) and Sam Walton: Made In America (Founders #234) [45:31] Never despair! ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- “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?

  Mozart often discussed with his father the way some of his pieces appealed to the many, some to the really knowledgeable, and a few to both. Some would make you sweat, as he put it, and others were childishly easy. He did not judge, either by difficulty or popularity. Mozart was enormously broad-minded, tolerant, and omnivorous. The one thing he demanded, though he never said so directly, was good taste. It is an extraordinary fact that Mozart, despite his enormous output and the speed at which so much of it was composed, is never guilty of a serious lapse of taste. He is the only great composer

• 0:41David Senra?

  of whom this may be truthfully said. Mozart continually delights. He often moves us. He makes us think. He excites, he intrigues, and mystifies. He brings sadness as often as comfort. He produces melancholy and introspection. He gives us endless moments of joy and laughter, but he never once disgusts. The world got him cheap in his day. He knew it. He had many misfortunes and many disappointments in a life of constant hard work, lived at the highest possible level of creative concentration, but his warm spirit always bubbled. He loved

• 1:22David Senra?

  his God, his family, his friends, and above all, his work, which he equated with God's service. And that was all a reasonable man, or an unreasonable one for that matter, could wish for. God bless him. That is an excerpt that comes at the end of the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Mozart: A Life, and is written by Paul Johnson. This is the third book by Paul Johnson that I've read for the podcast. If you haven't listened to it yet, I'd highly recommend going back to listening to episode number 225, which was on Winston Churchill. Paul writes these really short, no-fluff, crisp biographies. He's done a bunch. I think he's written, I don't know, like 10 or 20 of them. I'm going to go back and read a ton of them, like the ones on Socrates, Napoleon, Eisenhower,

• 2:05David Senra?

  really, any on his list that look interesting. I want to go back to this line, though, because I think that's a great description, having reached the end of the book, of like a great synopsis of Mozart. And he said, "A life of constant hard work, lived at the highest possible level of creative concentration."

• 2:23David Senra?

  A life of constant hard work lived at the highest possible level of creative concentration. That is a great summary of what I learned about Mozart from reading this book. And so, let's go to the beginning of the book. Before I picked up the book, I obviously knew the name, didn't know a lot about Mozart the person. And I'm going to give you a brief overview here because, like I said, Paul writes really to the point. He says, "Mozart died on December 5th, 1791, a few weeks short of his 36th birthday. So, a very short but intense life. Mozart was the last of seven children. Only two of the seven survived infancy. Mozart was healthy and active, some would say, hyperactive. He traveled endlessly, was a fanatic and vigorous dancer, and worked relentlessly, often late into the night."

• 3:08David Senra?

  And then, these next few sentences are just absolutely incredible. It's one of the things I most admire about him now that, having read this biography of him. "His output was enormous, much greater than nine-tenths of other composers. He was a mature artist in most forms at the age of 12." We'll see, I'll go into more detail, but he was a child prodigy. And then, this is just crazy. "There was never a month, often scarcely a week, when he did not produce a substantial score." And then, I want to continue this overview. I'll go into more detail, but this overview, I think, is helpful at the very beginning. "He very rarely made any kind of mistake, and when he did, he noticed it. Though Mozart composed his works with exceptional rapidity, they were careful, deliberate, and polished.

• 3:53David Senra?

  The truth is," and this is another crazy thing about his life, "the truth is, he started earlier than anyone else, and he was still composing on his deathbed. Those 30 years were crammed with creation. That he started so early was largely due to his father." And so, what popped into my mind as I read about his father and understood his complete obsession with Mozart's career, even when Mozart was three years old, four years old, six years old, it reminded me, I watched this documentary on HBO Max one time. It was about, it's a Tiger Woods documentary. And I found a lot of parallels between the father-son relationship between Mozart and his father, and Tiger Woods and his father. I think Tiger Woods started golfing around the same time Mozart started composing, which is just absolutely insane.

• 4:36David Senra?

  And so, this is about, this is a background for Mozart's father, who's the main character. So, Mozart's the main character of the book. The second most important character, without a doubt, is his father. So this description I'm reading you is about Mozart's father. He was industrious, able, and ambitious. He loved music and became one of the most learned musicians of his day. He specialized in the violin and he published, and he published, rather. This, it's in German, I'm not going to try to pronounce it, but this is what it is. He published The Year of Mozart's Birth, a handbook of instruction, and a theoretical work that made him well-known in musical circles throughout Europe. He seems to have decided that his own musical future was limited, and his efforts centered on his children.

• 5:18David Senra?

  Now, he did this, the father did this both for Mozart and his sister, but his main focus was Mozart. Mozart was the younger child. He says, "When the boy was four, his father decided to concentrate on bringing him out and virtually gave up composing and performing music himself." This is insane, this next sentence. "He soon came to the conclusion that he had fathered a genius, and being a highly religious man, that he was responsible for a gift of God to music." This is an extremely important point. It's something we've seen before, too. If you go back and like study the life of John D. Rockefeller, like he thought that he had a God-given ability to accumulate and make money, and that was what he was put on the earth to do. So I'm going to make the most money, be the richest person in the world,

• 6:03David Senra?

  and then use that money for good works. And this is another example of a theme that you and I see over and over again, that the mind is a powerful place which you feed, it can affect it in a powerful way. So from the outside, we might see, say, Rockefeller, that's ridiculous. But he operated as he believed it. And that is the important point. That belief to him became real. And so if you study Mozart's father, there's no doubt that he believed that he had fathered a genius, and he was God, like, God was telling him to dedicate his life to the development of his son's musical skills because it was a gift from God to the world. And so the author goes into that right now. "It is important to grasp the strong religious element radiating from his father that existed in Mozart's life from his infancy." The father felt that the musical education of his son

• 6:48David Senra?

  was a profound spiritual business as well as a professional one. And he was confined, excuse me, he was confirmed in this belief by the child's response, which was enthusiastic, as though he too were guided by a divine impulse.

• 7:05David Senra?

  And I think the idea here is like if you truly believe that what you're doing is good for the world and you approach it with the same kind of religious zeal, you have a massive advantage over a competitor that doesn't have the same missionary mindset. Back to the father, he's often seen as a tyrant towards his children, but the fact is he surrendered his own future as a musician for their sake and their progress justified his sacrifice. Mozart, at an early age, entered music so completely, excuse me, music entered so completely into his physical and intellectual system that it became his nature. He played and composed as he breathed, and the fluidity and speed and accuracy with which he wrote

• 7:48David Senra?

  music and orchestrated it became a phenomenon and they're the reason why he was able to produce so much without any sacrifice to quality. And so this idea that you start so early, you do it for so long, it becomes almost like second nature, like your work is a part of you. We see this in Mozart, just referenced that Tiger Woods clearly had that from a young age instilled from his father. Example from the book, a book I read a few months ago was the biography of Johan Cruyff. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. It's number 218. He's one of the world's most famous soccer players. He's, in that book, you know, he's taken, his father from a very young age, takes him to the soccer field. I think he works like a groundskeeper at the soccer stadium, if I remember correctly, and he's sitting in kindergarten just kicking the ball, you know, from five, six years old. So of course, he's doing that for, from

• 8:33David Senra?

  the time he's five, by the time he's an adult and he can play for the team, of course, he's going to be one of the best people to ever do it. There's entrepreneurial examples as well. Think about the founder of IKEA. I think, what, back on Founder's 104, something like that. Ingvar Kamprad starts IKEA at 17 years old and works on it till the day he dies in his 80s. That kind of intense dedication and just the sheer amount of decade after decade after decade of practicing your craft, it becomes second nature to you. There is literally no separation between Mozart and his work. And something I liked about Mozart was his intense work ethic, but it was also realizing, hey, life should be fun. So it said Mozart liked jokes of all kinds and made them constantly. He loved humor and laughter was never far away in Mozart's life. Together with beauty and the unrelenting industry needed to produce it.

• 9:18David Senra?

  That is just fantastic writing. Together with beauty and the unrelenting industry needed to produce it. And the crazy thing that Paul explains to the reader is the fact that Mozart was just born at the wrong time. Like, if he was born today, he'd be like the most streamed artist in the world. If he had access to our technology in the world we live in. At the time that he lived, musicians were seen essentially as like household help. So this is a little bit about that. Musicians were exactly in the same position as other servants. Cooks, chambermaids, musicians existed for the comfort and well-being of their masters and mistresses. The idea that you took on a composer or performer simply because he was outstanding when you already had a full complement of household musicians was absurd.

• 10:02David Senra?

  The trade was overcrowded and there was almost no money in it. He's going to learn to make money later on. I think most of the money he makes comes after the age of 25. But when he's a kid, the family's traveling all over Europe and he's giving concerts, he's doing all these other things. But he's badly mistreated for the amount of talent that he has even at a young age. And then we get a description that he was most likely, his father was right, he was most likely born just a universal genius in general. So you have a combination of intense work ethic. You have a father who's almost like a tyrant and starts having you work from the age of three years old. And then you also have these natural gifts that you're born with. We see the description of that here. He seems to have had a strong propensity to learn subjects with complex and difficult rules.

• 10:44David Senra?

  It is likely he learned how to read musical notes before he learned how to read, like read actual words. He learned both so quickly. He learned math easily, too. His father taught him Latin without difficulty. English, he taught himself.

• 11:00David Senra?

  And then this is just another example that human beings are bizarre creatures. And you read history and you just do not understand. You fail to understand how they could possibly do these things. So a lot of the music that he composed and other people were composing at the time, they were performed by male sopranos who had been castrated as children. And the reason that these people, this was done against their will, right? Because as adults, the male sopranos that are castrated are able to produce high, clear notes that no other male or female is able to do. So Mozart's not the one obviously castrating these people. He doesn't have any control. He has no power. He's operating under almost like a feudal system. And I just want to tell you this because it just kind of blew my mind.

