Exclusive: Jay-Z Breaks His Silence—“We Played Enough Defense, 2026 is All Offense”

It's been a long time since you sat down for one of these.

Yeah, it's been a minute.

What have you been up to?

Wow.

Everything. A lot. Most people go through their things, you know, very privately. You took it on tour. Live, every night. It was so healing.

I'm fucking Jay-Z.

Respectfully.

Word.

Like, for what? To what end?

How would you rate your 2025? Looking back on the last year.

It was hard, really hard. I was like heartbroken.

Really?

Yeah. I'm glad we got right to that, you know, so we could just get that out the way. Okay. Like I was really heartbroken by like everything that occurred. You know, with all like, you know, we in a space now where it's just like, almost like consequence is not thought about enough.

Because everything is so instant. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like that whole Busby.

The civil lawsuit that was dropped, dismissed.

That shit took a lot out of me. I was angry. I haven't been that angry in a long time. Uncontrollable anger. Like you don't put that on someone. Like that's a thing that you better be super sure. It used to be like that. Like you have to be super sure before you put those kind of things on a person. Let's say a person like me. Like even when we were doing the worst things, we were doing bad, we had those kind of rules. There was a line, no women, no kids. You hear

those sayings, but those are the things that I took from the street. Morals, integrity. Code. Code. Those things I took because we lived and died by that. So it's strict for me. It meant a lot to me. I took that really hard. I knew that we was going to walk through that. We was going to walk through that. Because, you know, first of all, it's not true.

And the truth is, at the end of the day, it still reigns supreme.

When you're feeling these feelings, how do you then bounce back and get back to being Jay-Z?

I don't know. This is the first thing I'm doing, actually. It was just like, all right, man. We played enough defense. 2026 is all offense. When we first dropped Reasonable Doubt, we sold 34,000 records.

We were at MTV, like, give us a performance, the last slot. And they were like, what? You don't even have a video that we played. They ain't say these words, but you know what I'm saying. The energy was like, you're new. You haven't proven yourself. But in our mind, the fact that we released an album was proof enough of concept. We did it. That was hard then. Remember, we're not in control of distribution, marketing, anything. We're going like a street level, street team approach

to this. And so when we put the album out, that was the win. And we had some success. And remember, on the streets we were platinum. Anywhere you was going to go, you was going to have Reason Without a Doubt.

Did you feel that way at the time though?

No. No, at the time I wanted a deal. Were you dejected? Everything was labeled.

Huh?

Did you feel like dejected or?

I wasn't, yes. I was rejected, not dejected. You know what I mean? Like every door was, but I always believed in myself. moment that I thought, I'm not good enough for this industry. At every rejection I thought, why do we have this guy in place? He doesn't know what's going on.

Like they're slacking. They're not seeing the vision. When you look back at that time, are there things that you're glad that you didn't know?

Yeah, of course. It's almost like if you're in the room and you go through this room and you get to the end and you open the door and you're like, wow. And then you turn back and he turned the lights off and it was like pits and snakes. Your naive nature just naturally navigated you through the door. And that's made up for the things that we didn't know. And it helps because you can learn something so much that you just tap out.

I think that happens a lot in the music business. People get in the music business for the right reasons and they're very passionate about it, but then it becomes Monday.

It reminds me of an old Kanye quote of something he said about you when he said, with Jay, you always see the win.

What do you think he meant by that? I think that I've showed the entire picture, from you must love me to regret to, soon you'll understand. But the wins are so big that I can see where that can dominate a person's memory. You forget the losses.

Yeah, or the perception.

Yeah, that becomes the perception, that it's only wins, and then I do say I will not lose. So I'm gonna add to the perception as well.

I was gonna say you also are really good at kind of like, you have a discipline of almost like shrugging off any kind of perception of a loss. Like what's the Nescago 0 for 82, I'll look at you like it's gravy, like, you know.

Yeah, because it's all wins. If I had zero, zero, zero, point, point, point, point, point, one of the Nets, I won. I had ownership in a basketball team in Brooklyn.

Is that something you continue to apply? Like when, God forbid, something goes wrong, don't freak out.

Not even God forbid when something goes wrong. Something goes wrong, don't freak out, we can fix it. It's not even God forbid when something goes wrong. Something goes wrong, everything in life happens for your greatest good. Everything. I had to not get a deal in order to become who I am today. It didn't feel like the greatest blessing of all. It was the greatest blessing that I didn't get a deal, right?

