Prior to the App Store, the chances of that happening, of somebody really young forming a company and in a period of no time really becoming a global provider of a game or something else, it really didn't happen. Now there are these success stories popping up everywhere.
What's really going on is, on your iPhone, you have 200 apps, and they're all collecting a little data on you. Twitter knows a certain thing, Foursquare knows something else, my Fitbit app knows something else, my Waze app knows something else.
I really think the app store is kind of the killer app for Apple and for Google.
What's weird is the Hot Boys and the whole New Orleans Cash Money thing had a really big impact on the Bay when that was popping off. I don't all the way understand it. I mean, I know that they were big everywhere and had a lot of commercial success in the mid to late '90s, but they were really, really felt in the Bay Area.
I don't call my music 'gangsta rap.' I call my music reality, something that really happened, something that has really happened, something that will really happen, something that could really happen. It ain't nothing that I'm making up; I think that's why people listen to it.
I think you can have moderate success by copying something else, but if you really want to knock it out of the park, you have to do something different and take chances.
Blitzscaling is what you do when you need to grow really, really quickly. It's the science and art of rapidly building out a company to serve a large and usually global market, with the goal of becoming the first mover at scale. This is high-impact entrepreneurship.
I did have a deal for a little while a cigar company that never really materialized that much, except that I ended up with 100 boxes of my own cigars with my signature on them. Which is great, they are wonderful cigars but they never really fulfilled out so now I'm out of it. I can sign up with somebody else or go pick a blend or whatever. I probably will, there is no sense in not doing it.
I really saw my mom advocate on my behalf and really say, 'Hey, you're good enough.' It was from her that I learned that just because something hasn't been done before, it doesn't mean it can't be done now. You have to speak up, and you've got to assert yourself because it takes somebody to be the first one to make it happen.
And, so, when I picked up the guitar, suddenly, just playing a couple of notes really, really spoke to me. It was almost like I should have been doing it prior to that. You know, it was something that just felt really natural.
It just struck me as really odd that there were all of these conversations going on about what young women were up to. Were young women having too much sex? Were young women politically apathetic? Are young women socially engaged or not? And whenever these conversations were happening, they were mostly happening by older women and by older feminists. And maybe there would be a younger woman quoted every once in a while, but we weren't really a central part of that conversation. We weren't really being allowed to speak on our own behalf.
If you put me in a box, I'm a character actor. The thing that keeps popping up for me - it sounds really cliche - but I want to play something really physically challenging, something extremely demanding and strong.
If you work really hard at something for a really, really long time, you do it well. Eventually, somebody will notice.
I think it is really important that people at least have some potentially difficult discussions about what their expectations are - and not just financially - prior to getting married. It should really even happen prior to people living together or casting their lot together.
I haven't been alone in years. It's that alone time when you really look yourself in the mirror and you see what you really want. It just gets a little convoluted in this industry. That said, I really want to act. But, now I think it's time for me to do something else for a while, so that I can feel that passion again.
What's really clear to all of us in the business community is that GDP is slowing everywhere. And the reason is productivity has been declining now for 15 or 20 years all over the world. So we've got very high unemployment, and it's structural. And it's compounded by real-time climate change - that's really a game changer.
I stumbled into soul music at a very young age. It had something that really spoke to me. Nowadays it's not only American gospel or soul music, it's whenever somebody decides to do music in a way that's honest and passionate. I got into the Motown songs. It had to do with where I come from - we don't really have that where I come from, the sense of mystery and the pain. Sweden has been a wealthy and happy country for some time now. I think I got really drawn to that.