ever done. i sent him e-mails and said the more research i do, i started getting bogged down. what was excellent about ron's account was that it was a through-line. you can stay attached to the drama of the through-line. that would lead to differing accounts and jefferson said this. i e-mailed wideman and said "i'm getting really daunted." he said "just keep your head down and write." charlie: what seemed impossible? lin-manuel: getting it all into one show. charlie: all of the songs were there. lin-manuel: i could feel the song moments but really being able to get it into a form that was digestable in one evening, that's the hard part.

you could make a 12-hour miniseries and it would be just as entertaining. it's a lot of stories concurrently and the story of our nation and also george washington's story. you see his rise from general to president to cincinnatist. it's aaron burr's story who we knew nothing about. even ron doesn't write about that much in the book. i had to do a lot of research on burr. this is andrew lloyd weber's inspiration. judas tells jesus' story. charlie: that's how you know you have to have aaron tell the story. the man who killed him tells the story. lin-manuel: is a dramatic way to tell the story. ♪

♪ charlie: that is the idea. he wrote a letter saying "i'm going to fire into the air." lin-manuel: saying "i'm a good christian, i will not do it." the first challenge being i have to face him, but i will not kill him. charlie: did he think he was going to die? lin-manuel: now you are asking questions historians have been asking for 211 years. i had to provide the dramatic answer to that and it was the

last thing i wrote in the show. hamilton's side of the duel. charlie: because you had not come to any conclusion about it or because somehow, it's almost as if you have been doing lincoln's story and you can only face up to what happens in the theater when you are really prepared to do it? lin-manuel: something happened to me. by the time i reached hamilton's moment in the duel and the bullets coming at him, a couple things happened. one, i don't care about why. what i cared about was what are the last things going through his head before he dies? i found that much more interesting. while he is wrestling with whether to shoot at this man who's shooting at him, he's also thinking about how he got here, how he got to this moment, the people waiting for him on the other side as he passed away. and the things waiting for him on this side if he lives. and not judging any of it, just what are the moments.

charlie: do you believe alexander hamilton for all he was and all he became was ready to die? lin-manuel: in the words of the notorious b.i.g., which is the name of his first album, "ready to die." i think yes. i think hamilton was ready to die from the time he was 14 years old. i think what he has is what i have, which is that thing that tomorrow is not promised and i have to get as much done as i can. i think he had this curious fascination with and obsession with death because he saw it at such a young age. his mother died in bed next to him. they both got sick. she never got better. so, what does that do to you? what does that do to your psyche? charlie: what does it do to you? lin-manuel: it makes me think my main character, he sees death everywhere.

i know i do. charlie: you just said what he had in him, i have in me. "do it." lin-manuel: but we still have to plan. hamilton had an appointment on the books that day. he was going to have lunch that day. he didn't know he was going to die. a part of him thought he might die, but he also had plans. that's how we all live. charlie: to live a great life, you must be prepared to fail, sure, and to die maybe. lin-manuel: that's why did -- the things scariest to us are those seeds we plant that might outlive us, having children, getting married. you are putting things into the world that you might not live out to see, and it's so scary but so hopeful. charlie: so you are full of all of this.

lin-manuel: full of it. charlie: you are thinking by doing anything musical because of who you were and what you live with, your music is hip-hop. your music is rap. lin-manuel: and i also believe that form is uniquely suited to tell hamilton's story because it has more words per measure than than any other musical genre. charlie: it has shakespearean words per. lin-manuel: yes, it has rhythm and it has density and if hamilton had anything in his writing, it's a density. you go read it again and you'll find something new. that is what is true of my favorite hip-hop artists. sondheim has three tenets. it's function follows form. charlie: function follows form. lin-manuel: and this was the perfect form to tell this story. this musical genre and idiom is the best story to tell his and that of the revolution. it took me a year to write

hamilton's big "i want" song. every couplet needed to be the best i ever wrote. that is how seriously i was taking it. it starts with the friends and they are doing, like, 80's rap. it's a great rap. "i'm a john warren and the place to be." we all did a version of that in the 1980's. ♪ i'm lin-miranda and it's the place to be ♪ diplomamy high school and my college degree ♪ then here comes hamilton and it's rhyming six lines on a

line. it's insane polysyllabic, internal assonance. he needed to be like from the future, a world-beating intellect. every couplet had to be unimpeachable. ♪ >> i'm passionately waiting, passionately, passionately. it's the lack of creation. i'm laughing in the face of casualty. first time i'm thinking past tomorrow. >> ♪ not going to waste my shot we gonna rise up time to take a shot we gonna rise up time to take a shot rise up time to take a shot rise up time to take a shot time to take a shot rise up rise up take a shot take a shot not throwing away my shot ♪ charlie: hamilton demands a lot from you. he is calling on your best. lin-manuel: because he is the smartest guy in the room. i have to write from the perspective of the smartest guy in the room when the other

people are jefferson and washington. and very smart guys. charlie: what about the "10 crack commandments"? lin-manuel: "10 crack commandments" is a how-to manual on how to deal drugs. when i was faced with the challenge of hamilton of how do i explain that duels were not this impulsive thing? there was a code. they were illegal, but there was a code. a lot of people did them. it's just like drugs in our country. it's the same thing. charlie: a lot of people did duels. lin-manuel: yeah, and it didn't matter what class or rank you were in, you could go do a duel. charlie: other people didn't know what was happening. lin-manuel: but there were rules.

