Snapshot · My First Million
Lloyd Blankfein recommends studying history for investors because, as paraphrased from Mark Twain, 'history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes' — patterns always recur.
Where this was said
At 55:22 · chapter starts 43:53
The episode's closing chapter is the most wide-ranging and in some ways the most revealing. Blankfein, who advises every young trader to study history rather than finance, guides Sam through his personal reading list with genuine enthusiasm. Barbara Tuchman gets extended praise for Guns of August and A Distant Mirror — the latter an account of 14th-century European life during the Black Plague, the Hundred Years' War, and the Papal Schism, which Tuchman framed as a mirror on Cold War anxieties about nuclear annihilation. Blankfein's point is explicitly practical: those people survived that era, and the patterns that produced their crises rhyme with ours [1] — Lloyd Blankfein "Blankfein's advice to young traders isn't to read balance sheets — it's to study history. Patterns recur. The current turbulence isn't unpr…" 58:00 . He describes rereading Robert Caro's The Power Broker 40 years after his first reading and finding that Robert Moses's achievements had grown in his estimation — not because the flaws diminished, but because after decades of trying to build things himself, he understood the degree of difficulty differently. The conversation spills into the American Revolution, founding fathers, Columbus, and Sacagawea — united by Blankfein's core thesis: context and historical perspective are the antidote to the kind of presentism that makes every generation believe its problems are uniquely dire.
Lloyd Blankfein argues that anxiety — looking around corners for problems — was a genuine asset in running a risk-taking financial firm, even if it burdened his personal life.
Blankfein inherited anxiety from his father, passed it to his kids, and spent decades looking around corners for problems. Running a firm with a massive balance sheet full of price risk, that anxiety was exactly the right wiring.
Lloyd Blankfein has not personally paid a single bill in over 40 years — his wife Laura manages all household finances through a bill-paying service.
When Lloyd Blankfein bought a small beach house early in his Goldman career, the closing cost exceeded the entirety of his and his wife's combined savings.
Young Blankfein read The Power Broker and fixated on Moses's flaws. After 40 years of trying to get things done and build institutions, he reread it and Moses's achievements shot up in his estimation. The flaws hadn't changed. He had.
After buying books and a sweater freshman year at college circa 1971, Lloyd Blankfein had only $11 remaining to his name.
By his own account, Giacomo Casanova slept with over 120 women and contracted venereal disease 11 times — a life of extreme aesthetic indulgence that ended in total isolation.
Joel de la Garza noted that the CISO role is a relatively recent invention, with Steve Katz widely credited as the first-ever CISO.
Superficial adoption of electricity gave factories only 6% efficiency gains; fully redesigning factories around it delivered a 3x productivity improvement that powered 20th-century US growth.
Harold Ramis recounted that during Caddyshack filming, storms kept the cast cooped up in a Florida hotel for days, during which they partied and did drugs all day and night.
In the 1820s, China accounted for 25% of global economic output, making it the world's largest economic machine — a historical precedent for its current AI superpower ambitions.
66 Americans held hostage at the US Embassy in Iran were released after 444 days, within hours of Reagan's inauguration.
In the first round of the secret arms deal, 508 TOW missiles were transferred from Israel to Iran in exchange for hostage releases.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran across 8 separate shipments over just over a year.
Despite all the missile sales, only 3 of the 7 American hostages held by Lebanese terrorists were ultimately released.
We use essential and analytics cookies to run Vuci. To understand how the site is used: Privacy Policy.
Install Vuci on your phone
Add it to your home screen for a faster, app-like experience.
Install Vuci on your phone
Tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.
A new version is available
Reload to get the latest Vuci.