Mark: Alright Michelle, I'm going to say the title of a business book, and I want your brutally honest, one-sentence review, sight unseen. Ready? Built, Not Born: 50 Years of Business Wisdom from the Ultimate Serial Entrepreneur. Michelle: Oh, that's easy. "Sounds like something my dad would give me for Christmas to tell me I'm not trying hard enough." Mark: (Laughs) Perfect. And you're not entirely wrong about the 'no-nonsense' vibe. But what's fascinating about this book, Built, Not Born by Thomas Golisano, is that Golisano isn't some MBA-toting theorist. He's a self-made billionaire who started Paychex with just $3,000 and a credit card. Michelle: Okay, that's a bit more compelling than a Christmas guilt-trip. A guy who actually did it. Mark: Exactly. And he co-wrote this with Mike Wicks, a professional writer who literally shadowed him for weeks just to capture his voice. The result is less a textbook and more like getting cornered by your brilliant, slightly intimidating uncle at a family party who decides to give you the keys to the kingdom. Michelle: I'm intrigued. So what's the first key to the kingdom he offers? Is it the usual 'take big risks, dream big' speech? Mark: Not at all. In fact, he starts with a much more provocative idea. He argues that the 'safe' 9-to-5 job you think you have? That's the biggest, most dangerous gamble of all.

Michelle: Hold on. How can a steady paycheck and benefits be riskier than pouring your life savings into a startup that has a, what, 90% chance of failing? That feels completely backward. Mark: It does, until you look at it through his eyes. His argument is about control. When you're an employee, your fate is entirely in someone else's hands. You can be a superstar performer, but if the company makes a bad decision, or the market shifts, you're out. You have zero control. Michelle: I guess that's true. You're just a line item on a spreadsheet at the end of the day. Mark: Precisely. And he uses a powerful example that really hits home: Eastman Kodak in his hometown of Rochester, New York. For decades, Kodak was the definition of job security. It was a cradle-to-grave employer. In the early 80s, they employed something like 60,000 people in that city alone. It was a titan. Michelle: Right, a blue-chip company. The kind of place your parents wanted you to work for your whole life. Mark: Exactly. But they failed to adapt to the digital revolution—a revolution their own engineer invented, by the way. They got complacent. And what happened? Today, they employ a tiny fraction of that workforce. Decades of loyalty, gone. Thousands of 'safe' jobs, vanished. Golisano's point is that those employees had no say in the decisions that tanked the company. They were passengers on a ship they couldn't steer. Michelle: Wow. When you put it like that, it's terrifying. The illusion of safety. So his idea of entrepreneurship isn't about reckless gambling? Mark: It's the opposite. It's about taking control of the steering wheel. He calls it calculated defiance. It’s about questioning the status quo. This is exactly how he started Paychex. He was working for a payroll company called EAS, and they only served big businesses—companies with 50 or more employees. The conventional wisdom was that small businesses weren't worth the trouble. Michelle: They were too small to be profitable. Mark: That's what his bosses told him. But Golisano did his own research. He went to the library, he talked to accountants, and he discovered a staggering fact: 95% of American businesses had fewer than 50 employees. The industry was ignoring the entire market. Michelle: So he saw an opportunity everyone else was blind to because they were stuck in their old way of thinking. Mark: He saw a massive, untapped goldmine. He drew up a plan to serve these 'little guys' at an affordable price and presented it to his bosses. They flat-out rejected him. They said it was a dumb idea, that it wouldn't be profitable. Michelle: And that was the moment of defiance. Mark: That was it. He was frustrated, but he knew he was right. So he quit, took his $3,000 in savings, maxed out a credit card, and started his own company to do exactly what they said couldn't be done. That company became Paychex, now a multi-billion-dollar giant. He didn't take a wild risk; he took a calculated one based on research and a refusal to accept the 'wisdom' of the herd.

