What I learned from rereading Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos.
So a few months ago, I spent about seven hours at John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods.
And it was during one of our conversations that John told me one of the craziest things that anyone has ever said about the podcast.
By the time I met him, he had already listened to over a hundred episodes.
And he told me that if founders existed when he was younger, that Whole Foods would still be an independent company.
That since the podcast and all of history's greatest entrepreneurs constantly emphasize the importance of controlling expenses, he would have made it much more of a priority, especially during good times, during boom times.
I think it is very natural for a company and for human nature to not watch your cost as closely because everything is going so well.
In fact, you're going to hear something similar happens to Edwin Land late in his career, after Edwin Land was semi coaxed into retirement by Polaroid's board.
A decision that Steve Jobs, by the way, called one of the dumbest things that I've ever heard.
Unfortunately, cost got out of hand and Edwin Land left Polaroid.
This is something that happens a lot.
In fact, when Steve Jobs was recounting some of the mistakes that he made in his own career, he mentioned losing the discipline of cost control.
He was talking about his time at next.
And in one of his biographies there's a line that says not only was time slipping by quickly, but so too was the money.
Jobs complained aloud that we're not scrounging.
We stopped nickel and diming for the stuff, and it all adds up.
This is something I talk about all the time with my friend Eric, who's the co founder and CEO of Ramp.
Ramp is now a partner of this podcast.
I've gotten to know all the co.
Founders of Ramp and spent a bunch of time with them over the last year or two.
They all listen to the podcast and they've picked up on the fact, just like John Mackey did, that the main theme from the podcast is on the importance of watching your costs and controlling your spend and how doing so can give you a massive competitive advantage.