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Cornelius Vanderbilt was only interested in two things, making money and winning.
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Often he temporarily subjugated the need for the former to achieve the latter.
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Vanderbilt had an unquenchable thirst for conquest.
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There was nothing he would not do to conquer.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt and his enemy William Walker were alike in several respects. Both were opportunists.
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Both were prepared to suffer through short-term adversity to achieve long-term victory.
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Both Vanderbilt and Walker were loyal to those who were loyal to them, attracting lifelong allegiance from their closest associates.
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But that's where their similarities ended.
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William Walker, because of his limited resources, was prepared to give his trust too readily to achieve his ends, giving his trust to men who turned out to be liars, braggarts, and fools.
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The cunning Vanderbilt was a much better judge of character.
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And here is where the two men differed most.
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If you crossed William Walker, he would banish you from his world.
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If you crossed Vanderbilt, he would set out to conquer you, no matter how long it took.
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Ultimately, that conquest would be signified by a surrender, and that surrender would usually take the form of a deal.
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At one time or another, Vanderbilt got into bed with all of his enemies if they were prepared to submit to him, and most of them were.
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The exception was William Walker.
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He was not a businessman.
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He achieved his short-lived successes using war and the law as his tools.
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And unlike Vanderbilt's other adversaries, William Walker was not afraid of Vanderbilt when he should have been.
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That is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer, who in turn had previously invaded multiple countries. That's William Walker.
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And this book was written by Steven Dando Collins.
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So I first read this book about 5 years ago.
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And the great thing about the book is it's a biography, really a joint biography, of Vanderbilt and William Walker, but it starts right in the middle of the story.
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And so it will give us background on both the early life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Walker, but the entire story, 90% of the book, is about this war that happens when William Walker invades Nicaragua, winds up becoming pre- making himself president of the country, and then making this very fatal mistake of taking some of Cornelius' property and other business assets that Cornelius had in Nicaragua.
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And so I would say out of all the people that you and I studied together on this podcast, I don't think there is, in many cases, you know, there's some kind of historical equivalent, there's somebody there's somebody that was very similar to that person that lived before them, maybe they were influenced and used their ideas.
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I don't I can't think of a historical equivalent to Cornelius Vanderbilt.
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To me, he's less of an entrepreneur, cuz the way he dominated so I mean, he was obviously one of the best entrepreneurs ever to to ever live, but he was so powerful, influential, and wealthy, it's almost like he was like a a sovereign, like the the I would consider like when I think of Cornelius Vanderbilt, it's like who would you compare to people living today?
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I wouldn't think of other entrepreneurs.
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I would think of people like at the state level.
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I would think of like almost like Vladimir Putin is actually the the the person that comes to mind.
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And this sentence gives you an insight into why that would be the case.
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Cornelius Vanderbilt, the descendants of poor Dutch immigrants, would die in 1877 possessing more money than was held by the US Treasury.
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I read another biography many years ago on Cornelius Vanderbilt, and it's called The First The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
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And in that book, there's a this incredible stat that I haven't forgotten.
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And it was talking about well, if when he died, if you could on the day of his death, right, if you could convert all of his assets into dollars, he would have had 5% of the money supply.
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He would have had one out of every $20 in circulation.
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So in this book, the story starts, he's in his early 50s.
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Even by this time, he is already far and away America's richest man, even though his the next 20 years is where his fortune grows exponentially.
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And it grows exponentially because he invests heavily in the new technology of the day, something you and I've talked about over and over again, that the railroads, the transcontinental railroad in American history.
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So it's very equivalent to I really think about it like the the internet today.
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So it says, "Far and away America's richest man, he built his massive fortune on steam first.
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His first fortune was built on fleets of steamboats and ocean ships, steam-powered ocean ships.
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Then later, after the American Civil War, he invests heavily in steam trains on his ever-expanding network of North American railroads.
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At one time, Vanderbilt owned and controlled 13 separate railways."
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That is going to happen a few years into the future where this story starts.
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Where this story starts is the gold the discovery of gold in January 1848 in California.
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A few podcasts ago on episode 329, spent a lot of time, if you read Port Charles the new version of Port Charles Almanac, Charles spends a lot of time talking about this idea of like you can analyze I love his surfing model, cuz he'll go and analyze like why was Sam Walton so successful?
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Why was Les Schwab so successful?
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Why was the founder of National Cash Register so successful?
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And he's like in every case, there was some kind of wave that they were surfing.
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And so this new business that Vanderbilt's about to start building right now is he's going to start surfing the gold rush wave.
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And he's perfectly positioned to do so because by the time the gold rush starts, right, he's already a a multi-multimillionaire, but the gold rush combined with the railroads is it says the immense wealth that he would amass by the time he died was still then only the stuff of dreams.
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And so Vanderbilt figures out, "Hey, I know how I'm going to make another fortune from the gold rush."
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He goes and pays a he goes and pays a visit to the Secretary of State at the time, this guy named John Clayton.
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And this conversation, this meeting that he's going to have with Secretary of State, to me really describes the way his brain works and the way he approached his business, right?
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This is a I'll get there in a minute when I'm going to compare and contrast, cuz you really think about like Vanderbilt, you know, didn't go to any had no formal schooling after the age of 11, right?
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His enemy in this book is William Walker. He's the opposite.
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We're going to get to him in a minute.
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This guy has he graduates like college at I goes to college I think at 12 or 14.
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He graduates medical school, graduates to law school, much more of an academic.
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Well, by the time they meet and they actually start going to war against each other, Vanderbilt has 45 years of experience building businesses, 45 years of studying human nature, 45 years of dealing people with in commerce. He has this great quote.
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There's a bunch of these quotes that have lived on forever and they're in almost every book or every documentary.
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I've watched a bunch of documentaries on Vanderbilt, too.
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That he says, "If I had learned education, I would have not had the time to learn anything else."
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And so it's obvious when you look at how he built his businesses and the way he dealt with everybody around him.
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This is a very intelligent person, even if he wasn't formally schooled.
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I mean, the crazy thing is that he never wrote anything down.
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He would keep every detail of his business dealings in his head.
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There's there's stories later on the book where people come to meet him and they like he's sitting at his desk in his office.
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There's nothing The only he has two things on his desk, a checkbook and a box of cigars.
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So with that in mind, let's go to this conversation having with the Secretary of State, right?
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And he knows this is flood of immigrants that are coming from the they're coming from the East Coast in many cases previously, they come from Europe to the East Coast of the United States, and then they want to get to where the gold is to live, right?
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And so he is sitting here having this conversation, and the way I think about it is he's he's identifying and analyzing the existing products in the market and then how he can improve on them.
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So there's three different ways that all these people that are in the East want to get West.
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And the first one is I was sitting here thinking it was like which one would I choose if I was them.
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I know I'm not choosing this one.
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So thousands of of people coming from the East Coast to the West Coast, they're doing that they're trying to get to California and they're doing that overland in covered wagons. So what is that?
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3,000 miles through it says their route cut through dangerous Native American homelands and clawed over treasures treacherous mountain passes and took as long as 6 months.
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Hundreds of travelers died each year as a result of accidents, exposure, starvation, or Indian attacks.
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Okay, so route one, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing 6 months.
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I leave with my family, and then my family's completely different by the time I get there cuz, you know, half of them have died or whatever the case is.
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The alternative route people were doing was Remember, this is before the Panama Canal, okay?
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So the alternative route is like, "Okay, I'm going to leave from New York.
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I'm going to sail across underneath South America, pass over Cape Horn, and then sail up the Pacific to California."
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That's a lot safer than going by wagon, and it is a lot quicker because it takes about let's say 90 days, right?
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3 months instead of 6 months, but it is very expensive. It's $600 a head.
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$600 was the equivalent of several years' salaries for a laborer at this point in history.
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The third one is there was an existing company that would take you by steamship down to Panama.
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So you go to East Coast of Panama cuz there's no Panama Canal at this point. They put you on a mule.
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And then you have to track a week long on a mule through the mud to get to the Pacific side of Panama.
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Then they put you aboard another steamer, and then they bring you up to San Francisco.
