Jay Z's Autobiography

0:00 I made this episode about two years ago and I wanted to repost it in case you missed it the first time because it's one of my favorite episodes that I've ever made. And because I'm currently working. on another new episode that's gonna be about Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. And there's actually a great Michael Jordan story in this episode about when G Jay-Z uh had dinner with Michael. There's also a reference to my daily practice, something else I learned from Both Jay Z and Michael Jordan.

0:25 But there's a reference in this episode about my daily practice of reading and rereading my notes and highlights in what I call this gigantic searchable database. You'll hear it about like 11. twelve minutes into this episode. But I reference this gigantic searchable database of all my notes and highlights, the fact that they're in this app called ReadWise. And I actually didn't know it at the time I made this episode, but

0:45 Two years later I would partner with Readwise to build a version where you you can actually see exactly what I see. So you can get access to all my notes and highlights. This gigantic searchable database on the history of entrepreneurship by signing up for Founders Notes. That's founders with an S. foundersnotes.com. You can sign up going by going to founders notes.com.

1:04 And now for a limited time only, you can sign up and pay once and get access to every highlight and note. I have ever done. and every highlight and note I will ever do. No ongoing subscription, pay once, you're in forever. This becomes a tool. that you can then use your entire career.

1:23 To tap into the collective knowledge. of history's greatest entrepreneurs do not dilly dally. Time is limited and this offer could end at any time. Sign up now at foundersnotes.com. Dot com That is Founders with an S, founders notes.com, and I hope you enjoy this episode on Jay Z.

1:40 It was the seventies. And heroin. We're still heavy in the hood. Unpredictability. was one of the things that we counted on.

1:48 Like the day when I wandered up to something I'd never seen before. A cypher. But I wouldn't have called it that. No one would have back then. I shouldered my way through the crowd towards the middle.

1:59 It felt like gravity pulling me into that swirl of kids. No bullshit. Like a planet. Being pulled into orbit by a star. His name was Slate.

2:09 And he was a kid I used to see around the neighborhood. An older kid who had barely made an impression on me. In that circle though. He was transformed.

2:17 Like the church ladies, touched by the spirit. And everyone was mesmerized. He was rhyme. Throwing out couplet after couplet. Like he was in a trance.

2:27 For a crazy long time. Thirty minutes straight off the top of his head. Never losing the beat. Writing the hand claps. He rhyme about nothing.

2:36 The sidewalk. The benches Or he'd go in on kids who were standing around listening to him. And then he'd go in on how clean was. How nice he was with the ball.

2:44 How all the girls loved him. Then he'd start rhyming about the rhymes themselves. how good they were. how much better they were than yours. And how he was the best that ever did it.

2:53 All he had were his eyes. Taking in everything. And the words inside him. I was dazzled. That's some cool shit.

3:01 Was the first thing I thought. Then I could do that. That night I started writing rhymes in my notebook.

3:08 From the beginning it was easy. A constant flow. For days I filled page after page. Then I'd bang out a beat on the table. My bedroom window.

3:18 Whatever had a flat surface And practice. From the time I woke in the morning Until I went to sleep. I saw it as an opening.

3:26 A way to recreate myself. and reimagine my world. After I recorded a rhyme. It gave me an unbelievable rush. To play it back.

3:36 To hear that voice. Everywhere I went. I'd write. If I was crossing a street with my friends And a rhyme came to me.

3:44 I'd break out my binder. Spread it on a mailbox or lamp post. And write the rhyme before I cross the street. Even back then. I thought it was the best.

3:54 I'd spend my free time reading the dictionary. Building my vocabulary. I could be roofless. Cal as fuck on the outside. But flooded with adrenaline.

4:04 I wasn't even in high school yet. And I discovered my voice. That is an excerpt from the book that I'm gonna talk to you about today, which is Jay Z Memoir, and it's called Decoded. Okay, so this podcast is gonna be similar to when I read All the back on Founders number two nineteen. I read the

4:19 The biography of Anthony Bourdain. And the reason this is similar is because before I read the biography of Anthony Bourdain I had read his books, I watched almost every single episode of his shows. I was a massive, massive fan. He had a A huge influence on my life. And it's the same way with Jay Z. I've been listening to his music

4:35 Repeatedly. For over two decades. I'd watch interviews with him, I'd take notes on what he says. I have a folder on Instagram that is labeled motivation. And so when I come across something that it that just hyp me up or just a good idea, I put it in there. And then I just go to that folder w whenever I have a few minutes and just watch videos. And a lot of them also have it's also Jay Z just dropping

4:55 pieces of advice or lessons that he learned through his life. And I cannot believe it's taken me this long. I have no excuse to cannot believe it's taken me this long to read this book. I remember going to a friend's house back in like two thousand ten, two thousand eleven and it was on its coffee table. And I remember picking it up and leafing through it like wow, this is r this is amazing. I should read this. And so it's taken me more than a decade to circle back around, but I'm very, very glad once I got read it, I could just could not believe how good it was.

5:19 So I wanna go back to the the part of the introduction. It's in the very first chapter and I just want to pull out A couple of thoughts I had as I went through some of these highlights that I just read to you. When he's seeing this kid in a cypher. Which is just in the early days of hip hop. It's just one person sitting in the middle rapping.

5:33 Sometimes it's one person, sometimes it's a few and they're battling or whatever the case is, and just people surrounded by them. This is the first time J C He's seeing that happen, he's watching it for a while. But it was interesting what came to his mind. He's like, That's really cool and I could do that. And that's an illustration of a major point that po that pops up over and over again in these biographies of of history scale entrepreneurs.

5:52 Is that belief comes before ability. He had never rapped a day in his life. But he already said, Okay, no no, I believe I can do this. If that person figured out how to do it, I can too. And if I had to distill Everything that I've learned about the history of entrepreneurship from reading almost two hundred fifty biographies.

6:08 to as little words as possible. I would say the the entrepreneurs the the great founders of history They would combine Kanye West levels of self belief. with the work ethic of Kobe Bryant. And so that leads into it leads me into the second thing that he says on this page. That is really, really interesting. And it's about the importance of practice.

6:26 And when I read that six hundred page biography of Michael Jordan all the way back on Founders Number Two Twelve, it blew my mind. how much Michael in that book. talked over and over and over again about His belief in practice, his dedication to practice. That he'd rather miss a game.

6:41 than mispractice. And Jay Z said the exact same thing. He says I would practice From the time I woke up in the morning Until I went to sleep. He is not even in high school. He is a teenager.

6:54 This is twelve years. before he makes he be he creates his first album. He's twenty six years old. when he releases his first album, Reasonable Doubt. This is another example of that maxim. that I've said a c on a few podcasts that the public praises people for what they practice in private.

7:09 The public praises people for what they practice in private. We didn't see We saw this for some when he s when he dropped it in when he's twenty six years old. We didn't see the twelve years before that of him practicing his craft before it was in public view. Recently Netflix has this documentary. It's a fantastic documentary on Kanye West. It's called genius. I've what you can it's a three part series, you can skip the third part, but the first two is all about the struggle, the f the the founder mentality that Kanye had to possess.

7:34 to break into the music industry and to to actually achieve his lifelong dream. And so just like we didn't see Jay Z practicing this for twelve, thirteen, fourteen years before he's actually in the music industry. Uh Kanye says the same thing. In

7:49 That documentary. When Kanye leaves Chicago to go chase his dream in New York, it's two it's the year two thousand one. Kanye is twenty four years old and he's selling beats, although people at the time don't realize that he's only making and selling beats so he can rap on them. Right, but that was his in, he found his in to the Uh to the industry.

8:05 But he had been producing beats since the seventh grade. So same thing. He was twelve years old when he starts making beats. We don't see him. He doesn't start becoming famous or well known for another twelve years. It's an incredible, incredible documentary. I've watched the first episode four times. I'll probably watch it fifty, a hundred times in my life. Second episode's really good as well, and I've watched it multiple times.

8:25 But Kanye on his debut album talks about what he had to do out of again, out of view of the public, right? The public praises people for what they practice in private. And so on Kanye's album, I'm just gonna read you some some his lyrics real quick from his uh album spaceship. And he says, Y'all don't know my struggle. You can't match my hustle. You can't catch my hustle. You can't fathom my love, dude.

8:45 And this is the punchline we're here. We're uh we're this is his punchline here. Lock yourself in a room doing five beats a day for three summers. That's a different world. Like three summers, I deserve to do these numbers. And the reason this is important, the reason I'm bringing this to your attention is because this is all over the history of entrepreneurship.

9:03 All the experiences, the practice you put in, the things that you're learning. You don't even have an idea how you're gonna be able to utilize them in the future. And we just saw this recently when I reread Sam Walton's fantastic autobiography Made in America on um founders number two thirty four. I'm gonna read This is so fantastic because he he puts words He he puts words to this idea that I'm trying to explain to you, and he says Uh, somehow over the years, folks have gotten the impression that Walmart was something they dreamed up out of the blue as a middle-aged man, and that it was just this great idea that turned into an overnight success.

9:31 It's true that it was forty four. When we opened our first Walmart. But the store was totally an outgrowth of everything. that we've been doing since Newport. So he's talking about the twelve or fourteen years. Uh

9:44 of his retail career. All the store little tiny stores that he had opened before he got he s he had learned that there was a massive opportunity that he winds up calling Walmart. So it's it's true that it was forty four when we opened our first Walmart. But the store was totally an outgrowth. of everything that we've been doing since Newport. I'm gonna pause there, go back to what Jay Z says. Yeah, I pr I would practice from the time I woke up in the morning until I went to sleep.

10:06 Everywhere I went, I would write. If I was crossing a street with my friends and a rhyme came to me, I'd break out my binder and I'd spread it on a mailbox or a lamp post and I'd write the rhyme before I crossed the street. It is the exact same idea. Apply to two different domains. Sam Walton apply this to me uh this idea to retail. Jay Z applied it to h to to being a rapper, to being an art well, he considers himself an artist.

10:28 A a musician. Going back to Sam. But that store was totally an outgrowth of everything we've been doing since Newport. Another case of me being unable to leave well enough alone. Another experiment. And like most overnight And what excuse me, and like most other overnight successes

10:43 It was twenty years in the making. And so let's go back to J Z motivations to what I just read to you. I saw it as an opening. A way to recreate myself and reimagine my world. That is the exact same feeling. The feeling he's having is a thirteen or fourteen year old. Saying hey, maybe hip hop is a way

10:59 I I live in you know, I'm not very happy with my surroundings. I live in the projects My dad left. Uh I'm being raised by single Mother, we don't have a lot of money. Steve uh a few weeks ago or a few months ago, I read Steven Spielberg's fantastic biography. This is back on Founders two oh nine, in case you haven't listened to that that podcast, I would highly, highly recommend

11:18 Filmmakers, I'm working on another podcast for you on a biography of a filmmaker. Filmmakers are some of my favorite people too. uh to read about because I think the way they approach their craft, there are just so many parallels and ideas that we can steal as founders. For our own work. But there's a line.

11:31 Talks about why Steven Spielberg was he was obsessed. By the time he was like twelve years old, he's like, Yep, I'm going to be a f the director. He starts practicing Steven Spielberg. А тверзол стари практиси. He said he would envision himself going to the Academy Awards. And accepting an Oscar.

11:46 and thanking the Academy. He was twelve when he said that. Interesting enough in that Kanye documentary I was just talking about. He kinda says something. He says before I had a car. I would be walking to the train. Practicing my Grammy speech.

11:59 I he was completely broke. Couldn't even afford a car. I'm walking to the subway to go for my apartment in Jersey to Manhattan to try to sell some beats, and I'm already practicing my Grammy speech. It's the same idea, but the the w what I wanted to Paul what I wanted to uh

12:13 Compare for you for uh what J Z just said. He's like, I thought it was a way for an opening for me to recreate myself and reimagine my world. It's very similar to what Steven Spielberg. uh said in his di uh they said about him in his biography when he's a young person he was disappointed in the world. So he built

12:28 His own Jay Z used hip hop and rapping to build his own world. Steven Spielberg used Making movies, directing movies to make his own world. And then just one other thing before I move forward in the book. Again, the importance of practice. That is the main lesson from

12:43 And Jordan and Michael Jordan's g you know It says in the book that maybe no one has ever been as good as their job as Michael Jordan was as hi at his. uh uh toward like later in his career. So there's a lot. Like it obviously we're all trying to get to the top of our professions. We're trying to be the best we possibly can be. That's why you're listening to this. That's why we're reading these books. That's why we're doing all the stuff we're doing.

13:01 And so Jordan just has a lot of things to teach us, but the importance practice. And so ever since I read I'll tell you what I like how I interpret that for my own work. And so since ever um ever since I read that our Jordan taught me that.

13:13 I spent Hours. Hours every day. When I'm not reading books or when I'm not making podcasts, I'm re reading the highlights. I told you I have over twenty thousand highlights in this app called ReadWise. So every single highlight I make

13:26 goes into this app called ReadWise. It becomes this gigantic search. Like database. of all my notes and highlights from the history of entrepreneurship. And I just read them over and over again.

13:36 And so what do we see here? Jay Z what is he saying? He's a young kid. And he he's like my all I have are my eyes and my words, right? So he says I'll spend I'd spend my free time Reading the dictionary. Building my vocabulary. It's the same idea.

13:51 Remember that too, because there's a fantastic story where Jay Z gets to have dinner with Michael Jordan later in the book. So I'll I'll bring that up to you. Um,'cause it's just fantastic. Two of my favorite people having dinner together. So then he's talking about this time. This is the late seventies, early eighties. And if you ever study Mark Andreessen, so back on Founders number fifty, I read Mark Andreessen's, I think it's like two hundred page archive.

14:11 of his blog that used to be on It you can go back there and um In the in founders number fifty, you'll see the link to download the PDF for his blog. It's fantastic. It's absolutely free. There's no reason not to read it. It's fant it's really amazing. But Mark's advice for young people. He's like, listen, you should only be working in the industries.

14:29 Where the founders of the industry are still in charge of their companies. I thought that was a really interesting idea. I never thought about that before. And so what Jay Z's picking up here, he's like, Well, I'm in a brand new industry. They don't even really know Like what

14:42 They don't even know like some people are making a tiny bit of money where the case is he's like, but I have a gigantic opportunity. So not only can I practice my craft and get better over time. But I'm in this I'm in an expanding market and so it will lift me along with that. And he says, I'm not gonna say that I thought I could get rich from rap. But I could clearly see. That it was gonna get bigger.

15:01 Before it went away. Way bigger. And then we're gonna get into something that also blew my mind and it's silly. That should blow my mind at this point, right? Everything given everything you and I have talked about. But how much of this book

15:15 Is Jay Z talking about studying the great people that came before him. breaking down their approach to their craft. So the book has chapters but in between each chapter is Jay Z So he's like handpick some songs and so he'll go through line by line.

15:29 And he'll give you his interpretation. He's like people listen to my songs, they don't even understand what they're about. And so the way he did that for his own music, he's been doing that forever for the music of other people. It's very similar to how you and I are approaching these books, where like It's not just a line. We look at it, we underline it. We try to tie it to other things. We really think deeply about what the hell it means. And so in this case

15:48 This is the first example he's talking about, hey, I really looked up to people like Run DM C, the Sugar Hill game. Cool mode. And so he's gonna talk about what he liked about Run DMC songs. And he size he says their rhymes were crisp and aggressive. And he's talking about run of run DMC. He says run rapt about having a big long caddy caddy.