you wrote a challenge letter, you acknowledge. there's a great book called "the fares of honor" that explained the rules. and i said i need to explain this to the audience so they don't think this was some duel that was a gunfight impulsively. there were weeks reading up to this and i had to explain that. using the structure, there's a step-by-step book of how to stay alive and support your family and not get killed. charlie: that's in your head. lin-manuel: that is what biggie did with the song and that's what i did with the dueling code. charlie: and then there's the story of going to the white house. lin-manuel: yeah. charlie: you have one song. one song. they think, wouldn't it be great if you come here and do something you've already done? i don't think you have one song -- why were you so hell-bent on this one song for a performance at the white house? lin-manuel: they said we'll be happy for you to do anything

from "in the heights." if you have anything else on the american experience -- charlie: they said if you have anything else from the american experience. lin-manuel: i said i have a hot 16 bars from alexander hamilton. [laughter] if not at the white house, when? do you know what i mean? if the white house calls, when you have 16 about alexander hamilton in your back pocket. the call felt like a sign -- "i have to do this there." like when i was asked to do the lincoln center concert. the date they gave me was hamilton's birthday and i was like -- that's a sign. you have to listen to those. ♪ [rapping] how is a --, orphan, son of a whore, the scotsman dropped in the middle of the forgot

caribbeane the squalor girl up to be a hero and a scholar the $10 founding father without a father got a lot farther by working a lot hotter, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter by 14, they placed him in charge charge of the trade in charter, every day when slaves were being carted away across the waves hamilton kept his guard up he was longing for something to be a part of then a hurricane came, devastation reigned and our man saw his future drip down the drain he wrote his first refrain a testament to his pain the word got around and they said this kid is insane took up a collection just to send him to the mainland get your education, don't forget from whence you came and the world is going to know your name what is your name, man?

alexander hamilton, his name is alexander hamilton ♪ [laughter] ♪ there are a million things he hasn't done but just you wait, just you wait when he was 10, his father split, debt-ridden two years later, alex and his mother bed ridden own-dead sitting in their sick thickell was alex got better but his mother went quick moved in with a cousin, the cousin committed suicide, left him with nothing but ruined pride, something new inside alex, you got to fend for yourself he started retreating and reading every treatise on the shelf he would have been dead or destitute without a sense of restitution started working for his late mother's landlord every book he can get his hands on planning for the future see him now as he stands on the bow of a ship headed for a new land

in new york, you can be a new man the ship is in the harbor now, see if you can spot him another immigrant coming up from the bottom his enemy destroys his rep merica is in for me, i'm the -- fool that shot him ♪ charlie: when you did it and you look at the video now on youtube -- lin-manuel: i see a terrified young puerto rican man. terrified. and you can see it too. once the song starts, i'm good. but my intro, i'm stammering. uh, um, uh. which i don't do in ordinary speech. i'm terrified because there is a -- the leader of the free world, newly-elected leader of world, his entire

family, biden, saul williams, one of my favorite poets. there's angie martinez, james earl jones. it was like, if i died i couldn't have dreamt this room of heroes and luminaries. charlie: all the more perfect place for this song. lin-manuel: and i'm closing the night. i'm the last act. terrified. charlie: and when you finished? lin-manuel: i was 50 pounds lighter. charlie: did you know you had done the right thing and you had nailed it? lin-manuel: oh, yeah. that video is a microcosm of my entire hamilton experience. i say hip-hop alexander hamilton, everyone laughs. i say, you laugh, but it's true, and, by the end, they aren't laughing because they are in it. they have been sucked into the story. just like i got sucked into the story. the secret sauce of this show besides the unbelievable work done by my collaborators and incredible cast and crew, the secret sauce in the writing is that i can't believe this story is true. it's such an improbable and amazing story and i learned about it while i was writing it, and i think that enthusiasm is baked into the recipe.

charlie: that was a great moment for you and hamilton. people really understood this is the way to express alexander hamilton. lin-manuel: it was the thesis. charlie: and it's well constructed. lin-manuel: and i had a bit of luck, too. hbo filmed that evening. normally, it's c-span cameras. like three fixed cameras and that's what it is. the way it was shot, it wasn't released on youtube until november of that year. it happened in may. and then in november, this unbelievable hd footage. it looks like i'm in a movie. i still don't believe it's me when i watch that. and teachers started using it in their classrooms. look at the youtube comments. "my teacher showed me this in ap history."