Michelle: Okay, I get the mindset shift. It's about seeing what others don't and having the courage to act. But you still need a plan. I'm picturing a binder thick enough to stop a door, with market analysis and five-year projections. Mark: (Laughs) Golisano would throw that binder in the trash. This is maybe the most radical part of the book. He argues for a one-page business plan. And really, it's not even a plan. It's a viability test. Michelle: A one-page plan for a billion-dollar company? Come on. What could possibly be on one page that's useful? Mark: It's brutally simple. A profit and loss projection. He tells this story about observing a video game store. He stands outside and does some quick math in his head. The average game costs, say, $50. The store needs to sell X number of games per day just to cover rent, utilities, and one employee's salary. He watches the foot traffic and sees maybe one person go in every ten minutes. Michelle: And most of them are probably just browsing. Mark: Exactly. He concludes in about five minutes that the business is doomed. The math doesn't work. That, he says, is your business plan. Can you sell enough of your product at a certain price to cover your costs and eventually make a profit? If the basic math doesn't work on a single sheet of paper, it's not going to magically work in a 50-page document filled with jargon. Michelle: That's so direct it's almost insulting to the whole business school industry. But what if your projections are wrong? What if you think you can sell 100 widgets a day but you only sell ten? Mark: Ah, now you've hit on his other core principle. He tells a great story about this. When he first launched Paychex, his grand strategy was a direct mail campaign. He and his nieces and nephews licked stamps and sealed 3,000 envelopes to send to local businesses. He was confident this would bring in a flood of clients. Michelle: And what happened? Mark: It was an absolute catastrophe. Out of 3,000 mailers, he got six clients. A 0.2% return. He burned through his entire initial investment in six weeks. Michelle: Oh man, that's a nightmare. So the one-page plan didn't save him. Mark: Because the plan was based on a faulty assumption about his ability to sell. This is where he delivers one of the book's most important lines: "It's not a cash flow problem—it's a sales problem." He says entrepreneurs love to blame 'cash flow issues' when their business is failing. But Golisano is ruthless about this. The cash isn't flowing because you're not selling enough. Period. Michelle: So the plan is just a hypothesis. The real work is proving you can make the sales to back it up. Mark: Yes. Nothing happens until somebody sells something. He believes selling is the most fundamental, yet most overlooked, skill in business. You have to solve the prospecting riddle. For him, the direct mail was a failure, but he eventually realized that CPAs hated doing payroll for their small clients. So he started partnering with them. That became his sales engine. He solved the sales problem.

Michelle: This all sounds very cold and numbers-driven. Defy, calculate, sell. What about the people? The team? Is it all just about squeezing out profit? Mark: This is where the book takes a turn that I found genuinely surprising and, honestly, very moving. His entire philosophy on how to treat people, he says, comes from a single, painful memory from his childhood. Michelle: What happened? Mark: He was about seventeen, and his father, a Sicilian immigrant, had lost his own business and was working as a truck driver for a macaroni company. One day, Tom was with him, and something went wrong at the warehouse. The manager, also an immigrant, came out and just tore into his father. In front of everyone, he called him an "incompetent, inefficient idiot." Michelle: Oh, that's just awful. Especially in front of his son. Mark: It was deeply humiliating. His father just stood there and took it, silently. Tom said the ride home in the truck was the most painful, silent ride of his life. And in that moment, he made a vow. He swore he would never, ever treat another person that way if he was in a position of power. Michelle: Wow. You can see how that one moment would shape his entire life. Mark: It's the bedrock of his HR philosophy, which he boils down to "Hire for attitude, train for skill." He says you can teach someone how to do a job, but you can't teach them to have a good attitude, to be respectful, to be a team player. He tells a story about hiring a guy from a tire store just because he had a great attitude and was incredibly helpful. That guy went on to become one of Paychex's top salespeople. Michelle: So he looks for the person, not the resume. That connects to his other big idea, right? The "good deal for everyone." That sounds nice, but business is competitive. How does that actually work in a high-stakes negotiation? Mark: He gives a masterclass example from when he owned the Buffalo Sabres hockey team. His management team made a huge mistake. They traded for a player without reading the fine print on his contract, which entitled the player to a $250,000 bonus if he played a certain number of games. They missed it, and now the team was on the hook for a quarter of a million dollars. Michelle: Ouch. That's a fireable offense in most places. Mark: Golisano was furious. He flew the senior managers down to his home in Florida for a meeting. They all sat around a table, and he brought up the mistake. And then... he said nothing. He just sat there, in complete silence, staring at them. Michelle: That sounds incredibly uncomfortable. Mark: It's a technique he calls the "pregnant pause." He let the silence stretch. For forty-five minutes. Can you imagine? Just the sound of the air conditioning and four grown men sweating. Finally, the General Manager cracked. He said, "Tom, I'll pay for it. I'll write you a check." Michelle: And did he take it? Mark: No. He said, "I don't want your money. I just want you to respect my money." The lesson was learned. He held them accountable, created a 'win' by getting them to take ownership, but nobody was fired, and nobody lost face. It was a good deal for everyone. The company saved future mistakes, and the team learned a powerful lesson in diligence.

Mark: When you step back, you see this beautiful tripod of wisdom holding the whole book up. First, defy the conventional definition of risk and understand that control is the real security. Second, simplify your business down to the brutal reality of sales and a one-page viability test. And third, treat everyone—employees, partners, competitors—with a pragmatic respect that aims to create value for all. Michelle: It's less about being 'born' an entrepreneur and more about building a specific set of muscles: the courage to question, the discipline to focus on what truly matters, and the integrity to build something that lasts. He’s not saying it’s easy, but he’s saying it’s built. It's a process, not a personality trait. Mark: Exactly. And his challenge to the reader is simple. You don't need an MBA. You don't need a massive bank loan to start. You just need to answer the question on that one-page plan. So maybe the first step for anyone listening with an idea simmering is to just sketch that out tonight. What would it actually take for your idea to break even? Michelle: That's a powerful, and maybe slightly terrifying, piece of homework. I'd love to hear what our listeners think. Is your job the biggest risk you're taking? Have you ever tried to map out an idea on a single page? Let us know your thoughts. We love hearing from you. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.