#313 Christopher Nolan

Founders

David Senra

History, Entrepreneurship, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What I learned from reading The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan by Tom Shone. --- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book --- (7:00) The only way I know how to work is to sort of burrow in on one project very obsessively. (7:25) People will say to me, "There are people online who are obsessed with Inception or obsessed with Memento.” They're asking me to comment on that, as if I thought it were weird or something, and I'm like, Well, I was obsessed with it for years. Genuinely obsessed with it. So it doesn't strike me as weird. . . I feel like I have managed to wrap them the up in it way I try to wrap myself up. (8:30) The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Keegan and The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King by Zach Baron. (Founders #311) (11:00) I don’t think of myself as an artist. I’m a craftsman. I don’t make a work of art; I make a movie. — George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones. (15:30) Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride. (Founders #209) (22:45) Nolan is relentlessly resourceful. He wants to spend as as little money as possible so he can maintain as much control over the project as possible. (23:30) He makes his first movie on the weekends while he working a full-time job! (29:30) The efficiency of filmmaking is for me a way of keeping control. The pressure of time, the pressure of money. Even though they feel like restrictions at the time, and you chafe against them, they're helping you make decisions. They really are. If I know that deadline is there, then my creative process ramps up exponentially. (34:00) The result of making a billion dollar blockbuster: Suddenly his position at Warner Brothers went from solid to unassailable. (37:00) Stories can add to your own thinking but you need your own foundation to add them to first. (38:00) I know it's more fun when we're all together and we can do the thing together. That's why we keep it as a family business. (39:00) Rolls-Royce: The Magic of a Name: The First Forty Years of Britain s Most Prestigious Company by Peter Pugh. (Founders #287) (43:30) Every time a new feature or product was proposed, he decreed that the narrative should take the shape of a mock press release. The goal was to get employees to distill a pitch into its purest essence, to start from something the customer might see—the public announcement—and work backward. Bezos didn’t believe anyone could make a good decision about a feature or a product without knowing precisely how it would be communicated to the world. — The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone. (Founders #179) (45:30) Once your children are born, you can never look at yourself through your own eyes anymore; you always look at yourself through their eyes. (49:30) I often have terrible luck with the weather, but my philosophy is to shoot no matter what the weather is, always shooting no matter what weather, just keeping going, keeping going. Letting everybody on the crew and cast know we're really serious about doing that, no matter what the conditions are, so they're not looking out the window first thing and going, Oh, we will or won't shoot today. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested, so my poor wallet suffers.” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm out in California right now meeting a bunch of founders that listen to the podcast and I had lunch with two of them a few days ago.
0:05.6	Both of these founders have houses. They have multiple houses and in every single house they have they have an eight sleep mattress.
0:12.4	One of the guys has four
0:13.8	eight sleep mattresses. Do you know how good a product has to be for you to buy four of
0:18.1	them and they both made the same point that once you start sleeping on an eight
0:20.8	sleep mattress it's hard to sleep anywhere else I'm staying in a house there's no
0:23.8	8 sleep mattress in my house it's unbelievably hot compared to my bed back at home before I had an
0:29.3	eat sleep mattress I never had the ability to change the temperature of my bed before and I had no idea before I used it
0:34.7	How much that actually affects the quality of sleep so now I keep my eight sleep ice cold and I make sure that it's cold before I get into bed.
0:41.2	I find it helps me fall, sleep faster, and wake up less during the night.
0:45.6	In my opinion, that feature alone is worth 10 times the price.
0:48.7	There are very few no-brainer investments in life, and 8 Sleep is one of them.
0:52.2	8 Sleep is offering
0:53.4	founders listeners $150 off. You can get yours by going to 8 sleep.com
0:58.7	forward slash founders. And just two more things I want to tell you about before we jump into the intense mind of Christopher
1:05.4	Nolan.
1:06.4	I've made something that is exclusively for the enthusiasts of founders, for people that completely
1:11.0	understand this kind of strange and intense studying of great people and the great work that came before us and how valuable that is to apply to whatever
1:20.1	it is that you're working on.
1:21.3	If that is you, I recommend that you sign up for the
1:23.3	private founders AMA feed. I've been making these short episodes every week
1:27.3	based on questions that I get from members. If you become a member you'll be able to
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