16:07 Not like a Seville. And so he's he's quoting him. And then this is the important part. He says that line seems like a throwaway. But to me it felt meaningful. And the note I left myself on that page is like I feel the same way. Like I'll be reading

16:18 an entire paragraph, a page, and there's just something that jumps out at you and you can't even really describe why it's so important. But they're not random lines. They have mean if you sit down and pause and don't just skip to the next paragraph and think about what's happening. It's like a prompt for your thinking. And then here Jay Z describes his early life when he's starting to do this. And the crazy thing is. So he says I was a just a kid from public housing.

16:39 Whose whole hood. would rubber neck when an expensive car Drove down the block. And what I wrote, and I wrote this several times throughout the book, when he says stuff like this, it's like a lot can happen in one lifetime. He goes from a kid living in public housing Who

16:53 is lusting after an expensive car. to l to living in a hundred million dollar house. In Bellar. That happened that

17:02 That is possible. And the great thing about reading autobiographies is the fact that the stuff is not sugar coated. They talk in a way that they may not talk in like public interviews or if they're marketing new project or whatever the case is. So in this case he's describing the environment that he grew up in. And this is the environment he had to survive.

17:18 And he talks about the fact that he was a kid when the crack echo epidemic in the nineteen eighties just exploded. And he says but when crack landed in your hood. It was a total takeoff. Over. Sudden and complete.

17:29 Most of these crack fiends were my parents' age are a little younger. They were skeletal and She. And they were as jittery as a rookie beat as rookie beat cops and their eyes. We're always spinning with schemes to get money for their next hit.

17:42 Kids my age were serving them, meaning they were the ones the the kids were actually the ones selling the drugs to the older crackheads. Guys my age. And why were they doing that? Because guys my age fed up with watching their mom struggle on a single income. We're paying utility bills with money from hustling. So that hustling is obviously talking about selling drugs.

18:00 He says the cart courtyards of my projects uh of of Marcy uh Marcy projects and projects across the country contained teenagers who wore automatic weapons like they were sneakers. We had grandmothers who were afraid to leave their house. And he doesn't sugarcoat things for us. He's selling drugs at a very young age. And this is was the person he used to buy.

18:22 uh what happened to the person he was buying drugs from so like his supplier like his wholesalers can think of like that his name was deeper when deeper was murdered it was something out of a mob movie They cut off his balls and stuffed them in his mouth. And shot him in the back of the head. Execution style. And so that is a crazy, crazy environment that he's gotta develop the skills to not only survive

18:40 but escape and then thrive throughout life. So the main theme of the book at the because he ba spends a lot of time talking about Let's say his teenage years to his like early twenties. He's selling drugs, he doesn't want to sell drugs, but he's not sure. He's like th th if rap was actually career.

18:56 And he talks about the fact that people that f were from similar projects like him. Uh, Biggie Smalls and Torres B. G grew up in a project in Brooklyn. Nas grew up on a project in in Queens. And he says once he saw them blow up with their initial uh with their f their album. So Nas did Elmatic. when he was like seventeen years old, which is crazy.

19:15 Like uh It's just insane how somebody that young could build something. To make A classic album at such a young age. And then um Biggie's ready to die.

19:23 both came out before J Z and that really helped him realize, hey, this is actually possible. And so that that struggle of like straddling two worlds, like Yeah, he ta there's stories in the book where he's been selling drugs in Virginia for for three days. And he's gotta go and and meet uh a record uh executive to try to go label, so he's gotta drive back from V Virginia overnight. Shows up all dirty.

19:44 You know, smelling terribly terribly, trying to convince this guy to sign'em. And I guess I kinda just r I just turned the page and kinda just ran over my own point. I was trying to make it, he says it better than I could. I was still rhyming, but now it took a back seat to hustling. It was all moving so fast, it was hard to make sense of it or see the big picture.

19:59 Kids like me. Think about that. Kids. He's a kid. Kids like me and you don't feel that way. I remember being sixteen or seventeen. You d d you damn sure don't feel like a kid, but You definitely are. You just don't know it. Kids like me were going through something strange and twisted.

20:14 And we had a crazy story to tell. So through a friend of a friend, he winds up meeting one of his idols, which is this this rapper called Big Daddy Kane. And at this point, remember when I'm about to read you, Jay Z has no intention. He's like I'm not he's he's I guess I'll just be a hustler, you know, th that's what I'm gonna do for my life. Um

20:32 So he winds up meeting Cain. He's still rhyming, so Cain puts him on an album uh one of his songs. And that song is actually played on the radio and he's like, This is crazy to me. And he says people were talking about the second kid on the tape. That's him. The MC before Kane.

20:46 I was getting great feedback. I couldn't believe people even noticed my verse. And he says he couldn't believe they could notice the verse because Big Daddy Kane was so he had a he had a like a an audience, he had people that liked him. And people thought he was really, really good. And so Jay Z gets on a track. He's like, Wait a minute, I can hold my own With one of the best.

21:04 And so then he goes back and again. This just blows my mind. Jay Z is studying the greats that came before him, which is exactly what you and I do every week on this podcast. There was no one like Rakim. His flow was complex and his voice was ill. He was approaching rap.

21:20 Like literature. like art, which is exactly what Jay Z considers it. He's like, I write But I don't write things down. So I don't know if you know this, but Jay Z is famous because He starts writing things in his notebook when he's younger. But as he gets older, and you can actually see this in there's a documentary, it's called Fade to Black. It came out like

21:36 fifteen years ago. I'd re watched it for prep for this podcast. And it's when Jay Z thought he was gonna retire. And it shows him building the album. And so he goes to California and he's working with this famous producer named Rick Rubin, who's one of the like the co-founders of Def Jam. And he's produced albums for everybody, not just hip hop art hip hop artists, but country people, rock. Everybody goes all over. They think Rick is just an amazing person.

21:59 Actually I have a note for you real quick. I wasn't planning on talking about it right now, but Well I'm case I forget to talk about Rick Rubin later on. He's uh Rick Rubin like hangs out with people like Jack Dorsey, like uh uh seeks his counsel and stuff like that. But in the documentary it's funny, he says, uh Ja this is what Jay Z likes about Rick Rubin, he goes, Listen

22:15 Rick A normal. I don't give a fuck. He is strange by strange standards. And he goes, When's the last time you seen a bison? In some dude studio.

22:24 He's making music with with in a room with Rick Rubin and Rick Rubin's got this huge stuffed bison. And so this is what Jay Z loves about him. He goes, Listen Rick is twenty over twenty years into his career. And now almost forty years. Uh, over twenty and he's still doing it. That's amazing. Over twenty years into this is Jay Z talking. Over twenty years into his career and the dude ain't changed.

22:43 He's got his own vibe. You gotta love him for that. And so our interpretation of that is we w he he didn't build He His product in some degree is himself.

22:52 And he knows what Peter Thiel taught us. It's like you don't build an undifferentiated commoditized product. You have to differentiate you have to build something And it's even better and like James Dyson taught us on his autobiography. Build something that looks strange. At least it gets people talking about it. Don't just go out and copy what everybody else is doing.

23:09 Like make it look weird. Rick Rubin and g your experience in deal and letting him produce your music. It's gonna be a an odd experience. An experience that you can't get nowhere else. And so in that documentary, Rick is telling something else. He's like Jay Z very unique because He does everything in his head.

23:25 He doesn't write it down. He waits to hear the track. And then he's got an idea and you'll see him like he calls it his Rain Man. He's like mumbling like you can't really tell what he's saying, but his lips are moving. And so The reason I bring that up is because Jay Z talks about he's like I think of I like I'm like a poet. That's the way I look at what I'm doing and that's why I have to explain it to you because a lot of people are we are listening to my music and they're not even understanding what I'm trying to say.

23:45 And so this idea, where he's like, Wait a minute, like where Kim is the first person actually s uh So approach rap like literature, like art. That's what I wanna do. Um and then he says and the s and his song still banged at parties. Then he starts talking about what he learned from Ice T.

24:01 K S one. Uh Doctor Jere, all these other people over and over again. And so the way you think about what's happening uh right there in the book is like Jay Zoo's is doing exactly what Steve Jobs did, Bill Gage, Jeff Bezos, War Buffett, Charlie Munger, they all did this. They're analyzing the people that came before them. Seeing how they approach their work, seeing what ideas That took them many, many decades to learn.

24:21 And then taking the ideas and adding he's taking their ideas and adding his own unique twist on And using them for his work. And I think the reason I like I'm talking fast and like getting kind of excited is'cause like This is just an a reaffirmation for me and for you. It's like We are on the right path.

24:36 We are doing exactly what we should be doing. Just keep doing it. And so another theme of the book that Jay Z talks about, he's like, I just love language. Um and so this is him Talking about his love of metaphors.

24:47 I love metaphors and for me hustling is the ultimate metaphor. For the basic human struggle. The struggle to survive and resist. The struggle to win. and the struggle to make sense of it all.

24:58 And something that may surprise you, but I kind of I like listening to his music and and hear him talk in interviews, you kinda get this. He's rather introverted. Um and he says the pro uh the promotion uh he's talking about Uh See what happens after you create the album.

25:11 He says the promotion was already starting. Which isn't my favorite part of the process. I'm still a guarded person when I'm not in the booth. Or on stage. Or with my oldest friends.

25:21 And I'm particularly wary of the media. And so he talks about listen, man, if I don't know you I'm gonna be real quiet. But once I get to know you, I won't shut the hell up. Mm.

25:30 Like I I I'm the exact same way. And that's another thing I appreciate that Jay Z talks about not in music, but in the book a lot. It's like humans are multifaceted, man. We do things that we can't really explain. We're there's gonna be actions that we're really proud of, actions that we don't like about ourselves. And you have to take the person as as a whole.

25:46 But there's just s simply no no such thing as a as a perfect human. Okay, so now we get to the first example of when he's breaking down his own lyrics. This is uh from the song American Dreaming. And it's really a story about entrepreneurship. I've mentioned G Z a much a bunch of times on pr on previous podcasts because I think especially like his album Four Four Four, a lot of them. It's like entrepreneurial anthems. And so I'm gonna go through this and try to make sense. I have connected.

26:08 The connections I make here are just so are so bizarre. Okay, so it's uh First I'm gonna give you his The line he says and then his interpret of this. So it says This is the shit you dream about.

26:18 When the with the homies steaming out, back back backing them beamers out. So his interpretation of that line. This is Jay Z Talking. Uh, this is really where it begins in a room. With your dudes.

26:28 Too young to shave, dreaming about big body benzes you're gonna push. Obviously for me, this is happening in Marcy. But this could be anywhere. A basement in the Midwest. A backyard in California

26:40 An Oldsmobile somewhere down south. The danger is That it's all just talk. And then this is I double on it on this section. I believe you can speak

26:50 things into existence. So another thing that surprised me and it shouldn't surprise me by now. He probably mentions it at least three or four times in the book. on the power and he talks about in the documentary. the power of visualization, of seeing things in your mind before you see them in person. This is something that we learned Estee Lauder did, Bob Noyce, the founder of Intel did, Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid did, Steve Jobs did, Arnold Schwarzenegger. They all did this. Now, Jay Z, I believe you can speak things into existence.

27:17 And he says it starts from a dream. You're just sitting there daydreaming with your friends about future success. And so then he says, Uh seems as our plan to get a grant, then go off to college, didn't pan or even out. He's like no one goes to college from the hood, from where I'm at in the hoods. So he's like, All right, so that's not gonna work. What are we gonna do? We need it now. We need a town.

27:37 We need a place to pitch, we need a mount. And so that's the first time he's gonna mention you need a product to sell and you need a market to target. That's the w that's his that's exactly what he's telling us here. This is what I mean. They're just entrepreneurial anthems. Disguised as hip uh as rap songs. Uh, it says Mama forget I'm not going through every single I'm not gonna read

27:54 Th these are just the the the highlights I had, like the things I underlined it in the song lyrics. And then so he says, Mama, forgive me. I should be thinking about Harvard. But that's too far away. We're starving.

28:07 And so even though Everybody didn't grow up in the projects like Jay Z. There's a lot of people That understand exactly what He's saying there. He's like I I should be thinking about Harvard, but that's too far away. We're starving. I remember when I was about to graduate high school, I was like, Hey, we gonna go to college. What do you mean where I'm gonna go to college?

28:21 Whichever one I can drive to, whichever one I can work full time while I'm doing this. My parents didn't even graduate high school. So this idea where I should be aiming at Harvard, that's ridiculous. And then he goes on to the next thing. Uh ain't not this this is gonna remind me about okay, so he says let me let me tell it to you first. Ain't nothing wrong with the aim.

28:36 Just gotta change the target. So to me, he's saying you The pick picking the right market is essential. This is something Warren Buffett warns over and over again in the shareholder letters. This is something Mark Andreessen talks about over and over again in his blog archive.

28:49 that picking the right market is essential. In fact, if you would ask Mark Andreessen. He's like, what is more uh what is a more predictor for uh business success? Is it the market, the team? Or the product. And he g then he m Mark's a great writer too.

29:03 And he gives the the the the the answers that you're most likely to expect. It's a team. It's the product. And he's like, Well actually, I'll take the market. And so what's crazy is all that stuff. Jay Z just described all the ideas behind these lines. This is where I'm em extremely envious of him is like his

29:18 uh efficiency with with communication. Like he can just use up he can tell entire stories. And a lot of great musicians do this as well, in just a few lines. So we're not even what is that, three, four lines? We're not even we haven't even touched the surface of the song. So he says ain't nothing wrong with the aim, just gotta change the target. I just gotta figure out where I'm gonna direct my talents. And so then he says, And it's not like when they're just young kids. They have to figure it out as they go. And it's not like we're professionals. Move in the decimals.

29:42 No you do you know where to cop? No. Gotta connect? No. So what he's saying there is Th that's obviously for drugs, but for our tur our interpret our for our purposes. It's do you have something to sell? Do you have a way to get something to sell? Do you you can sell it somebody else's product or are you gonna make your own? So he's like, Do you know where to cop? Do you know where to buy drugs?

29:59 No. Do you gotta connect the person selling drugs? No. And then he summarizes the the the like the very beginning of an entrepreneurial journey. Who in the F knows how to be successful? They say it's celestial. It's all in the stars. And then he says, And at all cost, you better avoid these bars. So in his game it's like listen, you better not

30:16 uh y like you need to avoid going to jail. Like you just the way you go bus, right? You can't s you can't s be successful if you don't first survive. So that's their example of that. You know what I wrote down when I when I got to the line when he says at all costs you avoid these bars. It's something I loved, um, the founder of Sequoia Capital, Don Valentine. 'Cause uh and I didn't I don't think I even knew about him when he was alive. Maybe I did, but he passed away recently.

30:38 And if you go back and like watch videos of his on YouTube, they're just absolutely fantastic'cause this guy's got no fluff. And what I wrote down when when I got to this part, he says that all and at all costs you better avoid these bars. Uh, Don Valentine says all companies go out of business that all companies that go out of business do for this do so for the same reason. They run out of money. And so Don would advise his entrepreneurs like you need to focus on cash flow. Another thing I love Don, he just cuts through all the bullshit.

