ANNOUNCEMENT: A Special Series Drops Tomorrow
So first of all, I want to say very excited about this new deal. I was already a big fan of My First Million, so very serendipitous that we found each other like this.
Yeah. I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.
All right.
By Ben Wilson. This is a 3-part series on Thomas Edison. We discovered this podcast about 2 or 3 months ago and freaking loved it. It, it had very small listenership. Both Sean and I binge-listened to all of them. His name is Ben Wilson. The podcast is called How to Take Over the World. Um, Ben has allowed us to air, uh, this episode and the next 2. So this is a 3-part series on Thomas Edison. He's allowed us to air it on our feed just because we like it. So his podcast, it only had a few hundred listeners at the time, but we thought this was so cool, Shawn and I, and it's about a similar topic that we talk about. So we have this topic called, or this segment called Billy of the Week, Billionaire of the Week. This one is on Thomas Edison. We loved Ben's podcast so much. We just said, hey man, let us just air this on our feed because it's so good. So it's called How to Take Over the World. This episode is on Thomas Edison. He's got a few other episodes or a few other folks on his feed. He's got Thomas Edison. I believe he does Alexander the Great, the Rothschilds family. It's really, really cool. I'm a history buff, and so I'm happy that he was cool and let us air this. We're doing it none other than just we think it's good and we want you guys to check it out. So here it is. Enjoy the episode. There's part 2 and part 3 on our feed. Check it out. Shawn, we have something special. What is it?
I'm just gonna let him talk because his mic is so damn good. So Ben, why don't you, uh, why don't you say a few words to the, to the people? Let them hear that silky smooth voice.
Yeah, this is me. I'm, uh, Ben Wilson. Thanks for having me on, guys. I appreciate it.
So, um, about 8 weeks ago or 10 weeks ago maybe, I think I messaged Shawn. I go, Shawn, I've been listening to this podcast called How to Take Over the World. I think I randomly discovered it because I type in like Napoleon on the Apple Podcasts, and I saw this podcast. As one does. Yeah, as one does, 'cause I'm a weirdo. And Ben, you had like no reviews, I think. And I clicked that one episode and your intro music was amazing. And Sean and I, Sean in particular is a fan of Conor McGregor. And I sent it to Sean and I go, dude, you gotta listen to this. This is amazing. And I binged your whole episode. And then we actually talked about you on our podcast. And I think your listeners like, shut up. How many listeners did you have before we discussed you?
Yeah, it was a handful of thousand and I at least 2x'd. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. And I have to—
No, I think you're downplaying it. I thought you told me you were having— you had hundreds a day and then you got many thousands a day.
So it's been a big jump. That was basically Sam was road tripping across America. And so I think he was listening to a bunch of audiobooks and then podcasts. And Sam, you don't listen to a ton of podcasts normally, or you only listen to like true crime type stuff. So you like the story, story style podcast. And you had, you're a big biography guy. And I always love when you tell me like, oh dude, I read this biography about like Henry Ford. And did you know? And I'm like, no, dude, I didn't know any of this. I don't read these books. Like, I want to, yeah, but like, you know, I want an extra 8 hours in a day and once I get that, I'm going to totally read all these books. And so you've always been a pretty voracious reader and you love biographies. Let's just call it what it is. Biographies of great men, mostly. It's like people have done amazing things, either good or bad, whatever it is. And so you were saying, oh dude, I listened to this thing and I don't know what you said, but I think you might have mentioned the intro music. And so I was like, oh, let me just go listen to this.. And so I had to go drop somebody off at the airport. And, you know, so I turned a task that's kind of a pain in the ass errand of like an hour drive, suck in traffic, drive back to like, okay, this is 2 hours of listening time. And I listened to the episodes you did, Ben, about Thomas Edison. And so we should say the name of the podcast is How to Take Over the World. Baller name. Second thing, intro music, baller. And then the first ones I listened to, this Edison one, was so good, I literally kept driving. So I had done the 2 hours, but you have a— it's a 3-parter, so it's 3 hours. So I just went, I was like, ah, let me go run an errand. And so I went to the grocery store so I could just finish it in one go. And I want to say 2 things. So, uh, there's a bunch of stuff about Edison that I didn't know that's kind of crazy. And I kind of want to talk about some of those things. But the important part for people listening to this is we made a deal with you. We said, look, This content is amazing. We think we loved it, and we think our fans are gonna love it. So we're gonna cherry-pick our favorite episodes from your feed, and we're gonna play it on our feed, which is gonna be for our audience, it's gonna be an easy way to listen to it. But then the second thing is it's gonna get you a whole bunch of new people. And so that's what I guess, like, that's an announcement that we're making here today, is that that's what to expect. We're gonna put the Edison episodes up next, all 3, that you can binge Netflix style. And then based on how people feel about that, we might do more of this in the future. So, uh, that's the big news. Sam, what did I miss?