charlie: is that song still your favorite song in everything you've ever written? lin-manuel: no. i love that song and i'm super proud of it, but there are a couple songs in "hamilton" that really pushed me to the limits of what i know about writing songs. one of them is "satisfied," which is angelica's song where we have seen the courtship of hamilton and his wife, and we rewind the whole thing and see the perspective of her sister. who met hamilton and fell in love with hamilton first. we hear from her how electric it is and we see the woman is the smartest person in the room. she reads hamilton the moment she walks in the room.

she knows he's perfect for her sister. her job is to marry for money for the safety of her family. charlie: but she loves him. lin-manuel: but she loves him. it's an unrequited love song. charlie: women in this musical are important, really important. lin-manuel: yeah, and to ron's credit, they were important in the book as well. the book begins and ends with eliza's story. so does our show, really. our show ends with eliza's story. charlie: she lives on. lin-manuel: more than twice his age. she meets lincoln when he's a senator. that is extraordinary. that is an extraordinary life. if we are not promised tomorrow, she got so many tomorrows and did so much with it. and that is very moving to me. charlie: when you write, i have been told you write and if it's sad, tears come to your eyes. you are in the moment. to express yourself.

lin-manuel: i think of acting and writing as pretty much the same thing. they are two sides of the same coin. charlie: writing and acting are the same thing. lin-manuel: yes. and sondheim would tell you the same thing. he has to pretend to be the person just to understand what it is like in their skin. charlie: but he never acted. lin-manuel: but if you scratched him, he'd act for you. it's all about getting inside the skin of your characters and seeing where they are and knowing how they've grown up. you have to know all this, like, in your bones, what they have come up against, who they are, and then you just start talking as them, and you write until the rust comes out of the faucet and it's clear water. charlie: the clear water is the perfection. lin-manuel: it's the stuff that feels true.

it feels true and honest. charlie: it's hard for us mortal people to understand how difficult that creative act is. getting all the rust out until you see the clear water and the artist knows what the clear water looks like. sounds like, tastes like. lin-manuel: the secret is the thing we all have, which is the hardest thing for us to do as people, which is empathy. it's all about empathy. i have got to understand, i have to see the guy who shot the main character and get in his head. i have to get into his heart and blood stream and understand what he was thinking and what he's scared of and what he is excited by. i have to get into all of them. charlie: you are hamilton. lin-manuel: but i was burr, too. and i was angelica. charlie: are they equally satisfying? lin-manuel: absolutely. they are so much fun. charlie: even though the

inspiration is alexander hamilton? lin-manuel: yes. because equally as fun you get to be all of them. you get to express so many different parts of yourself through all of them. i get to be marie reynolds, i get to seduce a guy. why wouldn't you want to do all the things? charlie: writing these lines, there is a double entendre. there's all kinds of stuff going in it. is that a process of editing over that year? write one song to get everything right and you are also getting this. because some say they want to go back and back and back to see "hamilton" because you get something different every time. lin-manuel: that's a function of the hip-hop origin of the idea. because i go back -- i will still go listen to that album i fell in love with in eighth grade and hear something new in it or simply didn't get because i was too young to understand. the fun of hip-hop as you can -- is you can pack it to the gills with meaning, with verbal tricks and cleverness, but also emotion. the notion of the triple entendre is something i learned

about through hip-hop. and i find that so exciting. so, baked into the dna, i wanted it to be a satisfying listening experience and that has carried over into the show. charlie: when did you know that this thing was going to have this huge, huge impact, this thing being "hamilton"? at the public theater, "hamilton." "hamilton" on broadway, that people are calling a game-changer. lin-manuel: when did i know? i knew when we announced -- we

sold tickets very quickly when we announced our opening. i knew that would happen because i'd been very active on twitter and people had been waiting since the video. charlie: there was anticipation. lin-manuel: i knew we would sell out the initial run, i felt confident about that. but we announced the extension. he said, "you broke our phone bank. our phones are down. and our internet is down." charlie: nobody has seen a preview, anything. except the video on youtube. lin-manuel: right. that's when i knew. i began to get an inkling of what was happening. this is as big as it gets off-broadway. and not-for-profit for theater as it gets in the united states. charlie: an innovative theater. we grabbed the tiger by the tail here. and what will history say about hamilton in the evolution of

hip-hop? lin-manuel: i don't know. i'll be dead. in the evolution of hip-hop? i don't know. it has been really heartening that the hip-hop community has embraced the show. that means the world to me because it is a love letter to hip-hop in so many ways. it is my love letter and thesis statement about what hip-hop does in our lives. it ennobles us, gives us stories of struggle and triumph, allows us to think bigger than ourselves the same way musical theater does. in those moments, we change. so, it's thrilling to me that the writers and rappers i respect have been coming to see this show, because it's a love letter to their art form -- in a slightly different artform. i don't know what it will do to hip-hop. i'm thrilled hip-hop likes it. it's my mix tape to them.

♪

david: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." in this week's issue, twitter turns 10 years old. we have an exclusive interview with the ceo. the software developer trying to revolutionize giving. all that and more in this issue of "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ michael: let's meet the editor, ellen pollock, the editor of "bloomberg businessweek."