Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. This is episode number 278 of that show that champions entrepreneurship.
John: That's right. And there's tons of entrepreneurs out there that are making history and making great stories for us.
Russ: Boy, you can say that again.
John: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Russ: And here is this week's lineup of stories. First up, Dr. Wade Adams, Director of Rice University Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology. And he's gonna be talking about the celebration for the 25th Anniversary of the discovery of the Buckyball, which led Dr. Smalley and team being awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
And for those watching the video version [laughter] of the interview on the BusinessMakers.com, he's gonna show actual nanotubes. You ought to check into that John.
John: Well, I think I will.
Russ: All right [Laughter].
John: A tube. All right.
Russ: And then that's gonna be followed by an interview with Ron Farmer, the founder and CEO of US LED. Ron was on our show about two years ago after just launching US LED. And from what I've heard, this is turning into a major success story.
John: Fast-growing company.
Russ: You bet.
John: Yeah.
Russ: But first, that's right. It's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business. And this is not any old ordinary business school.
John: That's right. But be ware of cheap substitutes out there. We know we're out there, and all we can say is stop it [Laughter]. I can't afford to sue anybody.
Russ: You bet.
John: Okay.
Russ: That's right. And one thing that makes the School of Business so unique -
John: What is that one thing?
Russ: - it's powered by Champion Energy Services.
John: That's right. And that's - see, that's our ace in the hole.
Russ: That's right. This is a real power company.
John: That's right. They are powering this broadcast right now as we speak.
Russ: Absolutely.
John: Right.
Russ: And they're real cool. If you aren't familiar with 'em, you ought to check 'em out -
John: Yeah.
Russ: - because they're famous for being totally transparent on their rates, and they offer a real easy way to compare to alternatives.
John: That's right. So they produce statements and bills that you can actually understand.
Russ: There you go.
John: That's right.
Russ: All right. And we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning with the quote of the day.
John: Quote of the day.
Russ: And this is one that was input to me just recently by my -
John: Just recently. Hot. Hot. Just in. This is just in, right?
Russ: You bet. By my good friend Riley. The quote is from Tom S. Gillis in his book "Guts and Borrowing Money" [laughter], published by Bard back in 1997.
John: Jeez.
Russ: And here it is. Winning attitudes more than skills are the most crucial traits for entrepreneurs.
John: That's right. If you - you know, if you don't go into a situation - if you don't at least think you're gonna win or come out victorious, the chances of you winner or becoming victorious are small. It's called the Pygmalion Principle.
Russ: There you go.
John: You know, peoples' performance generally rises to the level that people set for themselves.
Russ: There you go.
John: Yeah.
Russ: All right. And that brings us to this week in business history. So what happened during this first week in business history?
John: The first US train robbery happened this week in business history on October 6th in 1866.
Russ: Wow!
John: That was a couple years after the Civil War. And, you know, wouldn't you know it, here's a train, the Transcontinental Railroad, great idea, I mean, it unifies the country and all this, and wouldn't you know there would be some people out there that take unfair advantage of the fact -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - that these things are traveling through the country unguarded, you know, about the same speed of a horse, I guess. And so this was the first robbery of a moving train. The Reno Gang made off with about $10,000.00, which in this - you know, in our economy today would probably be worth $5,000.00 [Laughter]. You now, ten years ago it might have been, you know, a couple hundred million dollars.
Russ: Right. Right [Laughter].
John: That's a joke. Don't take it seriously.
Russ: Right.
John: All right.
Russ: So that was like the birth of a new industry.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Robbing trains.
John: Yeah. We'd have them on the BusinessMakers Show.
Russ: That's right. Right [Laughter].
John: This week in business history, 1876, moving right along, the first long distance phone conversation. Guess how long the distance was?
Russ: Well, I -
John: Two miles [Laughter]. Okay. Alexander -
Russ: Long distance on line one [Laughter].
John: Excuse me. I have to take a long distance call here. Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the phone in 1876. the invention was demonstrated several times for ____, although some critics thought he was faking it. So -
Russ: Yeah. So they made him really get two miles apart.
John: So they got two miles apart and made a call and said -
Russ: Make -
John: - there. Take that. Okay.
Russ: Right.
John: Later on, this week in business history in 1892 George Beckett of Providence, Rhode Island patents the letterbox.
Russ: The letterbox. Wow!
John: Nice little box, you know, you stick your mail in. It has a pivotal door so people can't go in there and pull the mail back out. And there you go.
Russ: Cool.
John: Okay. This week in business history in 1902. Wow! The birth of founder of McDonalds, Ray Crock.
Russ: My goodness.
John: Now, there's a guy that knew how to run a business.
Russ: Well, yeah.
John: Start a business.
Russ: Knew how to run a franchise. Yeah [Laughter].
John: Yeah. Right. I mean, he sold Dixie cups, I mean, for goodness sake, but he was enjoying a hamburger in San Bernardino, California, liked the way they did the assembly line process of making food. Sat down with the McDonald Brothers and worked out a franchise agreement, which, you know -
Russ: Turned out pretty good for him.