Nothing. Ben, uh, we've been rambling for 4 minutes. What, uh, how do you come up with all this stuff? Are you just like reading biographies and then just like taking notes and regurgitating?
Yeah, so, well, so first of all, I want to say very excited, uh, about this, this new deal. And, uh, I was already a big fan of, uh, of My First Million, so very serendipitous that, uh, that we found each other like this. Um, in terms of— and one thing I have to correct you on, Sam, is you said I had no reviews. And when you said that, my mom actually called me and she was like, okay, so I really thought that I had given you a review on Apple Podcasts, but Sam said you didn't have any. So I, what did I do wrong? Can you walk me through this? And I had to tell her like, no, he didn't mean literally zero. Like I had reviews.
How many did you, I guess I don't want to play it up too much. I kind of want to, the storyline going here is that we discovered you. I don't, I don't know if that's entirely true. That's fair.
It is fair.
That's the truth we run with.
That is fair. And it— and, uh, yeah, so I had under 100 views. Now I think I've got over 200. So, uh, so I think it's, it's fair. Sam, you get all the credit. You discovered me.
Absolutely.
Uh, take it and run with it.
You do all the work and we get all the credit.
That's what I'm looking for. In terms of my process, um, yeah, so this thing kind of started out as a hobby just because I, like Sam, like reading biographies, like learning about these great people throughout history and kind of how they did what they did. So I decided early on, I didn't want to just read one biography for each person, because then you're getting someone else's perspective. So I decided I always want at least two data points. And if I can, I want one of those data points to be autobiographical so that I can see what they thought about, you know, themselves. So I read at least a couple biographies, and usually some— it's usually like three or four books for each major biography that I do. Then I'm just taking notes the whole way through at the end of each chapter and then adding some of my own thoughts at the end in terms of analysis and what I took away from it and what I think people can learn from it.
One thing I love with this is— I like audio because I can do it while I'm going out, I'm driving, I'm doing other things, but audiobooks kind of put me to sleep. I don't know how you do it, Sam, but audiobooks themselves, it really depends on how the person reading it is. Even then, reading a book is sort of like this, like, kind of hypnotic thing that happens. But when— what you did was nice, which is that you read the books, but then you told a story. And it's like audio first. It's like you, you're not just reading off of a page what was meant to be like read silently in somebody's head. You're actually just like, kind of doing the summary yourself. So it saved me the time, but it didn't bore me, which is like the sweet spot, I think.
Yeah. And there's always that push and pull, right, between trying to give enough detail that people can like make their own takeaways. But I try and keep it short enough that, that it's audio first and that it's engaging the whole time. And I'm glad to hear you say that. It sounds like it's— I'm doing an okay job at least.
And no, you're doing a good job.
Let's talk about some of the things from the, from the Edison episode. So some of the takeaways we had mentioned a little bit of this before, but after, after going and listening to it, here are some of the things that I thought were pretty baller. Okay, so here's Here's my— I'm going to give you 3 of my little favorite nuggets from it. The first one is this like train story. So young Edison was a hustler, and I always thought of Edison as kind of this Einstein genius, just like a guy in a lab, you know, and he never leaves the room. It's just piles of books all around him. That's all he ever experiences. But actually, Edison was kind of a businessman hustler in addition to an inventor. So he, he, as a kid, I think a teenager, maybe I don't know how old he was, but like he gets on the train and he basically does two things. First, he notices an arbitrage. He's like, oh, I can buy fruits in one area. Was it fruits? I don't remember what it was.
