The Ambition of John Jacob Astor

Deep Dive N°5, Part 1

Welcome to The Strategy Files—a newsletter about history's most ambitious people in fashion, beauty, and culture. I study the icons, you apply their strategies; you win.

Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that I’m building an AI first tech consultancy called NoteLoft AI. I have 13 years of experience building software, and I’m sick of seeing founders get taken advantage of by scammy tech agencies. So I’ve put together a team of my favorite AI engineers, full stack engineers, infrastructure engineers and designers. Our goal is to give you the best service you’ve ever had, and truly make building your product a delightful experience.

If you’re interested in hiring a group of people who have worked together on and off for a decade, get in touch!

We’re taking on one new client in November and would love the chance to impress you.

Let’s get into it.

This month’s deep dive comes from the book Astor: The Rise And Fall of An American Fortune.

14 Lessons From This Month’s Deep Dive:

  1. Change your location, change your life. Astor moved from Europe to New York and accomplished things that could only happen in New York.

  2. Success comes to those who are willing to sacrifice comfort.

  3. If you have to get married, make sure you marry the right person. Astor’s wife Sara was a critical component to his early success.

  4. If you’re a founder, you’re going to have to get great at sales. Astor worked for his uncle selling flutes and pianos, which has nothing to do with what he ended up selling. But it made him a better salesman.

  5. Work like the version of you who's already built an empire. Astor’s work ethic, even in the beginning, was intense.

  6. Sometimes the best businesses just copy products that already work.

  7. Being realistic is a cage. Don’t put yourself in that cage. Astor imagined a new way for entire countries to do business. And what he imagined eventually became reality. That would have never happened if he was stuck on the idea that he should be ‘realistic’.

  8. Hot take: when people say “start small”, their version of “small” is a lot bigger than you think.

  9. Collaborating with people increases your chances of success.  Because instead of relying solely on your network, you can now rely on theirs, too.

  10. You want to find a market that’s moving like a jet, where momentum is already built it. Astor did this with the fur trade, and I’m doing it with AI.

  11. Connect with people who know more about those “jet” industries than you do. They’ll know exactly how your skills can be monetized within the industry.

  12. Sometimes the best way to create the competitive advantage you need over your competitors is to take a shitty job. Or an okay job. Any job where you can up-skill.

  13. Find ways to increase your profits. Low profits === more work. And more work means you don’t have time to think about better solutions, to connect with potential clients, or to find opportunities in existing markets.

  14. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate. When he made enough money, Astor was able to outsource the labor of trader furs so he could focus on expanding the business.

Like many New York transplants, Astor showed up in my favorite city with hardly any cash and zero connections. But somehow, he made it work. The difference between Astor and the average New York City transplant that makes it? He built an empire that would be worth billions today.

By the 1790s, he reached the top of the fur trade by turning beaver pelts into a global luxury business. He financed America’s first expedition to the Pacific Northwest, built the first luxury hotel in America, and even had a New York neighborhood — Astoria, Queens — named after him.

His wealth was so vast that his descendants, The Astors, became fixtures of Gilded Age high society whose drama is one of the main plot lines in the HBO show of the same name.

Honestly, Astor was a terrible person, who did terrible things to accumulate much of his wealth. However, I want to focus on the things he did that we, as ambitious people with event the slightest of moral compass, can learn from.

See you next week for part two,

LaToya

References && Further Reading

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