John: - he had 7,500 golden arches around the world when he died in 1984.
Russ: There you go.
John: Okay. There's a lot more out there now.
Russ: You bet.
John: Okay. This week in business history in business history in 1910, British comedians arrive in the US, you know, and then about 60 years later a bunch of British rock players.
Russ: Right.
John: Musicians.
Russ: Well, that's what I was gonna say. I thought the first British invasion was in the '60s. I was wrong. It was in the - in 19 -
John: Yeah. Wrong. Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel arrive in the United States on tour with the famous British Vadvill Company. And they both became silent film stars. Later though, they went into the talkies.
Russ: Right.
John: So okay. This week in business history in 1947, the first presidential speech on TV. Harry Truman.
Russ: Man. Nowadays we have multiple presidential speeches per day.
John: Yeah. He was on there asking Americans not to eat so much, actually cut back on their use of grain to help the starving Europeans who are undergoing a famine, you know, because of the massive destruction over in Europe due to World War II. And Truman was trying to get his marshal plan together, so he went on TV. Unfortunately, only five people on TV sets that day [Laughter].
Russ: That got to see it [Laughter].
John: Right. I don't think there were too many people who had TVs then.
Russ: Right. These days we'd say to kinda cut back on eating because obesity, not -
John: That's right.
Russ: - necessarily to help out anybody. Jeez.
John: I know. Yeah. Okay. This week in business history in 1950 on October 5th Groucho Marx's game show debuts, You Bet Your Life.
Russ: What a show that was.
John: Oh, yeah. The show debuted on radio in 1947, but the show ran until 1961. That's a long-running show. And the show it was a quiz show, but the reason why people watched it was not to match wits with the contestant. They just wanted to hear Groucho's wisecracks.
Russ: Yeah. He was great [Laughter].
John: You know.
Russ: And he was an expert at it.
John: He was an expert at it, and he had a very successful show business career. Unfortunately, he died at age 86 in 1977.
Russ: There you go.
John: Okay. This week in business history Sputnik is launched October 4th, 1957. Now, the little satellite had a diameter of about twenty-two inches, so a little less than two feet in diameter, weight a hundred-and-eighty-four pounds. Circled the earth once every hour and thirty-six minutes.
Russ: I remember my mom waking me up in the morning and even telling us, and it was so confusing because I had no idea if it was like the size of a skyscraper. Or I thought it was large. And then when I heard how small it was, I wasn't that impressed.
John: Yeah. Right [Laughter].
Russ: It's like hey, man. It's not big deal [Laughter].
John: It takes a lot to impress you back then.
Russ: That's right [Laughter].
John: Okay. This week in business history, I would say this was a seismic event.
Russ: Okay.
John: Okay? I mean, this surpasses the Harry Truman trying to tell people not to eat their grain or something.
Russ: Right [Laughter].
John: Just we're talking about Route 66 and, you know, Buzz and Todd.
Russ: The TV show.
John: The TV show. Right.
Russ: Watch.
John: Yeah. Watch.
Russ: This week. What year?
John: Yeah. In 1916.
Russ: Oh, man.
John: Yeah.
Russ: We used to feature what was happening in every episode.
John: I know. I know.
Russ: Maybe we ought to do some of that again. Yeah.
John: And then we got tired of doing it [Laughter].
Russ: Yeah, we did.
John: Yeah, I know.
Russ: But now since we've did that, John, I've actually been on the original real Route 66.
John: I know. It's kind of chopped up because of the interstate system.
Russ: Well, it is. And I had to really search to find a piece, and found a piece and found a sign, and have a picture of myself -
John: Oh, really
Russ: - on good old Route 66.
John: Did you find an old rusted out Corvette with two skeletons and -
Russ: Yeah. Right [Laughter].
John: - _____.
Russ: Right [Laughter].
John: Okay. This week in business history John F. Kennedy, President Kennedy in 1961 urges Americans to build bomb shelters.
Russ: God. Where heroine times that was [Laughter].
John: I know.
Russ: I mean -
John: He was doing his best to get us into a damn nuclear war and -
Russ: Well, I - you know, it seemed like we were -
John: - he had to get us.
Russ: - aimed at one anyway.
John: Better get your bomb - they really weren't bomb shelters. What they were, were -
Russ: A fallout shelter.
John: - a way of preventing fallout. This week in business history in 1962 the Beatles first single "Love Me do" was released this week. This week in business history in 1970 Janis Joplin dies from a heroin overdose, which actually caused some other things to happen. I think she choked on her own you know what -
Russ: Well, that -
John: - vomit or something.
Russ: - I think that's one of the repercussions of a heroin overdose.
John: Yeah. Right. The heroin doesn't get ya. It's what the heroin, you know, does.
Russ: Yeah. What a loss. I think I said this before. I saw the play that's been going around, the musical "Love Janis" and oh, man. What a unique talent.