He's like, I'm going to buy something.
Yeah, I'm going to buy berries in one town. I'm going to come back and sell it for a profit on the other side. And then I'm going to give free berries to the driver so I don't have to pay the fee or whatever. I'm like allowed to do this like smuggling operation. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I didn't know he had that like hustle to him. And that's like the original arbitrage, right? Then the second thing he was doing was like he starts printing newspapers. He brings a printing press on the train. And like eventually like blows up the— his whole setup on the train. So he's kind of this like mad genius inventor.
Like he literally blows it up, like there's an explosion.
Yeah, there's like an explosion. Exactly. So I thought the train thing was cool because I didn't know we had that kind of like what seems like just like a, a street-smart kid, you know, hustler mentality, not just high IQ super genius.
Yeah, and the thing from the episode from the train that I really love is the battle. So people were following the Civil War At the time, that was like, uh, the gossip column. Like, everyone wanted to know exactly what was happening in the Civil War. And so the Battle of Shiloh happens, which is this huge battle in the Civil War, and everyone is waiting to hear how it went. And, um, so he gets, uh, he gets the idea that like, oh, people are really gonna want these newspapers. And so he buys up the entire stock. He walks into the newspaper office and is like, hey, I want them all. And then he, he was like a real black market guy. So he bribed someone to telegram ahead to all these cities on his train stop saying, battle news from the Battle of Shiloh is coming on the evening paper, but I'm not— we're not going to say what happened. So people really want these newspapers. And so he buys all the newspapers for 5 cents, the entire stock, and sells them for like a couple dollars. And in one day makes like a mini fortune, right, for a 12-year-old, which is how old he was. So, uh, yeah, he was this little like Mark Twain type type character.
Gangster. Yeah. So, so I like that one. The second one I liked was, um, the, the story of how he created the phonograph. Basically, I, I don't know if it's the phonograph, but basically he was hard of hearing, right? So he's like partially deaf. Is that right?
From an explosion in this last thing that he was doing, right? Didn't he like, when he, he had an experiment and it blew up and it made him deaf?
So that's not confirmed. No one knows exactly what made him deaf. That's kind of my conjecture. I think all these like explosions he experienced in his childhood probably had something to do with it.
Oh yeah. And so he, he's, uh, and you describe, I forgot what it's called, the Insomnia Crew. What's the name of his crew? Basically it's this group of kind of like inventors and they're kind of like hackers of today. Right. But they're, and they're like nocturnal. So they're just like working all night, every night. And it's sort of like a little bit of a party. And they're like, they kind of work till they're sort of like, you know, you get a little delusional at night and they're like, yeah, that's when our creative juices start flowing.. And they're all just like working on their projects late at night, this insomnia crew. And from what I remember in the episode was like, because he was hard of hearing, to like kind of hear music better, or he was like, kind of like sensing the vibrations. And his brain sort of worked out, oh, if, if vibrations let me feel the music, then what if I created vibrations? Would I create music? And that was like sort of the aha moment where in sort of like the epiphany, where he realized, well, you know, created what eventually became kind of like a record player, right? Which is like, let's scratch this vinyl and then that vibration will create a sound and that sound will be, can be like printed basically as the music.
Yeah. I, you know, that creation of recorded sound, I like to think of inventions in terms of how far forward does it pull the future, right? So like if you think about Steve Jobs and the iPhone, the smartphone, he probably pulled the future forward like 5, 10 years, right? If Steve Jobs had never existed, the smartphone was still gonna happen at some point, right? I think with the phonograph, with recorded sound, he pulled the future forward like 50 years. And so you see it in their reaction when they do it for the first time. His chief engineer, his reaction, he says, my God in heaven. Like he's just shocked. Like he just like can't believe they have no way to like even process what they just discovered. That is one of my favorite stories from his life.
Yeah, so there's a, there's a bunch of these. Uh, Sam, what was your kind of favorite one from this?
