In a free society, you get what you celebrate.

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

In the culture of America, in a free culture, you get what you celebrate. And in this culture, we have two obsessions, become a group that becomes a group that celebrates sports heroes and entertainment heroes. There's no room left for kids to see even a little bit of the opportunities to really, really get excited about becoming an inventor, an engineer, or a scientist, a problem solver.

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.

The word entrepreneur is associated with success and adventure. From my life, the only thing I can tell you that's consistently associated with entrepreneurship is failure, and the only thing consistently associated with invention is frustration. There is a long road between the idea and the reality.

I don't work on a project unless I believe that it will dramatically improve life for a bunch of people.

Nothing that has value, real value, has no cost. Not freedom, not food, not shelter, not healthcare.