How to Make a Few Billion Dollars – Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis

Brad Jacobs’s book How to Make a Few Billion Dollars (2024) distills lessons from his four decades of building multi-billion-dollar enterprises. Jacobs, a renowned serial entrepreneur who has founded and led numerous billion-dollar companies, uses each chapter to focus on a key element of success, sharing practical strategies, bold insights, and personal anecdotes. Below is a detailed analysis of each chapter, highlighting the core ideas and memorable principles Jacobs presents.

To provide context for his extraordinary career, here is an overview of the major companies Brad Jacobs has built:

Company / Venture	Industry	Founded	Achievements & Outcome
Amerex Oil Associates	Oil Brokerage	1979	Started at age 23. Within 4 years, brokered deals worth $4.7 billion annually. Pioneered arbitrage between NY/Chicago futures and London/Houston spot markets. Sold profitably in 1983.
Hamilton Resources	Oil Trading	1984	Founded in London, achieving annual revenues of approximately $1 billion through crude oil trading and barter deals.
United Waste Systems	Waste Management	1989	Seized on the trend of industry consolidation. Took the company public in 1992, becoming the 5th largest waste management firm in the US. Sold to Waste Management, Inc. for $2.5 billion in 1997. Achieved a 55% compound annual growth in stock price, outperforming the S&P 500 by 5.6x.
United Rentals	Equipment Rental	1997	Identified a gap in the market and went public the same year. Became the world's largest equipment rental company within 13 months via hundreds of acquisitions. Its stock is now a "100-bagger," having increased over 100-fold from its initial price.
XPO Logistics	Logistics & Supply Chain	2011	Transformed a $175 million revenue company into a global logistics leader through M&A and technology. Stock price increased 32-fold from 2011-2022. It was the 7th best-performing Fortune 500 stock of the 2010s. Spun off two independent public companies, GXO and RXO, in 2021-2022.
GXO Logistics	Contract Logistics (XPO spinoff)	2021	Became the world's largest pure-play contract logistics provider after being spun off from XPO. Jacobs serves as Chairman.
RXO	Digital Freight Brokerage (XPO spinoff)	2022	A tech-driven freight brokerage platform spun off from XPO, with Jacobs as Chairman.
QXO, Inc.	Building Products Distribution	2024	Jacobs's latest venture. Within a year of its formation, it became the largest distributor of roofing and waterproofing materials in North America through acquisitions. Jacobs serves as Chairman and CEO.

This remarkable track record provides the foundation for the practical lessons taught in his book.

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Chapter 1: How to Rearrange Your Brain

Jacobs opens with the foundation of extreme success: cultivating a winning mindset. He argues that aspiring billion-dollar entrepreneurs must “think differently—and expansively”. This means breaking out of conventional mental limits and retraining one’s brain to embrace big, unconventional ideas. He suggests imaginative thought experiments to widen perspective, like visualizing the expansion of the universe from the Big Bang to remind himself how small daily problems are. Such exercises help “rearrange your brain” to think on a cosmic scale, making enormous business goals feel achievable. He also stresses the importance of setting huge, specific goals. “To make a lot of money, you have to want to make a lot of money,” he writes, urging readers to visualize the exact amount, the timeline, and what they'll do with it, creating a powerful motivational driver.

A crucial mindset shift is learning to embrace problems as opportunities. Jacobs recounts his mentor, Ludwig Jesselson, telling him: "If you want to make money in business, get used to problems – that’s what business is." This taught Jacobs that each problem is a chance to remove an obstacle and move closer to success. He underscores this with one of the book’s memorable mantras: “Problems are an asset – not something to avoid but something to run toward.” He learned to welcome tough challenges, viewing them as “uncut diamonds” to polish into value. He shares a practical tip from cognitive-behavioral therapy: when anxiety hits, calmly ask, "What’s the worst that could happen, and how would I handle it? What would I advise a friend in this situation?" This creates mental distance for objective thinking.

This chapter is grounded in the concept of “radical acceptance” — facing reality without delay. Jacobs illustrates this with a painful $500 million lesson. In the late 90s, anticipating a massive federal infrastructure bill, he had United Rentals aggressively acquire companies specializing in roadwork equipment. When the government funding only materialized at a fraction of the expected level, the market boom never came. Instead of doubling down, Jacobs "radically accepted" the mistake and immediately began selling off the assets to cut his losses. It was a painful decision, but it prevented a much larger disaster and exemplified his principle of confronting errors head-on. By accepting reality instead of denying it, one can focus on solutions.