• 11:45David Senra?

  I just could not believe this happened. And it says, "The castration was performed without anesthesia on boys between six and eight." Mozart knew all, they call him Castrati. Mozart knew all the great Castrati of his day. Remember, they're doing this, they're forcing this on children for their entertainment later. Like, how sick is this? Mozart knew all the great Castrati of his day. About 4,000 of them were created in the 18th century. So moving on, he learned something that his father, Mozart's father, taught him that was really important, was the ability to write detailed letters. We have a constant stream. Most of the book is just made up of letters between the family, Mozart's own writing. He documented a large part of his life.

• 12:30David Senra?

  That's the record we're able to work from now. And that's what preserved all these lessons. So it said, "Mozart's father was a prolific letter writer and taught his wife and children to write detailed letters, too. They kept their letters carefully. Once Mozart's own letters begin to appear, we have a personal record unique among the great composers." Now, the description of why they're unique, the first part, The Night I Left Myself, Part One, makes perfect sense. Part Two is bizarre. And I have to bring up the bizarre part because it's mentioned over and over again in the book and in the letters. It is odd and disgusting at the same time. So it says, "The letters have two characteristics. First, Mozart played with words in exactly the same way as he improvised on the clavier,

• 13:14David Senra?

  treating words as though they were notes." So I had to look up what that was. A clavier is a keyboard instrument, usually with strings. And so the author gives us some examples of how he plays with words. It really sounds a lot like if he was making music, he'd probably rap. It's very similar to how he'd have wordplay and rhyme different words. Very similar to a few podcasts ago with when I broke down Jay-Z's autobiography. Then we get to the odd and gross part. And he says, "Second, in the letters, there is much scatological nonsense." I didn't know what that meant, so I looked it up. It says, "It's relating to or characterized by an interest in extrament."

• 13:57David Senra?

  Mozart was obsessed with shit. I have no way to describe this. There's nothing like-- and I almost omitted it, but it comes up so many times in the book because it's in his letters. And it's not just Mozart. His whole family is writing letters, and I think they're most likely jokes, but they were just obsessed with shit jokes. His mom is writing shit jokes in letters. And that's the word they use. So I think the author was very intentional in using that word scatological. They have an interest in extrament for some weird reason. They go into the fact that Mozart had to provide for the family very-- he had to bring money to the family very, very young. So he says, "The letters also deal at length with his father's always precarious financial affairs.

• 14:38David Senra?

  Young Mozart was able to contribute to family funds by performing at ticket-only concerts and by selling his works to publishers." So if you study the music industry, something Mozart did made the same mistake that I think a lot of independent artists, musicians are really realizing they're not artists and musicians first, they're entrepreneurs first. And so when you sell, back in his day, he would sell his work to the publisher, right? So it's like you get a small amount. So the publisher buys it, but then as they go resell it, there's no royalties. It's, "Here's your advance. That's the last dollar you're ever going to see. Good luck." And again, to reference Jay-Z, because he was one of the people that realized this back in 1996. He's like, "No, no, no. I have videos saved in my phone of him when he's-- I think he's 26 at the time, in the mid-'90s." And he's like, "No, no, no. We own the music.

• 15:23David Senra?

  I came into this business as an entrepreneur. I'm not signed to a record label. I am my own record label." And I've mentioned this guy on the podcast a few times, I think, and entrepreneurs should-- Should study. He's an independent artist. His name's Russ. He was the first person in history to write, produce, perform, and mix and master an album that got a billion streams. So, literally, the credits on his album is just his name. That's it. No one else worked on anything at all. And it got a billion streams. And he's given a bunch of great interviews, breaking down how he thinks about music as a business. And the crazy thing is, he's turned down, I think, at least two offers from other-- he's a-- he just-- he owns his own music. He's signed independently to

• 16:06David Senra?

  his own record label. Like, he owns everything himself. I think at least two major record labels have offered him over $100 million to sell his back catalog to them. And he said no. And the reason I think that knowing these things is important, because think about that. Like, essentially, like, a one-person business had the opportunity to make over $100 million. And it is my fundamental belief that we're just at the very, very beginning of the age of infinite leverage, and we're going to see more and more things like this in a bunch of different domains. Anyways, going back to Mozart. This is very interesting, kind of relates to what I was just saying. Mozart was then 16 and no longer an infant prodigy, but for all practical purposes, an adult performer and composer, and a very experienced one. So, that last sentence jumped out. The last few words of that sentence jumped out to me. I was like,

• 16:51David Senra?

  wait a minute. To be very inexperienced at 16-- this, I'm reading my note that I left myself when I got to this page. To be very experienced-- excuse me, at 16. This is going to be more common in today's age. So, the person that popped to my mind is one of my-- if I-- anytime I want to buy a new device, I watch these YouTube videos made by this video producer named MKBHD. And the reason this popped to my mind, because very similar to Mozart, by the time MKB-- his name is Marquez, I think. I'll refer to him as his YouTube name. MKBHD had almost a decade of experience.

