Leon Hess could recite the margins of every gasoline station on the East Coast.
John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, could do the same for every Whole Foods store.
I actually spent a few days with John Mackey and he told me one of the craziest things
that anyone has ever said about the podcast.
He had listened to over a hundred episodes before we met and he told me that if founders existed when he was younger,
Whole Foods would still be an independent company.
That since the podcast
and all of history's greatest entrepreneurs constantly emphasized the importance of controlling expenses,
he would have put more of a priority on it.
Especially during good times, during boom times.
It's very natural for a company and for human nature to just not watch your costs as closely
because everything is going so well.
This is something that history's greatest founders would warn against.
In fact, Andrew Carnegie would repeat this mantra time and time again.
He would say profits and prices recyclical subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace.
Costs, however, could be strictly controlled and any savings achieved in cost were permanent.
This is something that I was talking about with my friend Eric who's 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.
I've spent a bunch of time with them over the last year or two.