"I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself"
About this Quote
The subtext is partly defensive. Ice Cube’s career has drawn competing narratives: radical truth-teller, crossover entrepreneur, sellout, mogul. By emphasizing “challenge,” he recasts every pivot as earned difficulty, not opportunism. The metaphors do double duty. Climbing a mountain suggests toughness, stamina, and a summit worth reaching; building a building suggests planning, infrastructure, and legacy. Put together, they stitch street credibility (endurance, grit) to boardroom credibility (construction, scale).
The repetition - “challenge... every challenge” - is telling. It’s less lyrical than motivational, like someone translating an artist’s appetite for risk into executive language. Even the slight awkwardness of “presents itself” signals someone speaking from lived momentum rather than polished theory. Ice Cube isn’t romanticizing struggle; he’s normalizing it as the fuel. The line works because it sells a worldview: pressure is the point, and the win is loving the pressure with the right people beside you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teamwork |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cube, Ice. (2026, January 16). I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-have-great-people-smart-people-that-are-around-85498/
Chicago Style
Cube, Ice. "I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-have-great-people-smart-people-that-are-around-85498/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I have great people, smart people that are around me and we love the challenge. I guess it's like climbing a mountain or building a building. It's a challenge but you love every challenge that it brings or presents itself." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-have-great-people-smart-people-that-are-around-85498/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.