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That route only took a month. That was also $600.
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And Vanderbilt immediately realizes, "Well, there's essentially unlimited demand for this because if $600 is the equivalent of several years' salary, yet you have thousands of passengers that are lining up to take both the Panama route and the route around Cape Horn."
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And so Vanderbilt's approach to this is very similar to the approach that he would take earlier in his career, where it's like, "Oh, it's 600 bucks. I'll do it for $300." Right?
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And he's going to be able to find do this profitably.
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But early in his career, he would compete head-to-head, keep cutting his rates, usually to a larger more established player, and then eventually the the the more established player would buy him out to make him go away.
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And so when he sees these other three options, he's like, "Okay, I have an advantage here."
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He's an existing steamboat entrepreneur.
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He's got a ton of ships he can put in.
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He can buy them really buy them or build them quicker than most other people.
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So he's like, "Listen, I'm going to do this.
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I'm not going to use the Panama route."
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And then it says, "He scoffed at the $600 being charged by the operators who did use Panama. I can improve on that."
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Vanderbilt said, "I can make money at $300 crossing my passengers by Lake Nicaragua, a route 600 miles shorter."
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Okay, so he identified another route in.
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So why is he talking to the Secretary of State about this?
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It's not just the passengers.
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He wants to make money in the passengers, but this is he does this with everything.
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It's never the obvious thing.
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I've been using the chat feature in Founders Notes, which isn't public.
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Only me and the team at Readwise have access to it right now.
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But I've been using it to make all these episodes and having it assist me with the research for this episode.
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And it was searching all my past transcripts every single time I mentioned it on the podcast before, every single note or highlight I had it.
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And it really summarized what I'm trying to tell you.
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It says, "Vanderbilt's approach to business was often marked by a sly concealment of his intentions, keeping information close while simultaneously gathering intelligence on competitors."
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This strategic obfuscation allowed him to make moves that others often couldn't predict or comprehend until it was too late.
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That's exactly what is happening in the story, because he's like, "Listen, I'm going to I have I have a shorter route.
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I have more assets than no one else has." Right?
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They They He can combine assets in a very unique way that very few, maybe no other competitors can at this point.
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"I can make a profit at, you know, half the price that my competitors are in, but that's not why I'm here.
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I want two things from you, Secretary of State."
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He wants the US mail contracts.
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There's a ton of people that want to send information right from east to west.
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"I will take that over for you.
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I want the contracts," which would be the equivalent of a couple hundred million dollars a year in guaranteed income from the US government today.
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"And then the second thing I want is I want you to negotiate with the Nicaraguan government."
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This is before William Walker overthrows that government, right?
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"And I want the exclusive rights from the Nicaraguan government to build canals across Nicaragua."
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That beginning So now we live in a world where they did this across Panama, right?
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At the time, before the Panama Canal, the idea was to and he actually gets this contract, right?
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So the he's actually successful in this meeting with the Secretary of State.
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The at the time they thought they were going to build the the canal across Nicaragua.
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If you look at a map of Nicaragua, you'll see this giant lake in the middle.
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It's called Lake Nicaragua.
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So the idea was cut a canal through there on one side, so that would be the east side, and then a smaller canal on the west side, and that would dump you into the Pacific Ocean.
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So that plan, this new business that Cornelius is building, sets up the entire story, which is what this book is about, which is this war that he has with William Walker.
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So I need to give you a little background on William Walker and why I said he's essentially the exact opposite upbringing.
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So his his mom is excessively sick when he's young, and they can't figure out the local physicians are unable to diagnose her condition.
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So he had this intense devotion to his mother.
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And so he's like, "I'm going to become a doctor and cure my mother's mystery illness."
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So he starts reading every single book he can possibly find.
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And the next thing I'm going to say is kind of weird because the decisions he makes later kind of speaks to almost that it's a contradiction.
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He's some sort of like young prodigy genius.
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Even though later in his life he does a lot of dumb things.
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The story ends with the 36-year-old William Walker being handed over to the Honduran government, blindfolded, brought out to the beach, and shot to death.
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And so it's interesting to think about how this young prodigy wind up having an outcome that obviously he did not desire, right?
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So while he's 12 years old, he's already mastered Greek and Latin.
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His father takes him to the University of Nashville and says "Hey, my son's a genius, can you let him in?" He starts college at 12. He graduates at 14.
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At 14 he then goes to medical school.
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2 years later he Excuse me, 4 years later, at 18 he graduates medical school.
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By the time he's 18, he's graduated college, medical school.
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He has also added a bunch of languages.
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He can speak French, German, and Spanish.
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Despite all his medical training, he can't save his mom. His mom passes away.
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So then he said he loses his faith in medicine and he's decides, "Hey, I'm going to be a lawyer."
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2 years later, he has a law degree.
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Around this time he meets and falls in love with this woman named Ellen. She is deaf.
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So what do you think Walker did?
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Walker makes himself fluent in sign language.
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Even after getting all these degrees, he decides, "Hey, it's There's a great line here."
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It says, "Walker was convinced that the pen could potentially be mightier than either the scalpel or the gavel, so he became a newspaper editor."
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He is the editor of a newspaper.
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One of his staff members is a young Walt Whitman.
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And so for the next 10 to 15 years of William Walker's life until he dies, he is what's known as a filibuster.
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So a filibuster is someone who engages in unauthorized military expeditions into a foreign country or territory to foster or support a political revolution or secession.
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That was incredibly popular at this time because it's driven behind the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.
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And so not only do people believe, "Hey, it's Manifest Destiny for Americans to keep expanding westward," but they also would invade like Mexico and Central America.
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So William Walker does that.
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He invades Mexico unsuccessfully and then eventually invades Nicaragua successfully.
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So his habit of filibustering, is what it was called, is what's going to cause him to to cross uh paths with Vanderbilt.
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I'm going to get there in a minute.
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This is something that's very fascinating.
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So one of my favorite books that I've ever done was episode I've done it twice. It's episode 292.
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It's this book called The Invisible Billionaire.
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The book is almost impossible to find.
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I think I paid over $100 for my copy if I'm not mistaken.
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But it's about this guy named Daniel Ludwig, who in the 1980s was the richest American in uh the richest American and no one knew who he was.
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And so Daniel builds this massive conglomerate.
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I think it's in like, you know, 100 company 100 countries, I don't know, 30-something companies if I remember correctly.
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You know, it's in it's in shipping and mining and transportation and real estate and hauling oil for Standard Oil.
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But there's an idea in that book that I've never forgot, and it's the importance of doing certain things yourself.
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And so I'm just going to read uh from my notes from that book.
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It says, "Twice he had trusted the word of specialist and twice he had been burnt.
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He had believed them when they told him that he could bring his fully loaded uh 60,000-ton oil carriers down this river in South America without running aground. They were wrong.
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And then his geologist had failed to discover until after considerable work was done that the coral rock underlying the Grand Bahama Island was too fragile to support his giant supertankers.
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These mistakes had cost Daniel considerable time and expense.
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So before building a refinery in Panama, he decided to check out the site himself.
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And so the maxim here is do it yourself.
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He This He's already a billionaire when he does this.
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What this story I'm about to tell you.
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He catches a flight from New York to Panama.
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He goes to a little village store next to the bay.
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He He buys a string and a heavy bolt, and then he measures that string out in 6-ft lengths, ties a knot at each interval.
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He then goes to the dock and rents a boat.
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He spends the entire day going around the bay checking the accurate This is the the punchline.
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He spends the entire day going around the bay checking the accuracy of every depth mark on the nautical chart.
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Experts are saying, "No, we've already mapped this out. You can do it. Here's the chart."
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He goes and says, "I'm going to check for myself."
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Only when he had satisfied himself that the water was as deep as the chart said, did he fly back to New York and give the signal to begin construction.
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Vanderbilt does something very similar here. He sends his team down.
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He's like, "Okay, this is the route we're going to do.
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This is where we go and how we get people from the east coast of Nicaragua to the west coast."
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And so his advanced team is going down there and they're telling him, "No, we're running aground.
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We can't figure out how to do this."