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Chapter 2: How to Get the Major Trend Right

In Chapter 2, Jacobs pivots to the power of trends, insisting that identifying and riding the right wave is often the decisive factor. A striking insight he shares is that even if you make mistakes, a huge trend can carry you to victory: “You can mess up a lot of things in business and still do well as long as you get the big trend right.” Jacobs urges entrepreneurs to become futurists of their field, constantly scanning for major market shifts or technological evolutions.

To spot these trends, he outlines a three-step research method:

1. Exhaustive Self-Study: Immerse yourself in industry journals, financial reports, conference talks, and even employee reviews on hiring sites.
2. Formulate Key Questions: Identify what you still don’t know.
3. Consult Top Experts: Seek out and talk to the smartest people in the field—CEOs, investment bankers, venture capitalists, and veteran analysts—to get their unfiltered views.

Before entering an industry, Jacobs assesses its future potential by asking critical questions: Is the market large enough to scale to billions? Is the industry growing faster than GDP? Are there opportunities for technology, especially AI, to drive efficiency? He is particularly focused on technology as the “biggest trend of all,” advising aggressive investment in tech to gain a competitive edge. A practical innovation technique he shares is to ask customers to imagine their ideal "dream technology" without cost constraints. This uncovers latent needs and sparks ideas that can be evaluated for ROI.

His own career exemplifies this principle. In 1989, he identified consolidation in the fragmented waste management industry, leading to United Waste. In 1997, after a tip from an analyst, he saw the same potential in equipment rentals, a field he knew nothing about, and quickly built United Rentals into a dominant force. The key lesson is clear: bet on the right horse. Aligning your business with a powerful trend dramatically "turbocharges" your odds of success.

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Chapter 3: How to Do Lots of High-Quality M&A Without Imploding

Jacobs dedicates Chapter 3 to Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), a cornerstone of his empire-building. With over 500 acquisitions under his belt, he provides a playbook for using M&A to fuel growth without blowing up the company. He begins by cautioning that the deals you don’t do are as important as the ones you do.

Jacobs categorizes deals by size and risk. He says the "bingo quadrant" is large, high-risk deals where the risks are solvable problems. These are the "big, hairy" deals that scare others off but offer massive returns if you have the expertise to fix what's broken. He also shares a lesson in negotiation strategy: early in his career, he tried playing hard to get, which only slowed things down. He learned that being direct and sincere about your interest is more effective. "It’s a bit like a marriage proposal," he says. "If you really want to marry someone, you don't play it cool; you express your feelings directly."

His M&A process is built on speed and discipline. He does his homework in advance so he can act fast, but he is adamant about having the courage to walk away last-minute if red flags emerge. He learned this the hard way during the 2007 financial crisis when a private equity firm backed out of a $7 billion deal to buy United Rentals, teaching him a valuable lesson about "black swan" risks.

Finally, Jacobs emphasizes that integration is where M&A success is truly made or broken. He creates a detailed integration playbook for every deal, assigning specific tasks to individuals, not committees. He focuses heavily on cultural and human factors, seeking input from new employees on what practices to keep and what to change. The goal is to make everyone feel they are on one team, united against the competition.

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Chapter 4: How to Build an Outrageously Talented Team

In Chapter 4, Jacobs turns to people, arguing that no huge enterprise is built alone. “The smartest thing I do as a CEO is to make sure that most of the people I hire are smarter than I am,” he states. His approach is uncompromising: only hire A+ players.

Jacobs outlines four key characteristics he looks for in every hire:

1. Intelligence: Not just raw intellect, but the mental flexibility to think dialectically and change one's mind with new information. This, he says, screens out 90% of candidates.
2. Hunger: A powerful drive to succeed and win. Jacobs is blunt: he wants people motivated by money because it aligns their personal drive with the company's goals.
3. Integrity: Absolute honesty is non-negotiable. He believes that people who tell small lies will eventually tell big ones, creating a toxic culture.
4. Collegiality: He wants to work with "good people." Reflecting on his own mortality, Jacobs says, "I don't want to spend a single hour with people who are not kind."