So again, everything in your life, it's not happening to you, it's happening for you. When you ... Don't skip over that. It's not happening to you, it's happening for you. You just got to know the distinction. Everything is just how you relate to it.

There's no good or bad. Shit happens. It's life. When did you reach that acceptance of that concept though? I read a lot of books earlier, Seed of the Soul, Celestine Prophecies, and you know, all these different books, and I was picking up all these gems and jewels on the way. But I was also 26 when I came in, and I lived a lot of life in those 26 years.

Marcy to Trenton, New Jersey, to Cambridge, Maryland, to Newport News, Virginia. I met all sorts of people, been in all sorts of situations. And I came out without a scratch. Never been to jail.

Three shots never touched me.

Three shots never touched me. I've never been... I came out unscathed. It was very rare. And I was always curious after that. Once you've reached that part, like I've had the living, and now I'm like, man, why did that happen? I'm always questioning, like why did that happen? Why did it happen that way?

I wanna ask you just a little bit about A Written Testimony specifically, just cause that was the most recent release. I think it came out like right before the pandemic started. So you guys have been talking about that.

Like the day.

The day.

Yeah. My favorite verse is off that just jumbled track. I love that track. It's so noisy and just so unorthodox. Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh.

Flux capacity. You know what's funny about that? I don't know if you remember this, you and I were emailing about that. Because I wrote about that album and I said this verse is crazy even if it's off beat. And you said that being off beat was the point champ and I was like, well, what can I say

to that?

Yeah, sometimes you need to sit in the pocket. My pocket is always, it's like with a foot over the thing anyway. It's always hanging to the last moment. And it's like, sometimes I try to fit a lot of words into a small space. Then that last word just like, just like, get in the door.

Sticking with a written testimony, you have a couple of verses on there that I really like because they kind of speak to what's going on with you in a broader sense in the culture like on Universal Soldier I think it is when you said that you don't keep the same energy for the DuPonts and the Carnegie's. Yeah. So I wanted you to talk a little bit about this idea of like like you said earlier like the things that you do for the culture the ways that you put on the ways that you try to protect and move forward, but kind of the pushback that you get sometimes about people throwing capitalists at you in a derogatory

sense.

Yeah, I think in that verse specifically, the only thing I heard coming up was the American Dream until we started being successful. And it was like, wait a minute, you're selling out because you're making money. That was the first thing that was put on musicians. People had this allure for the struggling artists. That's a mind game.

What we would call back in the day, trichinology. It was like, no, I'm not going for that. Like, no, no, I make art first. And then I make sure that I'm compensated for my art. I didn't take advantage. I didn't get here by taking advantage of people, I didn't take advantage, no one, no one, that's not my reputation, that's not what I do.

I didn't get here by taking advantage of people or taking advantage of the loopholes in the system or some wrinkle in a capitalist structure. That structure exists, and I just see the world for what it is, not for what I want it to be. I'm a realist not an ideal It's not idealistic

People speak about the world how they want to see it. You're never gonna win like that

You said something just now though about You pushing independence right kind of like in the spirit of Prince. When you embody that, do you feel like you are kind of setting a mold or leading a charge for like what the successful black man is allowed to do? And like breaking these spaces, breaking these confines?

Yeah. I even want you to take that out of your vocabulary. Take what? Allowed. You know what I'm saying? We're not allowed to do anything. In order for someone to allow you, they have to have authority over you.

No one has authority over us. We exist like everyone else here. No one can allow us to do anything. But that question comes, that word comes from a real space. And I want to eliminate all those type of words for us. Yes.

So the answer to that is yes.

When you're on a mission to eliminate words like allow, like you said, do you feel like that makes you a target sometimes from-

Oh yeah. For sure. For sure. A hundred percent. What's the Nipsey thing? Pray for me y'all, one day I'm going to have to pay for these thoughts. Real niggas is extinct, it ain't safe for me my dog.

These are real fucking lyrics. You've come back to that a lot in the last few years. The more I reveal me, the more they will kill me, stuff like that. When you say they, who is that? Whatever the threat to, however the system is set up to keep things at status quo and keep us in a position of using words like allow. So anyone that's culpable in creating the system that we operate

under, that's they. Yeah. That's they. And it actually goes beyond color. Yeah. Because I've encountered that a lot. I've encountered that a lot where it was just like, okay, this successful black man, make it, let me go to him for help. And they're like, you don't fuck with no rabbit shit.

