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 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 history-scraised 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 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 worn against. 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 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 co-founder and CEO

of Ramp. Ramp is now a presenting sponsor of this podcast. I've gotten to know all the co-founders

of Ramp and have spent a ton of time with

them over the last year or two. They all listened 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

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