There's a rapper named Hannya.

Rap is, for perhaps the nth time in Japanese history, getting a chance at mainstream acceptance. Hannya is at the center of it.

Since 2012, MC battles (a culture where rappers improvise rhymes over a beat to outperform each other — one of the most recognized forms of hip-hop) have become massively popular through TV programs like High School Rap Championship and Freestyle Dungeon. And in 2016, MC battles have become the best stepping stone for young rappers looking to "make a living from rap" after working part-time jobs. Hannya is the modern symbol for those young rappers.

At the same time, even Hannya himself pays tribute to the legendary rappers of the '90s who first inspired him to rap.

Kidra, Buddha, Kaminari, Pager — it's their fault I went crazy (Referring to hip-hop groups King Giddra, BUDDHA BRAND, Kaminari, and MICROPHONE PAGER, all prominent in the '90s) — Hannya, "The Worst MC"

The young Hannya encountered his "summit" and aimed for it — and today he has become a completely original presence. Even now he looks like the person enjoying the Japanese word game that is rap more than anyone else. He raps on the spot, creates tracks, runs his own label, produces friends and younger artists, writes a blog. (He runs a label called Showa Records and has been posting voice blog entries as an impromptu podcast for years.)

He continues to climb the mountain he went crazy for — "Giddra," "Buddha," "Kaminari," "Pager."

Many artists achieve fame and money and "make it" — but he is in a different category. I think Hannya is still the one enjoying the journey along "the rap path" the most.

The Summit Google Can Never Reach

Google (Alphabet) is one of the most successful companies of the past 20 years. Google defines its mission with striking simplicity:

"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

I spent about a year and a half working inside Google.

What surprised me most was how deeply that mission statement had permeated the organization. When "ordinary employees just hanging around the floor" — not PR people or project managers, but regular staff — invoked this message in meetings (many of them, repeatedly), I felt I had touched Google's true strength.

But there's an even more noteworthy fact: even an organization as innovative, fast-moving, and disruptive as Google has not been able to accomplish the mission it set for itself. In some ways, Facebook might actually be closer to Google's mission today than Google is. (For reference, Facebook's mission is "to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.")

I read this situation this way: Google has intentionally set a mission it cannot achieve.

"What matters came before what I wanted"

I'm a huge fan of the manga Hunter x Hunter. It teaches you about life — highly recommended.

In volume 32, there's a scene where the protagonist Gon, a Hunter, asks his father Jin — a legendary Hunter — what he's currently hunting. Jin's prey always exceeds the scale of anyone's imagination. And on the path toward that distant "summit," Jin tells his son Gon that he found things along the way that mattered more than the summit itself — companions, sharing, connection.

"What matters came before what I wanted."

This message is a rallying cry for anyone chasing any kind of summit.

It is because you aim far ahead that you gain precious things in the process. Knowing this truth is what motivates you to keep attacking high summits, again and again.

• A senior from my club days who chased the NFL — America's highest level of football — from a remote part of Japan, and came agonizingly close
• A classmate who left with only the words "I want to live while traveling" and actually never got a job, wandering the world
• A senior from high school who climbed Everest at the oldest age ever recorded

The people who have fascinated me through my life. Now that I think about it, they all seem to be embodying what Jin said.

Incidentally, this quote can also be read as an elaborate meta-metaphor justifying the manga's author, Togashi-sensei — whose manga began serialization in 1998, 18 years ago, and advances approximately 10 weeks per year after 10+ months of hiatuses. He himself set such an impossibly high summit for the story that he's in the middle of fully enjoying every possible detour. (His own words, essentially, through Jin.)

The Unfinished Product

Hannya, Google, Jin. Three different summits. And all three are enjoying the journey toward them.

My own current climb, put simply, is this:

"Enrich the world through products."

Like me, there are hundreds of thousands of individual developers and organizations in Japan alone building products of all kinds. But the number that actually leaves an impact — that genuinely enriches the world — might be one in five years. That tells you how high this summit is.

Also, not long ago, I knew nothing about engineering, design, users, or how to build a product.

And yet, by facing the product and climbing small hills and stumbling into thickets, people started appearing — just like Jin — who would "help me out" or "happened to be heading the same direction and enjoyed the journey together." It's a small thing, but I've recently realized that sharing daily updates with those people on Twitter is one of the things that keeps me energized and committed to products.

Enjoy the journey

As Google's example shows, products are never "finished." The gap between ideal and reality never fully closes. Building a product means running that gap continuously, requiring massive commitment, real resolve, and time. Results that satisfy the vision don't come easily.

For every product manager, I believe there is loneliness and struggle running alongside them. That's certainly true for me. To those product managers: enjoy the journey.

Airbnb, which carries the banner "Live Anywhere" and is rumored to have a market cap approaching 3 trillion yen today, was an unnoticed product at its 2008 founding. But they were pulled forward by the height of the summit and the joy of the journey shared with their team, and arrived here. They are literally in the process of redefining the concept of "travel" (and Airbnb is one of my favorite products too).

Product management is a kind of journey. "Whether you dance or not, you're a fool either way — so if you're a fool, you might as well dance." Let's enjoy the journey to the fullest.

Enjoy the journey — wholeheartedly. — Jin