Harvey Firestone built one of America’s great industrial empires from scratch, transforming from a farm boy to Henry Ford’s key partner. This episode reveals timeless principles about building businesses through booms, busts, and technological disruptions.
This episode is based on the biography Men and Rubber: The Story of Business.
Check out The Firestone Principles: 12 Timeless Lessons from an Industrial Pioneer: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-harvey-firestone/
(03:00) PART 1: The Best Businessman I Ever Knew
(06:50) The Vanilla Extract Lesson
(10:23) When Premium Doesn’t Matter
(12:05) PART 2: Right Beneath the Wheels
(14:21) The Back of an Envelope
(16:36) If Two of Us Stay, Neither Makes Money
(18:39) Betting on what Doesn’t Change
(20:55) The Accidental Breakfast
(24:53) The Third Option
(28:19) PART 3: The Innovators Dilemma: Pneumatic Tires
(32:24) The Ford Connection: A Partnership of Outsiders
(35:23) Navigating the Crisis
(37:17) The Underdog’s Advantage
(39:24) The Million Dollar Milestone
(43:10) Weathering the Panic of 1907
(45:55) The Simplicity Imperative
(51:25) PART 4: The Ship-by-Truck Revolution
(54:31) The Boom That Hid Everything
(56:11) The 25% Solution
(01:01:42) Cutting to the Bone
(01:04:25) PART 5: Why He Never Stopped
(01:06:54) The Human Element
(01:08:09) The Legacy
(01:10:05) Reflections, afterthoughts, and lessons
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