Oh, wow.

Not like out like that, but you know what I'm saying. Like the energy, it's like you see the energy. Yeah.

I was thinking about how you described last year as being angry and for the first time in a while. Yeah. I wondered what it felt like to be pulled back into that feeling and how you pulled yourself out or how you leaned on the people around you.

Yeah. You've been saying to pull you out. Yeah, I needed the people around me more than ever. Because usually when I have that feeling, I would just make music and just be therapeutic. I'd be able to, I'd blow it out. And I would be like, I move on. I had to sit in that for a long time. And luckily I had that. And again, I built this circle that's really safe for me of people that really love me, not using me, and like, you know,

really care for my best interests. So I was able to have that in the time, you know, the most crucial time for me.

Yeah.

Especially people that were close to me, and I'll explain. So like, you know, when those type of things happen, people run, they don't care what happened. They don't care, they're just like, save yourself. So I have partners, I've had big deals with, I called my guy from LVMH, hey man, this is coming,

and I can't get rid of it, I can't take a settlement. It ain't in my DNA. First I had to tell my wife, let's back up. It ain't even in me. I can't, I couldn't, I know what this is gonna, the weight that this is gonna bring on our family.

I can't do it. The makeup, my, I would die. It would have been cheaper, yes. Cheaper, quicker, move on with your life. It was like a testament, because people know me. I know who you are, and that's impossible.

Not only we're standing by you, but what do you need?

What did you do to come back from that personally, or emotionally, I guess?

I'm still working with that. That's a great guess. I'm still working with that. That's a great question. I'm still dealing with that.

What was it like watching Blue come into her own even more on this most recent tour?

That was amazing. You know, because on the first tour, there was a lot of conversation around her first performance. She worked really hard to get to that point, but she still wasn't going for it. She still was going through the motions, and then after that, she just started going for it.

She started fighting back. I saw her fight, maybe for the first time in her life, fighting back. Not everything is just given to her and everything is easy. She had to fight for that and she fought for it. Then to see her do the amount of work, she's almost on every number. I had to take her off physically on some number, like man, you can't be on that stage when

she's singing, you know, Six Inch Heels, you crazy? That's never gonna happen. It was like that. It was like a fight. She wanted to dance every single number. And that's a lot of choreography to remember.

She was 13 at the time. That's a lot. And she was nailing it. She was going crazy.

That's what's up.

Yeah, yeah. Jack Blue was a crazy pianist. Oh, really? But she won't let us get her like a teacher. She don't want to be mentored in that way, because she wants it to feel just like fun. She don't want it to be a job.

But when she has a perfect pitch, anything. If she hears a song, she'll be like, play it again, play it again, and then she'll play

it.

Oh wow. She'll teach herself. She'll find the notes, and then she's off playing it. That's just talent. Because we tell her, like, you know that's not normal, right? She's just like, no, I just want to play. I enjoy playing.

Let me just play. So she doesn't work at that. She worked at this. And it makes me proud that she fought for something that she really wanted to do. I don't think we're going to be able to get off that stage now.

You pop out when you want to, you record when you want to, you're not in that stricture.

Yeah, I think 444 released a lot. Although it's the hardest album for me to make, it's still hard. I can't even listen to 444 because it's so, it's the album that I was always afraid to make. You know what I mean? You think about, like, man, I want to make an album that's just pure and just vulnerable

and just like, the real interior thoughts, you know, not like, you know, it's Superman like this mythical

Figure so it's interesting for you to like pinpoint that because like we were saying earlier The last time you did one of these like kind of real sit-downs was around four four four When that had like just happened and just come out so I'm curious now like what it's like that it's been some time since that and how you've kind of Evolved with those changes and going through that door like

you said. I'm super proud of the work that I've done and put in and to be able to do that in front of the whole world. Yeah. Like most people you know they get to you know go through their things you know very privately. You took it on tour. Live every night it was it was it was so healing 444 to like everything is love that's a real chapter in life that that uh you know it got recorded. Everything is love you're rapping like

really like there's some some crazy verses on there where you're just flowing nuts.

Yeah.

Friends and nice.

