• Startup Archive
  • Posts
  • Jay-Z on doing great things and having a long time horizon

Jay-Z on doing great things and having a long time horizon

February 06, 2024

In the clip below, Jay-Z explains that after founding Roc Nation in 2008, it took them three years to release their first artist.

“I’m focused on doing great things. Whether that takes a day or ten years, it doesn’t matter to me.”

A long time horizon and desire to build something truly great seems to be a common theme across all great founders. In fact, Sam Altman argues that having a long time horizon is “the only arbitrage opportunity left in the market”:

“You want to make a long-term commitment. Most companies don’t do this. Most companies have a 2-3 year time horizon. But these things always take a lot longer. It’s almost always a 10 year project if it’s going to work. If you think about it that way from the very beginning, you will make very different and much better decisions. I think this is the only arbitrage opportunity left in the market. Almost no one makes a fairly long-term commitment to a new project. But if you do that, you will think in a different way, you will hire different people, and it will work very well.”