#382 Who Is Michael Ovitz?: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Most Powerful Man in Hollywood

I've done a few of these I had dinner with episodes, Michael Ovitz being the latest one. And I did one with John Mackey, who's the founder of Whole Foods a couple months ago. And John Mackey told me one of the craziest things that anyone has ever said about the podcast. By that time, I had spoken to him. He'd already listened to over a 100 episodes of Founders. And he said that if Founders podcast existed when he was a young man, Whole Foods would still be an independent company that since the podcast and all of his just great entrepreneurs are constantly emphasizing the importance of controlling expenses, he would have put more of a priority on it, especially during boom times, during good times. Because it's very natural for a company and really for human nature to just not watch your costs as closely because everything's going so well. And that is something that history's greatest founders all warn against. In fact, in fact, Andrew Carnegie has this great mantra that he would repeat over and over again. He says, profits and prices were cyclical, subject to any number of transient force forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled, and any savings achieved in the costs were permanent. This is something I was talking about with my friend, Eric, who's the cofounder and CEO of Ramp. Ramp is now a presenting sponsor of this podcast. I've gotten to know all the cofounders of Ramp and have spent a ton of time with them over the last year or two. They all listen to the podcast, and they picked up on the fact that the main theme from History's Greatest Entrepreneurs is the importance of watching your costs and controlling your spend and how doing so will give you a massive competitive advantage. That is a main theme for Ramp. The reason that Ramp exists is to give you everything you need to control your spend. Ramp gives you everything you need to control your costs. Ramp gives you easy to use corporate cards for your entire team, automated expense reporting, and cost control. Matt Paulson Paulson, who's the founder of MarketBeat, recently switched to Ramp, and this is what he said about it. Ramp is the best. The amount of money you will save from unwanted renewals and employees who think company credit card equals buy whatever you want will far exceed the best credit card rewards program. Matt is talking about the importance of cost control. There's a line in Andrew Carnegie's biography that said cost control became nearly an obsession. Ramp helps you make an obsession in your business. If Carnegie was alive today, he'd be running his business on Ramp. Take the time to set up a demo to see this product, and you will see why many of the world's top founders are running their company on Ramp. Go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business …