I worked with Marc a very long time ago when he was just another nerd and he is the last man I would go to for advice on how to live life. I think if you go to Marc over, say, the Buddha for advice on how to live life you are probably not going to be rich like Marc - that was a lot more path dependency than philosophical inevitability - nor enlightened like the Buddha. You’ll just be an angry man boy that people generally can’t stand to be around.

I thought the best juxtaposition for Marc was when he would present before or after Jim Barksdale - who was in fact a man of extreme dynamism, a true leader, and quintessential entrepreneur. Marc in comparison was an awkward angry man boy that was as inspiring as a cucumber salad.

What Marc did that Jim didn’t was Marc took his wealth and distributed it randomly in various pump and dump schemes and managed to play odds pretty well. This enabled a lot of businesses to come about. Marc didn’t make them. He used his Netscape money to gamble well on them. Jim however actually built things, over and over, that pushed the limits of what man can do.

But I wouldn’t look to Jim on how to live a life worth living either. Buddha, Socrates, there’s thousands of years of well worn insight, and these guys just spend their energy and lives on other things. You would be a fool to listen to them. Learn their biography sure - they’re interesting. But they’re not insightful.