Forgiveness. My former partner Shel Israel just called. We wrote several important books together. He says we really wrote only one "Naked Conversations," which we wrote while I worked at Microsoft. The book launch for that was quite epic. Aaron Schwartz, Doug Engelbart, and many other tech industry luminaries were there. It was the last party in @arrington's back yard (he started Techcrunch and hosted several epic parties in his back yard that have are now part of Silicon Valley lore, even memorialized in TV shows). It laid out how social media would someday be important to business. Back then it wasn't. At all. Most people resisted social media. Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee and I would be on stage trying to tell people about Facebook, that just started, and we heard it over and over that people thought social media was a fad and would never matter. This was all before Twitter started. Those lessons serve me well as we see the same kind of resistance to AI, and are coming out of that stage in this industry, headed to mass adoption. Anyway, he is facing new health issues (he's 20 years older than I am, those kinds of problems await) and wanted to make amends and he wanted to thank me for the good times we had together, rather than focusing on the pain of how it ended. I knew the call was coming, my wife helped arranged it. We ended our relationship eight years ago because of my behavior and how I treated women in the industry, and because my career was on fire due to #metoo. My brand went from a rock star in the tech industry to one of "toxic brand" in a few hours and I made many mistakes, and still do sometimes. Tough time in both of our lives, he never worked in tech again and even today, eight years later, we both know that those glory days won't return. We spoke to many audiences of thousands and used to have people lined up by the hundreds to buy our book. Traveled together to China and many other places. If you asked me eight years ago whether I would ever forgive Shel for how he handed things, or forgive myself for being such an asshole, and getting myself into a position where my behavior was laid out on the front of USA Today and the New York Times, I probably would have answered "hell no." But time, and work with therapists, family, and friends, have softened that view, and turned it around to seeing the gifts it gives. In Alcoholics Anonymous we learn to turn the coin over and instead of seeing the pain we caused, or the smoldering pile of losses we have wrapped up, to look with gratitude to the things we still have. I was whining in one meeting about how much I lost and my sponsor told me his membership in AA cost a lot more than what I had to pay to get mine (he pulled out his first day sober coin and told me about how he lost much more money and his family to get that coin). And I am deeply grateful to all of you who have stuck with me over the years, and the amazing world we get to see evolve every day. If you are going through something tough, know that even in the toughest problems there are gifts. Cancer, divorce, some of my friends have done prison time, and other tough things people go through. All have gifts, and time tends to reveal them. But you have to be open to seeing them. My gifts? Going through all that saved my life and brought me many gifts with family and friends. I have much more empathy, much more of a calm outlook on life, and I'm far more likely to have a kind word for people than I used to. I once met a Holocaust survivor who forgave those who put her into a camp and killed most of her family. That conversation has stuck with me. Glad I took the call. It closes a chapter on my life and opens a new one. Will we be close friends again? Probably not, he's living a different life now in a state far away. But it feels like a weight has been lifted. Glad I took the call. Helped me forgive myself, and helped me stick to my new mission to look for adding joy to the world rather than introducing new pain. Now off to pick up an AI developer at the airport with a fresh point of view. Love!