Hetty Green bailed out New York City. Her decisions on what interest rates to charge moved markets and were reported in major newspapers. She was a one woman bank and the single biggest individual financier in the world. She took no partners and ran her own money. She built a financial empire of stocks, bonds, railroads, and real estate. She battled the great men of her day and kept a gun on her desk. She did all of this alone. Defiantly independent and ferociously intelligent she built a vast, liquid fortune at a time when women couldn't even vote. She used her intelligence to increase her wealth, her independence to live as she wished, and her strength to battle anyone who stood in her way. This episode is what I learned from reading Hetty: The Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon by Charles Slack and The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach.
All of history's Greatest Entrepreneurs Studied history's greatest entrepreneurs Hetty Green was the smartest woman on Wall Street.
She was a financial genius and the single largest individual financier in the world.
And yet she made it a point to learn from people like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, JP Morgan and Jay Gold.
And one thing that she had in common with them was that she had the habit of keeping track of every cent and making sure that she's getting the most value for every single dollar that she spent.
One thing is clear from studying hundreds of history's greatest entrepreneurs.
Anyone who's committed to being great at building their business is obsessed with watching their cost.
This is something I was talking about with my friend Eric.
My friend Eric is the co founder and CEO of Ramp.
Ramp is now the presenting sponsor of this podcast.
I've gotten to know all the co founders of Ramp and have spent a bunch of time with them over the last year or two.
They all listened to the podcast and they all picked up on the fact that the main theme from the podcast is on the importance of watching your costs and controlling your spend and how doing so gives you a massive competitive advantage.
And that is the reason that Ramp exists.
Ramp gives you everything you need to control your spend.
Ramp exists to give you everything you need to make cost control an obsession.
Ramp gives you easy to use corporate cards for your entire team, automated expense reporting and cost control.
Ramp helps you run an efficient organization.
I read a Ramp customer review that sums this up perfectly.
It said Ramp is like having a teammate who you never need to check in on because they have it handled.
Warren Buffett, who has a lot in common with Hedy Green, said that a good manager must be a demon on cost.
Ramp makes it easy for you to be a demon on cost and make your business more efficient.