The values of the world we inhabit and the people we surround ourselves with have a profound effect on who we are.

Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don't. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky - but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.

There will be statues of Bill Gates across the Third World. There's a reasonable shot that - because of his money - we will cure malaria.

being able to act intelligently and instinctively in the moment is possible only after a long and rigorous of education and experience

You can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.

Courage is what you earn when you've been through the tough times and you discover they aren't so tough after all.

Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking.