“I had dream I could buy my way to heaven
when I woke, I spent that on a necklace”

If there is a line that is a more honest description of its author, I have never heard it. All the genius, all the contradictions, and all the greatness that is Kanye West. The entire song is so Kanye and it is a masterpiece.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

Rebel Without A Pause, in addition to being one of the greatest song titles in history, was more than a song. It was more like a political movement. Chuck D. actually describes the song best in the song:

“From a rebel its final on black vinyl
Soul, rock n' roll coming like a rhino”

This song still gives me chills and makes me want to go out and start a movement to do something!

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

This may be my favorite song of all times. I think that I’ve listened to it over 1,000 times. If you listen to it, you will understand why Rakim is so many the favorite rapper of so many rappers.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

This is the song that made on of the greatest legends in pop music history, Notorious B.I.G., a legend. It’s one of those songs that you can just listen to on repeat, because every line is perfect. It’s so embedded in hip hop culture that almost 20 years later it was the basis for the title of arguably the best rap album in 2013, J.Cole’s Born Sinner.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

I was listening to “I’m Goin' In” and this line actually convinced me to write this section for the book The Hard Thing About Hard Things. My publisher didn’t think it fit, so I just posted it in instead.

The line brought back vivid memories of the entire episode. I know many of the executives who either got into trouble or went to jail for “backdating.” Amazingly, whatever those execs did to backdate options, they did in full view of their auditors and outside counsel. It seemed that some of Silicon Valley’s “best practices” were not actually legal. Of course, when the feds moved in, they did not care about the best practices part.

It still amazes me that none of the firms involved got into any trouble. 47 years and I aint ever met a good cop.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

It’s a big breakthrough in that it solves the Byzantine Generals Problem, which was formulated in 1982. Furthermore, the solution has proven to be extremely robust and resilient to attack over the past 5 years.

By doing this, Bitcoin is the first scaled network where you can transfer (not copy, transfer) a piece of digital property from one person to another with no central authority. This paves the way for a dizzying number of super high value applications such as a fee free stock exchanges, smart contracts that can programmatically be executed and enforced, and many other awesome things.

In addition, by providing a fraud-free, fee free way to transfer cash from one person to another digitally, it opens the world of e-commerce well beyond the 175 countries who don’t yet have modern banking and payment systems.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

This was based on Marc’s and my experience raising money. Remember that we were raising in the days before wifi, so it was even more frustrating than it is today. I was frustrated, but Big Tunechi was absolutely livid.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

If you do not distinguish team members by their skills and talents, they will think you are a moron. My co-founder, Marc Andreessen had a very specific experience with this when he was an employee at IBM. In those days, IBM tried to quantify everything related to software development in terms of KLOCs (1000 lines of code). They then size projects by KLOCs. As part of this they came to the conclusion that a programmer could write no more than 10 lines of code per day. This was completely ridiculous to Marc who could probably write more than 100X that volume. As a protest, he would type one line of code then take a 1 hour coffee break.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

This is a really powerful point that people who run companies often miss. You need to execute your mission. That’s what everyone expects. If you use the wrong metaphor, you will lose the respect of the team. My old boss used to say: “This is not a family, because I am not your daddy. Because if I was your daddy, there would be no chance that I would fire you.” This is roughly what Sun Tzu means here.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.

A great and subtle piece of leadership advice. When are you pushing too hard? What’s a command that you should not give? How about one that the army cannot obey? Nothing could be more demoralizing than that. The second sentence is so strong: “This is called hobbling the army.” Not only did you screw things up entirely, but there is a name for what you did.

This video is processing – it'll appear automatically when it's done.