To find and keep such talent, Jacobs employs a rigorous hiring process (often 7-8 interviews plus written questionnaires) and is prepared to “overpay” for superstars. He also shares a simple but powerful mental tool for evaluating his team. He imagines an employee resigning and gauges his immediate gut reaction: if it's relief, they're a C player; if it's manageable disappointment, they're a B player; if it's panic, they're an A player to be retained at all costs. This "resignation test" helps him constantly assess and upgrade his team's quality.

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Chapter 5: How to Run Electric Meetings

Jacobs has a vendetta against boring, unproductive meetings. Chapter 5 is about transforming them into “electric” sessions full of energy, insight, and action. His formula for an electric meeting has three ingredients: the right people, a crowdsourced agenda, and an atmosphere where everyone feels safe to respectfully disagree.

His process is meticulous:

• Crowdsourced Agenda: Materials are sent out well in advance, and all attendees are required to read them and submit questions beforehand. These questions are then compiled, and attendees vote on which topics are most critical, creating a prioritized agenda that addresses the group's biggest concerns.
• Unexpected Moderators: To keep discussions objective and fresh, Jacobs sometimes appoints an "unexpected moderator"—a leader from a different department or a promising junior manager—to run the meeting. This prevents the business owner from sugarcoating bad news and also serves as a development opportunity for future leaders.
• Full Participation: Jacobs enforces a strict "no devices" rule and insists that every attendee must contribute. He will cold-call people for their opinions to ensure a diversity of perspectives. To normalize constructive conflict, he often ends meetings by asking each person to state one point they agree with and one they disagree with, making dissent a healthy, routine part of the process.

These practices turn meetings from time-sinks into powerful engines for problem-solving and talent development. He shares an anecdote from an XPO meeting where this process not only solved a persistent logistics issue but also identified the talented manager who proposed the solution, leading to his promotion.

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Chapter 6: How to Kill the Competition Instead of Killing Each Other

The final chapter focuses on building a unified “superorganism”—an organization that channels all its energy toward beating competitors, not internal infighting. Jacobs's antidote to corporate politics is radical transparency and communication. "It’s impossible to over-communicate with the team," he stresses.

He practices this through frequent company-wide updates, open Q&A sessions, and a commitment to deep listening. He famously gives his personal email and phone number to all employees, inviting them to contact him directly. He believes the best ideas often come from the front lines, and it's a leader's job to listen. By systematically identifying best practices from top-performing GXO warehouses and sharing them globally, for example, the entire organization improves.

This philosophy of openness extends to the Board of Directors. Jacobs provides his board with unprecedented access, inviting them to internal operational reviews and giving them a direct line to any employee. He believes that a fully informed and engaged board is a strategic asset, not a body to be managed. This builds deep trust and ensures alignment from the top down.

Ultimately, Jacobs argues that the ultimate competitive weapon is a cohesive culture built on trust and a shared purpose. By eliminating internal friction and fostering open communication, a company can focus all its collective energy on winning in the marketplace.

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Conclusion

How to Make a Few Billion Dollars offers a powerful and practical roadmap for achieving extraordinary success. Across every chapter—from mindset (love problems), to strategy (ride trends), to tactics (master M&A), to culture (build a superorganism)—Jacobs’s core principles shine through: ambition tempered by humility, bold action guided by rigorous thinking, and a deep belief in people. The book is packed with memorable anecdotes and actionable techniques, such as the "resignation test" for talent and the "crowdsourced agenda" for meetings. For any reader with a burning passion to win big in business, Jacobs’s lessons provide an inspiring and highly detailed blueprint for turning immense ambition into a multi-billion-dollar reality.

Sources:

• Jacobs, Brad. How to Make a Few Billion Dollars. Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2024. (Summary and key points accessed via LinkedIn article by Harold Chapman III and publisher synopsis)
• Sobrief Book Summary – How to Make a Few Billion Dollars (Key takeaways and quotes)
• Daniel Scrivner, Great Books Distilled – Notes on How to Make a Few Billion Dollars (Selected excerpts and quotes from the book)
• Founders Podcast #373 – Brad Jacobs: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars (discussion of Jacobs’s lessons).