Uh, what was the milk thing? The, uh, wait, what did you— oh, he only ate milk and bread, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's it. He would just drink milk and he would only eat like 4 ounces per meal. He was, he was psycho like that.
Yeah, and then there was another story where he basically, right around where I'm staying in New York, he wanted to have a power grid. He invented electricity and he invented— or he invented the light bulb and he's like, but in order for the lights to work, we need electricity. And so he brought all these politicians and the mayor and a couple other folk into a dark room at night. And then he flips a switch and he goes— and then it was like a full buffet there and like a beautiful dinner, I think. And he goes, now do you see how we could see at night? Everyone in the city should feel this way, but they can only feel this way if we have the power grid. And so he was a showman, right? Did I tell that story correctly?
And this— so, so you have this person who's, as a youngster, is sort of like a schemer and a hustler.
He's basically—
wants to make him— and Elon are similar.
And yeah, exactly. And so then he, then he is a big inventor, so he creates some like game-changing inventions, whether it's recorded sound, the light bulb, uh, you know, basically like also the telephone. Like Alexander Graham Bell gets a lot of credit for the telephone, but it seemed like from what you were saying, like Edison really made the phone usable. He wasn't necessarily the inventor, but he's the one who made the phone that actually worked that we all like. That's right. And that was a key, key invention. So those are game changers. And then as a business person, the company he created essentially became General Electric, right? GE. And so pretty prolific lifespan. And of course, invented the word hello, which is the first— brought the phrase hello into pop culture. So I think You know, that was, uh, really, really impressive to me.
Yeah, he, he did. It's crazy the volume of the stuff he did. Um, and as you said, uh, Elon I think is a good comparison. And you know, it's funny because people set up this rivalry between Tesla and Edison. And so it's funny that Elon Musk named his company Tesla when he himself has admitted— he has said in interviews like, yeah, you're right, I'm, I'm a lot more like Edison than I am like Tesla. And they are very similar in a lot of ways.
And it's kind of the cool thing to say like, oh, Tesla was the real, the real inventor. He was the better inventor. He was the greatest inventor of all time. And what you kind of said, no, I don't, I think that's, I think you said your quote was, that's laughable.
So yeah, Tesla has one really great invention to his name, which is alternating current, which was a big discovery, but like 3 other people discovered it independently in the next year. So like, when you talk about how how far forward you're pulling the future. It was like a year. It was like 6 months for Tesla. And I don't want to like bag on him, but it's just he wasn't nearly the inventor that Edison was. I think if you really stack it up.
So when is this— when is this— people are listening to this today. Let's say they're listening to this episode right now when it came out. When's, um, when are the Edison episodes going live? The next day?
Let's push them out the next day. So if you're listening to this now, the next day, the Edison— we're gonna put all 3 out. You can binge it like a Netflix show. See if you like it. Me and Sam are both into these like oddball prodigy phenom type. Sam likes to go historical. I specifically love young people who did, who kind of like, you know, excelled in their field. That's like my thing. I love to like go on YouTube rabbit holes for that. And so if you like this kind of like oddball greatness, I would definitely, I would definitely be, definitely check it out. Let us know what you think. You could tweet at me or Sam and let us know, be like yay or nay if you guys want more or less of these. And yeah, let's see what happens. But I dig it. Good job with these. Who's the next person you're gonna, you're gonna feature?
Well, I think we're both lobbying for you to do Ross Albright, right?
Yeah.
What'd you think of that idea? We, we texted you this, uh, yesterday.
Uh, yeah, I, uh, yeah, absolutely. I will— so I should say I already have a couple scripts in production, so he's not gonna be next. So next is a guy by the name of Laszlo Polgar, who— this is like a selfish episode for me because I, I just had a kid. I just had a daughter 9 months ago. And so this guy, Laszlo Polgar, claimed, claimed that he came up with a strategy, a technique by which you could— a foolproof way to raise a genius, right? So he had 3 kids. He's like, I'm going to raise them all to be geniuses. And he had 3 daughters and they were the 3 greatest women's chess players of all time. And so I was like, oh, it seems like this might work. So I kind of break down his life, his technique, how he raised his daughters to be geniuses. So that's the next one that's coming out. But Ross Albright, we're going to make it happen soon.