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And so there's this great story in the book where there's this giant boat called the Prometheus, right?
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It lands in in uh Nicaragua.
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And there's only one person on the boat, and that's Vanderbilt.
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And it says, "The purpose of the voyage was so secret that not even Vanderbilt's wife knew that her husband had left town, let alone let alone where he was going."
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Goes back to that secretive obfuscation.
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I definitely didn't say that word, right?
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That secretive nature that he had.
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And it says, "Vanderbilt was on a mission.
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The news from Nicaragua had not been good.
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His steamers had been wrecked on the rapids and his team is saying the rapids were impassable.
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They declared that his dream of conveying passengers up the river to the lake was unrealizable."
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Cornelius Vanderbilt would see about that.
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He would not let a few rocks stand in the way of making a fortune in Nicaragua.
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And so he goes and meets his team.
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He actually knocks them out of the captain's chair, right?
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He starts piloting these boats down himself.
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Remember, at this time he started He was a steamboat entrepreneur at 11.
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He's like 52, 53, something like that where where we are in the story.
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And so it says, "With Vanderbilt at the controls, he literally walked over the rocks, using the paddle wheels of his steamer for feet.
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With the engineers shaking their heads in wonderment, the ship made it over the rapids." That's the first time.
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There's like three times he has to do this. So he gets the next one.
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"He showed his companions one of the tricks that he had learned from during his 50 years in the river navigation business."
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Remember, they had saying this is impossible. He goes down there.
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He's literally proving that it can be done.
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Tells them to break out the ropes.
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It says the ropes were breaking out.
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"One end was attached to trees upstream and the other was attached to the boat."
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He then lightened the entire boat of all but essential the people that needed to be on board, the essential people on board.
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Uh everyone else in the surging water, putting their shoulders to the hole.
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And with the engines at full capacity, he got it up and over the quote unquote impassable impassable rapids.
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He reloads the boat and they continue on their way northwest up the San Juan River.
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A few days later it says, "It was New Year's Day, 1851, and Cornelius Vanderbilt had just piloted the first steam-powered vessel to have negotiated the entire 119-mile length of the San Juan River and reached Lake Nicaragua from the Caribbean Sea.
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Not for the first time in his life or the last, Vanderbilt had said that something could be done and then gone out and proven it.
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In the process, he opened up the way to California, a path that would soon be followed by tens of thousands of his countrymen.
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So Daniel Ludwig, like Cornelius Vanderbilt before him, proves that sometimes you have to do it yourself.
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So, he starts his business, is phenomenally successful.
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This Nicaraguan transit business, it's the company's going to be called the Accessory Transit Company.
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In the first 12 months of operation, it carried 2,000 passengers.
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Oh, and I forgot to mention this another way he makes money in addition to the mail contracts.
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You're they're they're running gold, right?
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If you're you're discovering gold in the West Coast, you got to get it to the East Coast, which is the finance center.
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So, he's carrying 2,000 passengers first year and billions of dollars worth of gold as paying freight.
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In the first 12 months, it delivered Vanderbilt a personal profit of tens of millions of doll- in in today's equivalent, tens of millions of dollars.
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So, he has a deal where he pays like a flat upfront payment to the Nicaraguan government and this is, "Hey, you can make 10% of the profit."
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Now, here's the problem and this is what when William Walker is the president, he's going to cancel this contract because it says uh the the Nicaraguan government had not seen a single penny from the profit.
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They're supposed to get 10% and why?
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Because Vanderbilt claimed there was no profit.
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It's like Hollywood accounting.
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He slyly billed everything possible to the Accessory Transit Company.
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This speaks to one of his most pronounced traits, maybe the most pronounced trait.
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As you can imagine, he was unbelievably ruthless.
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Let me give you another story of this.
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So, he's from Staten Island, right? That's where he starts.
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Eventually, he wants to move from Staten Island to Manhattan because that is like the heartbeat, that's where the center of commerce is taking place.
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And his wife was like really pushing back.
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She wanted to stay on Staten Island.
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She did not want to move.
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They had like 13 kids or something like that.
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Not wanting to move the family in.
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So, she gets hysterical about the plan move from Staten Island to Manhattan and so Vanderbilt puts her in a private mental asylum for 3 months until she changes her mind.
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And so, remember at the beginning it says, "Hey, you know, most of Vanderbilt's adversaries were scared of Vanderbilt."
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William Walker wasn't and he should have been.
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So, when William Walker is going to confiscate his property, it's not like, "Oh, I'm going to sue you or I'm going to get back in court."
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He literally sends people to try to kill him.
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How does multiple multiple mercenaries? That is not hyperbolic.
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Like that's exactly what he did.
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He's unbelievably ruthless.
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And so, some of the stories that William Walker read when he was younger that had an influence on him, he was reading Julius Caesar's memoirs about his conquest of Gaul and then he read about Sam Houston.
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So, Sam Houston was William Walker's hero.
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And William Walker sees a lot of similarities between him and Houston.
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Says like Walker, Houston had been born and raised in Nashville. Then he became a lawyer.
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He had go- Houston had gone on to serve as a US Congressman representing Tennessee and had also been the governor of Tennessee.
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Houston had settled in the Mexican state of Texas and 2 years later, he became general of the army of Texas settlers that defeated Mexico's president.
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Then they created the new Republic of Texas.
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In 1836, Houston become the first president of the Republic of Tes- of Texas.
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If this is William Walker's belief, if General Sam Houston could carve a new nation out of Mexican territory, so William Walker believed could he.
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And so, Walker is going to invade Mexico.
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I think he last like 60 days, something like that, but then he gets kicked out and sent back to the United States.
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That failure in turn leads him to turn his gaze to Nicaragua.
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Now, there is something that's that's also interesting is Cornelius Vanderbilt had never taken a vacation in his life.
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And so, he builds this I think it's the largest ship in the world at the time, his largest personal ship.
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And he's going to take off with his entire family to Europe uh because he's like, you know, everything's going so good with all my businesses and I made tens of millions of dollars in profit in the first year uh from the Accessory Transit Company.
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He's got partners on the Accessory Transit Company and so, while he's on vacation, they actually screw him over.
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And so, this betrayal leads to his most famous quote.
23:33
And there is so much back and forth between so, it's going to be Morgan and Garrison. This is not J. P. Morgan, by the way. It's another Morgan.
23:42
So, it's going to be Vanderbilt versus Morgan and Garrison, okay?
23:43
I'm going to give you an overview of this and then there's all kinds of they just go to war this throughout this entire book and obviously Vanderbilt's going to win.
23:51
So, it says, "Dur- During your Vanderbilt's European absence," this is when he's on vacation for the first time in his life, right?
23:57
I remember uh when I was reading about the early history of PayPal, I think Elon goes on vacation for the first time.
24:01
I think he gets malaria and then he gets there's a coup.
24:04
And so, his his takeaway was, "Never go on vacation."
24:07
Uh Vanderbilt never goes on vacation again after this, too.
24:11
I don't know why I'm laughing.
24:13
All right, there cuz he's just so crazy. He just he's nuts.
24:17
Vanderbilt's absolutely nuts.
24:19
During Vanderbilt's European absence, Morgan and Garrison collaborated to manipulate transit company stock in their favor.
24:25
They held a secret board meeting in which Morgan was elected to the vacant company presidency and appointed the company's New York agent.
24:30
They replaced Vanderbilt in that role.
24:34
The board had also voted to cease Vanderbilt's 20% skim of company revenue.
24:39
I should say that over and over again.
24:40
This guy is he's just double-dealing everybody.
24:42
Like I wouldn't cross him, but I sure as hell wouldn't be his partner, either.
24:46
So, he will do this this thing where it's like, you know, it's just also have shareholders.
24:50
This is a I he he has shareholders and then he will if he has a deal that puts more money in his pocket at the detriment to his shareholders, he will still do that.
24:59
I don't think he will even fiducia- The only fiduciary he believed in was himself.
25:05
Uh as I guess you were saying.
25:05
So, he was also skimming 20% of the company revenue for himself, okay?
25:08
Then Vanderbilt's attorney and business partner, this guy named Joseph L. White.
