01x01 - Land Your Deam Job

[bunniefuu]

[narrator] Look at yourself.

Just another cog in the machine.

[man] A working stiff is stuck in a life.

They play by the rules,

and they get f*cked.

[narrator] You've tried doing things

the right way,

but the deck is stacked against you.

I can show you how to get the money,

power, and respect

you've been denied for too long.

It's inside this playbook.

A series of tactics

that the world's most powerful mob bosses

use to become masters

of their own destiny.

One hit

[g*nsh*t]

at a time.

[theme music playing]

Sure, this life isn't for everybody.

But follow their examples,

and you can learn how to use these tools

to make a k*lling.

[g*nsh*t]

[narrator] When I say mob boss,

what comes to mind?

Ah, so literal.

A mob boss is someone

who knows how to beat the system.

A mob boss is basically

the CEO of an organization.

And some of these organizations

are very big,

and some of them make

an awful lot of money.

[narrator] And when problems arise

We have different ways

of dealing with them.

We do it with f*cking fear.

We're ferocious!

[narrator] The gangland giants

who run the two-trillion-dollar-a-year

organized crime industry

know the value of structure,

public relations,

and a diversified portfolio.

Before you can flex your muscle as a boss,

you need to follow the playbook's guide

to climbing the corporate ladder.

And few elevated themselves

as high or as quickly

as the barber's son from Brooklyn

who would grow up

to become the original gangster.

[reporter] Here he comes!

The big boy himself!

[narrator] Al Capone.

By the time he turned 30,

Al Capone was king

of the Chicago underworld,

running a vast criminal empire

that raked in over $100 million.

While leaving a trail of bodies

across the Windy City.

But it's how he got started

that will be your first lesson

in self-improvement.

You want the success

that comes with being a boss. You do!

[narrator] Ready to begin launching

your own empire?

To be a successful mob boss,

first of all, you have to be driven.

You have to be ambitious.

You have to be smart

and know how to motivate

and, at times, frighten people

to keep them in line.

[narrator] As with any pursuit,

developing this skill set

takes studious practice

and a goal-oriented approach.

Guys who gravitated toward the mob

were looking for a way to succeed.

They didn't have education.

They weren't able to go to college,

and so they thought,

"I can rob somebody.

I can beat somebody up."

Who's gonna value that?

Organized crime does.

[narrator] And as you'll see,

most criminal kingpins

unlock their potential at an early age.

Future New York City mob boss

John Gotti was arrested five times

before his 21st birthday.

And as a kid, he nearly lost his toes

when they were crushed

under a cement mixer

he was trying to steal.

It's how he developed his trademark strut.

Sicilian mob boss Salvatore Riina

assisted in his first m*rder

at just 18 years old,

helping to k*ll a trade union official

who had publicly embarrassed Riina's boss.

And as a teen,

Medellín drug cartel founder Pablo Escobar

made his schoolteacher mom proud,

selling fake diplomas before graduating

to falsifying report cards.

Young Al Capone would also prove to be

a gifted student of the criminal arts.

[man 2] Capone's a child of immigrants.

His father came to the country first.

He was a barber in Brooklyn.

They were pasta makers back in Italy.

So Capone wasn't born into this.

It was America that created the mobster.

[man 3] He got pretty good grades

in school while he went there.

But he left in the sixth grade,

possibly because of an altercation

with the teacher.

Possibly, he just got bored

and wanted to go make money.

[narrator] Before long,

Al would discover the ideal outlet

for his entrepreneurial spirit.

One year, for his birthday,

Capone's father gives him the gift

every kid dreams of.

A shoeshine kit.

As young Al waits for customers,

he spots another, more profitable

moneymaking venture in action

at the hands of local mobster

Don Battista Balsamo.

Capone is impressed

and inspired.

[mischievous music plays]

The next day,

he recruits two of his cousins

to give his own business a leg up

by roughing up his competition.

Little Capone tells the boy

that if he wants to avoid further trouble,

he's going to have to pay up.

"Will this be every week?" the kid asks.

"Of course not," says Capone,

"It's gonna be every day."

You can see the street smarts

in the protection racket, for sure.

This shows us that he was resourceful,

that he had ambition, that he had ideas,

and he had the kind of business sense

that would work perfectly

for being a mobster.

[narrator] Of course, it's one thing

to show you have the character to succeed,

but you'll never make it

all the way to mob boss

without the right direction.

Let the playbook show you the way.

[upbeat music plays]

No matter how smart

or tough you think you are,

nobody gets ahead

in the mob game entirely on their own.

You're going to need a mentor.

It's important to have somebody

who believes in you and wants to teach you

because this is a dangerous world

you're getting into.