Alright, so, alright, we will, we'll get you out of here. People will be hearing more from you. So this is Ben, not the Ben I'm normally referencing. That's my right-hand man, Ben. That's Ben Levy. This is Ben Wilson. So, so two Bens in my life now. And glad to have you doing this with us, man. I'm pumped. Here's my prediction. I'm going to go on the record and say this now. I believe, and I will also make my best effort, I believe your podcast is going to be twice as big as ours within 2 years. That's my prediction for this thing. I think we discovered you, Sam discovered you. I think we're giving you the boost. We're slingshotting you, but your content and the niche is so good that I think when people get this, it's gonna fly. So I predict in 2 years you're gonna be bigger than us.
I agree with you, except I think 6 months.
Oh, nice.
Okay.
He ups the ante.
Yeah.
I think the thing is, is that, okay, the history cat, Ben, his shit is amazing. And also the cat, his category is so big.
Like, how big is this category, right? Because history seems like a niche thing, right? Like, uh, you know, history, boring class in school. But give us some idea how big is— you think, you think the appetite for this? I know there's Hardcore History. I don't know any of his numbers. Do you know any of his?
I don't know his numbers. I just know that his episodes, like, will regularly do— Dan Carlin's amazing, by the way. He's one of the— my big inspirations. But his episodes regularly get ranked in the top 100, I think even the top 10, for podcast episodes.
That's my— but I don't think that this is going to fall entirely into history. I think it's going to— this is like a Stuff You Should Know territory, right? So maybe that's pop culture. I don't know what it's called.
Well, and my frustration with a lot of history podcasts is that, uh, and now I'm gonna get a lot of hate mail for this, but it's a lot of history nerds talking about history. And like, I just don't think that's what people want, you know? Like, they don't want to get bogged down in those details. Like you were saying, Sean, like They want to know, what do I need to know? How does it apply to me? Why is this interesting to me? So that's what I try and focus on. And I think— I hope it has some crossover appeal.
I want to know— here's what I want. I want to— while I'm listening to it, I want to feel completely inadequate with my life. Right? So I want to be so inspired that I feel like everything I've done is a tiny speck of— I'm a fart compared to this, this person. And by the way, there's actually a quote in this where Edison feels that way. He's like, oh, I'm— what did he say? He's like, I'm already 25 and like all I've done is this. And like, they're like, dude, you fucking like invented the light bulb. What are you talking about? He's like, no, my life, my healthy life is half done and I've only done whatever, you know. And he was looking at, I think it was Tesla. Who was he looking at?
Michael Faraday, who was an inventor before.
Yeah, Faraday, the physicist. And he's like, Faraday has already done XYZ. Oh my God, I'm so behind. And it's like ironic, right? You're Edison. And he was talking about, or you were, I think you were talking about Caesar, how Julius Caesar once like saw a statue of— who was it?
Yep. And had the same thing. He's like, oh, you know, like, what am I, just the emperor of Rome? Like, Alexander the Great by my age was ruling, you know, like the universe basically. And it's like, oh, okay, you know, lesson learned. No matter who you are, no matter how much you've made it, you sort of— you can always— it's all relative. You'll always find the bigger, badder, faster, uh, you know, version of you. Even if Caesar— and if Caesar and Edison felt it, You know, it's not completely normal for you as a product manager at Facebook to feel the same.
Yeah, that's how I feel.
Oh, go ahead.
I say what you're gonna say, and then we're gonna wrap up.
Cool. I was just gonna say that that's actually the reason I started doing this is because I would read these, these biographies, and I'd come out of it just feeling like I'd been injected with bull testosterone or something and gorilla testosterone. And just like ready to take over the world. You know, the name of the podcast. And I'm glad to hear that other people get that same feeling when they listen.
I'm happy we did this. This is gonna go live like the next day. If you're listening to this, just give it 24 hours. It'll be live.
Awesome. Okay. See you, Ben.
All right. Thanks, guys.
I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.
Life!