25:14
So, he's on Vanderbilt's side.
25:14
White's an insane story, too, which I'm not even going to touch on.
25:18
I'll give you like a brief overview. He's in the book.
25:19
He's Vanderbilt's attorney and imagine your attorney and your business partner doing this to you, right?
25:24
So, he's he's an attorney and business partner.
25:28
Then he betrays Vanderbilt.
25:31
Then he goes back to Vanderbilt.
25:31
I think he betrays him again and goes back.
25:33
It's so amazing how this happens over and over again in Vanderbilt's life.
25:36
So, his attorney business partners see sells his stock, resigns from the board.
25:40
They set up another company.
25:43
Then he buys his attorney buys that new company stock on the cheap.
25:47
And so, just like William Walker will do in the future, essentially takes company assets, transfers them to either they're under their own control, right?
25:54
And then cuts off this is the the main end result.
25:58
Vanderbilt's cash flow, remember I just told you for the first 12 months he's making tens of millions of dollars in today's money, right?
26:04
And there's in the future looks like it's going to just keep printing money.
26:08
Vanderbilt's cash flow from the transit company had been choked off.
26:11
Vanderbilt comes back to New York months later, finds out.
26:15
This is his fame most famous quote.
26:15
He immediately dictated a short letter to both Morgan and Garrison.
26:19
"Gentlemen, you have undertaken to cheat me.
26:21
I won't sue you for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you.
26:26
Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt."
26:30
So, then his first response, I just wrote same MO, same modus operandi, right?
26:34
Like Corne- Cornelius's Vanderbilt's assault on Morgan, Garrison and the other rogue directors of the Accessory Transit Company had gathered pace.
26:42
What do you think he's going to do?
26:43
He does what he did his whole life.
26:46
A new steamship operator named Independent Opposition Line was advertised in New York newspapers for $150.
26:56
This new line would take you to California via Panama.
26:57
He he starts out and like go back to that meeting with the Secretary of State. Listen to this, man.
27:03
So, he starts out, right?
27:05
He's like, "You guys are charging 600, I'll make money uh at 300, cut in half in price."
27:09
Then he's wildly successful at 300.
27:12
Then he gets his company taken away from him. And so, what does he do?
27:16
He's like, "I won't cut the price again.
27:17
I will now take you for $150."
27:19
He's not making money at $150, by the way.
27:21
And the story gets even funnier.
27:23
What is what ship is the Independent Line using?
27:26
It is using the North Star.
27:28
The North Star was this insanely luxurious yacht that he built just to go on his first vacation.
27:34
He comes back and like, "I'm never going on vacation again. Screw that yacht."
27:39
He stripped it of all the beautiful interior and then fitted it out to carry 600 passengers.
27:43
It says he would never again trifle with such a fabulous toy and would never again take an extended vacation.
27:51
This first maneuver is so successful and it sets up his second maneuver. Listen to this.
27:55
So, he's going to exactly what happens what what what I was talking about earlier what what he does in his career where he's like, "Okay, I'm going to go compete head-to-head to you.
28:02
I'm going to cut my rates.
28:04
You're going to have to cut your rates to match me.
28:06
It's going to bleed you dry.
28:08
You're going to realize, 'Hey, I just need to settle with this guy so he goes away and then I can go and jack my rates back up and actually make money.'"
28:14
So, they go and do this, too.
28:16
So, the ex- So, now his former partners who try to screw who try to screw him over, right?
28:21
They go to him and say, "Hey, you know, this is unsustainable. Sell us your ships.
28:26
We will pay you to go away."
28:29
Maybe they thought he did this in the past, he'll do it now, right?
28:30
But this is different in the past.
28:32
This war had dropped the stock price of the transit company shares all the way down to $21.
28:38
So, like we got to get out of this.
28:39
We're going to pay him off.
28:41
So, they they go to Vanderbilt and they give him a proposal. He accepts it.
28:42
So, then Morgan and Garrison are like, "Oh, this is great."
28:47
It says, "The deal signaled So, Morgan and Garrison believed that Vanderbilt had given up his plan to ruin them." Wrong. Wrong.
28:55
But Vanderbilt had done no such thing. Listen to what he does.
28:57
So, he's going to take their own money. Think about it.
29:00
He's he just got a bunch of money from them.
29:01
He's going to find ways to use that money to their own demise.
29:06
So, having wrung his outstanding commissions from his enemies, money few observers thought he had any hope of recovering, Vanderbilt would embark on a fresh campaign to ruin the pair cashed up with their own money.
29:15
For 2 months, nothing was heard from him.
29:17
Meanwhile, the Accessory Transit Company failed to deliver a dividend.
29:22
Why did they fail to deliver a dividend?
29:24
Because they had this huge settlement they had to pay Vanderbilt.
29:26
So, that money that was going to go to the shareholders as a dividend had to go to Vanderbilt.
29:30
So, when they failed to pay the January dividend, you have Vanderbilt's son-in-law, this guy named Daniel Allen, who was a former transit company vice president and a shareholder, launched a legal action against the current directors, which is Morgan and Garrison, right?
29:43
Accusing them of incompetent management, misappropriation of funds, and the illegal issuing of 40,000 new shares in the company, which they had to to issue to finance the purchase of Vanderbilt's seven ships. The judge agrees.
29:59
He issues an injunction against Morgan and Garrison, prevents that prevents them from issuing more stock or entering into new contracts with any other company.
30:09
That uncertainty causes shareholders to dump transit company stock, and obviously it value can it continues to decline.
30:14
Now you have a falling stock price, you have a temporarily troubled company, you have a guy that's sitting on a bunch of cash that the company just gave him for his seven ships.
30:24
What do you think he's going to do next?
30:25
With the share price down, Vanderbilt began to acquire Accessory Transit Company stock, a parcel here, a parcel there, frequently using friends as the buyers.
30:33
Goes back to this obfuscation, this thing that he's always concealing his motions.
30:36
He does it his motives motions and motives actually.
30:40
He does this his entire career.
30:42
Month by month, Vanderbilt discreetly he secretly rebuilt his stockholding in the company, working towards the day when he could again boost a controlling interest and kick Morgan and Garrison out.
30:55
So I'm going to fast forward a little bit in the story.
30:56
Walker has already taken control.
30:57
There's a civil war going on in Nicaragua at the time.
30:59
Walker intervenes, once winning, taking control, and is heavily reliant on the steamships that are bringing supplies, reinforcements, they're bringing him weapons, they're bringing him gold, they're bringing everything he needs to fight a war, this ongoing war, and run a country.
31:17
That war and uncertainties also going to play into Vanderbilt's uh hands.
31:19
Now he was not expecting to have Walker confiscate his uh property, but he doesn't have control over the transit company yet.
31:29
And so here are some events that are going on in Nicaragua at the time and how it affects Vanderbilt's plan to to ruin. Remember?
31:34
It says Vanderbilt was close to pouncing on the men he'd promised to ruin, Morgan and Garrison.
31:39
The war in Nicaragua had been good news to Vanderbilt because it had depressed the price of Accessory Transit Company stock again.
31:44
So as the bad news puts the price down, he keeps buying more and more.
31:48
Then because there's a lot of Americans traveling through Nicaragua to try to get to the the West Coast for the Gold Rush, right?
31:53
They're in the middle of a civil war going on.
31:55
And so a few American transit passion passengers are actually murdered.
31:59
And so as you can imagine, the stock is getting killed.
32:03
And this is the important part.
32:03
It says Vanderbilt did not share their pessimistic outlook for Nicaragua, meaning the market's pessimistic outlook. Why?
32:09
The route to California is too important.
32:11
He knew that the US government would intervene.
32:13
The US government is not going to at this point, especially, is not going to allow American citizens to be murdered in Nicaragua.
32:20
And at the same time, as you can imagine, people are are hearing stories of, you know, American citizens getting murdered on their way to California, so they choose a different route.
32:28
And so for the first time in the company history, they have to borrow money cuz they're not making money anymore.
32:32
And so if you think about the two different views, right?
32:34
You have the stock you have to ask yourself like, well, if you are if you own the company and now your stock is getting hammered, right?