If you line up on the wrong side,

get in bed with the wrong person,

you won't last long.

[narrator] But finding

the appropriate tutor

is going to take some work.

You can't just go up to somebody

and say, "Hey, I'd like to be like you."

You know, somebody has to say,

"You have what it takes,"

and then, you know,

you do whatever necessary work

to prove yourself,

and that's how it happens.

[narrator] Young Al Capone showed

his dedication to the playbook

by seeking out

not one underworld mentor, but two.

John Torrio is regarded

as an underworld genius.

Criminal, of course, did ill*gal things,

but in his chosen profession, he's viewed

as a very, very savvy individual.

[Jonathan] And every kid

on the streets of Brooklyn

in Capone's neighborhood

knew who Johnny Torrio was.

So when Capone got to meet Johnny Torrio,

and Johnny Torrio said to him,

"If you ever need a job, come see me."

That was big.

Eventually, Capone started

running errands for him,

like delivering g*ns in paper bags,

picking up the money

from the night at the local brothels.

Torrio became

almost a father figure to Al Capone.

[narrator] From Torrio,

young Capone learned these rules.

Dress for success.

Keep your mouth shut.

And when it comes to staying on top,

remember, money is power.

These young guys in the mob,

they get pretty chesty.

They think they know everything.

Capone was humble

when it came to Johnny Torrio.

[narrator] As for mentor number two,

Capone also took lessons from this guy.

Brooklyn's top racketeer, Frankie Yale.

Frankie Yale was a very violent man.

[g*n shots]

[Jonathan] This was one

of the most dangerous men in New York.

And for Capone not to be scared,

for Capone to want to work for this guy

tells you something about his character.

[narrator] Frankie Yale taught Capone

an alternate set of skills.

Always show you mean business.

Never get outgunned.

And make sure

your reputation precedes you.

And when Capone started

working at Frankie Yale's bar,

the Harvard Inn on Coney Island,

he got that chance

to prove himself as a worthy pupil.

Nineteen-year-old Al Capone

is paying his dues as a busboy.

When one night,

a young woman catches his eye.

[mischievous music plays]

He tries to win her over.

Then he tries again.

When his advances fail,

he goes for a more direct approach.

Her brother, Frank Galluccio,

an associate of New York mob boss

Lucky Luciano, has seen enough.

The much larger Capone

soon gains the upper hand.

Galluccio pulls a knife

and slashes Al's face.

Capone, now scarred for life,

wants revenge,

but Frankie Yale says no.

He won't allow

his pupil's rage to start a w*r

that could take them both down.

Capone agrees to drop the beef,

but he'll later exact

an even sweeter revenge

making Galluccio his errand boy.

Capone was a good student of his mentors,

picking things up from them,

learning whatever lessons

there were to be learned.

The fact that he had Frankie Yale

on his side probably helps explain

why he survived his teens.

Because he was engaged in risky work,

but he had important people

looking out for him.

[narrator] Now that you've built

a foundation for your future,

it's time to start forging your own path.

I'm on my way to the top,

and I'm gonna get there.

[narrator] To break from the pack,

you're going to need to prove

that you're leadership material.

And nothing says that

like a million-dollar idea.

[soft music plays]

[Renee] You want to rise to the top?

You have to be an earner. Big earner.

You have to know how to make that money.

[narrator] And you can't let anything

get in the way

of bringing your financial vision to life.

Take it from Al Capone.

Capone decided to move to Chicago

because he sees a chance

to do something bigger with his life.

Chicago is a big bustling town,

and he gets there

just as Prohibition's beginning.

[narrator] After World w*r I,

the best minds in the US Congress

decided that the key to growing

American power and prosperity

was to make alcohol ill*gal.

But Capone had a more skeptical view

of his countrymen's tolerance

for sobriety.

Capone realized that the masses

are not going to embrace this law.

And that's when you begin

to have to think like a businessman.

How can we take advantage?

That's the key moment.

He realized

that there's millions to be made

because consumers want that product,

and we're gonna provide it for them.

[narrator] That cool glass of opportunity

the government served up

was called bootlegging.

And there were options

to serve every palate.

[mid-tempo music plays]

If whiskey was your drink of choice,

you could sell it as medicine.

With a doctor's prescription,

any lush could get their fix.

Or you could find creative ways

to import your hooch

from across the Canadian border.

If you preferred the sweet stuff,

there was also rum-running,

smuggling in the finest spirits

from overseas right off the boat.

But to make even more money,

beer was the frosty ticket.

Bootleggers took over shuttered breweries.

And when the cops came calling,

they convinced them to look the other way.

