- David Senra The episode reads Plank’s memoir — written when he was nearly 90 — as a lifelong diary of lessons on opportunity, courage, cost control, resourcefulness, and adaptation from building Apache Corporation with $250,000 in 1954 into a $50 billion oil company. source ↗
Raymond Plank founded Apache Corporation in 1954 with $250,000 and built it into a $50 billion oil company over five decades. Written when he was nearly 90, his memoir reads as a lifelong diary of entrepreneurial lessons rather than a conventional corporate history. The book distills seven decades of experience into maxims on opportunity, courage, cost control, resourcefulness, and adaptation.
David Senra devoted Founders episode #427 to Raymond Plank's A Small Difference, calling it a book that "reads like a lifelong diary of how to think about opportunity, courage, cost control, resourcefulness, and adaptation." The episode focuses entirely on the lessons, maxims, and beliefs Plank accumulated over seven decades — the operating principles that turned a tiny oil startup into a $50 billion enterprise. Plank's story is a case study in obsessive cost discipline and the willingness to act when others won't, themes Senra returns to across his entire catalog of founder biographies.