31:02 Don says two things in business matter. And you can learn this in two minutes. High gross margins and cash flow. The other financial metrics you can forget. So back to Jay Z says at all costs you better avoid these bars. This is a crash course. This ain't high school, so it's obviously very dangerous. In his case, you could die or go to jail.

31:18 In our case we could be bank go bankrupt. We d we're not like we can run out of money, we can cause a lot of pain, not only to ourselves or everybody else around us. This is a crash course to say in high school. If we make mistakes, they have very, very real consequences. And then this is one of my favorite parts of the song that I've repeated over and over again in my own life. You're now in a game where only time can tell. Survive the droughts, I wish you well.

31:38 Survive the droughts, I wish you well. How sick am I? I wish you health. I wish you wheels. I wish you wealth. I wish you insight. So you can see for yourself. I double underline that's that last part.

31:50 I wish you insight. So you can see for yourself. And that is him telling us you have to do the work necessary. To trust your own judgment. Companies live and die by the founder. No one is coming to save you.

32:04 I wish you health, I wish you wheels, I wish you wealth, I wish you insight so you can see for yourself. Now let's go back to when Jay Z was nineteen and his m and his informal mentorship, right? with Big Daddy Cain. And so he says uh it was nineteen eighty eight. I was still in the streets and I basically accepted that I'd be a hustler who happened to rap in his spare time. I thought the rap game was crooked and a little fake.

32:26 Big Daddy Cain was playing a role, hip hop's first playboy. He had silk robes and pretty girls and all his videos and all that. But his flow was sick. So his point was like, Yeah, people see the flash, right? They see the girls, they see the robes, they see the jewelry. but I'm actually looking at what he's actually saying and how he does it.

32:44 And I'll tell you what this made me think of in a minute. He was condensing. Stacking rhymes on top of one another. Trying to keep up with him was an exercise in breath control. In wordplay.

32:55 In speed and imagination. He was relentless on the mic. So think about that. How many people watching Big Daddy Kane's music videos, how many people are listening to his music or thinking about stacking rhymes on one top or another? How many think how many of them are thinking about the importance of your breath control? Points of your word play.

33:10 the speed at which you you're saying the words and how you space them out. And so he says I went on the road with Cain for a while. And I double underline this section. I got an invaluable education watching him perform. This is the exact same the way Jay Z is talking about Big Daddy Big Daddy King.

33:27 Is exactly Exactly the way Kobe Bryant used to speak about Michael Jordan. And so Kobe said, When I grew up watching Michael play, my gener listen, this is I have goosebumps right now. This is freaking crazy. When I grew up watching Michael uh excuse me, when I grew up watching Michael play, my generation saw the highlights and the fancy stuff.

33:46 But what I saw was his footwork. I saw the spacing. I saw the timing. I saw the fundamentals of the game. Is that not exactly What Jay Z was just telling us.

33:57 I got an invaluable education from watching him perform. I was watching his Breath control, his word play. The way he stacked rhymes on one another. While you're watching the girls and the the the jewelry and the robes.

34:10 Just like Kobe's generation was watching the highlights and the fancy stuff. Kobe's focus on the footwork, the spacing. The timing. the fundamentals of the game. Back to Jay Z. He Kane had just an incredible amount of shownmanship.

34:22 Even today. I use some of the ideas I picked up back then in my own shows. Let's go back to what Kobe just said, or I don't I haven't said it yet, but what Kobe said. Everything that I do. I learned from the guys who came before me.

34:37 Go back to Jay Z before we go back to Kobe. Uh I use some of the ideas I picked up back then on my own show and he was generous too. Generous, remember that word. А хід стоп до шо и бриме у нова неу. If you watched

34:50 The fantastic documentary The Last Dance, episode five. Right before Kobe passed away, unfortunately. He was interviewed. And this is what Kobe said. When I came into the league, Michael provided a lot of guidance for me.

35:03 Uh. I don't know why I'm getting so emotional. I had a question about shooting his turnaround shot. He gave me great detailed answers. And on top of that

35:11 He said if you ever need anything, he gave me a call. Guess what, Bob Noyce of Intel? and Bill Hewlett and David Packard of HP were generation older than Steve Jobs and they did the same thing. It's the right thing to do. And then Kobe says, I truly hate having discussions.

35:29 What is going on? My voice is like cracking. All right. Okay. I get excited about this stuff, man. I truly hate having discussions. About who would win one on one are fans saying that you'd beat Michael.

35:42 I feel like yo and he puts his hand up. Kobe puts his hand up to say stop to chill. And he says so I hate having these discussions about who would win a one on one. our fans saying that you'd be Michael. I feel like yo.

35:54 What you get from me is from him. I don't get five championships without'em. Because he guided me so much. And gave me so much great advice. That is so powerful. It made me think of uh when I reread the Steve Jobs biography by Isaacson, I just did re I recorded another podcast on it. It's episode uh two fourteen, if you haven't gone back and listened to it.

36:15 But there's something that Steve says as he's dying. 'Cause he's working with Isaac as he's dying, there's two things, but I wanna read this to you. And he talks about like, you know, what what it that Kobe could say, Yeah, yeah, you know, Oh, I'd give it to him one on one and all this other stuff. He's just like I wouldn't have had five championships without them. Everybody builds on the work from the great people that came before them. And so Steve is telling us like he's he's parting words of advice to us. He's like, Listen

36:38 I hate it when people call themselves entrepreneurs. When what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public. So they can cash in and move on. They're unwilling to do what it takes to build a real company. Which is the hardest work in the business.

36:51 That is how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company. That will still stand for something. A generation or two from now. That's what Walt Disney did.

37:03 And Hewitt Packard. And the people who built intel. They created a company To last. Not just to make money.

37:11 And that is what I want Apple to be. And then the other example happens when Jobs is in a massive lawsuit. With Google. And so he says Jobs had another visit that month from someone who wanted to repair fences. It was Google's co founder, Larry Page, who lived less than three blocks away. and had just announced plans to retake the reins of his company.

37:30 He asked if he could come by and get tips on how to be a good CEO. This is really important because they're in a massive lawsuit. Against each other. And look at what Jobs does. He does the right thing. So it says uh Jobs was still furious at Google. My first thought was Fu you, Steve said. But then I thought about it.

37:46 And I realized that everyone helped me when I was young. What is happening in the book where we're at? Big daddy cane. Is a star. No one knows who the hell Jay Z is. He does not have to give him the time of day. Not only does he put'em on songs.

38:00 Not only does he let him uh uh going toward him, he brings him out and tries to introduce him to other people. When no one knew who he was. But then I thought about it and realized that everybody helped me When I was young.

38:13 From Bill Hewart. A founder of HP. To the guy down the block. So I called him back and said sure. Larry came over, sat in Job's living room.

38:21 and listen to his ideas on building great products And durable. Competition So then he talks about mentoring Memphis Bleak, which is like this young kid that lived in his projects as well. They do a song together and I just wanna pull out one line here because just one line made me think of so many other examples. And so Jay Z uh play in the song he's playing the role of like the older mentor to the younger person.

38:42 And he says, Hold up, now listen to me. You let them other dudes get the name. Skip the faint. Ten thousand. Or a hundred so ten thousand or a hundred G, so ten thousand or hundred thousand dollars.

38:53 Keep your shit the same. And so that's the line, and then this is Jay Z now writing many years after the fact what it m what it what it means. And he says This is a classic piece of OG advice. So original gangster like the interpretation of that would be like somebody older and wiser than you. Okay, so it's their their slang is OG.

39:11 This is a classic piece of OG advice. It's amazing how few people actually stick to it. So the advice from Jay Z is stay on your gr grind. That's the way he says it. If you go back to founders number fifty six, when I did the biography, uh the book on Herb Keller, the founder of South West Airlines.

39:28 Uh, the only airline that was profitable for forty something straight years. It's amazing. Herb's got a fantastic personality, one of the best personalities I've anybody I've come across. But he says sick and the w he's essentially saying the same thing that the same advice The Jay Z given to Memphis Bleak here. And giving to us, Herb gives it us to as well. He says success has to be earned over and over again. Or it disappears.

39:51 And so Jay Z saying doesn't matter if you have a little bit of money or a lot of money, you still act the same, you still do the same thing. Kill uh J Z quotes later on. Um and he puts it on one of his songs, at the very beginning of one of his songs. It's Uh Biggie Smalls talking about advice. That he got from

40:06 who signed him, which is Diddy. um the advice that Diddy gave him when they were coming in. They were both a young, you know, uh early twenties. And so Uh Biggie says, I'm uh he says Uh just try to stay above water, stay busy, stay working.

40:20 Puff. It was called Puffett's time, we know him as Diddy today. Diddy told me that that the key to this joint The key to staying on top of things. is to treat everything like it's your first project.

40:31 Do you know what I'm saying? Like it's your first day. back when you were an intern. That's how you try to Treat things.

40:37 You have to stay hungry. And so they're picking up on this natural tendency of human nature that, you know, you're really hungry when you're coming up You're dedicated, you stick to it, but w it's really hard. Like you got rich, maybe you're you don't have the same motivations. That ca that that pushed you when you were younger. Or when you were hungrier.

40:54 You lose that hunger and then what happens as soon as you stay off your grind, as he says. ten thousand or a hundred G's keep your shit the same. Once you get off of it. You you fall off. As Herb said, you can't do that. Your success has to be earned over and over again. Or it's going to disappear.

41:11 Skipping ahead, he's analyzing the song called Uh It's The evil's devils with an apostrophe is uh but There's just one line from here. And he says, Nine to five is how you survive. I ain't trying to survive. I'm trying to live it to the limit And love it a lot.

41:26 That's why I feel they're they're really entrepreneurial anthems. Nine to five is how you survive. I ain't trying to survive. I'm trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot. Entrepreneurs are chasing what Mark Andreessen says, like you only experience two as an entrepreneur. You only experience two. Feelings.

41:41 Euphoria and terror. You're we're not seeking equ equilibrium. If we wanted to seek equilibrium, we'd go get a job. We're not interested. Going back to the Jay Z parallel.

41:51 His thoughts on uh on lyrics and Rhymes. Yeah. very similar to my thought my thinking on books.

42:00 He says great rap should have all kinds of unresolved layers that you don't necessarily figure out the first time you listen to it. Instead it plants dissonance in your head. It leaves shit rattling around your head. And that won't make sense till the fifth or sixth time through.

42:15 It challenges you. The problem isn't in rap or the rapper or the culture. The problem is that so many people don't even know how to listen to the music. And here's an example of that because this is just one line and I'll tell you it's very similar to what you and I just discovered on that book about the early history of

42:31 PayPal back on episode two thirty three. Every hustler knows the value of a feint, meaning a head fake, like a a movement that is not actually That's not a is not going to reveal your intention. Okay. Every hustler knows the value of a feint. It keeps you one step ahead of whoever's listening.

42:48 So in that fantastic book Founders. uh that Jimmy Sony wrote about the early history of PayPal. There is something that Reed Hoffman, which who was working at PayPal at the time, goes on to find it f found LinkedIn and now he's a venture uh venture capitalist and all this other stuff. By the time.

43:05 He gives the rope a dope. He does a feint to eBay. So their uh PayPal's getting ready. They they had been in acquisition talks with eBay over and over again. They always Fell through. And so PayPal's going ahead with the IPO.

43:16 And they're worried that during the quiet period Where they can't say anything. that eBay could torpedo their IPO by saying, Oh yeah Uh, they're most of their businesses on our platform and we're you know, we're getting ready to kick them off our platform and just use our own payment system. So essentially like in the when

43:32 They're gonna attack. Somebody that they don't like'cause ebay and it uh PayPal did not like each other. And they're gonna attack the weakness of their enemy at a time when the when the Enemy cannot fight back. So they come up with an that's why you have to read the book over and over again, because these guys were geniuses on how they Just as unique.

43:48 Way they they solve problems. So Reed Hoffman says, Hey, you know what? Let we let's sit down and let's have like More acquisition talks. I think we can work this out. And so he's only doing that.

43:58 Because if you're in the middle of a if your company's trying to buy my company. And I can convince you I'm fainting. I'm faking. that I'm really interested in I wanna sell you my company, let's just get this locked up now. you're not gonna say things that will d that were

44:12 That will decrease the value of the company. You're not gonna destroy my IPO. And the entire time, Meg Whitman, who's uh the CO of the EB at the time thought that they were serious. They were never serious.

44:25 They did not want to sell the company. They just wanted you not to destroy the IPO. So let's go back. Again, that's a long story. It goes over a couple of pages in a book. Jay-Z says it. Every hustler knows the value of a feint. It keeps you one step ahead.

44:38 Of whoever's listening in. So then we go back to studying The greats. Before he could meet the greats, he had to he would study them through their music, right? At this point in his career and this this is not the the book is not in chronological order, just so you know. At this point the career is already super famous, so he gets to sit down and meet with Quincy Jones.

44:56 And Bono from you too. I met Bono years ago in the cigar room of a bar in London with Quincy Jones. This book is filled with stories like this, which again, I've been a lifelong G Z fan. I didn't even know that stuff. I spent most of the night quizzing Quincy about Thriller. Which I think is the greatest album that's ever been made.

45:11 Bono was be beaming and laughing the whole time. I liked him right away. I was completely unprepared for what a genuine, humble, and open person Bono was. We became friends after that night. So then they see they run into each other uh later on in New York. He told me he read an interview I had done somewhere. The writer had asked me about the U two record that was about to be released and I said something about the kind of pressure a group like that must be under just to meet their own standard.

45:33 Bono told me that my quote had really gotten him. In fact, he said it made him a little anxious. He decided to go back to the studio. Even though the album was already done. And he kept reworking it until he thought it was as good as it could possibly be. This is the important part and the reason I bring this to your attention.

45:47 'Cause again, from the outside, Bono's super famous. He's YouTube, like he's He's settled. He's not he like he's not nervous. He's not worried. Yes he is. Everybody is. I really wasn't trying to make him nervous with that quote, and I was surprised to find out that at that point in his career he still got anxious about his work. It is only right that I met him and Quincy Jones on the same night. They're both already in the pantheon. We ended up trading stories about the pressure we felt.

46:09 Even at this point in our lives. And so Jay says, I've heard him say in interviews over and over again. Hey, listen, I respect the greats, I learn from the greats, but I'm competing with them too. uh I wanna be the best that ever did it. There was something beautiful about Tupac being my closest competition on the charts that week. So he talked about they both released albums. This is many years after Tupac, uh died and Tupac winds up coming in second, he comes in first.

46:31 So there's something beautiful about Pa uh Tupac being my closest competition on the charts that week, aside from the heartbreaking Uh the heartbreak of losing two great MCs and one great friend. I've always felt robbed of my chance to compete with Tupac and Biggy. Competition pushes you to become your best self. Jordan said the same thing about Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

46:50 That desire to compete. And to win. Was the engine of everything we did. So then he flashbacks in his life, he's still thinking, Okay Like am I can sell drugs, or like can I make this hip hop thing work?

47:02 And I'm gonna read read my note to you first before I read this section because I think it informs what happened uh what's happening here. And I wrote founder mentality. You know exactly what Jay means here. I wanted money and excitement and love the idea of cutting myself loose from the rules. and low ceilings of the straight world. She's like, I'm not going to get a job.

47:20 The kid on the street is getting a shot at a dream. He sees the guy who gets rich and thinks Yep. That'll be me. He ignores the other stories going around. So

47:30 For his purposes is talking about death and jail. Our purposes we're thinking, yep, there that person built a successful success successful company. So can I. We also know that there's a ton of people who fail and there's devastating consequences to that. So it goes back to this.

