The attributes for entrepreneurs cut both ways. You need the

Host: The night hung heavy over the city, wrapped in a soft mist that blurred the neon lights into bleeding streaks of red and gold. Inside a rooftop café, the wind whispered through half-open windows, carrying the smell of rain and espresso. Tables stood mostly empty except for one near the glass railing, where two figures sat beneath a dim lamp — its flicker stretching their shadows long across the floor.

Jack leaned back in his chair, the glow of the skyline reflecting off his grey eyes. His sleeves were rolled, his jawline tight. Jeeny sat across from him, hands wrapped around a steaming cup, dark hair falling like silk over her face. The silence between them felt alive, thick with unspoken memory.

Host: The city below roared faintly — cars, sirens, a heartbeat of ambition pulsing beneath their feet. The quote from Eric Ries lay open on the table, its ink slightly smudged by a coffee ring.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack, this quote isn’t just about business. It’s about faith — that dangerous, beautiful kind of faith entrepreneurs have. To see the world not as it is, but as it could be. Without that, nothing ever truly changes.”

Jack: “Faith?” — he scoffed softly, his voice low and rough. “Faith is just a pretty word for delusion, Jeeny. The world doesn’t need more dreamers ignoring facts. It needs people who can see things for what they are — not what they wish them to be.”

Host: A faint rumble of thunder answered his words, the light flickering once. Jeeny’s eyes lifted toward him — calm, deep, unafraid.

Jeeny: “Then tell me, Jack — how do you explain every revolution, every great company, every movement that started with nothing but someone’s refusal to accept the world as it was? Do you think Steve Jobs saw just the ‘facts’ when he said he’d put a thousand songs in your pocket?”

Jack: “Jobs also ignored the facts that drove people away — his temper, his arrogance, his obsession. And it nearly destroyed Apple in the ’80s. It’s the same blindness that pushes founders into ruin. For every visionary who makes it, a thousand go broke chasing an illusion.”

Host: The rain began to fall, soft at first, tracing trembling lines down the glass. Jeeny smiled, almost sadly, and looked out at the blurred lights below.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that blindness necessary sometimes? To build anything new, you have to first refuse to see the impossible. Wright brothers ignored the ‘facts’ of gravity. Rosa Parks ignored the ‘facts’ of racial law. The truth of the world doesn’t always deserve obedience.”

Jack: “And when that blindness turns to arrogance? When people ignore every warning, every limitation — until they crash and burn? Theranos had the same story, didn’t it? Elizabeth Holmes saw the world as it ‘should be.’ And she led people — good people — into disaster.”

Host: A flash of lightning filled the room, freezing them in silver light — her eyes wide, his face like stone. The wind whistled through the open gap in the window.

Jeeny: “So you think the lesson is never to dream?”

Jack: “No. I’m saying dreamers need mirrors, not just windows. If you don’t look back at reality once in a while, you’ll lose the ground beneath your feet. You’ll start believing your own myths.”

Jeeny: “But mirrors can be cruel, Jack. They show the scars before the beauty. If everyone stared too long at what’s real, nothing would ever be born from what’s possible.”

Host: The steam from Jeeny’s cup curled upward like a fragile ghost. Jack’s hands tightened around his glass, the ice melting slow. For a moment, the café was nothing but breath, rain, and memory.

Jack: “I used to believe in that kind of faith. Once.”

Jeeny: “What changed?”

Jack: “Reality. Startups. Markets. The numbers that don’t care about how much you believe. I watched people pour their souls into dreams that never paid rent. I saw my best friend lose his home because he thought a vision could feed his family.”

Host: His voice cracked faintly — just a fracture — but it was enough to shift the air. Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes soft, but burning.

Jeeny: “And yet, you’re still here, talking about it. That means part of you still wants to believe.”

Jack: “Believe in what?”

Jeeny: “That the world can be better. That your friend’s dream wasn’t wasted — just unfinished.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, hammering the glass like an impatient drummer. In the flickering light, their faces seemed carved from the same pain — different shapes of the same wound.

Jack: “You think blindness is courage. But what if it’s just ego wearing faith as a mask?”

Jeeny: “And you think realism is wisdom. But what if it’s just fear pretending to be truth?”

Host: Silence. The rain softened, turning to a quiet drizzle. A thin fog coiled between them, glowing in the dim lamp.

Jeeny: “Jack, the quote says it best — these attributes cut both ways. You need the blindness to start and the clarity to survive. The trick isn’t to choose one. It’s to carry both.”

Jack: “Balance, then. Between delusion and discipline.”

Jeeny: “Between faith and fact.”

Host: She said it slowly, as if the words themselves weighed something heavy. Jack’s eyes softened. His breath came out like surrender.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what makes entrepreneurship — and life — so damn cruel. The same fire that warms you will burn you alive if you don’t learn when to step back.”

Jeeny: “And yet, you’d still light the match, wouldn’t you?”

Jack: “Maybe. If I thought someone else could feel the heat.”

Host: A faint smile touched her lips, fragile as the moonlight now slipping through the clouds. The city lights shimmered below, each one a tiny act of defiance against the dark.

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s all entrepreneurship is — a war between the light we chase and the shadows we create.”

Jack: “And the tragedy is, we need both to see.”

Host: The rain finally stopped. The air smelled clean, almost new. Down below, a taxi splashed through the wet streets, its headlights slicing through puddles of reflected neon.

Jack raised his glass in quiet acknowledgment.

Jack: “To the dreamers who see too far.”

Jeeny lifted hers, the sound of clinking glass cutting through the night.

Jeeny: “And to the realists who remind them where the edge begins.”

Host: The lamp above them flickered once more, then steadied. Outside, the mist began to lift, revealing a faint dawn creeping over the skyline — grey, uncertain, but undeniably there.

In that half-light, Jack and Jeeny sat wordless, their reflections trembling in the rain-streaked glass — two souls bound by the same paradox: that to change the world, you must first be a little blind, and to survive it, you must learn to see again.