32:40
But you are optimistic about its future, like Cornelius Vanderbilt is, you'd buy more.
32:46
But Morgan and Garrison aren't doing that.
32:47
And it goes back to this idea that I had mentioned earlier.
32:50
Vanderbilt's approach to business was often marked by a sly concealment of his intentions, keeping information close while simultaneously gathering intelligence on competitors.
32:56
This strategic obfuscation allowed him to make moves that others often couldn't predict or comprehend until it was too late.
33:03
He they don't know he's buying up the stock, right?
33:05
He's certainly not telling them.
33:06
And then publicly, he's like, oh, I don't care about this route anymore.
33:10
I'm focused on launching a transatlantic ocean steamer service to France.
33:14
So as a result, it says Morgan and Garrison did not see him coming.
33:20
They did not have sufficient faith in the future of the transit business to buy up the cheap shares themselves.
33:26
Vanderbilt was only weeks away from winning the larger game by completing his overthrow of Morgan and Garrison and resuming control of the Accessory Transit Company.
33:36
And that's exactly what happens less than a year later.
33:37
Vanderbilt and his friends had acquired a controlling shareholding in the company, and at the company's January board meeting, Vanderbilt would be elected as director once more.
33:45
The directorships of Morgan and Garrison would be terminated.
33:48
Morgan and Garrison were out of the door.
33:52
Vanderbilt was back in control of the company that he founded.
33:55
And so shortly after this happened, this is when William Walker decides to seize.
33:59
He uses the his power as the the president of Nicaragua, right?
34:02
To seize all transit company assets in Nicaragua as part of the payment for what he considered hundreds of thousands of dollars that he contended were owed to them by the transit company in unpaid commissions cuz they were supposed to be getting 10% of all the profits.
34:17
So he's going to seize Vanderbilt's lake and river boats, uh their depots, their buildings, the employee houses, all the equipment, their stagecoaches, their horses, their mules, everything.
34:28
And so in Vanderbilt's estimation, those assets were close to worth to close to a million dollars in, you know, 1850 dollars. So billions today?
34:37
And so Vanderbilt's going to approach this problem just like he does every other problem.
34:42
You see that he doesn't just have one vector of attack.
34:44
He always uses multiple attack vectors.
34:48
And one thing he knows, this is very fascinating.
34:50
Remember, it says that he's going to die with more money than US Treasury. He is richer.
34:53
He's got more This is not even a joke.
34:55
He's got more money than all I think every single Central American government combined, right?
35:01
Which is a wild uh statement.
35:01
So he says, Vanderbilt knew that after 18 months of civil war, the Nicaraguan government was as good as bankrupt and could not afford to buy as much as a rowboat.
35:13
And so his first method of attack, he goes to the Secretary of State and he says he just runs into his office.
35:17
This is right after he finds out the Nicaraguan government had canceled his charters, took all of his his assets, and he says he exploded with rage and indignation and demanded redress by the US government.
35:29
He wants the US government to use their military to get his assets back.
35:33
The very next day, he does the same thing to the British ambassador in Washington, D. C.
35:37
because at this time in in history, the British Empire is down there, Americans are down there, Mexicans are down there.
35:42
There's an ongoing like war between, you know, five other Central American countries.
35:49
Like there's all kinds of different parties at stake here.
35:51
And so the British agree to help Vanderbilt because Vanderbilt was already aware that Walker was a thorn in the side of the British government cuz he the he had been trying to occupy Greytown, which was under British control or rule at this time.
36:05
And so the British ambassador agrees to permanently station a warship at Greytown and tells Vanderbilt that he could ask for the assistance of the commander of that ship.
36:13
So starts with the Secretary of State of America, then goes to the ambassador of Britain.
36:18
Then he goes and meets immediately with the ambassadors of the Central American states of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
36:29
And the ambassador of Colombia.
36:29
And so Vanderbilt tells them a story that, hey, you guys have to be really careful here, that William Walker's actual ambition is not just complete control and presidency of Nicaragua, he actually plans to conquer all five nations and make himself their emperor.
36:46
That might have actually been true because the the start like the the flag that Walker uses for his, I guess like miniature empire at this point, is a five-pointed red star.
36:57
And so at the very end of the book, it kind of speculates on Walker's motives.
37:01
This is after the epilogue, and I don't even know if how many people even get to the this page, but it says it that there was other people around Walker that he that said he was indeed bent on the creation of a Central American Empire with himself at the head.
37:16
Now, how realistic that would have been at this point and Walker doesn't really have assets, doesn't have a lot of weapons, doesn't have a lot of people, that's one thing, but Vanderbilt was really smart in saying, hey, this is where he's at now, he's going to expand, we should work together to get rid of this guy.
37:29
And the reason I think it's so smart is because if you think about all of the the conversations he had with the Secretary of State of America, the ambassador of Britain, all these ambassadors in Central America Central American states, he's turning everyone against Walker by appealing to their interest.
37:44
He's not saying, hey, let me get my ships back because I'm super rich and I want to be even richer.
37:50
He's saying, look, Walker's meddling in all he he's trying to overthrow Greytown.
37:54
That's under British control.
37:55
He's meddling in all the ideas or meddling in the politics and going against the interests of the US government.
38:01
You're the Secretary of State, you can't let that happen.
38:02
Hey, look, he has his flag, he's going to eventually invade your country just like he did for Nicaragua.
38:07
But turning everyone against Walker by appealing to their interest is the really smart move here.
38:13
And then another problem on this attack.
38:15
He goes directly to the United States people.
38:19
He did announce in the press, the Nicaragua line is withdrawn for the present in consequence of the difficulties in that country growing out of the extraordinary conduct of General Walker.
38:28
This is Vanderbilt talking.
38:31
Growing out of the extraordinary conduct of General Walker in seizing or taking by force the property of American citizens.
38:37
I deem it a duty I owe the public, to the country, and to the transit company to remain quiet by letting the ships of the company That's hilarious.
38:43
Now, he's not being quiet at all.
38:45
To remain quiet by letting the ships of the company lay at their warves until our government has sufficient time to examine and look into the outrage committed upon their property. It's not a US company.
38:56
This is crazy that he's even doing this because it's a Nicaraguan company.
38:59
But Vanderbilt has this extremely advanced understanding of human nature where it's like, okay, well, hey, look at this this guy.
39:05
He comes down there and he steals US property.
39:11
What is the US government going to do about this?
39:13
They have to get that US property back. It's personal property. It's his property.
39:17
And the company isn't even registered in this country. And we're not done.
39:21
He again, multiple multiple attacks.
39:23
He starts hiring secret agents, mercenaries.
39:25
He pays them to travel, gives them guns, gives them people, gives them money, and says, go to Central America and disrupt in any way possible the activities of William Walker.
39:37
This is a guy named Birdsall.
39:39
That's the first one that goes down there. He's one of many.
39:40
That Their job is to to actually steal back from Walker Vanderbilt's property and ships.
39:48
Then he directly finances soldiers and mercenaries and other Central American companies so this is countries other this is another war by proxies essentially what he's doing here.
39:56
It was the first time in two decades that the countries of Central America had stopped fighting each other and come together in a joint joint cause.
40:01
Thanks to Cornelius Vanderbilt for it had been his money that helped arm the troops of Guatemala and El Salvador.
40:10
Vanderbilt had more money than all Central American governments combined.
40:16
Vanderbilt had now gone to war with Walker.
40:18
For Vanderbilt this was not business, this was personal.
40:22
Vanderbilt was determined to destroy William Walker.
40:25
He called him that tin sol- that tin soldier in Nicaragua he called him.
40:29
Walker had taken his property and then went and climbed into bed with Vanderbilt's competitors.
40:33
This was why Vanderbilt had marked Walker for destruction.
40:37
That line This is why Vanderbilt had marked Walker for destruction.
40:42
When I read that what came to mind is when I did the episode on Rockefeller's letters to his son on episode 324.
40:47
Rockefeller said something that was very similar in that in those letters.
40:52
He says as far this is Rockefeller writing, "As far as my nature is concerned, I do not meet competition. I destroy competitors."
