Three-quarters of the flags, borders and anthems sitting at the U.N. today were not there 60 some-odd years ago.

Venture capital is about .02% of the U.S. economy invested, and it accounts for 11% of total U.S. jobs and 21% of U.S. economic output. And the reason why is because these companies can get very big, very quickly.

When I grew up, I simply didn't have mentors that said, "Science is important. Science helps you build a country. Science makes a country powerful." And that's such a simple thought, but when you think about what's powered Taiwan and Korea and Silicon Valley and Cambridge.

It is important that New York, in addition to its fashion, and finance, and tourism, and communications infrastructure, also begin developing venture infrastructure that's for real.

Cities are magical things. You know the energy in them. You have to walk the streets in any borough here and you can see between what was in this city in the 1970's and where it is today and how much more energy there is and how much more just sheer.

The difference between people who can read and write and those who can't is just absolutely astronomical.

I've always been interested in why countries appear and disappear. And the curious thing is how often it happens.