Yeah, thank you. And I'm a fan of my wife's creativity. She's a monster in the studio. She can hear a sound off a drum eight months prior and be like, what happened to that drum that was... Remember that song? I'm like, no. She'll pull out a drum sound that's needed for that moment. You know what I mean? She's a great producer.

So when you're around that type of talent, it's just like, again, you and that type of energy, people bringing music, and it's just a vibe.

So those verses were just crafted because we were just having a good time. It feels like you and her are in a real creative zone too right now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the last couple albums she's put out, I've noticed your name in the liner notes a lot too. I can kind of picture you in the studio flowing like a unicorn is the uniform you put on.

Yeah, but again, it's that energy. Like I know she's trying to accomplish in anything that I can contribute. I mean, my family, first of all, you know. I thought it was super important and a challenge and fun to be in the room.

Does that give you some of your own creative spark to get back to your own zone and get the pen out?

It actually does the opposite.

Really?

I'm actually fulfilled in that space. You know what I mean? Just to be like a small cog in that wheel, I'm getting out that creativity. But again, I was just so heavy. And I don't know how to make music that's not reflective of how I'm feeling at the moment.

It would have been fiery, but I don't know if it done more harm than good. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. Because I have a lot of scratch ideas and they're all bad.

I gotta be honest. They're ideas, and they're all bad.

I gotta be honest, they're bad. It's just all bad.

The streets really wanted you on that Clipse album.

Yeah, I was close. I was close. But I think the first thing that I say, it has to be said from me.

You can't be like a-

I don't wanna be so rigid with it, though. I'm gonna keep that open. I don't want to be so rigid with it though. I'm going to keep that open. I'm going to take that back. But at that moment, at that moment I was like, yeah, I want to do something, but in order for me to move forward,

I got to get this shit out. I got to get it out.

When we're talking about putting on for the culture, what does it mean to you to be at the helm of a cultural event so important as the Super Bowl?

I think everyone should experience music in its totality. And for a lot of years, there was only one side of music that was being represented. And we got the opportunity to create a more balanced idea of what popular music is today. I'm not going out on a limb, it's just the most famous people in the world.

Statistically supported.

It's like, I'm not like, I didn't pick the indie artist that I really like from Portland. The number one streamed artist in the world, him.

It's crazy that I think last year was still the first solo rap act, which is crazy to say that last year was that. Was that a hard one to get across the board?

Not without conversations that was dated. You know what I mean? Like you said, the stats show Kendrick broke the audience record. It's not rocket science. It's like this is the music of our time and it should be represented on the biggest stage because these are some of the ... I'm not saying they're the only artists, right?

Obviously other artists would be offended. But I think that was the right choice.

As a rapper, first and foremost, and being one of the pillars of contemporary rap, I would have to imagine that you got a special kick out of watching that show though, in particular.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I thought it was brave. I thought what he did was brave and it speaks to who he is as a performer. He could have made it a little easy on himself.

Just aesthetically and like what the-

No, no, no. Aesthetically it was beautiful. It was flawless. The artistic choice to play- The new album. The new album was a choice and brave in front of that big of an audience.

Because even if 10 million people know some of these songs, there's 120 million people that's like, what is he doing? And as an artist, to stand up there and do it and complete your vision was like, I had to tip my hat. I have a high respect for him already, but even more of my respect was like, he's really about what he say he's about.

Yeah. I have to ask you this only as a participant.

You don't have to give a disclaimer for it. Well, I'm just saying, as someone who was part of probably the genre's biggest rat beef. Well, until now. As a spectator, what did you think of the 2024 back and forth between him and Drake? I'm going to have an answer you're not going to like. Okay.

Well, I don't know if you're going to like that. That's presumptuous. I think that, look, there was four pillars of hip hop. There are four pillars of hip hop, right? Break dancing, graffiti, DJing, and battling. Break dance is not at the forefront of rap anymore.

It's actually an Olympics sport. That's dead. Graffiti, beautiful in certain places. And even in like, you know, major art and like Keith Haring, Basquiat actually, a street artist took it to the next level. It's not part of hip hop.

DJing. The DJ was in the forefront. It was Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Eric B. and Rakim. You don't even know the DJ for half of the Fresh Prince. Right, yeah. Eric B. and Rakim. You don't even know the DJ for half of the artists anymore.

Who's Drake DJ?

I have no idea. Okay. Couldn't tell you off the top. That no longer exists. And the last pillar is battling. We love the excitement, and I love the sparring and the music you get. But in this day and age, it's so much negative stuff that comes with it, they almost wish

it didn't happen. Really? Yeah, because it's almost like it's a final thing. Now people that like Kendrick hate Drake. No matter what he makes, no matter what he says, and it goes far too. It's like attack on his character and his thing.

And it's like, I don't know if I love that. I don't know if it's helpful to our growth where the fallout lands, especially on social media, which takes place every day. And now you have these pods of cult.

The Stan Armys fighting.

Yeah, and it's like and it's too far. It's like bringing people kids in it. And it's like, I don't like that. Maybe I've grown in a space that is probably, I sound like the old guy wagging the thing. But I think we can achieve the same thing as far as sparring with music, with collaborations more so than breaking the whole thing apart.

It could stand it before because there was no social media and there was no thing and you had the battle and it was fun and then you moved on. Right now I don't know if it could stand it with the technology that we have.

Because it takes up so much oxygen?

It takes up so much oxygen. It takes up so much oxygen. Now it's just like every day they're just trying to take- Like they're still talking about it. Not just talking about it. Not like, yo, this song, I like this. No, it's like trying to tear down people's life.

It's like trying to wreck this guy's marriage or this guy's relationship with his child. It's like, I don't know, man. I don't know if it's worth it at this point. I don't know. That's interesting. Again, I love the idea that we got so much music in such a short period of time.

Great music.

Just everything around it was just like, man, it's taken us a couple steps back. And we've just grown so much that I don't know if, I guess I'm going to say it, I don't know if battling needs to be part of the culture anymore.

Interesting.

I hate that I have this point of view. I do, because I know what it sounds like. I know what it feels like. I hate it. It's just how I feel about it.

Well, it even kind of extended to you, right? Because people made it a personal thing that you chose Kendrick for the Super Bowl. It's like, oh man, he's choosing the side and he's putting, and he's not.

Like, I don't have, what do I have to do with that? I chose the guy that was having a monster year. I think it was the right choice. It wasn't in some sort of alliance to a battle. What I care about them two guys battling is like, what's that got to do with me? Have at it. Have fun. It's almost like, not on just me, by the way, they drag everybody in it.

Everyone's part of this conspiracy to undermine Drake, I guess. But it's like, what the fuck? Like what? I'm fucking Jay Z. Or do respect him, I'm fucking O. Do respectfully. Like for what?

To what end? It couldn't be that these guys just don't like each other. And I think they haven't liked each other for a long time. Before you had anything to do with it. Wow. I think this has been brewing, just like me and Nas was brewing. It didn't happen at the Summer Jam. That happened, the Lexan TV sets, the minimum, whatever. It was a whole bunch of stuff leading up to that point.

The Miffleek slugs in your hat, right? It was slugs in your hat. It was a bunch of like little things that led up to that point. And then when it happened, it happened. I actually regret that, because I really like Nas. He's a really nice guy.

But also to your point, like I remember I was like 10 or 11 when that happened.

I was like-

That's the bigger side.

Well, I was on your side. Clearly. But my position was I can't go out and buy Stomatic or ask my parents to buy Stomatic,

but I'm going to borrow it and burn it because I can't deny one might, you know? Like I want to hear it, but I ain't supporting them.

Or...

Yeah.

So it's almost kind of like fostering the same independence that you carry versus like

right back to the beginning.

Just being like signed, you're signed to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we're going to curate your career in this sort of way. Yeah. I never was comfortable with that anyway. With being charged? An artist's expression should be their expression. I really fall back.

That's I think what happened with Cole, like just the narrative around Cole is that we didn't love Cole. No, we believed in him enough to let him find his journey and he found his path. It took him a minute, but he found his way. Was that something that you had to learn yourself though too? Because Cole will tell the story about how you wanted to sit him with Stargate and maybe think about that single. Yeah, I was giving him a chance to take his talent and show it to the most people possible. But his way, I didn't force it. I just said, here's this record from Stargate and you putting it out.

Like I forced Bleak to make men bleak. I think that worked. My little brother, he has to listen to me.

You know what I mean, I think that worked. My little brother. He has to listen to me. You know what I mean?

It worked. But like for J. Cole, he has to find his own direction. And I'm going to give him the tools. I mean, we made big records with Stargate. They made humongous records on Rihanna and blah, blah, blah. And even, I think they made the Wiz Khalifa, Black and Yellow.