Then they added some clever labeling

and watched the cash pour in.

But if you really wanted to make it rain,

you could do it all.

Shortly after arriving in Chicago

and reconnecting

with his old mentor John Torrio,

Capone turned his focus

towards starting a bootlegging operation.

In the beginning,

Capone was mostly muscle for Torrio.

But gradually,

Johnny Torrio began to realize

that Capone was also

an excellent businessman.

That he was a smart, charismatic leader.

That people would work for him.

[narrator] But the path to realizing

Capone's criminal vision

faced a roadblock.

Chicago's top gangster

and Torrio's current boss,

Big Jim Colosimo.

Big Jim Colosimo does not want

to get involved in bootlegging.

He's very happy with his restaurant,

his brothel, and his casino.

He was not willing to embrace

the risk involved in going bigger.

[narrator] Capone wasn't one

to let small minds

get in the way of a great idea.

So he and Torrio had to find a workaround.

At some point,

they decided that Big Jim had to go.

[narrator] With his path

to illicit riches on the line,

Capone isn't going to trust

just anyone to rub out Big Jim.

He knows just the guy to call.

His other mentor and former boss

from New York, Frankie Yale.

Capone organizes the details

and offers Yale $10,000 to do the job.

That's around 150,000 today.

[ominous music plays]

On Capone's instruction,

Yale enters Colosimo's Restaurant

and takes his position.

Shortly before 4:00 p.m.,

Colosimo arrives

to meet with an associate,

but the man never shows.

Colosimo heads to the phone booth

to find out what's going on,

leading him right into the trap.

[g*nshots]

Big Jim is hit behind his right ear

and dies on the spot.

The m*rder rocks the Chicago underworld

and allows Capone to turn

his bootlegging vision into reality.

[upbeat music plays]

Within the next three years,

Capone and Torrio take over

nine major breweries.

Very quickly, it becomes clear

that these are the guys.

That they're controlling

the booze business.

That these giant breweries,

once owned by big legitimate companies,

are now being operated by these two guys.

[narrator] Capone's bootlegging strategy

helped grow

Torrio's operation into a criminal empire,

raking in at least

three million dollars a year.

That's 51 million today.

And eliminating their key obstacle

had another benefit,

vaulting John Torrio

to the top of the Chicago underworld,

with Capone as his number two.

As you move up the ranks to heir apparent,

your ultimate path to boss status

is still far from assured.

So, how do you preserve

your place in line?

When you become a mob boss,

you'll get to call the shots.

Don't you ever say that

to me again, ya hear?

[narrator] But to earn that promotion,

you need to show one trait above all.

Loyalty.

You have to play your position.

If your position is left f*cking field,

you play left field.

If your position is collect money

on Thursdays from the card games,

that's what you do.

You do what you're told.

[dramatic music plays]

[narrator] As Al Capone's date

with destiny neared,

he made sure that his boss

John Torrio knew he had his back.

He was a young man.

He was still learning the trade.

He was making money.

He wasn't someone, at least at that time,

who appeared ready

to take on the reins as the boss.

[narrator] But in the underworld,

life moves fast.

[upbeat music plays]

The Beer Wars in Chicago

were a result of this infighting

among the different bootlegging gangs.

It was a lot of violence

in terms of turf wars.

There were shootings.

There were revenge shootings.

[narrator] One major front saw

Torrio and Capone's South Side outfit

facing off against their bootlegging rival

to the north,

Dean O'Banion,

a florist by day.

[Adam] So, Dean O'Banion started trying

to move into Torrio's territory.

And at this point,

Torrio was starting to get fed up.

[narrator] And being a loyal soldier,

Capone knew what to do and whom to call.

He ordered another hit

from his old mentor, Frankie Yale.

O'Banion was working in his flower shop.

A few guys came in,

nobody that he recognized,

and one of them was Frankie Yale.

And he greeted them warmly,

and they gave him

what's called the Chicago handshake.

They grabbed his hand, pulled forward,

stuck a g*n in his guts and fired.

[narrator] That's one threat

out of the way,

but O'Banion had a lot of friends.

After the O'Banion m*rder,

Capone begins taking more precautions,

surrounding himself

with bodyguards for protection.

Torrio isn't as concerned.

After a shopping spree,

Torrio and his wife return home,

where O'Banion's crew is lying in wait.

They sh**t Torrio five times,

but he survives.

As Torrio recovers,

Capone seizes the chance

to prove his devotion.

Capone goes to the hospital,

sits by Torrio's side,

makes sure nobody comes in

to try to finish the job.

He was loyal,

and he showed care for Torrio.