47:44 uh these kids uh he sees the guy who gets rich and thinks, Yep, that'll be me. He ignores the other stories going around. They're working because they think they're due for a miracle. The kid in McDonalds gets a check and that's it. I never even consider that as a possibility. When you've got a nation of hustlers working for a small handful of slots. For h small handful of slots.

48:01 You learn something that you never learn at McDonald's. If you got the heart and the brains You can move up quickly. There's no way to quantify all of this on a spreadsheet. But it's the dream.

48:12 Of being The exception. And he also clarifies like listen, I'm not dissing you. If you w go to work at McDonald's'cause he says it's like w it was very there's like a level of courage to walk through the hood, the Marcy projects in your uniform and everybody else saying, Hey, go play basketball

48:28 go sell drugs, do all this other stuff. He's like, No, I'm I'm taking a predictable path to success. where I can actually pay my bills legitimately and not worry about getting killed or going to jail or whatever the case is. But Jay Z saying it's like I d I don't ever I never thought about that. I've never He says in his rap, he's like I never had a job. Like he never had a job in his entire life. Other than one that he made for himself. So one of the people that he gets to know when he's still before he's in the music industry is this rapper named Jazz.

48:52 And there's just he he learned something'cause Jazz gets signed. He's one of the first people he knows to get signed to a major record deal, and that's where he's like, Wait a minute, this isn't what we see. Like they're not actually adding a lot of value. They wanna he says it's like the most crooked con legal contract in history. So he says I I would link with jazz. We'd go back and forth to each other's houses and write rhymes for hours. We lock ourselves in a room.

49:13 with a pen and a pad. So again, he's telling us practice, practice, practice over and over again. Uh Jazz got a record deal. E EMI advanced him a ridiculous amount of money. Nearly half a million dollars. That was huge back then. Uh the label rented Jazz a flat in London to work with Chuck, which is this new um

49:32 I guess successful producer. So go to London, we'll rent you an apartment and work with Chuck and record your debut. Jazz invited me along for the ride. And inside I was doing backflips and shit. So J Z talking about listen, I barely

49:45 I've been out of my projects. I'd been to maybe Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, but I'd never been abroad. Like this is insane. Uh, and even though uh I didn't go around talking about it even to my closest friends, I believed I could make it as a wrapper too.

50:01 So he talks about the time in London. I was like a sponge. when I'd sit in on Jazz's recording sessions and meetings, I never gave my opinion. About how his business was being run. I was new and I didn't necessarily know how things worked in the music business. I did notice that even though we were in London more for more than a month

50:15 When the guys from EMI finished Jazz's album, it didn't sound that different than his demo. So okay, wait a minute, we can spend all this time and money over here like Yeah. So his album's the same. And besides you gave him one new track, he says the only new track they gave him was Hawaiian Sophie.

50:30 Um, but but in this the p the point is like, Well this doesn't seem right, so I'm ha I'm I'm noticing, I'm trusting my my intuition saying, Hey, something's off here. But the problem is like they have the experience. Like they are the record label, like They had just made a successful album, Will Smith. Maybe they know something we don't. So it says, But we were looking at the plaques on their walls and thinking about the radio play they got Will Smith. And we let them convince us that Hawaiian Sophie was gonna make jazz blow.

50:54 Unfortunately, it didn't read that way once the video came out. That single was nearly career suicide for Jazz. He went from being quartered to the highest level To not having EMI return his phone calls. The wildest shit. About the whole thing.

51:07 was that the executives at EMI who had withdr withdrawn support for Jazz's project We're coming to me behind his back. To holler at me on some solo shit. I thought to myself This business sucks.

51:18 There's no honor. No integrity. It was disgusting. And he talks about how devastating it is from the individual's perspective. Jazz's debut album. Something that he'd been dreaming about his whole life.

51:29 Did come out. But in the end It was nothing more than a tax write off for a giant corporation. After the way EMI handled jazz. I buried my little wrap dreams.

51:39 And I took it out on the block. Says all right, I'm not gonna be a rapper. I'll go back to selling drugs and then here's the problem. A little while after he's like this this can't be my life. This isn't how my life should be is a very powerful motivator. So he says in that bitter cold.

51:56 Folded into the crevices of a project wall. Hundreds of miles from home. I sold crack to addicts who were killing themselves. Collecting the wrinkled bills they got from God knows where. I stood there thinking.

52:08 What the fuck? Am I doing? So eventually he's gonna be like, I gotta give it a go and he realizes, forget trying to get signed by a record label, right? Even though no one would sign him, which is hilarious'cause he sold what, a hundred and twenty five million records up until this point? No one wanted to sign him, so he had to make his own record label, which winds up being the best idea he ever had in his life, or one of the best ideas he ever had in his life.

52:27 But he goes back to studying the greats. And this is gonna be uh I mentioned Rick Rubin, one of the co founders of F Jam. This is the guy, Russell Simmons, who who essentially like It's the first. Rap Mogul.

52:37 So says when I was moving off the street and try to envision what winning look like It was Russell Simmons. Going back just see what I mean how it blows your m your mind or blew my mind? How much of this book is Jay-Z just studying the great people that came before him? Russell was a star.

52:53 The one who created the whole model for the hip hop mogul that many people like Andre Harrell Puff Daddy and even Sug Knight went on to follow. People in the record business had always made a lot of money. Not the artist who'd kept dying broke, but But the execs.

53:07 Still. Regular fans had no idea who they were. Russell changed that. His brand as an executive mattered not just within the industry. But among people in the street.

53:17 And with Def Jam, he created one of the most powerful brands in the history of American entertainment. Russell also made being a CEO seem like a better deal than being an artist. He was living life. Crazy. Fucking with models.

53:29 Riding in Bentley's, with his sneakers sticking out the window? Uh with his sneakers sticking out the window, and never once wrapped a single bar. His gif was curating a whole lifestyle. Music, fashion.

53:41 Comedy, film. And then selling it. He didn't just create the hip hop business model. He changed the business style of a whole generation of Americans. The whole vibe of startup companies in Silicon Valley

53:53 With twenty five year old COs wearing shell toes. Is Russell's def jam style filtered through different industries? The business idea so he's still talking about all the lessons he learned. before he met Russell. The business ideal for

54:06 The business ideal for our whole generation went from growing up and wearing a suit every day. to never growing up and wearing sneakers to the boardroom. I understood what Russell was on to. He discovered a way to work in the legit world. But to live the dream of the hustler.

54:22 Independent. Wealth. And success outside of the mainstream rules. That's more founder mentality. Independence.

54:30 Wealth. And success. outside of the mainstream Mainstream's rules. This was a better story.

54:37 than just being a rapper. Especially based on what I now knew. About how rappers got jerked. And so Oh and we moved on to a different page. He's about to meet Russell and I just wrote so many gems are on this page.

54:49 So he says uh I first met Russell when Dame Biggs and I so Dame Dash Bigs. Uh Burke, I think is his last name. And Jay Z were the three co founders of Rockefeller Records, before Jay Z is gonna wind up breaking off but on his own later on. I first met Russell with Dean, Biggs and I were negotiating for a label deal with Rockefeller after reasonable doubt dropped. So his first out at this point in the story, he's already in the he's already decided, Hey, I'm not gonna sell drugs anymore.

55:12 I'm gonna dedicate all my time and effort into making it as at this He says making it at this rap shit is the way he puts it. So his first album comes out, doesn't sell a lot, but it's like critically it's like wow, this guy's really good. So it says, I remember sitting across the table from him. In Lear Cohen.

55:27 This is a really the Lear remember Leo Cohen from later on. in the story too because Leo is really important to the story because he's one of uh He's one of Jay Z mentors and is also Again, Jay Z we've he's demonstrated like I'm going to find the smartest people that that know more than I do and I'm learn everything I can from them, right?

55:44 And so he does that with Leo, he becomes uh met like Leo becomes his mentor and this causes a rift between Jay and his co founders. Uh, so it says I remember sitting across the table from him and Lear Cohen in disbelief that we were negotiating a seven figure deal with the greatest lap w la greatest label in rap history. But it was feeling a d dilemma. I was looking at Russell and thinking, I wanna be this dude. Not his artist.

56:05 Russell would become a valuable informal mentor for me. He knew that the key to success was believing in the quality of your own product enough People do business with you on your terms. He knew

56:18 That great product was the ultimate advantage in competition. Not how big your office building is or how deep your pockets are. Or who you know. In the end, it came down to having a great product.

56:31 And the hustle to move it. He knew the culture's power. And was never shy about leveraging it. and making sure that it was the people who were creating the culture Who got rich off of it.

56:44 So let's stop here, let's flash back. Just like Jay Z said at the very beginning. I knew hip hop was new. I just knew one thing and I knew it w in my bones. I knew it was gonna be bigger than it was it it's going to be be bigger In the future than it is today before it dies.

56:59 Well the stu the the analogy here is Russell knew how valuable. How he Russell was one of the first people that knew that you that that the birth of the hip hop industry. was going to make billionaires. He knew it. He was one of the first people to profit off of it.

57:14 And the whole part is like we we're the ones in control. We're the ones making it's to what Steve Jobs said, the most important people in the company are the people that are making your product. The people that can create wonderful products. Both an Apple and Pixar. those are the people that are valuable. And the way to to build a strong company is to make sure that those people are the most important people in the company. And what Steve Jobs learned from getting kicked out of Apple was like, Oh, we used to be the most important people in the company.

57:36 then when we build a product that ta m that turns the pr uh company into a rocket ship Then they they bring in like adults. they start prioritizing sales and marketing and then eventually you've already peaked, you don't even know it. You're like a walking the walking dead. And ten years later. You don't everybody that that's create that that's that's capable of creating great product has left.

57:53 So it in the end, it came down to having a great product and the hustle to move it. So build and sell and you will become ins unstoppable. That is Naval Robocott. uh from the Amunac of Naval. I can't remember what uh podcast number that is, but you can find in the archive. He knew build if you can build and sell, you will be in unstoppable. He knew the culture's power was never shy about leveraging it to making sure that it was the people who were creating the culture who got rich off it. That was the i idea.

58:17 Now this is again this I'm still on the same page. So many gems on this page. And I'm reading you almost the whole page. It's amazing. The idea was at the heart of Rock Aware. So this is a company that they're gonna start. They wind up selling. So Jay Z So

58:29 multiple companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. Rock aware he sold for two hundred million. I forgot how much he sold his liquor company for. He's got a a few liquor companies. Um, he went he just sold title to Jack Dorsey at Square for like four hundred million. So he just does this over and over again. The idea was at the heart of Rock Aware. I mean that's how you wind up being able to live in a hundred million dollar house, right?

58:48 The idea that was at the heart of Rock Aware, the clothing company we founded. In the late nineties, I was wearing a lot of clothes from this company called Iceberg. After a while, I'd look out into the audience at my at my concert. And see hundreds of people rocking iceberg. the executives at iceberg looked at us like we were speaking a foreign language. So they wanted to do a partnership deal. They wanted to get paid for their influence of sales, right? They go meet.

59:07 Executives are like, nah, get out of here. They looked at us like we were speaking foreign language, they offered us free clothes, but we wanted millions. We walked out of their office realizing that we had to do it ourselves. And so what he realized is like forget endorsing other people's products. I'm not doing that. I'm making my own.

59:23 If you'll buy a cloth cl uh t shirt you see me in. They sh the she the T shirt should be owned by me. If you go to the club and order a drink like Cristal or whatever else because I rap about it. Then I should just rap about Like I should own everything. It's like almost like a virtual form of like virtual integration.

59:38 And so he talks about this like forget Timberland, forget Crevassier, for cre forget Versace and all the other stuff. Like we're gonna make our own stuff. And he's just got a great line. Like what story are you telling about your product? And he says we gave those brands a narrative. Which is one of the reasons anyone buys anything. To own not just a product.

59:58 But to become part of a story. The line could have came directly out of Coco Chanel's. Mouth. She said the exact The sentiment behind that line.

1:00:07 Is exactly What how she built her massive, massive empire around. It's why anybody buys anything. Not to just own a product. But to become

1:00:17 Part. of the story. And although so he picks up on something about change in his outlook on things in life that he becomes older and wiser and just learns more. One thing like like was interesting It's like you know, you have all these like rap beefs and rap battles and they make songs about each other and all this other stuff.

1:00:33 And it's still, you know, people still fight over this stuff today. I when I was younger I really liked it. I thought that like the the the like the R form was very interesting. And as I get older, I'm like, this is kinda Dom. I go.

1:00:42 W if I'm making music and somebody else is making music And somebody's that other person's making music says something bad about my music. Like the be the best uh Right. Instead of me giving them attention. Now some of this is like all fake and they do it's like

1:00:57 you know, wrestling thing where it's like We if we have this fake beef, we'll sell more records of stuff, but I think In general, it's like I don't care. What other people are. I'm just focused on me.

1:01:06 And my product and getting the word the word out. Like I just think that's smarter and so That's what he's realizing here. He's like, I'm not gonna frickin' argue with every single person that comes at me. This is just I don't have that much time. So he says I don't scrap with every up and comer these days.

1:01:21 I got so many people coming at me, I'd never do anything else. I'm not competing with rappers anymore. I look at things a little differently than I used to. The competition isn't always zero sum like it was when we were on the streets. I discovered that there really is such a thing as a win win situation. So it's whole point This is all zero s this is not a zero sum game.

1:01:37 You can like my music, you can like that person's music, you can like that woman's music, and like th it goes on forever. So says I I discovered there really is such a thing as a win-win situation. I'm only competing with myself to be a better artist and businessman, to be a better person with a broader vision. This is genius. This is exactly what we should be doing. I'm only competing with myself to be a better artist and businessman, to be a better Person with a broader vision. I'm still that dude on the corner. It talks about the mindset he has. I'm still that dude on the corner, seven nights straight.

1:02:00 Trying to get back the money I lost. I'm still the kid who'd fight to be able to walk through a park. I'm still the M C who would battle anyone in a project courtyard. So he's not saying this literally saying he's I still have that mindset. This is what the streets have done for us.

1:02:12 They what they have done for me. They've given us a drive. They've made us stronger. Through hip hop, we found a way to redeem these lessons and to use them to change the world. So this is just fantastic too. The no left myself on this page.

1:02:25 Is this is just great. It's a million dollars worth of game for nine ninety nine. That is a line he said. in his album four forty four, what he means is like you're buying an album for ten bucks and you're gonna get a million dollars worth of ideas for it. Very similar to what they said in Poor Charlie's Almanac, founder number ninety, if you haven't listened to that, where I said there's thirty the reason that all h like when you study The best founders and the best investors, like they all have deep historical knowledge. And the reason is there's a line in Port Charlie's Alma Act. They said there's thirty there's a there's an idea there's ideas worth billions of dollars in a thirty dollar history book. And so

1:02:54 This is just fantastic. So he's gonna analyze the career and life of John Michelle Basquiat, who if you listen to JC music, you know who he is because he won't shut up about him. And he's just talking about he's analyzing his work. Taking the good ideas, right, and then avoiding the bad. That's exactly what we were doing. Uh, Bascat was was from Brooklyn, like me.

