Entrepreneur Book Club discussion

Post your thoughts on the book as you read, or once finished. What you learned, what you'll take from this book, anything that inspired you or intrigued you.

I liked the stories around him buying his first multi-family units, how he realized his path was against the conventional path.

Zell does seem to have an appreciation for life that I found refreshing. Not everything was cut and dry with business. He emphasized putting people first in a lot of instances.

However, I found the book to be drawn out and boring at times. He spends the last third of the book bragging about his company culture. I felt like it could have been written in 2 pages. He also doesn't adequately take the blame for when his company had to declare bankruptcy - he passed the buck, blaming the market and existing company culture.

Throwing down my thoughts/notes pretty randomly here. Goodreads was down last night and my thoughts aren't forming nearly as nicely this morning. Bear with me.

If I took one thing from this book, it's this: only use the crowd's attention (or where others are looking) as a benchmark. Sometimes, going against the crowd offers the biggest payout.

Some of Zell's qualities for being an entrepreneur also stuck with me, and I think would benefit the group:
-tenacity
-indifference to rejection
-don't just recognize problems, provide solutions
-follow the logic of supply and demand
-stoic (don't let emotions impact your stability)

Similar to Zero to One by Peter Thiel (A good read if you haven't checked it out yet), the other thing that really stuck with me was Zell's continuing focus on controlling the competition.

"Without competition, you set the prices."

He touches on this at numerous points in the book, saying that there's no substitute for limited competition - it's better than being a genius.

One of my favorite quotes in the book also touches on this topic:

"Competition is great for YOU, but I'd rather have a monopoly."

I agree with Jordan that to millennials, the company culture aspect of the book wasn't nearly as interesting as it may be for other generations. Maybe it's just hard for me to imagine going to work in a suit and tie every day.

Zell's entrepreneurial spirit - his constant search for new avenues of revenue and finding value in companies - is admirable. The notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts is stressed throughout the book, and for those interested in the real estate industry, in particular, it's a good read.