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Founders

The Most Inspiring Autobiography I've Read: Chung Ju-yung Founder of Hyundai

Founders

David Senra

History, Entrepreneurship, Business, Technology

4.82.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2024

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Chung Ju-yung grew up so poor he had to eat tree bark to survive. He founded Hyundai and became the richest person in Korea. When Chung was in his 80s, he wrote an autobiography that tells the devastating reality of growing up in dire poverty, how he escaped through manual labor, and how he founded and grew one of the world's largest conglomerates. Along the way he shares advice like why you should emulate bedbugs, the importance of going where the money is, and why people called him "The Bulldozer." This episode is what I learned from reading Born of This Land: My Life Story by Chung Ju-yung. ---- 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.  ---- 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 ---- “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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I first read this book almost five years ago, and it's one of these stories that just sticks with you.

0:04.3

Chung's story is unbelievably inspiring. He grew up the son of a poor farmer and had to eat tree bark to survive.

0:13.0

And then he dies the richest person in Korea. And almost every week since this episode first came out, someone has sent me a message after listening to it

0:20.9

and were surprised and inspired by Chung's life story. So I decided to re-listen to it today, which I just

0:27.1

did, and then republish it for you in case you haven't had the chance to hear it yet. Something

0:32.3

will jump out at you as you listen, and it's Chung's insistence on being the very best. It didn't

0:37.3

matter if he was running a small rice shop

0:39.9

or a giant conglomerate.

0:41.2

Everything that Chung did,

0:42.6

he did with the intention of being the very best.

0:45.2

And that is actually something he shares

0:46.9

with a lot of history's greatest entrepreneurs.

0:48.7

They want to be great at what they do

0:50.5

and they want to work with other people

0:52.0

and other companies that are great at what they do and they want to work with other people and other companies that are great at what they do.

0:54.8

And one of my favorite examples of greatness, a representation of being great, I should say,

0:59.4

I just found out this week. In the last year, 12,059 different companies have started using Ramp.

1:07.1

These companies are using Ramp to control their spend and optimize all of their financial operations on a single platform.

1:13.1

Out of those 12,059 companies, only eight decided RAMP wasn't for them.

1:20.3

That means 12,051 out of 12,059 different companies that tried RAMP stayed stayed with Ramp. The longer you use Ramp,

1:30.3

the more efficient your company becomes. And that is because Ramp has built a team of A-plus

1:34.5

players. Ramp has the most talented technical team in their industry. Becoming an engineer at Ramp

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