[narrator] Al's patience

and loyalty pay off.

After Torrio recovers,

he tells Capone that he's going back

to New York to retire,

making Capone, at just 26 years old,

the new boss of the Chicago underworld.

Six years after landing in the Windy City,

Al Capone becomes Chicago's top boss,

but his honeymoon won't last long.

By following the playbook's guide

to landing your dream job,

you've unlocked your criminal talent,

absorbed the right lessons,

proved your earning potential,

and positioned yourself for success.

But now that you've got the job,

jealous rivals will be out for blood.

If you want to survive the coming storm,

the playbook's next lesson

will make all the difference.

You've made your way

to the top of the food chain,

but it's only a matter of time

until the vultures start circling.

On the street, everybody wants

to take from you what you have,

and you always got to protect that.

And violence is the best way to do it.

[narrator] These other rookie mob bosses

would certainly agree.

Just two months

into Nicodemo Scarfo's reign

over the Philadelphia Mafia,

he set his sights

on rivals in the city's Greek Mob,

allegedly having boss Chelsais Bouras

and his girlfriend

k*lled in a popular

south Philly restaurant

so he could take over

the Greeks' drug rackets.

When Yakuza lieutenant Hiroshi Yamamoto

split from Japan's largest

criminal organization, the Yamaguchi-gumi,

to form his own group,

his first boss move was

to assassinate rival, Masahisa Takenaka,

who had edged him out

for the role of Godfather.

And while little Vic Orena

was in his first year

as acting boss

of the Colombo crime family,

he secured the organization's finances

by ordering the m*rder of Thomas Ocera,

who was accused of skimming profits

from a family-owned sanitation company.

[intense music plays]

[narrator] With the Beer Wars raging

[reporter] More than five hundred

Chicago gangsters

are slain by their own kind.

[narrator] and ambitious competitors

set on undercutting

his bootlegging operation,

Capone's first year as boss

was a constant battle for survival.

Enough guys smell weakness,

they're gonna take you out, k*ll you,

and they're gonna beat you down

till they take

what they want that you got.

[narrator] When all you've worked for

is under threat,

you have to send a message.

[music crescendos]

[g*ns firing]

[narrator] It's April 27th, 1926.

Rival bootleggers Myles and Bill O'Donnell

boldly decide to enjoy a night of drinking

on Capone's turf.

They're soon joined by more friends.

For weeks, the O'Donnells

had been trying to tank Capone's sales

by disparaging the quality of his spirits.

[murmuring]

[narrator] When Capone learns

they're doing this in his own backyard,

he decides not to take

this challenge lying down.

He orders his men to race to the bar,

and Capone declares the party's over.

[g*ns firing]

The brothers are hit,

but manage to escape.

One of their friends isn't so lucky.

It's a bad break for Capone as well,

because he's just k*lled

Assistant State's Attorney,

William McSwiggin.

Capone almost certainly had no idea

that Bill McSwiggin was going out

that night with those guys.

[Adam] When they realized

the state's attorney had been m*rder*d,

everybody kind of panicked.

This was not

just another gangster getting k*lled.

[narrator] Capone's attempt

to secure his position has backfired

as the entire Chicago police force

is mobilized to bring the new boss down.

The cops turn up the heat

and smoke out every joint in town.

So Capone goes underground.

From afar, Capone follows his own manhunt

and watches as his legend grows.

Finally, Capone decides

it's time to step out of the shadows

and make a stand.

He calls a press conference.

He comes back to Chicago

on the courthouse steps

and announces that Billy McSwiggin,

this state prosecutor, was one of my guys.

He was on my payroll.

[Adam] He said,

"Why would I have k*lled McSwiggin?"

"I liked McSwiggin. I paid him plenty,

and I got what I paid for."

"And if cops want

to talk to me about it, here I am."

"Reporters have any questions?"

"I'm running the outfit,

and I'm happy to talk to you about it."

[narrator] Capone openly declares

himself the mob king of Chicago.

And in an instant,

Capone's legend is forged.

That's the moment that launches

Capone into the national spotlight.

[narrator] In the spotlight

is where he'll remain

for five bloody and glorious years

until he gets busted for the one thing

the government never tolerates

tax evasion.

Still, Al Capone's mastery

of this chapter of the playbook

brought him up

from the streets to the height of power.

You might have to amass your fortune

without Al Capone's impeccable timing.

And for that, you'll need

an ironclad business plan.

One that revolutionizes an industry

and helps you build an empire.

Your guide for the next chapter.

Heroin tycoon Frank Lucas,

who showed there's more than one way

to make it into the Fortune 500.

Ready to rake in some real cash?

[theme music playing]