• 17:27David Senra?

  By the time he graduated college, he started making videos at 13 on the same channel that he owns to this day, which is now a multi-multi-million-dollar media empire this guy's building. And so by the time he was 21, instead of going to look for a job, or doing an internship, or all the stuff that would have happened, or recommended to people like my age when I graduated college, he immediately jumped out of college into a multi-million-dollar media empire. He was extremely experienced. Think about how crazy it is, right? Because usually the opposite, you have an education but no experience. So that's why you have to go do things for a low pay. This guy is extremely experienced. I don't need to go get a job. I created my own job, my own business. And since then, this is now a few years has passed since he graduated, and his empire is insane.

• 18:10David Senra?

  He's got multiple channels, he's got podcasts, he's got merchandise, he's building physical goods. But this idea that you can now, in today's age, be very experienced, very experienced at a very young age, that is extremely rare. And Mozart's a great example of that. So the author's going to give us the historical background in which Mozart had to operate in. And this is what I mean, he's kind of at the will. He was just born at the wrong time, unfortunately. He'd be unbelievably wealthy and free today. And so he's now under the tutelage, or essentially, this guy kind of owns him in one sense. His name's Archbishop, I'm going to call him Archbishop Colorado, because I don't know how to pronounce his last name, and it looks like Colorado, but it's definitely not Colorado.

• 18:53David Senra?

  Archbishop Colorado, who took over the diocese and petty state of Salzburg, early in 1772, this is where Mozart's living, he's eventually going to escape to Vienna, and then he's essentially travels his whole life. But he says Archbishop Colorado is now in charge of this petty state of Salzburg. He was a difficult man who played an important and destructive role in Mozart's life. He was a typical authority figure, and this is what Paul Johnson is going to describe the age of this history in Europe at the time. He says, "This is the age of the enlightened despot." What does that mean? Archbishop of Colorado was all for reform, provided it was imposed from above. And so there's several examples in the book where you have these essentially dictators

• 19:36David Senra?

  dictating to other people, no, this is how you have to play music. Like, they have rules for everything. It's like a complete top-down centralized authority. And the note I left myself on this is like, you don't tell Babe Ruth how to hold a bat. Like, what is this guy doing? This is, to be sure, rather on the long side. Mozart did not know then of his predilection for brevity, but the hostility with which his grace received it was uncalled for. So, he's playing for his grace, quote unquote. And he's like, this is too long. Mozart, who could turn anything into an advantage rather like the economy of means. So, I needed to do a better job of describing what just happened there. Mozart's performing for him. Remember, child prodigy, musical genius, one of the best to ever do it, right? And this guy's like, nope, too long. And that's why I said, like, you don't tell Babe Ruth to hold a bat.

• 20:20David Senra?

  But what Mozart did, he's just like, alright, well, you know, this is all he knows at this point. He doesn't know it's possible. Like, this is the environment he was built in, or born in, rather, right? And so he's like, okay, that's fine. Like, you have a set of constraints? I love constraints. And so I love that this is like a version of relentless resourcefulness that we've seen in the greatest entrepreneurs, right? Mozart turned anything into an advantage. So, he's like, okay, I like the economy of means. I will take your demand and I'll use it as a constraint to increase my creativity. And so this guy doesn't even know what he has in court. He doesn't realize that he's got this gifted prodigy. More description on this guy. He was domineering and surrounding himself with subordinates who copied him. He tended to treat musicians as lackeys and any disagreement or argument as criminal insubordination.

• 21:05David Senra?

  There's many examples where if you're hired at court, you're essentially playing for extremely rich people. But they treat you just like they would like a regular servant. And any kind of disagreement you might have, like, they'll literally just throw you in jail. Back to Mozart's approach to his work. This reminds me of Sam Zemurray. He said, "If you know your business from A to Z, there's no problem you can't solve." It's one of my favorite quotes of any book I've ever read. If you remember Sam Zemurray's story, it's the book called The Fish That Ate the Whale. He starts selling, peddling about to expire bananas, builds this entire vertically-integrated banana empire, and then overtakes the largest fruit company in the world. It's one of the craziest stories ever.

• 21:46David Senra?

