Ben Franklin and Samuel Johnson, he credits their wisdom for his success. "They were both utterly brilliant men. And powerful communicators. Both have helped me all the way through life. Their lessons are easy to assimilate."

You've got to have models in your head and you've got to array you experience - both vicarious and direct - onto this latticework of mental models.

I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it. Some people, like some of the women I know, have a black belt in spending. They were born with that. But what they gave me was a black belt in chutzpah.

The idea of caring is that someone is making money faster [than you are] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?

Derivative trading with mark-to-market accounting degenerates into mark-to-model. Two firms make a big derivative trade and the accountants on both sides show a large profit from the same trade.

People always underestimate the ability of earth to increase its carrying capacity.

Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.