Transcript
Introduction
"It is 1993, nine years since I abruptly severed all connection with the business world for life on the land. It is still hard to believe, after 16 years of intense conflict with industrial age command-and-control corporations, after 35 years dreaming of new concepts of organization and experimenting with them, after two impossible years bringing one of those dreams into being, after 14 grueling years leading it to maturity, after all that, turning my back on Visa in 1984 and walking away at the pinnacle of success was the hardest thing I have ever done.
The reason is still difficult to explain, but it is not complicated. That inner voice that will not be denied, once we learn to listen to it, had whispered since the beginning: business, power and money are not what your life is about. Founding Visa and being its Chief Executive Officer is something you needed to do, but it's only preparatory. Each time, I resisted. 'You're crazy! Preparatory for what and where and why?' There was no answer, only silence.