My broad sense of this is that authors like Smil really paint the clear picture, and once you see that, it's kind of Oh, of course. That's such a primal thing to all these physical services that we take for granted.

Well private money can take risks in a way that government money often isn't willing to.

Setting clear goals and finding measures that will mark progress toward them can improve the human condition.

In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance... you thrive on that.

If we [the USA] don't innovate in education, it's literally going to mean less people get to go have that education at a time when more people are going to want it. We've got to put courses out on the Web, we've got to put interactive learning out on the Web.

The truth of Moore's law has made remarkable things possible. On the software side, I think natural user interfaces in all their forms are equally significant.

An important re-engineering principle is that companies should focus on their core competence and outsource everything else.