1:03:12 He started living uh he started off living in the the streets as a graffiti artist. He was hanging around with with Madonna before she was famous. And he collaborated with Andy Warhawk. He came onto the scene with a crew of graffiti writers, but he didn't want to be boxed in with that movement. So when the graffiti side scene died, he didn't die with it.

1:03:28 He moved. In a white Art world. But flooded his art with black images, attitudes, and icons. He wanted to be the most famous artist in the world.

1:03:39 So I double on that section because Jay Z may not want to be the most famous, but he wants to be the best. He wants to be the best artist in the world. He was hip hop. When hip hop was still in its cradle, so he's seeing things in Boscat's art. He's saying that same theme that's running through his heart. is exactly the foundations of this industry that I just jumped into.

1:03:56 On the night he died, he was twenty seven. Basquiet had been planning to see a run DMC show. When people asked him what his art was about, he'd hit them with the same three words over and over again. Royalty. Heroism?

1:04:08 And the streets. When he died in nineteen eighty eight, I'm not sure I knew who he was, even though he was a Brooklyn kid like me and he wasn't that much older. And so then he's saying Bosca wound up getting his wish, but he got it in death. You don't want to get your wish in death, you want it in life. He's probably among the most famous artists in the world, two decades after his death. I own a few of his paintings. His technique

1:04:27 Feels like hip hop, another sentence I underlined. Twice. His technique feels like hip hop. This is where he's again, don't think of things literally. The one thing you learn if you study the the life of Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory, is like he looked at everything like a giant abstraction, which is what you and I are trying to do with these books. His technique hip hop.

1:04:45 In the way he combined different tradition traditions and techniques to create something new. Okay. He brought together elements of street art. and European old masters. He combined painting and writ writing.

1:04:56 He can buy icons from Christianity. And Santaria and Voodoo. And on top of all that mixing and matching He added his own genius. Bingo. Exactly.

1:05:06 Which train and this is why you do that. Which transform the work into something completely fresh and original. So you go study the hist uh The career, the life and career of Steve Jobs. And you see elements that he learned from Enwin Land, which he call his hero.

1:05:20 He called Edwin Land a national treasure. You see Edwin Land's ideas. In the back. Of

1:05:26 Steve Jobs, like the influence, the the the veins of influence runs through Steve Jobs' approach to his work. It's not Edwin Land's ideas. It's Edwin Land's ideas mixed in with Steve's own Genius. Which then transforms Steve's work into something completely fresh.

1:05:43 And original. And if you want to put a price tag on it. What is it? Multiple trillion dollar market cap. It's insane. Boscat's work often deals with famous success, the story of what happens when you

1:05:54 actually get the things you die that you would die for. One Boskiop painting I own is called Charles the First. It's about Charlie Parker. The jazz pioneer who died young of a over of a heroin overdose. Just like Boskiat. In the corner of the paintings.

1:06:07 Or the words. Most Kings. get their head cut off. So why is he telling us this why is he bringing up is he just bragging about that he's got really expensive art on his walls?

1:06:18 No. This is the important part. And the reason I collect maxims And song lyrics. and short form videos.

1:06:27 I read so he's talking about looking at that, walking in the corner of in his house and seeing that that painting on the wall. most kings get their heads cut off. It's the reason why I have to have a Ernest Shackleton. On my

1:06:40 Lock screen on my phone. Why? Because I see Ernest cover sh I see Shackleton covered in snow. Looking like death. And I immediately reminded Of

1:06:50 His f his motto. By endurance we conquer. So when I look at my phone, I see oh You gonna give up, David? You really gonna do that. No, you're not gonna conquer anything by endurance.

1:07:00 Get used to taking paint. And then when you open my phone. It's a line. A screenshot from the last dance. The uh

1:07:09 The biography of Michael Jordan. A guy that was totally focused on one thing and one thing only. So we see This it's very common for people to have these little reminders set around their house. Same reason I leave the book The Town of Charlie Munger out. The Bed of her crustes, Autobiography of a Restless Mind. These are just like little books I leave uh um

1:07:27 In in place of my house so I just pick up They're books of maxims and aphorisms. It's not to sit there and and read for fifteen minutes, pick one up for two minutes. Read him a an ac an aphorism. A maxim.

1:07:37 turn to a random page and it's gonna prompt your thinking, right? It's gonna remind you of things. Just like J C sitting in his big beautiful house looking at this boss cap painting. And he's saying. Most kings get their heads cut off. This is what Jay Z says. I read it as a statement about what happens when you achieve a certain position.

1:07:53 People want to take your head. Your crown. Your title. They want to emasculate you. And you resist it.

1:08:00 Until one day. Your albums are moving. And the shows aren't filling up. And it seems like the game might have moved on without you. And this is the problem.

1:08:08 You do exactly what you shouldn't. Then you start to change. And you do whatever you need to get back into that spotlight. And that is when you're the walking dead.

1:08:18 So in that margin Of that paragraph I wrote Steve Jobs avoided that. Look at the weird, crazy arc of Steve Jobs' life. There were many times like No, Steve, why you He said something about uh s he was he like he was trying to build really nice, expensive

1:08:32 uh Apple computers. when everybody was just buying the the market had shifted and everybody was buying Um everybody was buying cheap PCs. And there's a line in that book in Steve Jobs by I Isaacson, it says Apple's problem Is that they still believe the way to grow is serving caviar.

1:08:49 In a world that seems pretty content. With cheese and crackers. I'm not here to serve you cheese and crackers, Steve Jobs said. I'm building insanely great products because that's what I feel I should do. And if I start to change

1:09:01 and just build an undifferentiated com commodity uh P C like everybody else is doing. Then Apple never gr returns. It's he he looked at Apple's and this is the the this period that that line comes from when at when this is the late nineties when when Steve Jobs comes back to Apple. And he looks at the product lineup, he's like this lineup sucks. It just too much stuff.

1:09:19 All of it sucks. Let's get rid of it all and we're gonna build four products and there's gonna be four badass. Insanely great products. And we're gonna stake our claim and we're gonna rebuild our company. on the quality of our fucking products. And that

1:09:31 That line of thinking becomes the foundation for the greatest corporate turnaround the world has ever seen. Not sticking your finger up in the air and be like, Hey, what's the what what way is the wind blowing? Oh, let me don't like what I'm doing, let me change. Let me do whatever I need to do, get it back in the spotlight. No, the spot I'm gonna build the best products and that's gonna direct the spotlight. I'm not gonna just copy you and go down this crappy path. That reminds me of this fantastic, fantastic

1:09:53 Anecdote that's in Joni or John I said it again. I did a whole podcast on it. Johnny. His name is Johnny. Johnny Ives. Uh biography it's Johnny I the genius behind Apple's greatest products and so

1:10:05 At the time, the market the market demand saying Uh everybody all the the undifferentiated PC uh makers were were building these things called netbooks. And they go from being like nothing to the laptop market to like twenty percent of the laptop market? And when when they were talking I was like should we build a netbook, Steve Jobs just nailed it and you only know this by being authentic to yourself. And he says even though they were twenty percent of the market.

1:10:27 Apple never seriously considered making one. And Steve said. Netbooks aren't better than anything. Steve Jobs said at the time. They're just cheap laptops.

1:10:37 And so it's like no, I'm not building that'cause they're not better th the they don't do anything better than any of the other product. Like they're just they're just popular because people are mass producing them and buying them. And so instead of dedicating time To build a netbook. You know what what Ra what Uh Steve.

1:10:51 Directed Apple's resources ability instead? The iPad. That is why that what what Steve or should me what Jay Z is describing to us is so important. So back to this paragraph.

1:11:01 Nearly every rapper who made it big has had to deal with getting one of his heads chopped off. The stories you hear can really make it seem like success can be a curse. And so what J's describing us is this is the the What Jay had s had to sex successfully navigate his way through.

1:11:15 The stories you hear can really make it seem like success can be a curse. Rappers who have dangle who have been dangled over balconies for their publishing money. That's a true story, by the way. held by their ankles and sign this contract and we're gonna drop it to the balcony, driven out of their hometowns, fucked up by drugs, sued by their own families, betrayed by their best friends, sold out by their crews, There are rappers who blow up and blow through whole fortunes. They squander every opportunity and before you know it, end up back on the block. And so this is why. Th this book is really hitting hard for me, hitting home for me. Is because there's a bunch of other people that I like their music.

1:11:48 The same time I discovered Jay Z music twenty years ago. And let's say there was twenty of them. How many of them are still surviving to this day? How many of d how many of them did not successfully? Navigate.

1:12:00 Through that labyrinth. uh what he uh what Jay Z just described to us. It's a handful. You can let's put that number there's been thousands of people that That made a hit wrap.

1:12:11 Hit hit a hit song. How many of them are still doing it decade after decade after decade? That's what I'm interested in. I'm not being I'm not interested in being good. at podcasting for a year or two.

1:12:22 But a decade after decade after decade because that is what my heroes did. Steve Jobs is a hero. He worked on his career for forty years. Charlie Munger Moore Buffett are still at it. Enzo Ferrari died. Yeah, and Ferraris. Uh exit strategy was death.

1:12:36 Edwin Land ran his company longer than almost any other American business uh ex uh business founder. Or should any other founder in American business history. Steven Spielberg is still at it.

1:12:47 All these other people I look up to and admire for different reasons, like The one thing that they all have in common is longevity. Jay Z, same thing. Longevity. So you take maybe thousands of people that had a hit song like Jay Z did. And maybe five are are still doing it for as long maybe three or four, whatever the number is, are still doing it as long as he is.

1:13:04 That That long term success is the ultimate goal. And so I turn the page and he's back at it and this is what I wrote. He just gets it. J just has the ability to connect the dots. I'm lucky never d I'm also lucky

1:13:18 Never to have needed the approval of the gatekeepers in the industry because from the start we came in the game as entrepreneurs. That gave me the freedom to just be myself. Which is the secret to any long term success. But exactly what we just talked about with Steve Jobs, right? That is a secret to any long term success, but that's hard to see when you're young and desperate just to be put on just to get

1:13:40 Just to get put on. I don't accept and ran over my own point, I just said A minute ago, this is the the goal here. I don't accept that failing is inevitable. I think there's a way to avoid it. A way to win.

1:13:52 To get success in its spoils. And to get away with it without losing your soul. Or your life. or both. It's exactly what Jay Z's able to accomplish. I'm trying to rewrite the old script.

1:14:03 But Baskiat's painting. Sits on my wall. Like a warning. Few pages later, just one line here. Reminder that

1:14:12 Uh this is Uh something I learned from Bill Gurley. Be the best informed person in your field. If you've never seen that fantastic talk. Go to YouTube.

1:14:21 Type in running down a dream, how to survive and thrive in a career you love, I think it is. That's it. Be the best informed person in your field is a direct quote from that talk. And he says I'm a music head, so I listen to everything. People around me are passionate about music.

1:14:35 We study music. We seek it out. Then he talks about he's like you shouldn't be an artist. You should be a businessman. If you should approach your art as a business. And again, really he's just listing the pitfalls of the game that he was able to avoid. And so this idea it's funny'cause everybody's like the

1:14:52 they they describe like this this the emergence of what they call quote unquote the creator economy. That is not a new idea. back in two thousand five and I think Jay Z put it better than the the term creator economy. He says, I'm not a businessman. Ама бізнес.

1:15:05 Man Uh, the other part of commercialisation is the idea that artists should be only be thinking about their art and not about the business side of what we do. When I committed to a career in rap, I wasn't taking a vow of poverty. I saw it as another hustle. Exactly.

1:15:16 Dead on. I saw it as another just way he happens to love and be obsessed with it. Okay. And obviously the the the the the intent or the the like reading through the lines there is that that increases his ability

1:15:28 Hid the likelihood of his success. Uh, I wasn't taking a vow of poverty. I saw it just as another I saw it as another hustle, one that happened to coincide with my natural talents. So I mind my business and I don't apologize for it. There's this sick fascination with the dead artist. The broke artist.

1:15:43 The drugged out artist. And it w another thing that's kinda surprising is how much Jay Z talks about like don't drink all the time, don't smoke weed, don't do Coke. Like have a clear head. There's a fantastic story about Him and Biggie.

1:15:55 W with regard to that, I'll get to in a minute. There's a sick fascination with the dead artist, the broke artist, the drugged out artist, the artist who blows all of his money on drugs and big chains. and edge up and ends up on a V H one special. And he's just saying, he's like, I'm not doing it. You're not gonna catch me slipping like that. So then we get to the point where he's analysing one of his freestyles. I'm gonna skip the line. I want to say just d just few sentences, two sentences, I think.

1:16:17 about what he's talking about. And again Bob Noyce, Estee Lauder, Edwin Lance, Steve Jobs, Arnold, Jay Z, they all do this. In the song. I keep talking about seeing it all before. And it's true.

1:16:30 Not that I was prophetic. But I have always used vizualization. The way athletes do. To conjure reality. The mind is a powerful place in which you feed it can affect you in powerful ways.

1:16:43 And so I think for a lot of people they think, Oh, this is weird, you know, that's like Willy Foo Foo stuff. Well, I see it all the time. I don't know what to tell you. I remember I was having coffee with a listener of the podcast. Uh, Seth, he's a founder and investor, and he's around the same age and we we both arrived at the same conclusion and dur when we were having this conversation. We talked about you know, like when you're younger you're kinda like I think we both w had like a more analytical bent.

1:17:03 And realize you the more life experience you have, and you also see in this book over and over again, the more you like wait, intuition, just because we don't understand it doesn't mean it's not powerful. And there's some kind of evolutionary benefit to listening to your gut, whatever you wanna call it, intuition, gut, your mind, it doesn't inter monologue, whatever word you happen to put on it. But before I completely discounted anything that was like a like human score in the abstract. Well I was one of those people that score in the abstract before I understand how valuable that is. There's something about

1:17:28 having this positive mental attitude, having a belief in yourself. Uh like even if you're you're you're walking out into the unknown, you think that you have a a good product, you think you have some traction on your business. But you have to believe that you are going to succeed. You have to see it in your mind and brainwash yourself. And I'm kinda doing the same thing when I'm reading this book. It's like it's impossible. Like it is absolutely impossible.

1:17:50 To read biography after biography. Of people believing in themselves When they had no reason to believe in themselves. And using that as Fuel to

1:17:58 do and not have a a a profound sense of belief. in your own ability and and what you're doing. That's not something you can put in a spreadsheet, but it's very real and has very very it's very valuable. Like listen to yourself, like your heart, your soul, your intuition, your gut, whatever it is. The same thing that G Z saying there.

1:18:17 I always use visualization the way athletes do to conjure reality. Okay, so now we get to Like I said, it's Tons of fantastic stories in the book. This is uh on having dinner with Michael Jordan. She says I also believe there's a lot to be learned from elite athletes. Sports one of the great metaphors for life.

1:18:33 I know I'm not alone when I say this, but I absolutely love Michael Jordan. His career. was a perfectly comp composed story. About will. I went to his restaurant at his invitation.

1:18:45 To have dinner with him. So he's like, This was just fantastic. I got to be a freaking Uh just an absolute fan. And I got to pepper him with any question I wanted to. So he says I found out how much Jordan loves A Kim Olajwa.

1:18:56 He pointed out that he that a Allah was a leader in steels, which is rare in his center uh because he played center. Which is rare in the center position. I asked him to name his five favorite centers, the best games he ever played. Which championships meant the most to him? I got to be an unabashed fan.

