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A Small Difference

37:55 recording · EN · 1 speaker

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Brief overview

Raymond Plank built Apache from $250,000 to $50 billion by taking risk others avoided.

  1. Risk chosen on purpose, not by accidentHe refused the large company, wanted a smaller, riskier initiative, and Apache's first company history was titled Journey into Risk Country.
  2. An edge nobody else in the industry hadHis technical oil knowledge was virtually non-existent, but his financial and tax knowledge had few competitive peers, and that gap was the opening.
  3. Never emotionally attached to a prior decisionHe built a 58-business conglomerate, then sold virtually everything to return Apache to a focused energy company when oil improved.
Executive Summary AI
  • The episode opens by reading the introduction to Raymond Plank's memoir A Small Difference, written in his 90th year, in which he says the purpose is to open the window of his life so readers can reach a fuller measure of their own capacities.0:00
  • Plank traces his values to two cornerstones: his father telling him at about age 10 to try to make a very small difference on behalf of others, and a postcard his mother wrote days before dying of a blood clot at 47, when Plank was 15.0:54
  • After selling eggs, firewood and syrup as a boy and flying 40 bomber missions in his early 20s, Plank chose self-employment over a large company and founded Apache Corporation with $250,000 in 1954, a stake worth $50 billion by mid-2008.2:34
  • Apache's first real product was a tax-efficient drilling vehicle: on a $200,000 investment the investor deducted 80%, or $160,000, against tax brackets above 90%, so the out-of-pocket cost was roughly $56,000, and 27.5% of later royalty income was excluded through the depletion allowance.18:09
  • Plank later assembled a mini-conglomerate of 58 businesses, then reversed course in the 1970s back to a focused oil and gas company, and in 2011 saw land bought between 1970 and 1977 revalued by drilling techniques other people invented.28:49
Key Quote
“son, over my life, I've found it very useful to try to make a very small difference on behalf of others.”
— Host0:59
Key Quote
“without courage, all virtue is fragile.”
— Host10:54
Key Quote
“We did not feel qualified. We proceeded nonetheless.”
— Host15:21