41:00
Vanderbilt had marked Walker for destruction.
41:03
So even though Vanderbilt was rich, right?
41:05
He could still run his steamers in another location.
41:07
So why isn't he doing that?
41:10
And this goes back to the thing that, you know, bad boys move in silence.
41:13
He always has different ways to make money.
41:14
He's never going to tell you all the ways that he is making money.
41:16
So he has all these boats, right?
41:18
That are not under conscription by William Walker and he's just letting them sit there.
41:24
What he was also doing was there's all these different routes.
41:26
You can do the Panama route, right?
41:28
Remember they were still landing.
41:29
This is still pre-Panama Canal.
41:31
You can land on the East Coast through the Caribbean Sea into Panama.
41:34
Take that short trip across and then run them up the West Coast through the Pacific Ocean.
41:38
And so he goes to the company that has a monopoly on this Panama route and says, "Hey, I will leave all these steamers."
41:44
They're just sitting here costing me a ton of money.
41:48
I can run them against you, but you wouldn't want that.
41:49
Why don't you pay me to not compete with you?"
41:51
And that's exactly what he does. Check this out.
41:52
So it says, "Vanderbilt himself had been secretly making a vast profit from his idle steamships."
41:58
Previously Vanderbilt had paid a visit to his competitor this guy named Aspinwall.
42:01
And he made a deal with him.
42:04
For two months Aspinwall had paid him $40,000 a month on the condition that Vanderbilt not put his steamers on the Panama run in competition with Aspinwall's own vessels.
42:17
That money went to Vanderbilt personally not to the transit company even though this is those are transit company's assets.
42:24
Over the next two years this deal would net Vanderbilt personally close to a million dollars.
42:28
And again that is a million dollars in, you know, 1855 dollars.
42:33
That's a staggering sum of money.
42:37
And so this is why I said earlier like I don't think I can think of another like equivalent to somebody else that I've read about like Vanderbilt.
42:43
So go back to this like persistent desire to destroy this they called they said what?
42:48
An unquenchable thirst for conquest.
42:52
Vanderbilt's tactics were aimed at killing off the the new Nicaraguan government so that's Walker.
42:57
Quietly and covertly he had been pouring money into the capitals of small countries adjoining Nicaragua.
43:01
It was Vanderbilt who armed the soldiers.
43:03
It was Vanderbilt who sent those governments money.
43:07
It was Vanderbilt who had purchased weapons and ammunition and shipped it all to Central America.
43:10
The invasion of Nicaragua by the allied armies these are that's what they called the other armies the other Central American armies, right?
43:18
The invasion of Nicaragua by the other Central American government armies had been motivated, financed, and equipped by Vanderbilt.
43:24
As far as Vanderbilt was concerned there had to be a way to beat William Walker and by hook or by crook he would find it.
43:34
And so I want to go back to something I mentioned earlier that you have this child prodigy.
43:37
He speaks like six languages.
43:39
By the time he's, you know, 20 or whatever the age he's got a law degree, a medical degree, graduated college at 14.
43:46
Clearly, you know, from an academic perspective like a a great student, tests really high, gets all these credentials.
43:54
But when dealing with people I don't have any other way to put this but unbelievably naive and stupid.
44:02
This is a intelligent dumb person.
44:05
Because from William Walker's perspective, first of all he didn't know any of this stuff was going on.
44:08
He didn't expect Vanderbilt which is really weird to cuz William Walker's an American.
44:13
He knows everybody in America this time knows Vanderbilt's a rich person. He's powerful. He's ruthless.
44:19
He but his whole point was like this is legal.
44:21
I am the president of Nicaragua.
44:24
You Vanderbilt had signed this legal contract with us.
44:26
You did not live up to your end of the bargain.
44:29
It was legal for me to confiscate your property.
44:34
And what William Walker failed to understand is that for people like Vanderbilt laws are just words written down on paper.
44:41
He does not give a One of his most famous quotes says, "What do I care about the law? Ain't I got the power?"
44:48
This is like basic history 101.
44:51
Throughout human history if you take something of value for another human they tend to react in very violent ways.
44:58
Walker thought he was protected by the law.
45:00
Walker thought he was protected by words on paper.
45:02
You got Vanderbilt saying, "Secretary of State go kill this guy.
45:05
British government go kill this guy.
45:07
Mercenary 1 2 3 4 5 go kill this guy.
45:10
Government of El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia go kill this guy."
45:16
This is why you and I have talked about over and over and over again.
45:18
This is not a podcast where just list all the business ideas.
45:21
That's not you have to understand why they are like this is why we spend so much time on the struggle their early life.
45:28
If you understand their early life you will understand why they are the way they are and therefore you have a fundamental understanding how to deal with them.
45:35
William Walker should have been smart enough to look at somebody like Vanderbilt and know that's not somebody you want to cross whether the law says you can or not.
45:45
And so it's this point in the book where the author actually compares and contrasts their vastly different childhoods.
45:49
Walker's mistake was messing with Vanderbilt's property.
45:51
How different these two men were.
45:53
When Walker was 12 years old he was a child prodigy just beginning college.
45:57
When Vanderbilt was 12 he was salvaging cargo on a vessel that ran aground next to his house.
46:04
His dad gave young Cornelius three wagons and told him to get the job done.
46:09
At 15 Vanderbilt wanted to buy his own first vessel.
46:13
It was a $100 flat-bottomed sailing barge.
46:15
He did not have $100 so he does a deal with his mom.
46:20
"If I plow this 8-acre lot on our family farm will you give me $100?"
46:27
She says, "Yes, but you have to do it before your 16th birthday which was in 20-something days." So what does he do?
46:32
Vanderbilt brought in all the boys of the neighborhood on the promise of free rides on his new boat the new boat he doesn't have yet.
46:40
And sure enough they helped him plow the lot.
46:42
Vanderbilt starts his first company at 16 years old.
46:45
He is going against competing grown men.
46:50
Stories through Vanderbilt.
46:50
They are not solving things in the early steamboat ferry industry by going to the judge or the lawyers.
46:56
They are literally the If you read any book on Cornelius Vanderbilt they it's fists.
47:02
They settle disputes with their fists.
47:06
Now you take that poor, smart, determined, obviously very intelligent person just cuz he's not educated formally, right?
47:12
And you take that person that had those experiences at 11, 12, 15, 16.
47:16
You fast forward 40 years and he's the richest one of the richest people in the world.
47:22
And that's the guy you decide to take his property?
47:25
Whatever you call that that miscalculation one thing you cannot call it you cannot call that intelligent.
47:31
If you care about your life you cannot cross people like that.
47:33
And in many cases you can't predict who it's safe to cross and who it's safe not to cross.
47:37
So you probably just This is why I say rule number two in the center of family life which I teach my kids is mind your own business.
47:43
That is for their safety.
47:46
And so in yet another plan he literally puts $50,000 actually $100,000 on William Walker's head.
47:55
He has two more mercenaries come to meet him in New York and says, "Hey, you come back and if you can get Walker out of there dead or alive you come back to this office and you are each going to receive $50,000 in cold hard cash."
48:09
Remember that's $50,000 each it's 100 grand at a time when the average laborer made $600 a year.
48:16
So one of the guys he offered that $50,000 to is this guy named Silvanus Spencer who goes down to Central America and starts just confiscating and confiscating ships blowing them up as we'll see.
48:25
So it says, "Silvanus Spencer had captured Hip's Point, El Castillo, and Fort San Lucas."
48:29
These are all things that were previously under William Walker's control.
48:32
Plus four river steamers and a lake steamer.
48:35
So he took five he captures three ports and five boats.
48:40
This left just three lake steamers remained available to Walker and Spencer had a plan for seizing them, too. This is the punchline.
48:48
This is why I'm reading this to you.
48:49
Deprived of vessels Walker would be like a man without legs.
48:55
And Cornelius Vanderbilt would be one critical step closer to winning his war. A short time later.
49:01
You see this is very consistent in Walker's personality his miscalculations.
49:07
The allied He's now fighting the allied army, right?