1:19:10 It was an absolute dream conversation for me. The things that distinguish Jordan. Wasn't just his talent. But h this is the most important part. Uh of and it speaks to exactly like his dedication the d dedication that Jay Z had in his craft.

1:19:25 The one that Kanye we mentioned earlier. I'm locking myself I'm doing I'm lock lock yourself in a room and do five beats a day for three summers. I deserve to do these numbers. The thing that distinguished Jordan wasn't just his talent.

1:19:38 But his discipline. His laser like commitment to excellence. That's something I always respect. Especially in people Who have great

1:19:47 Natural talents are ready. Yeah, so he's like Jordan. That same approach that Jordan uses, I've seen it in other people. It's the d the the th through through line through excellence. My earliest mentors in rap taught me that making music is work.

1:20:00 Whether it was Jazz locking himself in a room working on different flows. Or Big Daddy Cain taking the time to meticulously put together a state show. The a there's unquestionably magic involved in great music. Songwriting and performances. Like those nights when a star athlete is totally in the zone and can't miss.

1:20:15 But there's also work. Without the work. The magic won't come. There are a hundred Herald miners. For every one

1:20:24 Michael Jordan. So what he means is there's plenty of people with talent. That's not enough. You gotta compliment discipline and laser like commitment to excellence with your talent and that becomes Your and w what I guess in like the startup world you hear is it's like they're looking for

1:20:39 They they they describe this phenomenon, it's like Jordan esque phenomenon. As N of one founders. So that's the way you think about it. It's like I when you hear that you think, Oh, they're looking for the next Michael Jordan. And so Jay Z talks about this because he also not just rap, but he signs other rappers.

1:20:53 When it comes to signing up new talent, that is what I'm looking for. Not just someone who has skill. Built for this life. Someone who has the work ethic the drive.

1:21:02 The gift that Jordan had wasn't just that he was willing to do the work. But he loved doing it. Because he could feel himself getting stronger. And ready for anything. That is the kind of consistency

1:21:13 That you can get only by adding Dead serious discipline. to whatever talent You have. And so one of these people

1:21:21 that Jay Z saw that in is uh He winds up signing uh this rapper who's one of my favorite rappers, like of the new school rappers. Um Name J. Cole. And there was an interview Jay Z was doing to promote his album. I think this was back in like two thousand thirteen, two thousand fourteen. He was releasing Magna Carta, Holy Grail, that album. And he talked about the fact that him and J Cole have albums coming out

1:21:41 At the same time. And he talks about the mentality that you should have. And he says I know for a fact. J. Cole. thinks his album is better than mine.

1:21:52 And then next line is the sponge line. And he's supposed to. He is supposed To feel that way. That doesn't mean he's like

1:22:00 He's respectful to me, he learns a lot from me, just like I learned from and he says in the in the interviews like you know, I'm studying Rakim. Big daddy came, but I'm also competing with them. He's like you respect the people that came for you, but you're competing with them. You're supposed to. I know for a fact J. Cole thin is better than mine. He's supposed to. You're supposed to feel that way. That is not something that

1:22:19 people that don't have founded mentality have a they can't wrap their mind around So later on he he says something that's f that just a Fantastic line, a fantastic point. He talks about um later on he becomes like a business partner and this restaurant with like Bono and and Bill Clinton. And he's like, I didn't really like the laws Bill Clinton passed. He was detrimental to people like that that look like me and everything else.

1:22:41 But he's but he talks about like meeting him and and like becoming friends with them and he says But I'm not exact and this is his great point, but I'm not exactly the same person I was in nineteen ninety two either. Everyone needs a chance to evolve. Two great ideas on uh this page a little later on. When you step outside of school and you have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information.

1:23:03 I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see to my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around. Restless. Making connections.

1:23:11 Mixing and matching ideas. rather than marching in a straight line. Purely linear linearly think linear thinking. Uh rarely get you from the projects to being a billionaire. So that's obviously a good idea. My mind is always jumping around, restless making connections, mixing and matching ideas rather than marching in a straight line. exactly what I'm trying to do with founders. I'm trying to connect disparate thoughts.

1:23:32 I've always believed in motion and action and following connections wherever they take me and and not getting too entrenched. My life has been more poetry than prose. More about unpredictable leaps and links. Then simply steady movement. Or were stagnation.

1:23:45 It has allowed me to stay open. He's actually saying the value of flexibility is what he's talking to us about here. It's allowed me to stay open to the next thing without feeling held back. By a preconceived notion. of what I'm supposed to be doing next.

1:23:58 And on this page I just Listed a bunch of people that Uh Optimize for flexibility too. Singleton, Herb Keller. Buffett, Munger.

1:24:06 Nims Persia. The the the mountaineer we just covered a few uh few podcasts ago. Chuck Feeney. The billionaire who wasn't, the guy that made eight billion dollars and gave it all away when he was still alive. Walter Chrysler, Henry Ford.

1:24:16 Ed Capmell. All they they all say things just like what Jay Z is saying here. Allowed me to stay open to the next thing without feeling held back by a preconceived notion of what I'm supposed to be doing next. So then he goes back to his childhood. And this is just

1:24:30 insane. These are lessons from his dad. And just imagine Like It's one thing and it they're both terrible, obviously. But it's one thing if like you you're never part of your kid's life and you ran away. I still think it's cowardly, despicable behavior.

1:24:43 But what his dad did to him is even worse. Imagine walking out on your nine year old son. So he he was raised his son. For the first nine years of his life. And then disappears. And doesn't see him until

1:24:55 Right before he dies, uh a few weeks before he died. they went up meeting again. So this is my I I just cannot I have a nine year old daughter. She's about to turn ten.

1:25:04 Like the idea that I would like that is just You have to be so Something wrong. I remember um One of my oldest friends.

1:25:11 His friend and I don't know how close he is to this his friend. They went to college together, but he said that his friend did this, where it's just like He got a girl pregnant and then just dipped out and never Like didn't support the kid and did it like just completely Uh like

1:25:25 abandon his responsibilities as a father. And I was like, You and I told my friend, I was like, Never talk to that dude again. Like that's a scumbag. Like he he doesn't care for his own kids, he doesn't care a shit about you. And he thought like I was being harsh. And he's like, Well what what if uh and we'd been friends at that point probably like fifteen years when I was having this conversation with him. And he's like, Well what if I did that? I was like, I'd never talk to you again.

1:25:48 Like this is Uh despicable, despicable behavior. Like you you're destroy like kids don't deserve that. You're like you're the adult, you're the one that like had the responsibility. You're the one that had the sex, you're the one that did the like

1:26:01 You're the one that made help make that baby. Like you take it doesn't mean you have to be with the uh like The mom obviously and everything else, but like You have to support your kid. And so Jay Z talks a lot about that, not only his lyrics, but in the book about

1:26:13 He his his generation really Flip. 'Cause he's like it was extremely common. That

1:26:20 our mothers would raise us. The dads were never around. And so we try to take that curse, that generational curse, and fix it. And be like, yo, if you do this, you're a sucker, is the way he puts it. My father was crazy for detail. I get that from him, even though he didn't We didn't live together after I was nine, there's something he instilled in me early that I never lost.

1:26:37 There was nothing he missed about a person. He was really good about taking it all in. Taking in all the nonverbal clues. people give you to their character, how to listen to the matrix of a conversation, to what a person doesn't say. For my pops it was just as important to take place to take in places as people.

1:26:51 He wanted me to know my own neighborhood inside and out. When I was walking with him, he'd always walk real fast. He said if someone following He did that because if someone's following you, they'll lose you. And expected not only

1:27:02 to keep up with him, not only for you to keep up with him, but to remember the details of the things that was passing. He was teaching me to be confident and aware of my surroundings. There's no better survival skill that you could teach a boy in the ghetto. And he did it. By showing.

1:27:17 And so then he sa talks about the fact that his dad liv left. And that hip hop took this as like, hey, we gotta change this. The hip hop generation never gets credit for this. But those songs change things in the hood.

1:27:28 They were political commentary, but they weren't based on theory or books. They were based on reality on close observation of the world we grew up in. The songs weren't more realistic. But they created a stigma. Араун сердців бевір.

1:27:42 Just by describing them truthfully and with clarity. One of the things we c we corrected was the absent father karma. Our father's generation created. We made it and Chasey puts it very eloquently, more eloquently than I could put it. And he says, uh We made it some real bitch shit.

1:27:59 We as a generation made it shameful. To not be there. For your kid.

1:28:09 So then he goes back to the burden of growing up poor and how you never and I've seen this this what he's about to describe to us, I've seen this in in in a lot of the books that we read as well. The burden of poverty isn't just that you don't always have the things you need. It's the feeling of being embarrassed every day of your life. And you that you do anything to lift that burden. I remember coming back home from doing work, so selling drugs, out of state.

1:28:29 with my boys in a caravan of Lexuses that we park right in the middle of Marcy. I ran up to my mom's apartment to get something and looked out of the window and saw those three new Lexuses gleaming in the sun. And I thought, man, we're doing it. In retrospect, yeah. That was kind of ignorant.

1:28:43 But at the time I could just feel that Dink and shame. Lifting off of me. And it felt beautiful.

1:28:51 The sad shit. Is that you never really shake it all the way off. No matter how much money You get. And so all the way back, I think it's like founders one fifteen, maybe.

1:29:00 All right, one sixteen actually. And it's Samuel Bromman, who grew up extremely poor in Canada and winds up building the the gigantic Seagram's bu business. That like produce generational wealth. He's one of the first examples of this thing, this topic you and I've talked about a few times, which is just the generational inflection point. where you have an entire family history of a family seeped in poverty. And you have the one, like Neo.

1:29:20 Like. Didn't the matrix like You have the one. One person's going to change the generational inflection point that changes the trajectory.

1:29:28 of the future generations forever. Sam Bronfman is that one in his family. And it certainly the the role I'm trying to play in my family. It says Sam recorded his l uh the l uh s recorded little of his childhood except to reiterate How painfully he experienced the poverty.

1:29:41 in which his family lived. He worried that his parents might fall fail to make their payments on the family home. Sam later recalled the shame that Of appearing before his classmates in torn clothes. A humiliation.

1:29:55 He were crowned. to his own children. The rest of his life. His daughter in the book talks about They're living in a giant mansion.

1:30:03 And he'd bring up the fact that he would have to go to clo Go to school. be around his peers in tore cl torn clothes and he would shiver. Literally many decades later shiver at that thought. And what did Jay Z just say? The sad shit is That you never really shake it all the way off.

1:30:20 No matter how much money. You get. It's the exact same idea. So J C talks about the value of mentorship. Really think about this the mentorship you either get in books or in person.

1:30:30 It's just a way to speed up time. Right. It accelerates it accelerates the learning curve. 'Cause you can learn from their experiences. You don't have to put in the fifteen years that they put in. So Lear Cohen. who I consider my mentor once told me something that uh that he was told by a rabbi about the eight degrees of giving in Judaism.

1:30:46 So I didn't know where this came from, but I've heard Jay Z rap about this before. The seventh degree is giving anonymously. So you don't know who you're giving to and the person on the receiving end doesn't know who gave. the value of that is that the person receiving doesn't have to feel some kind of obligation to the giver. And the person giving isn't doing it with an ulterior motive.

1:31:02 The highest level of giving. The eighth. is giving in a way that m that makes the receiver self sufficient. So now we get to the point where he he describes this as literally crossing over from one life to another. from going from I'm a full time drug dealer to I'm a full time rapper.

1:31:19 All these threats came together at a pivotal moment in me. The moment when I fully crossed over From one life to another. I was sitting across the table from Ruben Rodriguez, who is a m music business vet Wearing the uniform.

1:31:30 Double breasted silk suit. Pinky ring. Tie. Uh the room, the table, the view outside the window of a pin of a of a skyscraper, the whole scene was surreal to me. I'd been living like a vampire. The only people I'd seen in weeks were the people my crew down south.

1:31:43 And of course the customers. The endless nighttime tide of fiends. My hands were raw from handling drugs and handling money. My nerves were shot from the pressure. Now is in this office.

1:31:53 Sitting next to me was Dame Dash. So this is gonna be one of his co founders. He says Clark Kent, the producer. So Clark Kent was a well known New York producer and DJ. And he introduced He's another important person in in in and Jay Z life. He made beats for him, put him in the music business. Yeah, he says, uh and he introduced him to a bunch of people.

1:32:10 Uh Clark Kent was the person who introduced me to Dame. Clark was pivotal at this stage in my life. In the mirror all I saw was a hustler. Clark would find me and say, Let's do this music. I appreciated him.

1:32:21 Uh him Cart can't, tie tie, beehigh, all these other people. They would encourage me. But I was also skeptical about the business that I would get also get I was so skeptical about the business that I would get annoyed at them. B High, which is his cousin, used to really come down hard on me.

1:32:34 He was real honest and direct. And told me straight up He thought I was throwing my life away. Clark thought I had something this is why Again, if we can encourage especially

1:32:44 Younger people. Like people Like it's just so important. Clark thought I had something new to offer to this world that he loved. So he's saying, I love your music. You have something new.

1:32:56 something valuable I want to help people Discover it. It's like Stop dealing drugs, Jay. Take the rap shit seriously. You're good at it. Clark knew Dame was hungry, Dame Dash.

1:33:07 was hungry for talent to represent So he could break into the music industry and thought we'd make a good match. Dame walked into the room and room talking and didn't stop. He was a he was a Harlem dude. Through and through.

1:33:18 Flash flashy Loud and animated. He projected Bullet proof. Confident.

1:33:25 That is important. He projected bulletproof confidence. And this is advice. I talked to a founder uh the other day. And there were d this topic came up where it's just like he knows the stuff. He's got a good product that's valuable, but he's just like I don't have the confidence. It's like Doesn't matter. Act like you do.

1:33:41 Do like it act like you do until you actually do. That's not even me. Like that's not advice for me. That's the advice Nolan Bush now gave to a 19 year old Steve Jobs. That Steve Jobs ran with. No one said only the arrogant are self confident enough. To press their creative ideas on others.

1:33:59 Steve believed he was always right and was willing to push harder and longer than other people who might have had equally good ideas. But who caved under pressure. Dame dash projected bulletproof confidence. If you're not like this Act like you are. Who cares? You ha just act like you are.

1:34:14 So it goes more into the the early days of them trying to hustle and just trying to but it's actually bootstrap is what they're doing. They're trying to bootstrap. A late a record label. And again, this and no doubt for myself are many times in this uh In this book, a lot can change in a lifetime from five dudes in an SUV and sharing hotel rooms to a billionaire. Every time Dame left these meetings, he'd get so heated. He couldn't believe that they didn't get me.

1:34:34 But I wasn't surprised. I expected nothing from the industry. I just try to shrug it off and I'd get back to my real life. Dane was getting frustrated trying to keep up with me. So he put together a makeshift tour. To keep me focused on music.

1:34:45 Sometimes Dame and his group and I would just pile into a pathfinder, a Toyota Pathfinder. Or Nissan Pathfinder, sorry. And do shows up and down the east coast. I was being a team player. I piled in the truck, stayed in the the double rooms with the rest of them. In some ways these were like my college days. Taking road trips. I I'm uh J D Jay Z didn't even graduate high school from from

1:35:04 Mistake. In some ways these uh were like my college days, taking road trips bunked up with friends learning my profession. Except that I still had a full time job selling drugs. And so he's talking about like not trying to hide who he was, essentially on being human.

