But today the quickest way to save your bottom line is to cut off research.

I loved music, and in my ninth year at MIT, I decided to buy a hi-fi set. I figured that all I needed to do was look at the specifications. So I bought what looked like the best one, turned it on, and turned it off in five minutes, the sound was so poor.

At 13, I realized that I could fix anything electronic. It was amazing, I could just do it. I started a business repairing radios. It grew to be one of the largest in Philadelphia.

No one ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.

I would have been fired a hundred times at a company run by M.B.A.’s. But I never went into business to make money. I went into business so that I could do interesting things that hadn’t been done before.

But today the quickest way to save your bottom line is to cut off research.

One hundred percent of our earnings are reinvested in the company, and a great deal of that goes to research.