49:09
The army that that Vanderbilt funded and set up.
49:11
They have 4,000 people, okay? Walker's got 900.
49:16
One of his captains does something that Walker doesn't like.
49:20
And so he winds up dismissing him.
49:23
You don't What are you doing?
49:24
You're getting rid of one of your best people because of your principle, right? This is life and death. You are at war.
49:30
There's 4,000 people right around, you know, on the other side of that line. You got 900.
49:36
And so he says there's this meeting between this captain that Walker dismisses and Walker.
49:40
This is what Walker says, "If this is the way you're going to do business, Nicaragua has no further use for you.
49:45
We want nothing of this sort done here, sir."
49:47
The embarrassed captain departed without a word and was never heard of again, even though he was surrounded by 4,000 people.
49:53
Walker was prepared to let officers go if they broke his rules.
49:58
Walker fails to realize that he's at war with someone who has no regard for rules.
50:01
So, Walker's dealing with sabotage.
50:03
He's losing all of his steamers. He's got 900 men.
50:05
He's got 4,000 people surrounding him.
50:08
He's got all these other mercenaries put up by Vanderbilt taking his stuff. And then what happens?
50:13
There's another Vanderbilt attack.
50:14
That same day, the US Navy's 958-ton warship called the St.
50:19
Mary's dropped anchor a little distance from Walker.
50:24
The guy running the ship is Commander Davis.
50:26
Commander Davis had come to Nicaragua with express orders from Washington.
50:30
Officially, he was to take steps as circumstances required for the protection of American citizens in Nicaragua.
50:36
In reality, the Navy secretary, at the request of the Secretary of State and the urging of Cornelius Vanderbilt, had given Davis the job of ending the war by removing William Walker from Nicaragua. One way or the other.
50:48
Remember, he's got multiple tax running simultaneously against against his enemy enemy.
50:52
One way or another, the Commodore, which is Cornelius Vanderbilt's nickname since he was a kid.
50:57
One way or another, Vanderbilt was determined to get Walker.
51:02
So, shortly after this, one of the few steamers that Walker still has access to, that's giving him, you know, supplies, weapons, more recruits that like come and fight, blows up and 60 men were killed in the blast.
51:17
Walker wrote that this was just ill luck.
51:21
He doesn't even know what's going on. It wasn't ill luck.
51:24
It says several eyewitnesses believe that it was caused by some miscreant who threw a flask of powder gunpowder into the furnace.
51:28
We know that it must have been powder from the fact from the fact that the faces of the wounded were a great deal blackened with gunpowder.
51:38
And it was indeed powder that had caused the explosion.
51:42
Previously, when this vessel had stopped to refuel, it had taken on board pieces of gunpowder-filled firewood.
51:49
So, he's throwing in firewood that doesn't that obviously doesn't know has gunpowder in there cuz that would cause the ship to blow up, right?
51:54
That gunpowder powder-filled firewood had been planted at the riverbank depot weeks before the disaster.
52:01
It was planted there by a mercenary in the employment of Cornelius Vanderbilt.
52:09
This action finally sealed the fate of the filibusters with Walker with an improvised explosive device and brought to a close the last attempt to reclaim the river and send hundreds of desperately needed men to Walker.
52:20
Walker was now cut off from the Atlantic and Gulf states.
52:27
So, no new men, no new supplies, and no new food.
52:29
It says, "Walker's army had been surviving on a small ration of mule meat."
52:34
"A little more of this," one of Walker's soldiers said, "and we'll have to start eating the prisoners."
52:41
Everybody around Walker is trying to convince now him to surrender.
52:45
Eventually, they get through and they said, "Hey, if you surrender, you can surrender to the US and they they won't kill you.
52:49
They'll bring you back to the United States."
52:50
So, it says on May 1st, William Walker boarded the US warship.
52:55
This is Commander Davis, the guy that was sent down there, right?
52:56
Commander Davis insisted that all of Walker's ships that he had left, I think he had two left, uh be handed over to the allies.
53:02
So, those are the other Central American armies that Vanderbilt funded, along with all of Walker's rifles, cannons, and ammunition.
53:08
Walker surrendered with only 407 troops remaining.
53:14
Cornelius Vanderbilt wins and it says he can now enjoy the spoils of his Nicaraguan victory.
53:18
Unbelievably, uh Walker goes back to the United States, invades tries to reinvade again, fails like a few days later, then goes back to the United States for the second time, then for the third time tries to invade.
53:33
This time, the British capture him.
53:33
They hand him over to the Honduran government and on September 12th, 1860, a 36-year-old William Walker was led blindfolded onto the beach.
53:46
They asked him if he had any last words.
53:48
He was still speaking when his executioners fired.
53:49
The officer in charge then walked up to Walker's fallen body, put a pistol to his face, and fired at point-blank range so that the corpse could never be recognized.
54:01
Walker's naked body was then buried in the sand.
54:05
By this time, Cornelius Vanderbilt had forgotten all about William Walker because he wasn't even interested in Nicaragua anymore.
54:11
Because it turns out it wasn't William Walker that sealed the fate of the Nicaraguan Transit Company.
54:18
It was the Intercontinental Railroad that opened up linking California and the East Coast rendering his Transit Company obsolete.
54:25
And the final trait that I want to impart to you that Vanderbilt had that was beneficial in business is that he would surf each new technological wave that he believed in.
54:36
So, it said, "Vanderbilt had seen the future of railroads well before many others.
54:40
He would accumulate controlling interest in 16 key lines."
54:42
So, 16, I think I said 13 earlier, so it's even more.
54:46
He would accumulate controlling interest in 16 key lines.
54:50
During the Civil War, he chartered a number of his steamships to the US government which converted them into warships.
54:55
But after the war, he consolidated his shipping interest and concentrated on the iron rail, buying up railroad after railroad.
55:03
His crowning glory was the construction of New York City's first Grand Central Terminal.
55:07
His statue stands outside Grand Central Station to this day.
55:12
Steamships had made Vanderbilt wealthy, but railroads made him one of the richest men in history.
55:21
And that is where I'll leave it.
55:21
For the full story, highly recommend reading the book.
55:24
If you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your podcast player or available at founderspodcast.
55:28
com, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time.
55:31
That is 341 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.
55:36
There's this theme that comes up over and over again on the podcast and I think it's obvious the more you listen is that the the people that you and I study on the podcast, even though they didn't know each other, many cases they're alive at different times in history, they're working in different industries, uh they're they live on different parts of the planet, they are much more alike to each other, right?
55:55
That's why these themes pop up over and over again.
55:58
They're much more like to each other than they are to like the general population.
56:01
And the same is true for people that listen to Founders.
56:03
There's this uh like this I have this like metaphor in my mind lately.
56:07
Uh like I think of I picture like a an iceberg, right?
56:11
Where anytime I get messages, you know, I get messages from people that listen, they don't know each other, they usually ask for similar things.
56:21
And it took me years to realize to take like the the advice that's on the podcast, right?
56:26
Uh I think of what Michael Jordan said that successful people listen, the people the people that uh don't listen don't last long.
56:33
And he was talking about, you know, obviously uh not only uh listening like in the terms of learning from history, studying the great people that came before him, listening to his coaches, his trainers, all the people that he has around him trying to help him be better at his profession, right?
56:46
But what happens is what I've come to realize is like anytime I get a bunch of these messages, because the same holds true for the people that listen to the podcast, just like the same holds true for the people that we study on the podcast, that people that listen to Founders are much more alike to each other than we are to the general population.
57:01
And what will happen is I'll get these messages and people will be asking in in many cases over a long period of time for very similar things, even though they didn't know each other.
57:11
And every time that has happened so far that I actually dig deeper, it's that the these messages I'm getting are it's like the tip of the iceberg, the the part that is outside of the water.
57:21
And then you go deeper and you have this mass underneath that is hidden.
57:22
You just had to actually look.
57:25
And this happened with the the initial creation of Founders Notes to begin with because for years, as you know, I would go and like shout from the mountaintops about this app called Readwise that I was like, "Oh my god, this is incredible for, you know, since 2018 I've been putting every single note, highlight, everything uh that I'm all the prep that I'm doing for the podcast into this database that I can then search.