  But I think that what Sam did, where he just starts at the very bottom and then studies his entire industry and business and knows everything, therefore you can solve any problem that pops up, it's exactly Mozart's approach to music. It says Mozart achieved full maturity as a musician, establishing a complete mastery not only of the forms of composition, but of all the principal instruments. So think about the ingredients that he's using, right? He could play them all. He knew how the instruments worked from the inside and why they would fail to work well. And what Mozart liked, he liked to work with other people that were as dedicated to him. So he would find out how music instrument makers approached their craft. And if he found that, hey, this guy thinks like me, he's approaching the creation of

• 22:30David Senra?

  musical instruments the same way I approach my compositions. And this is something that pops up if you study the great advertisers in history. They always say, you need to tell potential customers what work and effort goes into the product that you produce, because they will have a deeper appreciation for what you do. And so he finds this guy named Stein that is completely obsessed with making the best pianos in the world. So he says he liked Stein's best, Stein's pianos best, because he was shown exactly how Stein had worked on them. So Stein used that idea. And it says Stein later made pianos for Beethoven, but he always found Mozart the most, and this is perfect, that it kind of fits together here, because you have Mozart's appreciation

• 23:13David Senra?

  for Stein's dedication and obsession. And then in return, Stein realizes, hey, I make pianos for a lot of different people and instruments for a lot of different composers. Nobody knows as much as this guy knows. So Stein later made pianos for Beethoven, but he always found Mozart the most knowing of his patrons. Mozart was interested, this is a quote from Stein, "Mozart was interested in everything to do with the instrument." Another interesting idea from Mozart for you. He thought of music as a tool for thought. He said he liked to think profound thoughts while playing the violin, and he would encourage his listeners to do the same. And then we go back to the fact that just Mozart threw a sheer amount of insane work

• 23:56David Senra?

  hours at his craft, at his profession, and the ability to put in all that practice is going to lead to talents that others lack. And in his case, he actually develops physical attributes that his competitors lack because he's practiced more than they did. Here's an example of that. The viola demanded greater left-hand pressure to produce a certain sound that he needed to produce, okay? This was no problem for Mozart because of the effect of constant practice and playing on his hand muscles. Two sentences here that spawned two separate thoughts. It says Mozart had a highly personal approach to music. Nothing pleased him more than an intimate talk with a player about his instrument,

• 24:41David Senra?

  what it could do or not do, and what it could be made to do by a masterful player. So first sentence, Mozart had a highly personal approach to music. That reminded me of this line I read in this book called Inside Steve Jobs' Brain. And it said, this is absolutely fantastic, and I think it's really important for all founders to do, like to inject your unique personality and your own business philosophy should be unique to you, right? And you should be imbibed into your company. And the line says, he made, talking about Steve Jobs, "He made and remade Apple in his own image. Apple is Steve Jobs with 10,000 lives." And then let's go back to that second sentence. "Nothing pleased him more than an intimate talk with a player about his instrument, what it could do or not do, and what it could be made to do."

• 25:25David Senra?

  So unique knowledge, right, from a masterful player. What is that, what's really happening in that sentence? Mozart wanted to talk to A players. Not C players, not B players, not B players who hire C players. I want to talk to A players because they know what their instrument can be made to do by a masterful player.

• 25:47David Senra?

  More on the historical background when he lived. And I think this can apply to like, if you're not sure what to work on, there's some advice here. We have to remember one important fact about Mozart. He lived at the beginning of the first explosion of world population, which meant, among countless other things, a cumulatively vast and rapid increase in the amount of music performed, the number of musicians, the amount of money spent on music, the spread of music printing, and the proliferation of instrument makers and their competitive ingenuity. So think about the internet in our age, it's like the music, the music industry in his age. What came to mind, because I was just rereading it too, is I've mentioned a couple of times that I really think, especially because it's free online, is you really have no excuse

• 26:30David Senra?

  not to do this, that you should, everybody should read Marc Andreessen's blog archive. It's like 200 pages. His venture capital firm gives it away for free. If you just Google Marc Andreessen blog archive, you can just go to Founder's Number 15, I'm pretty sure I link it there. But Marc gives a lot of advice about like, why do a startup? Why not to do a startup? How to think about your career and all, it's just, it's just gem after gem after gem from a genius, right? But he said something that was really interesting, where he's like, I only recommend that you, I'm paraphrasing, this is not a direct quote, but he says like, you should only work in industries where the important companies of that industry, the founders are still in charge at the companies. So let's say you're a super smart and dedicated, hardworking person, and living in America in 1900s. It's very, very clear what industry.

• 27:15David Senra?

  You go to Michigan and you work in the automotive industry. And if you've heard a bunch of my episodes, you already know this, because I did, what, like a 13-part, 12 or 13-part series on all the mad geniuses, these founders, these fanatical founders that built this, the automotive industry, which is, you know, one of the largest industries in the world today. But what you wouldn't do is go work at one of those companies now. I mean, I guess you have Tesla, which is the first successful American car, new car company that, I think since Chrysler, so it was almost, I think Chrysler was in the 1930s, I can't remember the exact date, I don't have it in front of me. But Marc's advice is just like, well, you pay, it's a way to not only pick the industries to work in, but also to pick the industries to avoid. And he does that through like, a very simple proxy, like, are the most, were the most important

• 28:00David Senra?

  companies in the industry that you're targeting? And are the founders still in charge of those companies? If not, try to find an area where they are, where the founders are still in charge. I think it was Napoleon, I can't remember who said the quote. I'm pretty sure it was Napoleon who said, "The attention to details of religion is success." Mozart gives a demonstration of that. Mozart made a point of inspecting the drums of any orchestra for which he was composing to make sure its drums were in top form. If necessary, being so quick, he could rescore before performance. He also took into account the weather. On a damp night in a hall with poor heating, upper notes might be impossible. On the other hand, very dry weather might turn them sharp. Musicians themselves knew this, but very few composers did.

