The old idea that some genius pulls all of this stuff out of the air is ridiculous. As Ridley pointed out, the only way Edison could invent the lightbulb is because all the elements had been developed before. That's obvious it wasn't just his genius - 20 others developed it at the same time. And that's true for almost every invention and discovery.

My father would always say "learn everything you can and whenever you can, because you never know when it'll come in handy."

For business to survive over a long period, it needs to be contributing to society and people's well-being. Otherwise, who's going to want it? Otherwise you end up like Enron or some of these other companies.

I try to build on our management philosophy. I try to understand what the threats and opportunities are for us. Uh, I try to make sure that we're driving innovation and creative destruction hard enough so we're not blindsided, and that our attitude is to, in starting any initiative, any business, is to focus on how we can create value for others, rather than how we maximize profit, because you can make money focusing on, "How do I maximize profit?"

We are on dangerous terrain when government picks winners and losers in the economy by subsidizing favored products and industries.

I like to think that I try to learn something every day - and change my views, modify my views as I learn.

If people are teaching economics, they need to teach all the different disciplines, all the different schools in economics. They can't just teach one because then the person isn't equipped to deal with the economics profession.