57:49
And so, I'm constantly revisiting what I'm learning.
57:53
You know, I think I'm what, 8 years into this.
57:55
And the deeper I go into this, I realize how right Napoleon was when he kept saying that, "Hey, experience must be supplemented by study.
58:03
No man's personal experience can be so inclusive as to warrant his disregarding the experience of others."
58:08
You know, he would say over and over again, "You need to read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Frederick the Great. Make them your models.
58:15
This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets in the art of war."
58:18
The same is applied to entrepreneurship, which we see over and over again.
58:20
So, and we see over and over again in the sense that they're constantly studying the great people that came before them.
58:25
So, once people said, "Hey, I want access to uh your your notes and highlights."
58:28
For years, people were asking me for this.
58:32
That is the tip of the iceberg.
58:32
Then I build this product, which is Founders Notes.
58:35
You can get it at foundersnotes.
58:36
com if you don't already have it.
58:37
And it turns out there's this huge mass of people underneath that that want access to it, that see the value in constantly reading and rereading my notes and highlights.
58:44
Because, of course, by rereading my notes and highlights, it's going to spawn ideas that you can use in your work. That was the first part.
58:50
The second part was then people started asking, "Hey, I know it's an annual subscription, is there a way I can just do a one-time?
58:55
Can I just pay once and have it forever?"
58:57
And then over the last few weeks, as you've already heard, I started testing it out cuz I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting."
59:01
So, that if we do that, like comes a tool.
59:03
And that's kind of weird.
59:06
Like how many times it's a becomes a tool that you can use for your entire career.
59:09
So, you'd get not only every single note and highlight that I've done so far, but every single note and highlight that I will do in the future.
59:15
And I have to do this in the future because I can't make the podcast without this.
59:18
Essentially, what I'm building, what Founders Notes is for you, is my internal tool to condense and clarify the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs.
59:26
That's exactly what I'm trying to do.
59:27
And so, once I listen, I said, "Okay, well, let me test this out.
59:30
Let me see what happens."
59:30
The response has been overwhelming.
59:31
Most people are opting for the one-time option, and there's very few products or services that you can buy that actually get better with time.
59:39
So, think about how crazy this is.
59:40
So, if you sign up for the one-time option, okay?
59:44
You get everything I do in the future.
59:45
So, the product by default every week, cuz I keep adding to it every week, improves over time.
59:49
But then, I'm also building all these other new features, and then you get all those features essentially for free.
59:55
So, that product that That's another way the product keeps improving in the future.
59:58
So, what one thing I've just did, and I've been telling you about this, is you Before, forever, you've been able to search my notes and highlights, right? In a keyword search.
1:00:07
So, anything you're thinking about, hiring, firing, recruiting, advertising, marketing, a specific person like Ogilvy or Buffett or Munger or anybody else that you and I have studied on the podcast.
1:00:16
Then, we just added, and this is live now, by the way, and I've had all these tools internally, cuz me and the the founders of Readwise have been testing this, and the engineers at Readwise have have been testing this, cuz this is who I partner with to to build it.
1:00:27
And so, we always seem to test it before we we make public.
1:00:30
So, the transcript feature is live right now.
1:00:32
So, that just makes keyword search, you know, not twice as good.
1:00:36
Maybe I don't know, five, 10 times as good?
1:00:37
Because then you have every single word I've ever uttered on the podcast that you can now search.
1:00:40
Uh one thing, uh if you're already an existing uh subscriber or if you're going to to to subscribe and to get Founders Notes, the keyword search, make sure you're using Founders Notes on your computer.
1:00:54
There's been several bugs on the search, the keyword search, with the high uh with the transcripts on mobile.
1:00:59
They're already being worked on and hopefully squashed very soon.
1:01:02
But for my own experience, I think the experience on on your computer, on a desktop, a laptop, is far superior than mobile.
1:01:07
I'm going to have to build the you know, the Founders Notes app, which I'll eventually get to. So, that is live.
1:01:14
Now, the other feature I've been talking about, that say, "Hey, how can we use these new chat-like AI interfaces and be able to search through everything that I have, transcripts, notes, highlights, not just keyword, but actually semantically, the way that you would search as if you were to ask like me a question, for example?"
1:01:27
And so, I told you in the past, I need a name for this, you know?
1:01:30
It's like Founders GPT sounds terrible.
1:01:32
This is another feature that we've been testing internally.
1:01:34
We have it We called it Founders Chat.
1:01:36
I don't think I'm going to keep it as Founders Chat, cuz this is what I think of what I really think it is.
1:01:41
I think I'm going to call it Super Search or something like that, because to me, it's like searching the entire corpus of the Founders Podcast, everything I all of the material I've ingested to make Founders Podcast, you know, for the 350 or 341 episodes, whatever it is, right?
1:01:55
And as the more I use it, now I'm using it, I think I'm referenced it in the episode you just listened to.
1:02:00
Using it literally to build every podcast that I'm making.
1:02:04
I'm using it nearly every day, and the more I interact with it, I'm like, "No, this is like a super search.
1:02:09
This is like search on steroids."
1:02:11
It has a way more advanced memory than me.
1:02:13
I've been searching it, and it makes connections that I have even missed.
1:02:18
What I want to do is, and I've already started doing this with a handful of people, start testing them to existing Founders Notes subscribers.
1:02:23
So, whether you have one already or if you sign up now, which I highly recommend you do.
1:02:26
I think it's a no-brainer, especially if you do the one-time option.
1:02:30
But if you want to test this, I need people Now, keep in mind, this is a beta test.
1:02:35
You're going to run into issues.
1:02:35
That is the point of testing it with a small group of people.
1:02:39
Eventually, you know, I think in the next few weeks, at the very the very latest, uh it'll be live to every single person.
1:02:46
You just see it when you log into Founders Notes.
1:02:47
But if you were interested in testing this right now, when you are logged into Founders Notes, you will see an email address in the footer.
1:02:56
Send an email in the subject line say, "I want to test Founders Chat."
1:02:59
And with the goal, obviously, is if you run into any bugs or anything where it's not uh functioning as it should, please let me know.
1:03:04
And so then, once Super Search, or whatever I'm going to call it, is ready, it's live, it's functioning just as it has a bit as it has been internally, there's other features that I want to start adding.
1:03:16
I'm going to be doing bullet point summaries of the key ideas in every single episode.
1:03:19
I want to do that by uh by founder, cuz think about some some episodes or some founders I have like 10 episodes on, right?
1:03:25
Like I would like a one-page, and the whole point I guess I need to back up.
1:03:29
Uh I think you already know this, but just in case I want I need to make it explicit what I'm trying to do with Founders Notes, because it starts out with the ability to search notes and highlights.
1:03:36
Then you add transcripts, then you add Super Search, then you add bullet point summaries of the key ideas from each episode.
1:03:41
But really, everything that I'm doing with this, right?
1:03:45
Is over time, I do think it's going to be this ever-increasing giant valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders.
1:03:52
It is by far the best way for you to support the podcast.
1:03:55
It is the platform, and I think the business that will continue to allow me to make and distribute the podcast for free forever.
1:03:59
And so, every feature that I'm building, I'm building it for myself first as a way to serve that mission, that hey, we need this this very advanced curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders, because if it goes back to what David Ogilvy said.
1:04:14
He says, "You can't save souls in an empty church."
1:04:16
You have to condense and clarify, because that's how you're going to remember the idea to use that idea in your work.
1:04:20
You might not use the idea tomorrow.
1:04:22
It might be 10 years from now.
1:04:23
And so, as I constantly use these features myself, I will refine this long-term vision, and of course, as as always with everything, I will share with you as soon as I comprehend it myself first.
1:04:32
So, if you're already running a successful company and you want an easy way to interface with the ideas of history's greatest entrepreneurs in a searchable database that you can go through at your convenience anytime you want, then go to foundersnotes. com to sign up. That is foundersnotes. com.
1:04:47
Thank you very much for listening.
1:04:47
Thank you very much for your support, and I'll talk to you soon.