• 28:45David Senra?

  And it was precisely Mozart's attention to such details that endeared him to his players. Attention to detail is the religion of success. This is a fantastic description of Mozart the person. Mozart never had any difficulty in making friends. He had charm. "He was touching and quick-tempered, like gunpowder," one friend who knew him well said. "But he was also lovable. I shall never forget his little animated countenance when he lighted up with the glowing rays of genius." And what a great sentence here to describe a person. And he says, "It is impossible to describe it as it would be to paint sunbeams." So we're in his 20s. This is how, this is the five ways, I think. Yeah, the five ways that Mozart made money. Mozart's income came from five main sources.

• 29:30David Senra?

  The first was pupils. Mozart claimed he did not like teaching music. On the other hand, many of his pupils became friends. Opera commissions was a second source. Mozart loved the opera because he enjoyed the stage. And it is true that nothing did more to boost a composer's fame and therefore general money earning capability than a hit opera. But he made surprisingly little money out of his theatrical works. You could think about it, it's almost like he's paying, he's getting paid in exposure more so than money for these really successful opera compositions that he makes.

• 30:08David Senra?

  The third one is he would give public concerts. The fourth one is private concerts, which would usually be in noble houses. I was just listening to this podcast called The All-In Podcast, and they're, they're holding like this, this giant, like, I guess, conference, I guess, summit, they call it. And I don't know if they made up the numbers, but they were talking about like hiring, I forgot, they said Drake, and I can't remember the other, the other artists, but apparently they, they know that, you know, you can do private concerts, just like in Mozart's day, and I think Drake makes like $2 million. If you want him to come to like a wedding, or like, you know, like a conference or whatever, and I think they only do, it's, it's something short. It's like a 30-minute set, or something like that, for $2 million.

• 30:51David Senra?

  So, there's a, obviously Mozart didn't make that much. He, he did have a lot more money than people, than other biographers have, had written about, but we see Mozart doing the same thing. A fourth form of income was private concerts, and this would happen in, in rich people's houses, essentially. Then fifth, there was the sales of piano concertos, sonatos, and symphonies to a music publisher. And then we just get to, just what a sentence here. I double underline this. "As a child and teenager, Mozart was the most hardworking and productive composer in musical history." The chapter I'm in is called "A Married Composing Machine," and so, the way to think about Mozart, really, is he worked all the time, and he was a composing machine.

• 31:34David Senra?

  Mozart led a hectic professional life and involved frequent travel. I have noted one month when he gave 22 concerts in a four-week period. That is a very heavy schedule for any musician, and deadly for an artist who also requires time and solitude for his compositions. His heavy commitments meant that he composed often into the night, including through the night. So he's pulling, essentially, working all day at the concert, then pulling all-nighters to make compositions by himself.

• 32:04David Senra?

  So another character that pops up in the book and he becomes a good friend of Mozart is Joseph Haydn. Joseph Haydn is considered like the father of the symphony. And he's about 25 years older than Mozart and he clearly recognizes Mozart's genius because he's having this conversation with Mozart's father and this is what he says. "Haydn said to me, before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and what is more, he has the most profound knowledge of composition." So there's a lot of letters between Mozart and Haydn. Haydn becomes like a mentor to him. Clearly says, okay, this guy, it's like Neo in The Matrix, like Morpheus and Neo in The Matrix, like their relationship is like this guy is the one. And it was interesting

• 32:48David Senra?

  that he's not describing, of course, he's great at composing music, but he's saying he has the greatest knowledge of, the most profound knowledge of composition. And so this is important because not only are they learning from each other, but they're pushing each other. So I'll talk about this later in the book. Towards the end of the book, there's a, there's a highlight, a paragraph where they're saying, hey, these guys were going back and forth with each other, not dueling first, but like the competition was definitely pushing both of them, where they had like created masterpieces, pieces that have, that people are listening to hundreds of years later, every two weeks for like a decade. I don't remember the exact timeframe. I'm going to read it to you when we get there. But just this, I think this is the reason I bring this up because I think it's extremely important for founders, like founding, running your own company. Not a lot of people you

• 33:32David Senra?

  can really talk to. And what I noticed is like founders know other founders. And part of this is like, not only because we all, we think similarly, but because like they can, they just understand what you're saying. Like you can, one entrepreneur can talk to another entrepreneur and if they don't know each other, it's like, yeah, I get exactly, I know exactly what you're going through. And clearly like that, that having, that having that relationship with Haydn benefited Mozart, not only his personal life, or excuse me, not only his professional life, but also in his personal life too. And then I really like this idea because now Mozart is starting to spend more and more time creating for the opera, which is like the highest level. It's like if you're building products, think about it, it's like you're building products that are targeted to the super rich is the way to think about it this in their day. Yet, if you really think like

• 34:15David Senra?

  the idea behind what I'm about to read to you is you find something that's being done on a basic level, and then you realize its potential by reimagining it. And so it says, Mozart seemed to have acquired the instinct to make music dramatic, to animate people on stage entirely from his own personality. His impact on the form, meaning opera, was fundamental. He had found opera so-called in rudimentary shape and transformed it into a great, many-faceted art. Another main point from the life and career of Mozart that we can use is like, decade after decade of practice is going to make anything look

• 34:56David Senra?

  easy. It says, "The word effortless is constantly applied to Mozart's work. There was nothing effortless about Figaro." So Paul, I guess I should tell you this, like, there's a bunch of the book that I'm skipping over. Paul has like this upset, like, he clearly loves classical music. He clearly loves Mozart's music. He's like a, what I, the analogy I would use is like Mozart is as big a fan for, or, excuse me, Paul Johnson, the author, is as big a fan to Mozart as I, like, you could hear when I did the podcast on Jay-Z. And so Paul really goes deep into what he loves about Mozart. But anyways, I just want to pull out, for our purposes, the fact that the importance of just decade after decade of practice, if you want to make something look easy, the word effortless is constantly

• 35:38David Senra?

  applied to Mozart's work. There was nothing effortless about Figaro. It was hard, intense, excuse me, it was all hard, intense application of huge knowledge and experience, sometimes illuminated by flashes of pure genius. That's just another great, the reason I like reading Paul Johnson's work, and this book was a little harder for me to read because there's so much detail about classical music and I don't know, I didn't know anything about it. So I had to like, there's terminology he uses in the book that he hasn't used in any other book that I've read, that I had to like go, I almost have to like translate it, so that made it a little more difficult. But the reason I like Paul's writing is because of this, like, he just got these great short sentences. "It was all hard, intense application of huge knowledge and experience, sometimes illuminated by flashes of pure genius."

• 36:22David Senra?

  And people knew how good Figaro was at the time he created it, right? And think about this. Figaro's success led the emperor to ban excessive applause, which prolonged the evening past his bedtime. So you have the dictator that literally can pass laws. And no doubt myself, that jumped out at me when I got to that sentence. They go, imagine being so good at what you do, that the ruler of your country has to pass a law to get people to stop clapping. And so I have a great deal of respect with the complete dedication that Mozart had to his craft, but he also did something that's smart. He enjoyed life. There's a lot of people that are completely obsessed with their craft. And then, to me, like, life is, the point behind life is to experience, like, to enjoy this journey that we're on.

• 37:07David Senra?

  And part of that, I think, for a certain personality type is you have to be good at your craft. You have to be good at what you do to get the enjoyment out of life. But also, you can't make yourself miserable over it. And Mozart didn't. His, the last three letters of Mozart's that had survived show him at the top of his form and prove three things beyond a doubt. He loved his wife, he enjoyed his life, and he regarded himself as a very lucky fellow. And then we get to the death of Mozart's father, and we see Mozart's reflections on death in this letter that he writes to his father that survived. So it says, "The death of Leopold Mozart on May 28, 1786, 1787, aged 68, opened the last phase of his son's life. It was both a relief and a shock.

• 37:48David Senra?

  From the age of three, when the young boy had first begun to pick out tunes on the clavier, to well past his 29th birthday. Over a quarter of a century, father and son had enjoyed the closest relationship in musical history. The fact that they exchanged long, detailed, and factual letters for most of this time, dealing mainly with Mozart's professional career and creative life, is of immense value and fascination." And so it talks about the last letter. He says, "By the last, by the time that Mozart sent this last letter, he already knew that his father was stricken with what would prove his fatal illness. This letter is somber." And so this is where we get Mozart's reflections on death, which might be a little surprising. And Mozart says, "I have now made a habit

• 38:33David Senra?

  of being prepared in all affairs of life for the worst. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence." I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but it is indeed very soothing and consoling. That is a very unusual perception of death. Right? He calls it the best and truest fan of mankind. It doesn't no longer terrifies me. It's soothing and consoling. I never lie down at night with a This might be a smart thing to do, actually. I never lie down at night without reflecting that.

• 39:15David Senra?

  Young as I am, I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in my company I am morose or disgruntled. For this blessing, I daily thank my Creator. So he's essentially saying like, I'm not guaranteed tomorrow. I'm thankful and I'm grateful that I wake up every day and I try to treat every day as a gift. That's actually a really positive. Like at the beginning of the letter, you know, it was kind of a bizarre, morose, kind of negative perspective. But then it ends on something that like his lesson from that is actually a really positive takeaway. So up until his father's death, like his father is a very main like a major part, major character in this book. And the note I left myself on this bottom page is this.