John: And finally, this week in business history, in 1983 Earl Silas Tupper passes away. Now, here's a guy who's born in New Hampshire in 1907, his parents were in the boarding house business, had a small farm, and his wife was shaped by experiences tinkering with farm equipment, working around the house. And Tupper developed a new form of polyethylene, which was very pliable and everything. And guess what? Tupperware gets invented.
Russ: Wow!
John: And in commemoration of all his fine work he did at Dupont, they buried him in a Tupperware coffin [laughter], especially made for this Mr. Tupper. And wouldn't you know, before they lowered the casket in the ground, his wife come out and lifted up the corner of the coffin to burp it [Laughter].
Russ: And that wraps up this morning's history lesson.
John: That's right.
Russ: A fabulous one once again.
John: It started out with a train robbery and ends with a burp.
Russ: That's right.
John: Okay.
Russ: All right.
John: All right.
Russ: And that brings us to the jargon challenge round.
John: All right. Let's get going on this.
Russ: Our vocabulary lesson where -
John: Hey, I've been hot, man.
Russ: Man.
John: I think there's only like four or five all year that I've really missed.
Russ: I know.
John: Yeah.
Russ: He's getting 'em. And this is presented in this contest format where I go out and pick a word or make one up -
John: Make one up. Yeah.
Russ: And I say the word.
John: Yep.
Russ: And then John who does not know the word -
John: Usually guesses the meaning.
Russ: - guesses the meaning.
John: No. Usually.
Russ: Usually guesses the meaning.
John: Guesses the meaning. Right.
Russ: But not always.
John: Not always, but usually.
Russ: All right. Are you ready?
John: Now my pride's gonna go take a hit here.
Russ: Yeah.
John: I'll probably screw this one up, but go ahead.
Russ: Here it is.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Cybercasing. One word. Cybercasing.
John: Cybercasing. Hmm. Hmm. It's a police - law enforcement people do it when they're on a case, and most cases these days involve evidence, which, you know, email histories, phone - cell phone record, you know, that you can look and see who you've dialed on the cell phones and everything. So what they do is they put a cybercase against a criminal to build a case against whatever the criminal was accused of doing.
Russ: You know what? You're right. You're gonna take a hit this morning. That's wrong [Laughter].
John: _____ [Laughter].
Russ: I know. Cybercasing is using online location-based data and services to determine when a home is unoccupied with a view to robbing it.
John: Hey, I was right on the law enforcement thing.
Russ: You were. You were. So it's using the whole cyber world to do a better job as a criminal.
John: Right. Okay. Right.
Russ: Isn't that cool? All right. And that brings us to dumb moments. Do you have one for us this morning in business?
John: Man, I have a whole slew of them. I got enough for five shows.
Russ: All right. Great.
John: Okay. We all know these documentaries that are out there, and they're wildlife documentaries. You know, like, oh, you have one about, you know, the lions who are - if it's a lion documentary, you know, the antelope's gonna get killed.
Russ: Right.
John: Well, the reason why that happens, I think, is because a lot of this stuff is faked that you see on these documentaries.
Russ: No way [Laughter].
John: There's a new book coming out by a guy named Chris Palmer who has spent more than 25 years filming these things. And he's got this - and I guess he's got some sort of guilt trip thing going because he really feels bad about it. I mean, here's a guy who's stuff has been on Imax movies. So if you've gone to the - these natural history museums, chances are you might have seen his work. And on Prime Time TV.
And what they do is that sometimes these - they'll use animals from these wrangler ranches, you know, that rent out animals. And to give you an example of how this gets, this guy met a scientist who had a killer whale skull, and he asked them if they could use it as a prop. So they put it at the bottom of the sea [laughter] so you could see how - yeah.
There was another wolf documentary that he did there where the pack of wolves fed on a carcass, and it was - you know, man, they were going crazy over it. And the reason why, I mean, was the fact that it was a carcass. It was a fresh road kill off the high way [laughter], and they picked it up and brought it over for the wolves to eat.
The thing that really shocked me the most about what he was saying was there was a documentary that Disney did a long time ago called "White Wilderness". And I don't know whether you remember it, but man, it was - the thing won Oscars and everything else.
Well, there's one scene where they show these lemmings going over the cliff. Well, yeah, the reason why the lemmings were going over the cliff was not to commit suicide. It's that the producers of the documentary were throwing the lemmings off the cliff to -
Russ: No [Laughter].
John: Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Russ: Oh, no. All right. All right [Laughter].
John: So anyways. So it's not what it seems to be.
Russ: Good investigative reporting there -
John: All right.
Russ: - John.
John: Okay.
Russ: Thank you very much. All right. Before we wrap up this morning's School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneurs Playbook.
John: Ah, and here he is, my favorite entrepreneur helper.
Russ: Mr. Greg Price.
[PKF Texas]
Russ: All right. And that wraps up this morning's School of Business stay tuned in to Dr. Wade Adams from the Rice Smalley Institute bringing us up to date on the celebration of the discovery of Buckyballs. And that's gonna be followed by Ron Farmer, founder and CEO of US LED. You're listening to theBusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at the BusinessMakers.com.
