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Founders

#379 Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys)

Founders

David Senra

History, Entrepreneurship, Business, Technology

4.82.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jerry Jones rolled the dice until his knuckles bled. He started working at 7 years old. Jerry could sell, sell, sell. He sold fruit at his father’s grocery store in grade school and sold shoes out of the trunk of his car in college. After failing to sell pizza franchises he tried real estate and insurance. He never met a high risk deal he didn’t like. Jerry got pitched a deal to drill for oil that everyone else had already said no to. Jerry said yes. That well made $4 million. He hit again on the next 14 wells. Jerry decided to drill for natural gas next. He drills 200 wells. He hit on 199 of them. He sells that company for $175 million. He has $90 million in the bank. He buys the Dallas Cowboys for $140 million. 75 other people had the opportunity to buy the team and said no. He empties his bank account and borrows $50 million at steep interest rates. The year before Jerry bought the team the Cowboys lost $9 million. Financial advisors told Jerry that the Cowboys were ridiculously overpriced and that he was committing financial suicide. Within a few years the team is printing $30 million a year in profit. The Dallas Cowboys are worth $10 billion today.  This episode is what I leaned from reading King of the Cowboys: The Life and Times of Jerry Jones by Jim Dent.  ---- Ramp gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save more.  ---- Vesto: All of your company's financial accounts in one view. Connect and control all of your business bank accounts from one dashboard. Go to Vesto and schedule a demo with the founder Ben. Tell him David sent you.  ---- 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.  ---- Join my free email newsletter to get my top 10 highlights from every book ---- ---- 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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The year before Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys, the team lost $9 million.

0:05.4

And just a few years later, the Cowboys were making over $30 million in profit per year.

0:11.1

In fact, in the middle of this turnaround, the book describes Jerry Jones as a ruthless cost cutter.

0:17.6

A few weeks ago, I was telling you about Ingbar Camprad, who's the founder of IKEA,

0:21.4

starts IKEA when he's 17, works on it until he dies at 91 years old. And Invar wrote a document,

0:28.1

which they call the IKEA Company Bible. It's actually called the name of the document. It's

0:32.5

the testament of a furniture dealer. I loved it so much. I actually had it printed and bound

0:36.8

and put it on my

0:38.4

desk. But in that document, Invar repeated something. It was very fascinating. He said for six

0:43.1

decades, that cost awareness was IKEA's anthem. And he said that his dedication to that idea

0:50.0

was total. The way that Ingvar spoke about that sounds a lot like the way Sam Walton talked about

0:58.0

his cost control and his manic frenzy for cost control and his autobiography. This is what

1:01.8

Sam Walton wrote. He said, I'm asked today when Walmart has been so successful, when we're a

1:06.9

$50 billion plus company. Why should we say so cheap? That's simple.

1:11.4

Because we believe in the value of a dollar.

1:13.2

We exist to provide value to our customers, which means that in addition to quality

1:17.4

and service, we have to save them money.

1:20.0

Every time Walmart spends $1 foolishly, it comes right out of the pockets of our customers.

1:25.4

Every time we save them a dollar, that puts us one more

1:29.1

step ahead of the competition, which is where we always plan to be. He continues, control your

1:35.1

expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find a competitive advantage

1:40.3

for 25 years running. Long before Walmart was known as the nation's largest retailer,

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