• 40:00David Senra?

  Paul Johnson is good at providing oh shit moments, where he just kind of wraps everything up for you. And like, kind of really wants to make sure that almost like you're paying attention to like, do you understand how profound this father-son relationship was? And so he does it and it's just a paragraph. He says, "It's no use asking what if Mozart had an ordinary, normal father? Mozart without his father is inconceivable, and there's no point in considering it. Just as Mozart himself was a unique phenomenon, so Leopold was a unique father, and the two created each other." And so then we go back to Mozart's relationship with Haydn. And the way Mozart approached his music and his life's work, I say he has a lot in common with history's greatest entrepreneurs.

• 40:45David Senra?

  They optimized for flexibility. There is like a sense of this is a complex adaptive system. A lot of the things we're doing are unpredictable, and so we have to be able to improvise. He says, "And then we're going to get to what I think might be the craziest sentence in the entire book. There is a sense in which Mozart's entire life is a gigantic improvisation. The rate of production was almost incredible. It had been calculated. From 1781 up until Mozart's death in 1791, Haydn and Mozart between them created a masterwork every fortnight." And this is what I mean about, this might be the craziest sentence in the entire book. "From the age of 20, Mozart never went a month without producing something immortal,

• 41:29David Senra?

  something not merely good, but which the musical repertoire would be really impoverished without. Did he realize this? Did he ever stop working, laughing, loving, and playing long enough to think about the nature of his achievement?" And so some of the people that also composed music, they thought, you know, the more musicians, the more instruments, the better. But Mozart thought like Napoleon. It's more important what you can do with what you have, not just the sheer numbers. So he says Mozart, like anyone else, relished having ample forces at his disposal. But as Napoleon says, "What matters is not the total size of your army, but having the

• 42:11David Senra?

  right troops at the right time in exactly the right point. It is the right notes that matter and the exact combination and perfect timing together that create overwhelming power."

• 42:25David Senra?

  And then we go back to this idea of what Mozart had in common with a lot of history's greatest entrepreneurs. And I know that improvising is just a more fun way to work. All music was living to Mozart. It was never written in stone. There were passages that delighted him and were not to be altered unless, of course, something even better flashed into his mind. But he was extraordinarily ready to rewrite. One thing he loved all of his life was to improvise. And then we go back to more of Paul's passion for Mozart. He's fired up on this page, really this paragraph, the reason I'm going to read it to you is because this just reminds me of like the million different things that a founder has to keep in their brain at once. I think about that great quote from Steve Jobs where he said, designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain

• 43:09David Senra?

  and fitting them all together in new and different ways to get what you want. And so let's go to Mozart. Mozart had a fine musical intellect, which is always working away in his music, setting itself problems and solving them. His brain would be attacking the network of tonalities and their ever-changing relationships over the different levels of a dozen instruments. His brain was as quick and efficient. But one is not aware of this intellectual activity. One is busy enjoying the sensuousness of the sound. That is what is meant by the axiom. Mozart's beauty prevents one from grasping his power. A lesson from reading two books on Sam Walton.

• 43:50David Senra?

  He loved to keep people guessing. He said, always keep them guessing, keep your competitors guessing, keep your customers guessing. Mozart did the same. When he was in danger in lulling the listeners into complacency, he administered a short, sharp shock of some kind. A theme that also pops up over and over again in these biographies is that you should learn the rules first, so then you can break them later. Mozart did that as well. What he learned in writing symphonies was that the rules of composition must exist. They must be clear and must, in a sense, be routinely followed. But that a self-confident, experienced and gifted composer must ignore them without hesitation.

• 44:30David Senra?

  And then we get to the end of his very short but very intense life. In July, Mozart was commissioned by a mysterious stranger to write a Requiem and was paid a generous advance. The man turned out to be a wealthy nobleman. By the time he was finished, he was exhausted. He would have recovered, as he had often done before, but he caught an infection, diagnosed as camp fever, which seems to have aggravated the kidney weakness that had plagued him for many years. This combination proved fatal, and Mozart died on December 5, 1791, eight weeks short of his 36th birthday. He seemed to know he was dying, but his mood was composed, tranquil, resigned to accept his fate, and grateful for all that life had brought him.

• 45:13David Senra?

  Even on his deathbed, indeed, above all on his deathbed, Mozart knew it would all come out right in the end. It is hard to imagine two works more different than Figaro and the Requiem, yet they both breathe this message, the theme, in some ways, of his life: Never despair.

• 45:35David Senra?

  And that is where I'll leave it. For the full story, buy the book. If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes on your podcast player, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. If you want to give a gift subscription to a friend or a coworker, there's a link in the show notes and also available at founderspodcast.com. That is 240 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.