A patent, or invention, is any assemblage of technologies or ideas that you can put together that nobody put together that way before. That's how the patent office defines it. That's an invention

I think in our lifetime, that level of acceptance of "well, we couldn't do any better," won't be tolerated. We're going to start to see individual therapies customized for individual patients, and it's going to change the way people get healthcare.

New ideas in technology are literally a dime-a-dozen, or cheaper than that

Sporting competitions seem to be what we obsess over, frankly. So if we can put engineering, science, technology into a format of healthy, fun competition, we can attract all sorts of kids that might not see the kind of activity we do as accessible or rewarding.

People take the longest possible paths, digress to numerous dead ends, and make all kinds of mistakes. Then historians come along and write summaries of this messy, nonlinear process and make it appear like a simple, straight line.

What really makes it an invention is that someone decides not to change the solution to a known problem, but to change the question.

My biggest worry is I'm running out of time and energy. Thirty years ago I thought 10 years was a really long time.