Ben Horowitz: My Unlikely Hero (Part 4: Officially In The Game)
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” ― Henry David Thoreau
“If you are not in the game then you are definitely going to lose.” ― Ben Horowitz
“It ain’t where ya from, its where ya at.” ― Rakim
I’ve never failed once to thank Ben Horowitz for and constantly stay reminded of the fact that so many great things that have transpired in my life over the last year was due to my meeting and connecting with him. All of these new successes were directly or indirectly a result of Ben embracing and believing in me, giving me an opportunity that would change my life for the better forever. And it would be a gross injustice not to mention or include his beautiful wife Felicia Horowitz in that equation. She too equally embraced and believed in me and gave me great opportunity. Her charity, kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, concern, philanthropy and humor are some of her greatest spiritual gifts that remain a hallmark of her divine character that I will forever remember. I’ve been blessed to know her and it’s been a blessing and an honor to have been on the receiving end of those gifts that she’s so generously and graciously extended to me repeatedly. I will forever be in both their debt.
One of those great highlights and opportunities of my life over the past year that came out of my connecting with Ben was via a tweet I received from Greg Selkoe, Founder and at the time CEO of Karmaloop, Inc., while on my way out to San Francisco to attend a GLIDE (Glide Memorial Church) event that Felicia was going to be giving a speech about a friend of hers and my life. At the immediate time I didn’t recall who he was when he initially reached out. But I eventually recalled, just as with Ben, I had also read a great article on Greg and Karmaloop in Hip-Hop Weekly while I was incarcerated and was inspired to possibly connect with him and/or his company upon my release. I did recall hearing about Karmaloop some time back, but I wasn’t into the street wear culture so Karmaloop wasn’t really on my radar. The tweet simply asked how he could he get in touch with me.
Greg was going through some struggles with his company Karmaloop and really wanted some sage advice. He said he had come across my story and how I connected with Ben, how he was currently reading Ben’s book The Hard Thing about Hard Things and that he wanted to connect with Ben and discuss his company’s problems. He was very straight forward and to the point, and though he said he would get behind my music career, etc. he really wanted and needed an introduction to Ben.
