Akira The Don, Naval Ravikant - Accountability lyrics

You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for this ship
You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for this ship
Accountability accountability

Accountability is important because
That's how you're going to get leverage
That's how you're going to get credibility
It's also how you're going to get equity
You're gonna get a piece of the business
When you're negotiating with other people
Ultimately if someone else
Is making a decision about
How to compensate you
That decision will be based on
How replaceable you are
If you have high accountability
That makes you less replaceable
And then they have to give you equity
Which is a piece of the upside
But equity it'self is a good example because
Equity is also a risk based instrument
Equity means you get paid
Everything after all the
People who need guaranteed money
Are paid back
So if you look at the hierarchy
Of capital in a company
The employees get paid first
They get paid the salary first
In legal proceedings
The salaries are sacrosanct
If you're a board member and
The company spends too
Much money and has back salaries to pay
The government will go after you personally
To pay back the salaries
So the employees get the most security
In exchange for that security
They don't have as much upside

You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for this ship
You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for this ship
Accountability (Accountability)
Accountability (Accountability)

Next in line would be the
Debt holders who are
Maybe the bankers who lent money to the
Company for operations and they
Need to make their
Fixed coupon every month or every year
But they don't get much
More upside beyond that
Now, they might be making five, 10
15, 20, 25% a year
But that's where their upside is limited to
And then finally are the equity holders
And these people are actually gonna
Get most of the upside
So once the debt holders are paid off
And the salaries are paid off
Whatever remains goes to them
But if there isn't enough money to pay
Off the salaries and the debt holders
Or if there's just enough to
Pay off the salary and the debt holders
Which is what happens with most businesses
Most of the times
The equity holders get nothing
So the equity holders take on
Greater risk, but in exchange
They get nearly unlimited upside
And you can do the same with all of your work
So essentially
Taking accountability for your actions is
The same as taking
An equity position in all of your work
You're essentially taking greater
Downside risk and greater upside risk
But realize that in modern society
The downside risk is not that large
People will forgive failures as
Long as you were
Honest and made a high integrity effort
And so people should be taking on a
Lot more accountability than
They actually are

You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for this ship
You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the co-pilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for this ship
Accountability (Accountability)
Accountability (Accountability)
An example of accountability is
You're an airplane pilot as a captain
You're taking on accountability for
The entire plane
Let's say that something goes
Wrong with the aircraft
You can't later blame it on anyone else
You can't blame it on the
Steward or the stewardess
You can't blame it on the copilot
You're the captain
You're responsible for the ship
If you screw up, you crash the ship
And there are immediate consequences
In the old days
The captain was expected to go
Down with the ship if the ship was sinking
Literally the last person who got to
Get off was the captain
I think of accountability as reputational
Skin in the game
It's putting your personal reputation on the
Line as skin in the game
Accountability is a simple concept
The only part of accountability that may
Be a little counterintuitive is
That we're currently socially brainwashed to
Not take on accountability
Is that we're currently socially brainwashed
To not take on accountability
Not in a visible way
But I think there are ways to
Take on accountability where every
Member of a team can take
On accountability for their portion
That is how you get a
Well-functioning team while still
Putting credit's and losses in
The correct columns (Accountability)
(Accountability, Accountability)