When Katharine Graham took over the Washington Post in 1963, she was a shy socialite who'd never run anything. By retirement, she'd taken down a president, ended the most violent strike in a generation, and built one of the best-performing companies in American history. Graham had no training, no experience, not even confidence. Just a newspaper bleeding money and a government that expected her to fall in line. When her editors brought her stolen classified documents, her lawyers begged her not to publish. They said it would destroy the company. She published them anyway. Nixon came after her, attacking her with the full force of the executive. Then Watergate. For nearly a year she was ridiculed and isolated while pursuing the story that would eventually bring down the president. Graham proved that you can grow into a job that initially seems impossible and no amount of training can substitute for having the right values and the courage to act on them. ------ 10 Lessons from Katharine Graham: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/outliers-katharine-graham/ ------ Approximate timestamps: (0:00) Start (02:19) The Making of an Unlikely Heiress (10:15) The Education of a Publisher’s Wife (22:16) Learning to Lead (30:46) Becoming a Media Titan (44:12) Legacy (47:59) Reflections + Lessons ------ Thanks to ReMarkable for sponsoring this episode. Get your paper tablet at reMarkable.com today ------ Upgrade: Get a hand edited transcripts and ad free experiences along with my thoughts and reflections at the end of every conversation. Learn more @ fs.blog/membership ------ Newsletter: The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it’s completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter ------Follow Shane Parrish X @ShaneAParrish Insta @farnamstreet LinkedIn Shane Parrish ------ This episode is for informational purposes only and contains the lessons I learned reading her memoir, Personal History and watching Becoming Katharine Graham. ------ Check out our website for all stock video and photo credits. Episode photo sourced from: iwmf.org/community/katharine-graham/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Catherine Graham was hosting a farewell party in her Georgetown home when she got a phone call that would change history. While the Capitol's elite filled her living room, her editors waited on the line with an impossible question. Should they publish the Pentagon Papers and risk destroying the company? Frightened and tense, she took a big gulp and said, go ahead, let's publish.
And she hung up the phone. In that moment, the self-described doormat wife became one of the most powerful women in American media and one of the most powerful women ever. Welcome to The Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.
Catherine Graham documented her remarkable life and journey in a Pulitzer Prize winning memoir called Personal History, which is the main source of the material today. She wrote it with an unflinching honesty because she wanted everyone to understand that courage isn't the absence of fear. It's doing what's right despite being terrified.
The image of me is this tough, sort of decisive, combative person. person who's taken on all these fights and i just like to say that i hate fights and i am very courageous only when forced into a corner and all the battles we got in were ones in which you had very little choice or no choice there's no corporate spin it's just a raw blueprint for turning self-doubt into unshakable resolve
Katherine Graham, or Kay as her friends called her, is one of the most powerful women in history. She published the Pentagon Papers, exposed the Watergate scandal, faced the full force of the US government coming after her, brought down a president, and weathered a strike that would have crippled any other company.
Oh, and if that wasn't enough, thanks to an unlikely friendship with Warren Buffett, she ended up with one of the best track records by shareholder return in business history. It's time to listen and learn. Imagine a little girl so isolated by wealth that she doesn't know clothes need to be washed until she goes away to college. At home, servants take them away dirty and return them clean.
She grows up thinking, this is how the world works. This is Catherine Mayer in 1921 at the age of four, the daughter of one of America's most powerful financiers. She was known to her friends as Kay. Her father, Eugene Mayer, had already conquered Wall Street. J.P.
Morgan himself warned to colleagues, watch out for this fellow mayor, because if you don't, he'll end up having all the money on Wall Street. By the time Catherine was born in 1917, Eugene was already making millions and thriving in a career that would later earn him the top job at the Federal Reserve. But here's a side of privilege most people don't see.
It can create the exact opposite of confidence. The Mayer household operated like an institution, not a family. A 40-room mansion in Washington, a sprawling estate in Mount Kisco. The children followed rigid schedules, French lessons, music, writing, dancing, but emotional connection? That was too expensive.
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