1:35:17 This is one of the great the the things that make rap at its be at at its best. It's so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be the to be only one thing or another. To be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one soldier so shoulder, excuse me.

1:35:34 And an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside. You uh that you don't have contradictions inside you. That you're so dull and unimaginative. That your mind never change changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.

1:35:50 And so now he's fast forward into his career a little bit, and the note like myself that I've left on a lot of these books is how bad do you want it? There's all these examples in the book. I'll just c I'll just I'll just give you one that pops my mind'cause I just talked about'em. Sam Bronfman, the generational inflection point, the one that made generational wealth and ended Poverty.

1:36:09 the time he's growing up in Canada, it's extremely Cold? Uh there They're learning, hey, we're gonna sell liquor. you have to at the time they had like all these weird prohibition laws and and things like that.

1:36:19 And so one way to get around that is you buy uh an existing hotel that's like grandfathered in that's exempt from this law that allows you to sell liquor. He hears about a hotel. That is for sale. There's another guy in the same town that lives that he lives in that also wants To bid on this hotel.

1:36:34 Turns out the owner of the hotel is in the middle of nowhere like the can like The middle of like icy tundra. Somewhere on Canada hunting. And so you have Sam who wants the hotel.

1:36:46 to to make an offer and hotel. You have Sam's competitor that wants to make a hot uh offer in a hotel. They found out the guy's not gonna be back for a few weeks. The other guy's like okay, I'll just wait. Sam's like, all right, where's the guy at? He he's in this remote

1:36:57 Uh you know. UConn territory wherever it is. How do I get there? Oh, I have to rent a dog sled? And I have to sled in the ice and in the freezing cold.

1:37:06 For six days. And I can't bring food, so we have to hunt and kill our food on the way just to get to this guy's remote location. Yeah. I'll do that. Does that for six days.

1:37:16 An unbearable. uh pain and and and and struggle. Gets to the guy's camp. N you already know the end of the story, don't you? you who's gonna get the who is going to get the deal.

1:37:26 Not the guy sitting on his ass. Back uh by the fire. Waiting for this guy. the guy that went through it. So Sam Brompin winds up getting Meeting the guy.

1:37:34 negotiating a deal in the camp spot and getting uh the hotel before that other guy sitting with his feet up even knew it hit him. And so the way to summarize is that how bad do you want it? Because Extreme levels of drive and pain tolerance.

1:37:50 in the history of entrepreneurship. Okay, so Th this isn't necessarily painful, but J C's not also one to Take no for an answer. He's gonna describe how he gets the clearance for what becomes his biggest hit.

1:38:02 So he did this song called Hard Knock Life. This is on his second album, excuse me, his third album, if I'm not mistaken. It is before that. Before Hard knock life. Uh J Z Uh like critically acclaimed, not selling many records.

1:38:14 After He sells five million records and he completely changes the trajectory of his entire career. And so they they they have to get clearance for from that movie like Little Annie. I forgot the little um Like you know, the little red headed girl, I forgot her orphan Andy or whatever her name is. To use the song from Annie, we had to get clearance from the copyright holder. I was I wasn't surprised when the company that owned the rights sent our lawyers a letter turning us down.

1:38:35 Lord knows what they thought it was gonna wrap over that track. But I felt like the chorus to that song perfectly captured. What what little kids in the ghetto felt every day. Instead of kisses, we get kicked. So that's the the hook, right? So I decided to write the company a letter myself.

1:38:51 After being rejected. I made up the story about how when I was a seventh grader in the ghetto Our teacher held an essay contest. And the three best papers won the writers a trip to the city to see Annie on Broadway. That was a lie.

1:39:03 I wrote that. I wrote that as kids in Brooklyn we hardly ever came into the city. That was true. I wrote that from that moment on, or from the moment the curtain came up. I felt like I understood

1:39:13 Her story. Of course, I had never been to see Annie on Broadway, but I had seen the movie on TV. They bought it. They cleared it. And I had one of my biggest hits.

1:39:24 How bad do you want it? And so the note I left myself a few pages later could also Have applied. To what J just the story J just told us.

1:39:35 When somebody puts up a wall in front of you What do you do? You put up a wall in front of Jay Z, Sam Braunfman, all these other people. They're knocking the wall down. They're tunneling under the wall, they're jumping over the wall, but that wall is not gonna stop them.

1:39:48 After every label in the industry turn us down, and I do mean every label in town. Game. Biggs and I've decided. Fuck it. Why be workers anyway?

1:39:56 Being a recording artist on a major label is the most contractually exploitative expl Explorative. relationship you can have in America. And it's legal. All three of us had read Hitman, which is this book. Uh, which was the industry Bible, and we knew what kind of gangsters had established record companies.

1:40:12 So in nineteen ninety four, Dame Biggs and I pool our resources to form Rockefeller Records. Obviously uh An homage to some degree of John D. Rockefeller. The name was aspirational and confrontational.

1:40:25 The first record we made Uh was called I can I I can't get with that. We made and A in Clark Kent's basement studio. And we shot the video for five thousand dollars.

1:40:36 We pressed up our own vinyl. And we made champagnes and sent them to DJ. So he's just saying he's like doing things that don't scale, which is a Paul Graham advice to startup founders. He's starting a business and he just knows how to hustle. We don't have endless Amount of money.

1:40:50 So we gotta be resourceful here. So like we're just do things on the low, we'll do things ourselves as much as we can and we'll we're gonna we're gonna push this And get the momentum of our label. Going. And so he says we didn't know the business yet.

1:41:03 But we knew how to hustle. We did more than talk about it. We wrote it down. The key thing is we wrote it down. This is exactly what Arnold Schwarzenegger says. He's like, You gotta have a goal, you gotta write it down, and you gotta think about the that's the only thing. You think about. And so Jay Z says the key thing is we wrote it down, which is as important as visualization and realizing success.

1:41:23 How many times is he gonna talk about visualization, singing in your mind before you see it in person, over and over again. Back then We'd go to record stores. Who stole still sold singles on consignment. This is wild. They we would drop the single off and come back every couple of days to collect half the proceeds of what had been sold.

1:41:39 We'd show up and we'd collect a hundred and fifty dollars. I was right there in the stores politicking with the retailers and personally building relationships with DJs. It was due Or die. So they own all the records, the only thing they don't have is distribution.

1:41:56 So they have to then distribution to usually takes like a twenty percent fee. In some of the videos I saved on my phone from Jay Z like twenty six years old talking, he's like, Yeah. own everything um I mean I have actually uh I wrote down what he says, hold on. Um he says I want full control over my this is him in he's like twenty six at the time.

1:42:12 This is wild. I want full control over my music. This sounds like George Lucas. Try to own as much of yourself as possible'cause it's gonna pay off in the long run. He's like we own everything except the twenty percent uh distribution fee and we're working on Young

1:42:25 Young dude. And he he knew back then. It's just amazing. We negotiated a deal with Payday. That guaranteed wider distribution than the one we'd be able to do. then the distribution we'd ab we'd be able to get on our own.

1:42:35 Once we secured that deal, we run it an office in the financial district. Check this out. We started a fan club. before we even had any fans. So to know I left myself here is something I already told you from the Kanye documentary. Before I had a car

1:42:47 I'd walk to the train Practicing my Grammy speech. So they find a way to get their single on a uh getting radio play, it's getting it's getting popular. He's like, Oh I don't have the album done. I gotta hurry this up.

1:42:58 Says we had a small window of opportunity from the time f uh this is He's he calls him Flex, that's Funkmaster Flex, uh very famous DJ on on Hot Ninety Seven, which is a very big uh Radio station in in New York. Uh Member this way before streaming or any of the other stuff. We had a small wind of opportunity from the time Flex started playing it.

1:43:15 in the beginning of nineteen ninety six. I figured I had until the summer to complete an entire album. That's about three to four months from studio to to a package product with a marketing plan. I don't think I slept for weeks at a time back then. I was living off of pure adrenaline. Uh one one One of his

1:43:29 Singles Uh that that's gonna be on the album. He actually gets Through his relationship with Clark Kent. When Biggie Smalls came through One of my sessions to see Clark. Clark played him the beat for Brooklyn's finest.

1:43:39 He told Clark he had to get on it. Uh I met I met Big and we clicked right away. More than anything. I love sharp people. Men or women. Nothing makes me like some someone more than intelligent.

1:43:52 And then he talks about what it's like being on the forefront, on the fr on the front frontier of a brand new industry and why brand new industries usually attract a certain personality type. Rap started off so lawless. Not giving a fuck about any rules or limits. Th it was like a new frontier.

1:44:08 We knew we were opening up new territory, even if we left behind a whole country. or sometimes our own family. We struck Oil. And so then this is when he gets into a fantastic

1:44:21 Uh big story. And really just a powerful lesson. So he says I had I hadn't been on vacation since I gotten serious about music, so I was happy to go to Miami to shoot the video. For the song he's got with this uh other rapper named Foxy Brown. Big was touring, but he took the time out to fly down and make a cameo in the video.

1:44:37 Big love to smoke, so smoke weed. But I could count the number of times that I had smoked trees. Champagne and the occasional Malibu run were my thing back then, but mostly I like to stay sober. The better to stay focused on making money.

1:44:50 I come from the class of hustlers who look down on smoking as counterproductive. We used to judge dudes. Who smoked as slackers. When I did smoke, it was on vacation in the islands. But when Big asked me to smoke with him, I told myself, relax. You're not on the streets anymore.

1:45:06 It was happening and I had to admit it. I was out of that life. So I smoked with big. And he smoked blunts. The last time I had smoked, whenever that was, I'm pretty sure

1:45:16 I was hitting a joint. A couple hits later, and I was high as shit. Sitting there. Feeling outside of time. Slight slightly stuck.

1:45:24 And laughing uncontrollably. Big leans in so only I can hear him. I got ya. That fucked me up. Big was a friend.

1:45:34 But also a competitor. He gave me an important lesson at that moment. They call it the game, but it's not. You can want success all you want. But to get it, you can't falter.

1:45:44 You can't slip. You can't sleep. One eye open for real. And forever. Big joke.

1:45:50 With such a small thing. But I was like Fuck that. The director was setting up shots shots and all that. And I went to my room and I sobered up.

1:45:58 Before I came downstairs. When I came down. Big was laughing. His laughter was a beautiful thing. Even when the joke was on me.

1:46:06 This time I leaned in close to him. Never again, my dude. And so that might be surprising because maybe he w mentions in his music smoking or drinking. I mean he sells alcohol for God's sake, right? Um but

1:46:19 That's the it's really interesting, like Again, actions express priority, which might be my all time favorite maxim. Like what you do is what is actually important to you, not what you think in your mind or what you say. And it's interesting, like he might rap about smoking a uh blonde. or drinking or whatever, but he's telling us. He's like, No, I actually don't like smoking that much and I don't like drinking that much Like I try to stay clear mind.

1:46:38 He talks about that too, was like especially in hip hop in the nineties, they glorified like going to the club. That was really big. They would hang out. And so he tells story in the book. Where he would show up to do a performance. He'd get on stage at a club.

1:46:51 Do a couple songs. And then people think, Oh, Jay Z's here and and in many cases you'd even be um like paid by the club to show up'cause it's like oh Jay Z's here so those More people come, the more I'll call they sell them, et cetera, et cetera. But he's like what I would do, he's like I'd get on stage. I'd rip it for ten minutes and then I'd leave. I'd get in my car and I'd go home or go back to work or whatever. He's like, I'm not hanging out in the club, I'm not wasting time like that.

1:47:12 So here we go. Jay-Z talking again. about studying and learning from the greats that came before him. Slick Rick was the wittiest shit out back then. He can make the Raw's rhyme sound like masterpiece theater. And he had the kind of style that hustlers aspired to.

1:47:25 His songs were energetic and hilarious. Like all great comics, he knew how to hide deeper emotion between his punchlines. He kept it clean and honest and respected his listeners enough not to manipulate them. Slick Rick. Taught me.

1:47:38 that not only can rap be emotionally expressive, it can express those feelings that you can't really name. Which was important for me and a lot of kids like me who couldn't always find the language to make sense of our feelings. Then he talks about another guy that uh he was studying, which is Scarface. And so he says, Scarface is one of my favorite rappers and maybe the first truly great lyricist to come out of the south. He's known as a rapper's rapper, and it's true. He gets respect across the board.

1:48:01 And its influence is enormous. His music is an extended autobiography. Scarface always feels like he's rapping right in your ear. Like the guy next to y uh like the guy on the next barstool unburning himself of a story. That keeps him up at nights.

1:48:14 or a nightmare that comes back to him all day. The power of his stories. come in part from his willingness to pull the covers off of taboos. To get into the shit. that people pretend isn't really happening. And so that's why I try to bring up these crazy stories in the books.

1:48:29 because I feel there's stories in the books that people are willing to share in like an autobiography or memoir form. that they just won't talk about like an interview. or in otherwise and like they're they'll talk about the stuff in private. They're not talking about publicly. They'll put it in their books towards the end of their life. And so that line really hit me. He he'll he w his willingness to pull the covers off taboo to get into shit that people pretend isn't really happening. So Scarface is also

1:48:51 I'm gonna really try to convince you to watch that Kanye documentary if you haven't seen it, but Scarface makes an appearance in that documentary at this time. Uh Kanye had produced a song or two from Scarface. And he asked Scarface to come to the studio to listen to his music. And so Scarface says two things that are really interesting.

1:49:09 One. He pulls up, he's like what the like at the prime Kanye's having this this Uh this V video crew. Like follow them around. And he's like Starfate's like, Why are the cameras here? He's like, Oh, they're doing a documentary on me.

1:49:22 And he's like on who? He's like on you? Barely known. You might know him as like a supplier in an industry, right? Just'cause he's he's making beats for people. And so K uh, Scarface says something about Kanye that really demonstrates the the

1:49:35 demonstrates the relentless resourcefulness that a young Kanye West had. Forget everything you know about'em now. That that's irrelevant. Study the first two episodes of the document. If tell and tell me that's not founder mentality. Tell me that is not found in mentality. That like

1:49:49 It's just amazing what he did. Like to to to not only like put in twelve years of practice of his craft, but then to make people believe. But Scarface says when he when he learns that uh the documentary crews for him, he goes That goddamn Kanye be pulling rabbits out the hat, man.

1:50:06 That is the perfect way to describe Relentless resourcefulness. Poland. God damn rapids out there. Or shooting goddamn Kanye B. Poland.

1:50:15 Rabbits out the hat, man, is the exact quote. But anyways, the reason the the real reason that's important is because he goes in And he's like, Listen, I know you like my beats. I wanna play you music from that I have rapped on. And so he pl and you see this in the video, that's why it's crazy.

1:50:29 Or in a documentary. He plays it and this again, Scarface at this point is A legend. So think about it's like Kanye's aspiring to be to just be be taken seriously as a rapper.

1:50:40 No, he's Carface. Taken serious rapper, he's Widely acknowledge one of the best to ever do it. And so he plays that song for him and we get this on On

1:50:50 The documenting it's on tape. And he says. This is incredible. And then the the narrator of the documentary says getting validation from one of the best rappers alive. was more encouragement.

