Maverick
by John Helyar
Mentioned once across 1 show · first heard May 2026 on My First Million.
The general take
Sam Parr found Maverick, a book about a Brazilian businessman running his company democratically, to be a strange concept that's probably good but not personally appealing to him. He's almost finished reading it and acknowledges it's highly recommended, but it lands in that awkward category of well-regarded books that just don't click for him personally.
About
An inspiring account of a maverick CEO who turned his family's aging business into a success story that paved the way for other companies. The extraordinary true story of thirty-four-year-old CEO Ricardo Semler and the rebirth of his family owned Brazilian manufacturing company, Semco is a chronicle of corporate change—a change so vast and successful that Semco has been visited by over 400 corporate representatives from around the world who want to see it in action. In 1980, twenty-one-year-old Ricardo Semler took over the reins of the company his father founded and built. Ricardo proceeded to break every rule of doing business, firing an entire echelon of upper level managers. Once he opened the floodgates to change, Semler never—even when he was tempted to—closed them again.
Who said what
Sam Parr💬 Mentioned
…discussing books that shaped his quarter and their reading habits
“I'm reading this Maverick. I almost finished with this. It's about a Brazilian business guy who like runs his business via democracy, which is strange... No, but because I've only... But it's highly recommended. So I just it's in that weird category of like it's probably good, but I don't like it.”
My First Million — We hit record on our private strategy sessionat 34:24
Listener reviews
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