Biggest songs in the world. You don't want to go see it? Fine. I'm going to present that, but I'm not going to make them do it. What is your relationship with Cole like these days? Obviously there's things behind the scenes, like audits and shit like that that gets complicated. But I think giving a chance to prove that you're above board is an opportunity. So I don't have any negative feelings for him. I'm actually super proud of him and what he's done.

It sounds like you're still, like when you came in, we were talking about the mixtape, like you're still engaging with the work as a fan too.

Yeah, Clue sent it to me actually. Oh, word? Cl in, we were talking about the mixtape, you're still engaging with the work as a fan too. Yeah, Klu sent it to me actually. Oh, word? Klu, not Kole.

Yeah?

Yeah, he sent it to me, because he's proud, right? Think about Klu, he had a resurgence behind it.

Yeah.

I want to go back to this idea we were talking about, about just doing things the right way, even when that comes to like attaining wealth and continuing to amass wealth. We're talking about B-sides. One of your illest lines to me is, face to the ceiling, race to a billion, heaven on earth, will his wings still fit him?

So like, what's the answer to that question? Is it a constant struggle to maintain?

Your morality defines who you are, right? Not what you've attained. It's not a dollar amount that changes you. And if so, what is that dollar amount? When does it start? Is it 100,000? Is it 150?

Like at what point, if it's a cutoff, if it's like all million is a bag, okay, so at 999,000 I'm good? It can't be that way, right? It doesn't make any sense. The system is set up against me, against us. I'm talking about my specific struggle.

Everything was against me. My talent, not taking advantage of people, not taking advantage of a system, not creating tax loopholes, not taking from other people. No, my talent pushed against all the headwind. And with that success, I've done things with my reach that I wanted to do that was helpful for a lot of people.

And with the system that we have, what are you going to do? Because I don't believe in that, that the idea that someone has a certain amount of money, it defines their personality.

So when you have an example like that versus the kind of, I would say commonplace public perception that someone would say all billionaires are bad or no one should have a billion dollars, what's the tension in that?

I got to give you the honest answer. Please. There's no tension. Yeah.

I don't give a fuck what you say.

You can believe what you want to believe. You know, people behave the way they want to behave. You was who you was before you got here. Was who you was before you got here. That's the makeup of your person. You're going to believe what you're going to believe and you're going to behave the way you behave.

You're looking at a year that you defined to me as all offense. You said that you made scratches and they sounded kind of fiery and maybe not anything you wanted to put out. So it made me wonder, what are the hallmarks of a great Jay-Z album right now? What are you trying to put out there that you would want to put out there?

I don't know yet. I don't know. I don't know. But I know that we have enough negativity currently. I know that for sure. I don't know what I need to create currently that's going to fulfill me and make me happy.

Because that's most important. And whatever that feeling is, we're vibrating, like, you know, touch people in a way with its honesty. And maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe I'm stopping myself from just creating. Trying to create something that people like is where I think a lot of artists get jammed

up.

Rob Markman Right, right, right.

Overthinking it? Yeah, no, they just try to make-

Or reverse engineer it.

Yeah. Yeah, or like, they love the feeling of that white hot feeling of when they was, it felt

new.

Yeah. And that newness trying to create that is where they get jammed up because you don't know slang, you don't know anything. It's sad, it's cringy. Like, nah, don't do that. You know what I mean? Make your type of music.

Because you ain't doing what you're saying you're doing. I'm not doing the same thing I was doing in 96. So, for me to make that, any type of music that approaches that would be embarrassing because it's not authentic. I'm just gonna make something timeless that I really love and that's really honest and true to who I am.

You once said to the Russian billionaire that you were doing business with, I think with the Nets or Barclays, Mikhail.

Uh-huh.

And you were saying how he showed you that like you both stayed at the same hotel and you were on one floor and you thought you were staying on the highest floor, and then he revealed that there was an even higher floor that he stayed on. And that lesson to you was that

there's always a higher floor to climb. So I wanted to check back in and see if you still feel that way. Like, do you feel like you've reached the highest floor,

or there's still floors to climb, climb and what the next however many years looks for you. Yeah, they're all still to give you because I thought the highest floor in the building was the end of it, right? The next step is like owning the building. No, you're staying at my hotel. I think in that way, if we just stay childlike and stay curious, it's always going to be I think in that way, if we just stay childlike and stay curious, it's always going to be

another level.