1:51:02 for Kanye to keep moving forward. It is so important to encourage The next generation. As much as you possibly can. This is a tale's oldest time. Go back to Henry Ford. He's like

1:51:14 This is weird, man. All the Cars at the time they either steam Are there electric cars? I'm really thinking that the internal combustion engine is like w Like it's self contained, we can fuel it, it can go farther, it's more reliable, et cetera, et cetera. He winds up meeting his hero.

1:51:27 Right. He didn't know them at time, they went up being really good friends, but at this time they weren't He meets Thomas Edison. And he gets to explain his idea to Thomas Edison and seven words changes. Seven words. Seven Words from Thomas Edison.

1:51:41 Change the trajectory. of Henry Ford's life. You have the thing. Sheep. At it.

1:51:47 It says with encouragement from the man who formed who Ford regarded as the greatest inventive genius in the world ringing in his ears. Ford returned home. With the conviction that he should persevere.

1:51:57 Go back to the Kanye documentary after uh Scarface leaves. Kanye is in the parking lot. Beaming. Beaming. full of energy and enthusiasm and he said he said it was incredible.

1:52:09 getting validation for one of the best rappers alive was more encouragement for Kanye to keep forward. So it goes back to studying them. Rick and Scarface Slick Rick and Scarface share the ability to get under your skin by dredging up all kinds of emotions that young men don't normally talk about. uh with each other, regret, longing, fear, and even self reproach. So then he talks about this uh this um

1:52:28 Now it's fast forwarding in in the story. 'Cause he's talking about it's crazy. Like I admire Scarface and him doing a song with him. And so he says on on the verse I did with Scarface, I went to some dark personal storytelling about a time in my life when I felt truly confused and lost. Every entrepreneur in the world has felt this before. I went into some dark personal storytelling about a time in my life when I felt truly confused and lost. I was between worlds, the voice in my head screaming at me to leave the street shit alone.

1:52:54 While outside I watched Big and Nas blow up. It was a verse about fear of failure. Which isn't some thing which is something everyone goes through. But no one, particularly where I'm from, wants to really talk about. But it's a song that a lot of people can connect to.

1:53:10 The thought that this cannot be light. Is one That all of us have felt at some point or another. When a bad decision and bad luck and bad situation situations feel like too much to bear. Those times when we think

1:53:22 This. This cannot be my story. But facing up to that kind of feeling can be a powerful motivation to change. Amen. It was for me. And then he talks about, yeah, I s I s I struggled when I was younger. I survived a crazy environment.

1:53:38 I did things that could have wound up getting me killed or in jail and I survived. But the feeling from that earlier struggle Never goes away. Inside. There's still part of me that expects to wake up tomorrow in my bedroom.

1:53:49 In apartment five C and Marcy. To slide on my gear. To run down the piss filled stairway. And hit the block. With one eye over my shoulder.

1:53:59 So then he talks about one of his songs that he feels is is like hidden gem in his catalog. It's Beach Chair. Uh Featuring Chris Martin. Um it's on his Kingdom Come album, which is the uh the album that Jay Z thinks is his worst. But there's just two things from the from his interpretation of the song. Uh from his explanation of song.

1:54:17 Um And so just two things I wanna pull out for you. First, it's there's a line in the song where it talks about I hear my angel singing to me and then you hear Beyonce's voice, Are you happy, Hove? Hove obviously being J Z uh nickname city or listen to music. So it says I hear my I hear my angel singing to me. Are you happy, Hove? And so this is his Why you put on the song? When you get things you think you'd always wanted, it doesn't stop the voice in your head's interrogation.

1:54:40 If anything. It gets more insistent. When you get the things you think you've always wanted, it doesn't stop the voice in your heads. interrogation. If anything it gets more Insistent.

1:54:51 And then in the song he talks about I'm not spending all my day tied into what other people are thinking or saying. Like I give myself space. So I can come up with something unique. So it says Uh I'm not afraid of dying.

1:55:04 I'm afraid of not trying. Every hit every day hit every wave like I'm Hawaiian. I don't surf the net. No, I've never been on my space. I'm too busy letting my own voice vibrate. carving out my space. And so what does that mean? Gave her brain space to think.

1:55:19 Just like Henry Singleton did this. He sat alone in his corner office with his Apple Two computer. And that offers produced a cornucopia of ideas. Jay Z says it's always been most important for me to figure out my space. rather than to check out what everyone else is up to minute by minute.

1:55:35 And this is s this hit this hit me so hard. Technology is making it easier to connect other people. But maybe harder to keep connected to yourself. And that's essential being connected to yourself, that is. For any artist, I think.

1:55:50 And I've heard this song over and over again and now that I read his interpretation of it, it it's just like when I say, like, uh if you I guess start reading the biography uh of entrepreneurs. And you realise how much of their life went into what they do. Like you you you appreciate an Apple product more if you if you know Steve Jobs' story, like you'll appreciate Trader Joe's more if you if you know Joe Colombo's story. Like it's the same thing. And th this song I've heard it.

1:56:12 thousand times. Still didn't understand it as much as I should have. Um and really what he's it's just and the fact that he doesn't write this down is just insane talent. So he is speaking. This is Still the same song. He's speaking to his unborn child, and this is before. He was a parent.

1:56:28 And so he says this song is like a hallmark card. Until you reach here. So he's speaking to his unborn child, okay? His unborn daughter. This song is like a hallmark card until you reach here. So till she's here.

1:56:39 And she's declared. The air. I will prepare. A blueprint for you to print. A map for you to get back.

1:56:47 A guide for your eyes. He's essentially telling the story I'm gonna start this over again. He's stuck doing exactly what a good parent does, right? We're trying to put we're not trying to control your life. I'm trying to con to prepare you for what life can throw at you.

1:57:00 This song is like a hallmark card. Until you reach here. So till she's here and she's declared the heir. I will prepare. A blueprint for you to print.

1:57:08 A map for you to get back. A guide for your eyes. And so you won't lose cent. I'll make a stink for you to think. I ink these verses full of prose.

1:57:18 So you won't get conned out of two cents. My last will and testament I leave my heir. My share of Rockefeller Records and a Shiny New Beach Chair. And so his interpretation of that. is I'm still trying to give This unborn child.

1:57:32 Something more than just money. A blueprint for life. A map. A guide. a scent to follow, and I really do believe.

1:57:41 That that is why how many autobiographies of eighty and ninety year old entrepreneurs have you and I said in this podcast? They know, like I got a couple more years, man. Maybe I got a couple more months. And they just sit there and they write all their best nuggets of wind w wisdom. And they're trying to give us something to follow, a blueprint, a m

1:57:59 A guide a sent to follow. And then I'll close with what Jay Z says about the power of language. And storytelling. What he's about to describe here is the same w I feel the same way with these books. And I think that's why biographies hit so hard when you read them.

1:58:15 Whether it's in a movie or a television show or whatever. The best characters get inside of us. We care about them. We love them. And we start to see ourselves.

1:58:27 And in a crazy way. We become And that is where I'll leave it. I absolutely Loved. Loved reading this book.

1:58:37 If you are a G Z fan, no brainer. Don't make the same mistake I did and not read it. Uh, even if you're not a fan of his music or you don't know much about it. There's still just a ton of lessons, I think, from hearing his story. Uh that can be applied to your life. So If you want to um

1:58:51 Get the full story, read the book. I'll leave a link in the show notes. Uh if you buy the book using that link, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time. That is two hundred and thirty eight books down. One thousand to go. And I'll talk to you again soon.

1:59:03 Okay, before you go, I wanna go back to this idea that for a limited time only you can sign up and pay once and get access to every high net highlight and note. That I have done, which is insane'cause I've been doing it since two thousand eighteen, adding all the highlights and notes. uh for everything I've read for the podcast.

1:59:19 Into This app. That now you can get access for a limited time. Sign up, pay once. And you get access to every highlight note that I've ever done and Ever you'll get access to every highlight and note that it will ever do. This is this tool is embedded in my workflow.

1:59:34 So the only way I would stop Uh adding notes and highlights to it. is if I stop making the podcast. And I think it's obvious by now that I plan on doing this for the rest of my life. Uh The only way I'd stop is like I don't have a voice. And even then Uh, there's so many hours. There's hundreds and hundreds of hours of my voice trained where I could essentially have an AI version of my voice. So

1:59:55 Even if they take my voice, I will type my way to to a podcast. So Uh So serious that I would take the Think about this, like for me to I don't know if I've ever told you this. I think I've told you this before, but

2:00:17 I don't I read physical books, right? And so to get my notes and highlights into the ReadWise app, which is now the version that you get to have access of of if you sign up for Founders Notes, you see Exactly what I see in Readways. So The the the the the process is I take notes and highlights in a book.

2:00:38 Right, physical book. I sit down with uh with a pen, a ruler, post-it notes, scissors. It's like I'm doing arts and crafts over here. And so once I'm done reading before I record the the next episode, is I go through and I figure out okay, what do I want to put in this searchable database so I remember I have to take pictures of all this You know, it it it reads it, but you have to update it. Long story short Takes several hours. for every single book for me to add all my notes and highlights because I have to do this physical book. And people are like, David, why don't you do

2:01:05 Like, why don't you read Kindle versions? It's like one, I read a lot of old books, there are no kindle versions. Two When I was a kid I fell in I didn't fall in love with Kindle versions of books, even though I've you know probably three hundred digital books on my Kindle. So I'm not like totally against it, but I have a Physical love.

2:01:20 For f or not a physical love. I have a love for physical books. And so that is my favorite way to read. And I'm not trying to do it in the most e efficient manner. Yeah, if I if I read Just digital versions or kidna versions, I would do the job faster. I'm not trying to do the job faster. I'm trying to enjoy my work. So I spend more time doing it. So anyways, long story short, since 2018, I've probably spent, let's say, you know, three to five to six hours for every book. There's hundreds, almost three hundred books in there.

2:01:49 You're talking about you know, uh essentially like a full time a year of full time work just adding in uh these notes and highlights and I go in there every day and it's like a garden that I tend. Sometimes I think Books have

2:02:00 Uh Too many highlights, so I delete some. Sometimes they don't have enough, so I add some. Um so anyways, the the point I'm making is over time this tool has evolved into, you know, this gigantic searchable database on the history of entrepreneurship.

2:02:15 And so I'm just gonna take a few minutes to tell you how I use Founders notes right now, and then a bunch of other features. that are already in production, most of which I'm testing, but you won't have access to yet. They'll be released, you know, in a few weeks. So first thing is you sign up for Founders Notes. It's in my browser all the time. I never exit out. Once you sign up, it'll drop you onto this page. You have a bunch of features like how do you want to look at the the highlights? Wh which route do you wanna take here? So I the first one is at the very top. I use the search highlights feature the most.

2:02:44 Any topic that I'm thinking about goes into the search bar. This is Fairly self explanatory, hiring, patience, obsession, monopoly, moat, incentives, frugality, Uh, those are just some of the recent examples of ideas I've been trying to find more information on. I just read through all the highlights related to that keyword. And don't worry, you won't have to remember everything I'm saying because you'll get a welcome email after you sign up that tells you exactly how I use this.

2:03:06 And so you can you can read all through this. Uh the next feature that I use the most is the highlight feed. This is like a smart trader feed, instead of random ramblings of crazy strangers online. This is this feed is just a constant stream of ideas and thoughts from history screen's founders. So I use this feature to remind myself of past lessons and to prompt new thoughts. The next feature is the books features. The books features is just what it sounds like. It's a list of all the books that I have in there. And if you want to read all the highlights and notes that I have on a specific book, then this is the feature you use.

2:03:34 It's remarkable how much you can actually learn. just by reading, you know, the notes and highlights of book uh of one specific book in five or ten minutes. And there's another feature called Favorites. So when I'm re reading my own highlights, like I just described in the Sh episode. Uh when I read read my own highlights I and I come across something thought provoking or something I don't want to forget, I favorite it. And so now you can see which ones I favorite. That's like peering into my soul. The last feature that's available right now is called Latest Highlights. I don't use this feature, but other people seem to like it. It's exactly what it sounds like if I the the latest

2:04:05 uh highlight I've added in, if you want to see by in order of being added to the database. That is latest highlights. Now the long term vision. And the good news is is if you sign up for founders notes right now, as I add features, all of these features War are free to you. But will cost more if somebody says as I add more features.

2:04:25 uh more notes and more highlights. Obviously, you know, a year from now, a couple months from now. the price will constantly go up. If you sign up now, you get all this for free. And so right now you get access to all my notes and highlights and you can search by keyword, by subject, by person, right? That is how I've searched all my highlights for years, right? Just by keyword. I could not make the podcast without it, but I'm not stopping there. So what I've been testing

2:04:44 I'm calling it the founders GPT chat interface. Okay. I gotta come up with a different name it's J it's just like Chat GPT, which you know s or any of these AI search platforms. What I really think about this is this is like search on steroids. So instead of just searching by keyword, I can ask it questions and it has been making connections that I've even missed. And so this version, this search will be based on all my notes and highlights and

2:05:09 on all the transcripts of every episode. And so that is coming soon. The ability to search if you want to search keyword uh you if you want to search transcripts, every single transcript for every episode will also be in there. Again, all of this is included. There will also be bullet point summaries of the key ideas of each episode. So what I'm telling you is like founders' notes maybe have four or five different ways right now that you can search through. It it's gonna wind up having ten.

2:05:34 15. I'm gonna keep thinking of ways to condense and clarify. So this has really been like my North Star. And the way I've been describing this in private conversations is like listen, my my goal uh right w my long term vision for Founders Notes is it to turn it into an ever increasing giant valuable curriculum that condenses and clarifies the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders. And so any new feature, any way I'm thinking about this, first of all, I'm building the tool for myself first, because it's only gonna make me, as I keep reading of it, you know, three hundred and thirty nine episodes now, right?

2:06:07 Uh I'll eventually get to five hundred episodes and six hundred and eight hundred episodes. And as I keep adding more and more data to this, I need better tools to be able to go back and synthesize and tie all that data together. And the only way that's possible is if I'm able to continue to condense and clarify it just so happens that the ability to condense and clarify the collective knowledge of history case founders is very valuable to your career. 'Cause then as we've seen over and over again, you can take ideas that they they learned in their career and then apply it to your own. So as I keep updating it, as I keep building new things, I will keep you updated on the long term visions for founders notes.

2:06:37 But something that is unique and new right now is the fact that so many people have sent me messages saying, Hey, is there a way Instead of doing a subscription. Can I just pay once? And any time I've had a bunch of people ask me that don't know each other ask me the same thing, usually that's like a like a tip of an iceberg. Uh the the entire existence of founders' notes.

2:06:57 uh came because so many people over the years like, Hey, how do I get access to your notes and highlights? I'd really like to be able to search them, I'd really be able to read them. And I was like, Whoa, this is kinda weird. People keep asking for it. And it turns out If you just if you just make what people ask for. It attracts them in droves. So I highly suspect the same thing is gonna happen here. I this is a test. founders' notes isn't going anywhere ever, but the ability to pay once and be in forever, meaning that you get access to not only every other highlight note I've ever done, but every note highlight note I've ever will do. It is a test. It is for a limited time only, and it could off this offer could end at any time.

2:07:30 But I do am wanting to test this because it makes it First of all, interesting to me because You pay once and you're in forever, that means that this becomes a tool that you can use for your entire career to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs. And because I use this in my own life, I know how valuable that is. So don't dilly dally. Time is limited. This offer can end at any time. Sign up right now at foundersnotes.com. That is foundersnotes.com. dot com and I'll talk to you again soon.

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