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.

Some broad themes brought me where I am today. At a very young age, my hobby became thinking and finding connections.

If you're going to fail, you might as well fail at the big ones.

In a free society, you get what you celebrate.

We live in a world where virtually everybody expects there's going to be some reasonable therapy for virtually any situation.

Kids are intimidated by the way science and technology is presented. It's made, frankly, quite boring and it becomes part of a curriculum that chases particularly women and minorities away.

To me, innovations are the wheel, fire, language, movable type. There are not 3 million innovations; there are 3 million inventions